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He knows it is impossible.
That’s what they all tell him—tell him he should use his talents for something more worthwhile, something that is feasible, something…
Meaningless.
Yes, meaningless to him, for the work he does now is the only livelihood that could possibly have meaning—and it reserves significance for him only, so that he, naturally, is the sole person qualified to do the job.
It’s where he belongs.
His heart has always resided here; now his spirit and his flesh have joined it. And they join with the two other hearts in the room, the two other hearts whose spirits and flesh are disjointed, lost in the continuum of memory and reality, past and present, life and death. They hang on the brink of utter nothingness, yet he knows—knows—that some thread of conscious being still lingers, grasping in vain but never in despair at the fine line dividing the two states. They exist, and that is enough for him.
It was (and is) his goal to reach out into the void of confusion, firmly slip his hands into their own, and heave their minds out of the abyss into which one cruel word cast them and left them for dead.
Or worse, as it is.
No mechanism, no unbreakable rope, no panacea was to be found, or so said his coworkers, that could deliver them from their eternal fate. There simply was nothing that could be done. But they had overlooked him.
He would be the deus ex machina, the one that, with a determination and drive so unique and thus so indomitable, could overturn all that was accepted, overrule all that was concluded, and overthrow the invisible force that tugged ever more harshly at their feet from the depths of the chasm.
And no one would never see it coming.
Who would have thought, months—nay, it was years!—ago, that he would be here, laboring after hours on a holiday (for today was December 25), mixing potions of the most vulgar countenance, crushing withered leaves from a magical plant in Madagascar, grinding various powders into experimental draughts to dribble down his patients’ throats? Who would have thought that every minute of every day would find him scouring ancient texts with recipes of forgotten remedies concocted by the old wives in all the tales? Most never thought he’d finish school, much less with his mind and body (and wand) in tact—but here he was, and here he would remain until his task was done.
And this task was the object of his current activity, for he would attempt yet another step this very night. The potions, leaves, and powders formed an oddly bluish liquid, with an ethereal quality, so that perhaps, if one were to blow gently across the surface of the brew, cloud-like wisps would swirl away and dissipate into the chill air of the room, expelling as it evaporated the same ambrosial fragrance that characterized its liquid form.
It looks right, it smells right, it is right—he is sure. And he has never been sure before.
As he steps gingerly, with a carefully restrained excitement, to his patients, he realizes his hope is not founded. The cure he had uncovered—it wasn’t researched, it wasn’t tested, it wasn’t proven in the least.
But he is sure. He knows.
As the vaporous potion trickles between their cracked lips and whispers its way into their throats, he realizes his efforts could be useless. No cure had ever been uncovered—or researched, or tested, or proven—to accomplish his one goal.
But he is still sure. He knows.
As their bodies groan in unconscious anticipation, he realizes his mission had probably been futile from the start—no cure would ever be uncovered (and researched and tested and proven) because a cure was impossible.
For a moment, the briefest wink in the span of centuries, he wavers, and he remembers what his grandmother told him about that night. They were lounging at home—with him—celebrating the downfall of the most terrible dark wizard of that century. They had even flooed his grandmother, invited her over for dinner, tea, and conversation. She had declined.
And she still had control of her mind.
A few hours later, an alarm spread through the ranks of the organization they had joined—an organization whose work should already have been finished. They all wished it was.
None of them could bear staring at the pallid, dead faces whose eyes blinked with a sick naïveté and whose cold, purple lips murmured words of nonsensical implication. And he was right beside them, arms flailing for his parents, fingers reaching desperately to their cadaverous forms.
And now they were reaching for him. Here, in the sepulchral room which had been their home—nay, merely their residence—for as long as he could recall, their spirits beckon to him, begging him to set them free. With each and every gum wrapper, his mother’s eyes have held a pleading intensity.
And now he is sure. He knows.
And as their eyelids twitch and their hands flex and their mouths sigh, his heart thuds deeply in his chest—not from nerves, but excitement—because he knows.
Finally, gloriously, finally—oh yes, FINALLY!—as their minds and hearts and spirits collide and reunite and reconnect and reform the two beings that had lost their sanity, their souls, their whole selves, over twenty years ago, his heart shouts in the most joyous, most genuine euphoria that can be experienced.
He had been sure. He knew.
And, as their hands clasp his own, and they speak coherent words as he lifts them from oblivion, and his entire life’s desire has been fulfilled, his heart detects and embraces a tender love, one that most thought he was never fated to receive.
But he was. Because he was sure. Because he knew.
And because nothing is ever impossible.
Fin.
Impossible by froggerlotr
Chapter Notes: This story began penning itself in my head, and I rushed to the computer to type it up as I went. Very much a stylistic challenge for myself. Enjoy!