“But how come the bones are still there?” she asked him.
He huffed impatiently. “Some bones become encased in sediment so quickly they become fossils. Air gets shut out, so decomposition can’t occur. You know this, Girl.” He spared a quick glance at his niece’s face. She was deep in thought, her brow furrowed. The heat of the day had pressed damp curls to the back of her neck. He refocused on his work.
“So, Uncle Lamb,” she asked quietly, moments later. “If I dug up Mummy and Daddy, would their bones be fossils?”
His hand slowed in its work. He waited a bit, then put down the soft brush he was holding. This child had come to him after his brother’s death, much like the broken piece of pottery he was trying to unearth. The shell of her resembled a little girl, but the cracks showed, and the pieces were barely held together. Over the years he thought he’d done a good job of putting her back together, of repairing her, but it seemed that her heart was still empty.
“We never dig up the ones we love, Claire. We let them rest in peace. We already know their history, we understand them. There is no need to disturb them.” He lifted a curl away from her skin.
She nodded, picked up his brush, and took over his work with care.
Shout out to beta @notevenjokingfic who’s kept me on track with this story from the beginning. Also to @lcbeauchampoftarth who is my resident grammar guru/ baby lawyer support group buddy. And of course, I couldn’t do this without the wonderful friends who love and support me constantly @happytoobserve@smashing-teacups
To RM readers, we’re getting close to the finish line! Thanks for hanging in there.
Jamie Fraser’s heart had beat on its own for some time now. Twenty-eight years, five months, three weeks, and nine days, to be exact.
It’s true that the organ in his chest had taken more than its fair share of blows through the years. The first was the death of his father that cut him like a knife and had yet to stop bleeding. And then his mother’s death, and Annalise’s betrayal — the one-two punch that put him on auto-pilot.
For years afterward, he’d lived as a man with no center. Hollow, empty. No dreams, no wishes, no wants. No future.
And then one day, in a coffee house on Bleecker Street, his entire world exploded in an ecstatic symphony of life and love and laughter.
Claire. Claire. Claire. Her name wrote the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Autumn 1989: The refugee crisis that led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (pt 1/7)
By default, citizens of the GDR were not allowed to travel abroad. They had to ask for a permit, which was usually granted if they wished to travel to a socialist brother state, but was usually denied if they applied to travel to a non-socialist country, all of which had an agreement with the GDR to stop East Germans from escaping to the West by any means, including the use of firearms.
Permits to visit West Germany were particularly hard to obtain. Even in the case of family affairs such as a funeral, usually only the direct relative was allowed to go while the rest of the family had to stay in the GDR – many interpreted that as their family taken hostage by the state to guarantee their return.
The wish to permanently leave the country and relocate to West Germany was not tolerated and led inevitably to social isolation and economic discrimination steered by the ubiquituous Stasi.
The obvious rigging of the local elections in the GDR in May 1989, the
unwillingness of the GDR government to follow the societal reforms of
glasnost and perestroika, and the desperate economic situation of the
GDR contributed to the urgent desire of many to leave the country.
Therefore, numerous citizens of the GDR took the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria in early summer 1989 as an opporunity to escape to West Germany while the border between the two German states was still insurmountable. Others tried to force their emigration, for which they oftentimes had applied many years ago, by occupying West German embassies in East Berlin, Prague, and Budapest.
This situation created immense pressure on the GDR government, which did not only lose thousands of citizens each week, but was also under fire from protests within the country of citizens that were upset with the political and economical situation but did not want to leave. That pressure ultimately caused the big mistake to announce
This series of news reports documents the refugee crisis from its beginning up to the errorneous announcement of a new travel law facilitating journeys outside the Eastern Bloc the day before it was actually implemented, triggering the Fall of the Berlin Wall. After that event, there was no other way than heading for the German reunification.
“But how come the bones are still there?” she asked him.
He huffed impatiently. “Some bones become encased in sediment so quickly they become fossils. Air gets shut out, so decomposition can’t occur. You know this, Girl.” He spared a quick glance at his niece’s face. She was deep in thought, her brow furrowed. The heat of the day had pressed damp curls to the back of her neck. He refocused on his work.
“So, Uncle Lamb,” she asked quietly, moments later. “If I dug up Mummy and Daddy, would their bones be fossils?”
His hand slowed in its work. He waited a bit, then put down the soft brush he was holding. This child had come to him after his brother’s death, much like the broken piece of pottery he was trying to unearth. The shell of her resembled a little girl, but the cracks showed, and the pieces were barely held together. Over the years he thought he’d done a good job of putting her back together, of repairing her, but it seemed that her heart was still empty.
“We never dig up the ones we love, Claire. We let them rest in peace. We already know their history, we understand them. There is no need to disturb them.” He lifted a curl away from her skin.
She nodded, picked up his brush, and took over his work with care.
Shout out to beta @notevenjokingfic who’s kept me on track with this story from the beginning. Also to @lcbeauchampoftarth who is my resident grammar guru/ baby lawyer support group buddy. And of course, I couldn’t do this without the wonderful friends who love and support me constantly @happytoobserve@smashing-teacups
To RM readers, we’re getting close to the finish line! Thanks for hanging in there.
Jamie Fraser’s heart had beat on its own for some time now. Twenty-eight years, five months, three weeks, and nine days, to be exact.
It’s true that the organ in his chest had taken more than its fair share of blows through the years. The first was the death of his father that cut him like a knife and had yet to stop bleeding. And then his mother’s death, and Annalise’s betrayal — the one-two punch that put him on auto-pilot.
For years afterward, he’d lived as a man with no center. Hollow, empty. No dreams, no wishes, no wants. No future.
And then one day, in a coffee house on Bleecker Street, his entire world exploded in an ecstatic symphony of life and love and laughter.
Claire. Claire. Claire. Her name wrote the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Tori