book silently read a story with them.
Non Verbal Starters :: Closed
❝ If your mother asks we went out to eat and- ❞
❝ -and a we saw a movie. ❞
❝ Sure. Yes, I mean. We saw a movie. ❞
They didn’t have much time, weeks or maybe even days. His office has been stripped of the essentials slowly. Picking scraps from such a large body of research like some vulture, taking only enough that it wouldn’t turn heads. A book here, a box there. Sometimes it was a sample destined for a microscope he’d slide up the sleeve of his coat. Bits and pieces of all his life had amounted to. He was supposed to take Sherry out, buy her dinner then maybe a movie; like so many of her parents' promises that too was not to be. Instead, Sherry Birkin helps her father box books, marking the vast tomes within his corporate office and tossing anything labeled ‘1997’ or newer into the cardboard box set up in the middle. It’s numbing work; the pile grows heavy.
The Birkin’s are, by all accounts, criminals, murderers and thieves. William plays negotiator- seeks asylum with men whose greed masked as patriotism find his research to be worth more than their morals.
But he wasn’t out, yet. It would all come together soon but he just needed more time. Maybe a week to gather his things, maybe less. Were he to rouse Umbrella’s suspicion it would doom him to death- doom his family to worse.
William’s back is turned to his daughter as he shuffles through cabinets of manila folders with a practised hand. Study after study, experiment after experiment would all have to be left behind. So much progress attributed to two decades of HIS work, soon to be sold, all for...what? Family? Predictably the answer he would give suggests not. The woman who sleeps on the other side of his bed at night is his co-worker. The girl helping him sort his research well past her bedtime feels like a stranger, at times.
❝ Dad, what do we do with this one? ❞
Curiously, Sherry procures a blue three-ringed binder from his shelf. It was worn- well used but not decrepit. She holds onto it for a moment, eyes brightened by the discovery (a small outlier among the monotony of medical journals or textbooks). William stares at it, pulling his reading glasses down to rest at the tip of his nose though to better examine her findings.
❝ What the devil…. ❞ trailing off, he closes the distance between them with a few brisk strides. ❝ I am… I am not quite sure. Could have been field notes that maybe that got lost in the rabble. Let me see. ❞
Upon opening it no field notes nor college scrawlings met him as he would have predicted but instead a face- HIS face, to be more exact. Polaroid pictures tapped together with markings of journals- writings in such terrible handwriting it could only be his. A few dates stand out, dog tagged among the faded photos: 1978, 1977, 1980. Turning the page reveals only more. There’s a pause that hangs between, a silence that hinges on an unwanted discovery. Sherry, normally so polite, seems to take interest and stretches on tiptoes to stare at what had left her father perplexed.
❝ Is that...is that you with the mustache? ❞
❝ I...A project from a younger time. I kept bits of my personal work and photos of us nearly two decades ago. Reckon I hadn’t wanted to lose parts of us all- Albert, your mother, myself. Not sentimental, but to persevere. ❞ He kneels to match her height with the faintest hints of a smile; it looks alien on his face. ❝ The seventies were a different time, and it worked on your mother. Not a word on the mustache- you owe it your existence and Albert...Gods above that turtle neck was horrid- look at him. He looks like an eldritch tortoise, doesn’t he? ❞
How long had it been since he’d heard his child laugh? Weeks, months, or perhaps it is years? Maybe it is a deeper failing that he can not remember. Yet Sherry Birkin laughs, and that cowards smirk is brought to a full grin. She turns the pages in the book he holds, unveiling more snippets of an older chapter. Albert Wesker scowling as a seventeen year old William Birkin locked an arm around his neck. A small group of young researchers holding a badge presented by one such James Marcus. There are pages there, too, with words hastily scribbled in faded black ink. Sherry point’s to a subset of photos grouped together, and at each notion of inquiry he would explain.
❝ Henry Montauk. Biologist I worked with before your mother. We dated briefly. Don’t know where he is now. That there- that’s 1981, no? I bought a Pontiac after a substantial raise. Bit of an impulse buy but i’d park it in Al’s spot from time to time. It would drive him up a wall, I think.❞
The woman is almost unrecognizable. Smiling a smile that was not forced, before the dark circles had become permanent fixtures under her eyes. Before her brows were always furrowed in concern. How different they had both been, then. When the horizon had felt so bright.
❝ Same year we were married, yes. Right after we bought the house if memory serves right. Because you had just... ❞ his voice trails with his eyes. There he was, holding the bundle of cells and flesh all wrapped up beneath a blanket, twelve years ago. This one is blurred and smudged worse than the rest, though the practiced eye might deduce that William Birkin, in that snapshot of history, had tears streaming quite unashamed down his cheeks. The writing beneath the pinned picture is bold in contrast: “ My greatest creation !! ”
Quickly, he clears his throat and stands as if ripped back to the now. He had a purpose, a thing to do- no time to get sidetracked nor look upon what was; there was no point, either. But he’d seen it, and she had too, and now there was a feeling in his gut brought about by the constricting talons of uncertainty. Doubt, discomfort and anxiety all blending into a very familiar chemical cocktail that sees his jaw tighten.
She continues to examine silently as he sorts files and books. It was quite the task to decode the hieroglyphs of his writing; at least it kept her enthralled enough not to notice the grimness of her father’s demeanor. Only an hour later would he break the silence, sealing away the last of his work into cardboard; hopefully it would be the last time he’d set foot in his office above ground.
❝ Sherry, why don’t you hold onto that for me? Maybe you could add a few of your own pages once we move, no? ❞
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