Scorpio had disappeared almost a year ago. Nobody knew where he had gone or why, he had not given any indication or warning that he was going to leave. Nobody even knew that he had left until one day when he was just not here anymore. I had searched for him constantly. I'd given up on finding him several times after my search had not even yielded any clues to his whereabouts let alone success but each time I gave up the search a new search began in earnest.
Stunned at the discovery of him laying here at home in bed having returned just as suddenly as he left, the first question I asked was "Where on earth have you been?". Scorpio did not respond in any way whatsoever. "What's happened?" I asked, followed by "Are you alright?". Scorpio lay motionless in silence. I took a step towards him and he spoke.
His words stopped me where I stood. The words he spoke were bizarre, vague, almost nonsensical but when Scorpio had finished speaking I had no doubt that what he had said was the truth.
I sat, trying to fathom what Scorpio could have meant. There was no point to ask any further questions since, as mysterious as they were Scorpio had made his intentions quite clear. I sat for what could have been hours contemplating what Scorpio said. I came to the conclusion only minutes later that if Scorpio wanted me to understand what he said, he would have made me understand. That's what Scorpio was like, he didn't like to leave anybody hanging and he was not happy to leave a situation unresolved. Knowing Scorpio as well as I did, I knew that all of the information he had given was either all that he could give or all that he needed to give. He had often said before that if a person is not ready to know, the answer will only bring questions. I wondered if in time, the mystery of Scorpio's words would unravel and understanding would be easier.
The silence in the room grew to a point not thought possible as I sat as motionless as Scorpio lay. Each as silent as the other, I stared at the back of Scorpio's head and Scorpio stared at some unknown point in front of him.
In the silence I thought back to the first time I met Scorpio about 25 years ago. Scorpio was not his real name. He didn't actually have a name of his own apart from the name I gave him. He liked it, he said that it felt almost mystical and gave him a mysterious edge. He often used to refer to himself in the third person, for comic effect I think. His reaction to being given this name was amazing. His joy was infectious and spread to all those around him. It wasn't until much later that I wondered why he liked the name so much and what it meant to him as he disliked mystery. He always wanted to understand all he could and encouraged others to understand all they could too. I figured in the end that he was just so happy to have been given something so meaningful that he had not been given before.
That day we met seemed to last forever. It was a hot summers day in August and while I cannot remember anything of what we actually did together, I do recall that we spent the entire day together and it was an incredible day. A day like no other before or since. Something changed on that day that in hindsight may not have been because of Scorpio being there, rather Scorpio was there because something had changed. Scorpio stayed for a long time after that day. He wasn't always with me but he was always around and the world appeared somewhat different when Scorpio was there.
He had a way of changing my perspective to make things a little clearer, to make understanding a little easier and communication somewhat simpler but along with this, troubles became deeper and consequences became steeper. Scorpio could always make these easier to deal with though.
He had gone missing before on many occasions but it had never been for so long. He had disappeared for a few days, maybe a week or two but whenever he came back it was like he had never left. I had asked him once why he sometimes leaves and where does he go. We were sat at the top of a small grassy hill at the edge of a greenway near to my home. It was a place we often went to at the time. Scorpio never gave an actual answer to the question, he merely responded by saying that he just could not be here all of the time. Then he asked me if I could think of anything at all that is always around. I thought about it for a moment, "Air." I declared. "Put your head under water and tell me air is always around." he said. 'Good point' I thought. "How about light then." I proposed. "How about night." he answered. 'Hmmm' I thought, "this might be harder than it seems." I said. "It's really not." said Scorpio with a slight chuckle. "The Earth!" I shouted "This ground here." I banged my fist in the grassy mound we were sat on overlooking the small town at the bottom of the hill. "The Earth hasn't always been here and at some point it will stop being here again." Scorpio answered, his voice turning slightly serious. "It's been here for all the time that I have." I declared, almost desperately. "True." Scorpio stated, very matter of factly "but that grass you are sat on right now has not." "It's not even the same grass you were sat on last week when we were here discussing the nature of time. This is new grass, the grass we sat on last week is gone. It's something else now." "I know." I interrupted "I know, you're right." I stated somewhat begrudgingly "If you were here all of the time, you could be right all if the time as well you know." I offered, only half joking. "who would want to be right all of the time?" Scorpio speculated. "If you were always right, how would you know when you were wrong?" he asked. "That's rhetorical nonsense!" I replied. "Is it?" Scorpio asked. "If I was always here, would you even notice that I was or would I be like the air that you take so much for granted you think it exists everywhere?" I turned my head to look at him. He looked back at me and a wry smile formed on his face. He threw a stone down the hill, I watched the stone bounce at the bottom of the hill and become lost among some bushes. "The stone is gone now." Scorpio declared. "Do you miss it?" he asked. I did, in a way, I admitted to myself. "You didn't know it was there until you knew it was gone." he said. "Your world will never be the same again!" Scorpio laughed. I chuckled myself but Scorpio's words held a deeper meaning that made it difficult to sound genuinely amused. He lay back on the grass, eye's closed with his hands behind his head. His demonstration may have appeared to portray a larger meaning using something as inconsequential as the stone but I suspected that the point made was that the larger meaning itself was just as inconsequential as the lost stone. I left Scorpio on the top of the hill that day and walked back home on my own.
Back in the room, sat staring at Scorpio laying in the bed, it occurred to me that the first time I remember meeting Scorpio may not have been the first time that I did actually meet him. I wondered if this realization was the first step on the path to understanding what Scorpio had told me.
The second hand on my watch shattered the silence in the room with a deafening tick. I heard my own heart beat in my chest. I took a lungful of air, ever grateful for the opportunity and my heart beat again pumping the oxygenated blood around my body. I listened to Scorpio breathing for a moment, it was still deep and heavy but measured and rhythmic at the same time. It almost sounded like the ocean and was momentarily hypnotic. As I stood and left the room I took solace in the thought that even though I was still somewhat baffled by Scorpio's words, I was a little closer to figuring out what he meant by them. I stopped at the door and glanced back at Scorpio to see if he had reacted in any way to my movement but he had not. I paused before continuing through the door, Scorpio's last sentence still ringing in my ear. The only thing I knew for certain at this point was that my world would never be the same again.
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