#ANYWAY - doc showing up to MAYBE tell them that clint eastwood really didn't die in the ravine?? who knows.

[doctorbrown]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 16 / 31 * SYNCHRONICITY 」

September 12, 1885

Maggie always cautioned him his bleeding heart would get him into trouble.

He couldn’t help that, though. There was already enough suffering in the world—what harm did it do to be kind? To look after others as if they were your own?

Mr. Eastwood was a good soul. Oh, like his brother, poor Martin, may God rest his soul, he had his troubles, that all-consuming need to try and prove himself—he’d wager the farm he was somebody’s little brother too, so certain was he of that—to win the fleeting gossip of a group of people whose affections only lingered on whatever was most exciting in this dust bowl of a town.

The only people a man had to prove himself to was himself and to God.

But, like Martin, Mr. Eastwood had a heart as big as the country, caring just as much about others as he did for himself. That much was obvious that very first night he blew into their lives like a whirlwind, taking the fence with it, only to slot into their little home—their lives—almost like he belonged there.

It's funny how just a few short days can really make a man feel like he knows somebody...

And little Will had taken to him almost immediately, reinforcing his opinion that, whether this be an act of Providence or sheer luck, Clint Eastwood had entered their lives for a reason and had a place amongst them, if he so wanted.

He’d never felt quite a connection to anyone like that before, not since the day his younger brother was ripped away from him, taken somewhere he couldn’t follow. Not yet.

Just like Martin, Clint Eastwood, too, was gone, and Seamus wasn’t planning on that news to tear a hole clean through him.

Supposing it was a man’s time, there was just nothing that could be done, but like he did what feels like an eternity ago now, Seamus lifts his head heavenward and stares long and hard at the perfect blue. Squinting against the afternoon sun’s harsh light, Seamus searches for something, though he isn’t quite sure what. A glimmer in the sky, perhaps. A flash of something, a revelation, a gust of wind rolling through the countryside carrying a message for his ears only, anything.

The heat lashes across his pale cheeks as he waits. Nothing changes, not so much as an errant cloud in the sky for his troubles or to signify that someone was listening, but Seamus keeps his eyes trained on the sky.

Why, God? I did everything I could. I thought You were trying to tell me this was my second chance—isn’t that why You put Clint Eastwood in front of me, gave him Martin’s face, and gave him the same troubles?

He did it—he didn’t fight that brute, he made it out okay—and this is what he’s given for overcoming that? A freak accident sending him to the bottom of the ravine?

“Seamus!” Maggie’s voice cuts across the silence like the crack of a whip. “When you’re done, hurry up inside—we’ve got guests. Mister Brown has come to pay us a visit. He says he has something he wants to share with us. And don't you forget to wash up first!”