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Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Absence makes the mind wander.
Wander back to events long past.
Thomas Alva Edison was haunted.
Passed several decades since their falling out. When people had once shunned electricity, they now welcomed it with open arms. Where once was cobbled streets, now was a world where everything seemed motorised. Time, itself, seemed to work itself on people too. They got older. Where once was youth, was now age. Thomas himself was not immune to this. Now an elderly, bedridden man, time and life itself seemed to slip from his fingers. He knew his mind should be thinking of more immediate concerns, thinking of living his final days in peace. Yet here he was. At the moment of their falling out. Right where his memories left him, when time seemed to stop. But now, he saw their falling out through new lens, new eyes.
Regret.
He knew he didn’t have much time left. But yet…regret gnawed at his mind.
Sighing, he dictated a letter to his maid, for it to be sent to someone he knew, once, upon a happier time.
Nikola Tesla looked exactly like how he remembered him. Tall, lanky and lean, he looked every inch the dapper and brilliantly eccentric man he once knew. But there was something different about him that Thomas couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was the occasional grey lighthouse among the dark sea on his head. Maybe it was the subtle creases of years on his usually handsome face. But perhaps, the most startling detail were his eyes. Like ice or diamonds they once were, shining and bright with ideas and visions. But now, something was different. Darker, sadder almost.
Nikola broke the deafening silence with a question laced with defiance.
“Why did you ask me to be here, Mr Edison?”
A near strangled sigh.
“…Please, Nikola. We’ve been through too much to use such empty pleasantries and false formalities.”
“That doesn’t answer my question though.”
Silence.
“…I’m sorry.”
Silence.
“…for…everything.”
Nikola’s eyes took on a stonier hue.
“You’re SORRY? That was the thing you wanted to say after all this time?!”
“Well, I-uh…”
“What good does this do now? You could have said that DECADES ago. While I still cared for and mourned this partnership.”
“…”
“You know, I’ve been thinking. About this, a lot. I’ve always wondered what prompted you to do such things, if this was all just a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from, or if the man I had first met was somehow still there. And I've always hoped that you would come back and apologise. And in my imagination, you would beg for my forgiveness. Grovel. But that is all in the past. Because over time, I’ve came to realise something much more important. I didn’t really miss our partnership, Thomas. I miss what could have been. I’m sorry.”
“Nikola…” Thomas rasped, almost feeling death at his throat.
“Please…look at me one more time.”
He closed his eyes.