Work Text:
Neil.
N-E-I-L.
Just four letters. Such a small name. But a name that means the world to me. Your name. It meant the world to me 36 years ago, and it still means the world to me 36 years later. 36 years ago, when both you and I were 17. I don't know why and how, but inside my head, I'm still 17, I'm still a schoolboy at Welton, and I'm still waiting for you in our dorm room. It is still the night of the play. I've come back to our dorm room with a heavy heart after you were whisked away so mercilessly by your father. It's past midnight now. But I'm not asleep. I'm still waiting to hear your footsteps in the corridor outside our room. I'm still straining my ears to hear the sound of those very familiar footsteps, with a natural spring in them, the sound which you will consciously soften as you tiptoe into our room, careful not to disturb my sleep.
It's been 36 years since that night. But for me, it's been a 36-year-long night. A night that refuses to end. And I'm sure this night will never end for me. Neil, I am sure, very, very sure that you're still there. You're still alive. You're still very much around on this planet of billions of people. I can very well imagine you at age 53. Maybe there are a few streaks of grey running through your beautiful brown hair. Maybe there are a few wrinkles lining your beautiful face. Maybe you've gained a little bit of weight on that beautiful body of yours. But I am sure, very, very sure that you are still beautiful, the most beautiful person who walked the earth.
You might have become the actor that you so desperately wanted to become or the doctor that your dad so desperately wanted you to become. But I am sure, very, very sure that you are still around. A breathing, pulsating person in flesh and blood.
Neil, you know what. I've been teaching English to high-school students for a long time now. And every year, in every new batch of students who come to my class, I look for a Neil Perry, I scan their faces to find the same glint in their eyes that you had. Even when I'm walking on the streets, I peer at the faces of middle-aged strangers to detect a semblance of your face.
The last time I saw you, the last eye contact we made, when you looked at me with a pair of poignant, pained eyes across the windshield of your father's car, is so indelibly imprinted in my heart, as if it all happened yesterday. I'm still there, Neil. Transfixed in time, like Miss Havisham, the eternal bride-in-waiting in Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations'. Still waiting for you outside the hall where you so passionately played Puck. Still waiting for you in our dorm room in the dead of the night. Still waiting for you freezing and crying out your name in the snows of Welton.