Where's Myers?: The Timeless Dress Series, #4

One – It Begins, Again

The stress of those intense seven days of the most recent Meyers fiasco altered the sleep patterns of Martin and Cody.  After several months, they pretty much recovered their former quiet nights of restful sleep, except for a recurring nightmare attacking Martin.  There surfaced another, even greater problem on their hands, which lurked in the shadows of that early morning mist.  Skeletons in a closet are noisy when breaking out.  Skeletons don't like to be shut-in.  The louder they knock on the door and rattle their bones, the quicker they escape into the open to wreak havoc on their victims.  Skeletons exemplify real events that have been obscured by closure, intentional or unintentional memory loss, time, escape or hiding out from the familiar.  No matter the event, someone knows and understands their presence.  Call it Martin's law or Murphy's law, skeletons don't make friends.  They are the enemy of a smooth, undisturbed existence of many people.  The truth is, almost everyone experiences the sudden, uninvited appearance of a skeleton from their closet.  The home that skeletons enjoy resembles a closet, nothing more than an imaginary residence of memory containing the events and the people involved.  Skeletons believe they are real.  That unwanted experience hangs over one's head as a slow-moving storm cloud, its timing undetermined.  Skeletons appear without warning.  The worst-case scenario would be when more than one breaches the peaceful day all at once. 

A long time ago, Martin reached his limit on the visits of his skeletons.  He thought his closet emptied everything out in the open months ago.  He felt pretty much exposed for his past.  The next few days would disprove that thought.  He revered Cody as his defense.  Martin believed that Cody's wisdom could steer them away from any trouble.  He noted their last problem, the theft hoax surrounding the dress, as his proof of that idea.  Both of them working together, each utilizing their own skills, broke through the maze of lies, deceit, and found the truth.  They gave credit to Heather's prophecies, which guided them through the miry abyss to expose the truth.  That was how they achieved a positive outcome.  They walked the path from Heather's words all the way to the front door of the culprit.  Everyone was a winner, even poor Myers.  So many skeletons broke out and haunted him, that at times, he could not even sleep for his normal five hours.  Sorting them out expended so much mental and physical energy.  Cody passed off his pastoral duties to Abby, Thomas and Jen, while he joined Martin for the difficult work of sorting the confusing information.  Most people could handle one skeleton.  When two or three show up at once, the scene is set for trouble, big trouble.  Martin saw one skeleton after another show up with only an undefined thread linking from and to another skeleton.  The task was arduous.  They had just settled down to getting the Hotel going strong with Adrian at the helm.  Cody returned to his full duties at church.  Zoe pushed herself to reclaim all of her movement abilities.

Abby set aside Wednesdays to counsel those who have trouble with personal struggles and who have a connection to the church.  She also saw those who needed to discuss the Heather effect.  With three thousand plus in attendance every week, her calendar remained fully booked.  Her success grew in prominence when Heather came to town.  After her marriage to Cody, she closed her private practice and accepted a position within the church.  Most of the time her clients preferred her counseling skills over those of Cody.  Cody allowed her to be in charge when she wanted to be in charge.  He couldn't refuse as he knew Jen would overrule him.  No one in town had anything negative to say about Abby.  She received only the highest praise for the way she handled even the most difficult cases.  Many of those who came to her, testified of her compassionate ability to help them.  They said that many had ability, but she had compassion.  Abby took no credit for that.  She gave the credit to two very important forces in her life, God and Heather.  Abby had more responsibility placed on her as the completion of Heather's Hope Home approached.  Her new duties placed her in the center of the new resident selections.  Things in town couldn't be better.

Cody prayed that he would never experience the events of that stressful week of investigations concerning the dress.  He told the congregation that with those events in the past, he sought a greater challenge than any before.  When he said that, he obviously forgot about skeletons.  He probably momentarily forgot about the accident, his loneliness, his guilt, Heather, his father, his mother or any other skeletal remains buried somewhere on his future path, waiting for their exposure within the raw emotions of challenge.  Skeletons exist as a way to assure our memories are fresh, intact and serving us well.  They pop up laughing, in a party mood, mocking every past action, every acquaintance and every negative event, hoping to make a big deal out of even the smallest elements.  They come with witnesses, empowered by outcomes, tarnishing the present when possible.  They thrive on the nastiness of exposure of mistakes, ruining good reputations and settled lives their priority.  Seldom do they break out to do good.

Martin had one annoying skeleton that would not go away.  This one needed complete obliteration from his memory or he would meet it on the battlefield.  Since skeletons thrive in memories, it seemed that Martin must meet it on the battlefield.  Martin would find out that this skeleton is actually two in one.  The battlefield, strewn with bloody bodies and mass casualties exemplified the cost of war.  Martin alone determined the extent to which he would go in order to achieve complete victory.  Martin was no stranger to defeat.  He climbed over the bodies of many skeletons, only then finding himself captured by another skeleton warrior, unwilling to let go of their prized prisoner.  He made a decision, a long time ago, to never again be defeated.  He thought he was on easy street with Adrian at the Hotel, Danny placed at Stillwater, Sandy at the hospital.  Alex and Zoe started their new lives, together. 

Martin thought of the past months, consumed with the escapades of Myers and that notorious group that led them around the country.  He thought at length about his old friend Myers.  Myers wasn't the man he thought he was.  Myers lived in a cloak and dagger world of spies, investigations, theft, technological devices, disguises and obsession with shadows.  Deceit was his middle name.  Lying was his main vocation.  The truth failed him in childhood.  Myers lost contact with his mother up until the time just before her death.  Martin found out from her that one day Myers disappeared.  She had no idea where he went.  He disappeared from everything.  The only thing he left behind were his drawings.  Myers scribbled the drawings like a small child with a new set of crayons.  He hid them, but not very well, as his mother found them very soon after he disappeared.  During Martin's first visit with her after Myers disappeared, Martin asked for and received the papers.  There were two, yellowed, wrinkled, scribbled drawings in a tin.  The drawings were almost childlike.  Martin went to a nearby stationery shop to see if they stocked a tin like the one Myers stored the papers in.  He found an exact match.  According to the shopkeeper, Myers had purchased the tin in the not too distant past.  Martin put the papers in his new tin and returned Myers' tin back to its hidden location.

The strange thing about Myers is that he was a very talented craftsman.  He was Martin's instructor at design school.  Why then, did he just scribble those drawings?  That question was one that Martin couldn't answer.  Martin often wondered whether Myers drew it as a decoy.  It could be that it was Myers, who was the artist, and that was a pretty good gauge as to the state of his withering mind.  The other thing that Martin thought about, was the expression and actions when he explained to Myers that he, himself was the one who drew the pictures on the paper.  When Martin showed him the tin, the new one containing the papers, Myers acted stranger than ever.  Another story attached to these two papers hid in Myers' deranged mind.  He didn't want to acknowledge that Martin might have discovered the anomaly.  He just remained his normal, aloof self.  Martin's mind went from skeleton to skeleton, but always returned back to the same place.  It was always Myers.  Myers was the one skeleton that Martin wanted to meet on the battlefield.  Martin thought Myers was one skeleton he needed to throw out of the closet.  It would bring him peace.  However, Martin didn't want to do it anytime soon.  He wanted peace without cost.  Peace is never free.  That is the point Martin failed to get inside his busy mind.  Peace has always come with a heavy price.  Martin hated the term 'heavy price'.  This was a term Reslenov used on him if he failed to get him what he wanted or needed.  Being that Reslenov was Myers, Martin could see the stark differences between them.  The disguise was a shield.  His slurring voice