Post Script

Chapter 1: Faded Photographs and Darkened Memories

Small bands of sunlight flooded in through the dust smeared windows. The warm, foggy glass was burdened with the ability to recreate memories, just by showing one lonely man his own sad, damaged reflection. Every minute detail of his room had a little of her soul clinging to it. He could feel her warm, passionate love fill each crevice and crack in the walls. He could hear her soft, melodious voice echo in the hallways and whisper with each footstep on the flooring. The Professor rose to his feet and walked purposefully to one of the many heavily crammed bookshelves. With one gentle fingertip outstretched, he stroked the crimson spine of a simple, leather bound book before grasping it and snatching it from its home on the shelf. Immediately, he opened the book to page 56, already aware of the makeshift bookmark that was protruding from the pages. Lying on the printed words was a small photograph of a beautiful woman, arm in arm, with a young man from an old time. Claire had used this picture in her haste to mark the place in a book she would never finish reading. Hershel knew that it had been there up on the shelf for years and never once felt inclined to open it, to look at it, to relive the memory, to revel in the proof that she did exist, that she was here, that she'd made a difference. Even if this was just a small difference like marking the place in one of his books, it still showed her intellect, her improvisation, her forgetfulness… her life.

The Professor gently held the photograph in front of him. The dazzling sunlight illuminated the beauty of Claire's glowing face as Layton held the flimsy, fading memory in his hands. Layton returned the painful picture to its resting place on the tear stained, dog eared page and gently closed the book. An empty space was conspicuously visible on his shelf but still he placed the text carefully on his weathered tea varnished desk. There the tome lay amongst crumpled up sketches and notations, etched hastily in order to convey the thousands of ideas regarding one man's life long research. Also littering the table top, were numerous unique and unusual artefacts including dusty, crumbling fossils and unrecognisable, but nonetheless resplendent, gem stones that had obviously been collected through years of travelling, due to a thirst for knowledge and a penchant for all things curious and puzzling.

The professor sighed, exhaling a little of his grief, only to consume it all again. He slowly meandered to his antique, 18th century armchair and collapsed into the robust, cushiony seat. While contemplating and reimbursing his everlasting fondness for old memories, his eyes meandered around the room until eventually they came to rest on his tall, silk hat, sitting uncomfortably and out of place on the coffee table, ironically adjacent to a small collection of dirty tea cups; for tea often helps when one is sad and Professor Layton couldn't describe nor handle the sadness he had experienced recently. For a painful, split second, he was inflicted with the brief, feeling one can describe as being like a torn part of your heart, peeling away, only to flutter, fall and crumble into the desolate acid of your stomach. Layton leaned over and outstretched both of his arms in order to seize his prized possession and clutch it to his chest. In his arms, Layton now held, what he believed to be, the only part of his darling Claire that he had left.

Before his final parting with Claire, the professor was occasionally tempted to remove his hat from his head. After a while, he felt that the hat was like a reminder of her death, a reminder that she was no longer with him. The hat was something hovering over him, a weight of grief towering above him, offering nothing but the memory of his beloved when instead he craved the sound of her sweet laughter and her warm, gentle touch. However, he neglected to take it off before he wanted to honour her last wish, fulfil her last request. The second time they said goodbye she simply asked him to "stay strong." Layton knew that this was impossible; so long as she was absent, he knew that he could never stay completely strong. He had removed the hat because he had accepted that he wasn't strong enough and that wearing the hat wouldn't bring her back. He knew that he could never live up to the gentlemanly image she had of him, but he spent his whole life trying, trying to be who she wanted him to be, trying to be a calm, collected, respectable human being . But the final goodbye broke his mask, his perfect façade, the removal of the hat revealed a broken man. Without his hat he was vulnerable, he was heartbroken, he had found his emotions with a few bitter tears but he had lost her forever.

Chapter 2: Falling Asleep