The day dawns and is, ironically, a bright sunny one. Fil has died, and apparently Grandma Pearl has found him...
Please make sure that you include Fil's death and a least one other character from this current list of characters. You should have your blog completed by this weekend. Do not maim, or kill off any other character or yourself. Have a nice day.
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enrietta couldn't help but stare at the tree that took Fil's life. She had liked the little fellow, he had even spoken to her- probably the first time ever. "They were probably his first words," she sighed sadly, walking closer to the tree, feeling the warm moist bark. She had not heard from Achilles, seen him, she could not even go to the store. He was taking too long, maybe she had been wrong, maybe he would never love her.
Henrietta let her rotund body sit against the base of the tree and looked at the mocking sun smiling back. She did not notice Rizzo walking down the street, or acknowledge her nod as she passed. She did not see Achilles, looking nervous with his balding hair pushed to the side to resemble a bad comb over. Or the white and red flowers in his sweaty hands. His orange plaid shirt with puke green stripes, and his shoes that were untied. She didn't hear him walk over to her; she was consumed in the silence that was the tree. Fil had lived here, the scattered boards were his life or all that remained. He was not the gray papers he sold, but the bright green leaves of the tree that took him. They danced with the light wind, they were bright and happy.
"Mrs. Flogsbottom," Achilles said, waking her from the surrounding silence. She looked at him and stood. "Mrs- Henrietta. I have loved you since the first moment you walked into my store. I think you are the most beautiful person on this world and the next. Your smile is brighter and bigger than any banana in my shop, and your eyes are like two blue plums. When you came into my store the other day and stormed off- I felt apart of me dying with every sway of your hips. I didn't know what I could do- how I could win you back... I asked a few of my patrons that had talked to you- they said I needed to read a romance novel, and I would know. I understand now. Chapter 5, it was so obvious but I was scared. Then Fil... He was such a young kid, and I'm not- if he can di- if he could leave so young, it made me wonder how long I had. Well, with any time I have, I want to spend it with you. I know this usually doesn't happen till chapter 13, but will you marry me Henrietta? Please?" Achilles fumbled down onto his knees, dropping his flowers and produced a small fruit box with a small pearl ring inside.
This was everything she had ever wanted and more. "Yes my sweet Achilles, yes."
That night they made clumsy love, but for both it was the most beautiful experience they ever had. They married in the fruit section of the grocery store, and had one child (from their first "encounter") and they named her Fillina, and decorated her walls with pictures of trees, and random clippings from the newspaper. She was their angel and reminder of the boy that started it all.
The sun had not yet bloomed when Elizabeth left her apartment. She hadn't slept well since she'd received the letter. What would have appeared gratifying to most, sat crumpled on the floor beside the wall at present. It was a stain of her past that needed to go. As Elizabeth reached for the piece of parchment, it all came rushing back — the anxiety, the anger, the remorse, the fear, the love, the despair, and the hope. A tear rolled down her cheek as she went out the door. A tear for what she could not tell. Only the need for fresh air and a stroll was known. After a single glance out the window, her plan was shattered. A thunderstorm was raging outside, blowing the trees like mere wheat stalks in the wind. Elizabeth turned back to grab a sweatshirt before she headed for the stairs. It was almost meditative now — the climb down the stairs. She'd learned to appreciate it, especially when it was raining, and slow down. With each step it was as if she was falling into serenity again. A serenity previously lost and now gained. It wasn't the book that made her loose her it. It wasn't even Malcolm or that dude in the shadows. It was her inability to be satisfied with herself — with her decisions. That's why she hated writing the novel. She hated having to relive every moment she regretted. But as she descended the stairs, she finally realized that she never took the time to look the good consequences among the bad. She had been so focused on the steps of despair that she didn't think to give the wicked things in life a chance.
'Like having a guardian shadow,' Elizabeth thought, smiling. She didn't know his name or purpose, only that he seemed to have been watching her back since she arrived in Washington Heights. 'You can't get that in San Francisco. It's too ...' She didn't know. She'd never experienced anything like Washington Heights before. It was ...
The rain appeared to have stopped as the sun began to shine through the window of the fifth floor. She threw the letter in the platform's trash bin before she sped down the remaining flights. Life was finally calling again. She would no longer hide from the world to cower in the past. She would live with a lesson learned — to never give up on passion and chase whatever called her.
A shattering crash reverberated through the streets. Elizabeth broke into a sprint as she passed the chasm of smoke and shadows where she once gave lunch to a man, later learned to be Naublus Croseman. The memory of his astonished face flew from her mind as she came upon Grandma Pearl. Sirens began to echo from streets beyond. She was standing over a tree branch, or was it ....
"Oh my god," Elizabeth whispered as she arrived at her side. Grandma Pearl wasn't just standing over a tree branch, she was standing over a body.
"Kind of ironic, isn't it?" Grandma Pearl asked as she held a page of the newspaper.
As Elizabeth looked from the circled add to the body, a hand covered her mouth as she gasped. This man. The man under the branch. The dead man. He was the man in the shadows, whose protecting presence was lost.
"I know him," she whispered to herself.
Her guardian shadow lost forevermore. As the sun continued to rise, Fil's peacefully mangled body fell deeper and deeper into the shadow of the tree. It was ...
Tragically beautiful.
It was early. Lillith reflected on the cool early morning air as she made her way down to the subway station. The dirty feel and smell filled her senses as she walked down the stairway to reach the first train of the day at 5:30. What a miserable place this is, filled with miserable people Lillith thought to herself, and, as she did so, grinned. This was the type of place for her. Where people huddled together in filth that never seemed to be cleaned to go to places that they hated and continued to hate more each and every day, it was wonderful. As she moved to the open car, a white number one smugged with dirt and grime placed on its doors, she noticed a woman towards the back of the car. Lillith walked into the car, took a seat, and watched as the woman, who seemed to have a lot on her mind, went about picking up her stuff. The woman looked up and at Lillith,
"What?" she asked irately. Lillith just smiled a condescending smile,
"So sorry, didn't mean to treat you like a spectacle." Lillith didn't even bother to wait to see what the woman's next reaction was. The train started.
...................................................
A few hours later Lillith got off the dingy number one train and prepared to emerge once more into the grungy haze that was Washington Heights, but that was not what greeted her. The sunlight hit her face and caused her to throw her hands up to protect her eyes. Since when does the sun shine here? Lillith made her way onward to her shop The Wrath, when she noticed that a branch from a tree in the park she was now in front of had fallen, an old woman was standing over what appeared to be the body of a young child. Lillith stood and stared at the scene before her wearing a blank expression as she took in all that had obviously happened and what that meant, then she turned and jay-walked across the street to her shop. The dog was gone, the cheery lighting in the shop was gone, no remnants of that other woman remained. Lillith smiled to herself as she went in and, even though the sun was shining, believed that, considering all the misery she had seen thus far, today was going to be a wonderful day.
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