It's all just a dream. That must be it, none of it is real but it is real, it was real. How something so extraordinary just comes into a life and changes everything, healing a pain, filling a void, improving everything and nothing at all, then moving on leaving another void, a pleasant void but a void all the same. It is a strange world he lives in, one where anything and everything can happen.
Darkness had begun to fall when seven-year-old Eric was out playing with his best friend. It should be a time in one's life where everything is carefree, things should be easy, and things should be fun. It was fun playing with a best pal, a best friend, running around playing ball, what could be better?
Young Eric had always been thought to be weary of strangers and weary he was. A strange man had been hanging round nearby, watching, Eric noticed this man a number of times still he and his friend continued on. A ball was kicked, and Eric went after it. He used his right foot then his left foot and turned but when he did there was no Shawn. Eric's childhood best pal just vanished into thin air. That stranger was gone too, nowhere to be seen.
Shawn's body was discovered ten days later, buried in a shallow grave. An unusual flower was left in the dirt by the grave, a calling card of a murderer whose own death brought an end a string of child abductions. The impact something like this can have a seven-year-old is immense. Questions would burn into his very soul for years to come. Why Shawn and not him? Why was he left to carry such grief, such guilt, guilt, and grief no child should have to live with?
It molded his life in so many ways that it took something very special to change it all but did any of it actually happen or is it just Eric who sees things a little differently? Did the child become a man too early? Or did he ever truly grow up at all?
Now an old man living in a nursing home, Eric once more sits and stares out a large rectangular window and remembers, he remembers a good many things, he remembers bringing a flowering plant to the funeral of Lisa's mum. Such a sight brought a smile to a moment of sadness. Lisa's mum loved nature and nature came to brighten a dark moment.
After the service it would go visit and old friend. Eric has made good on a promise to return to his friend's resting place. Then it would be on to downtown China town, a moment to dread with a moment to warrant a smile.
The smell of freshly prepared raw and cooked foods from the numerous outdoor food stalls and from the array of Asian and Thai restaurants filled the air, as did the scent of a variety of fresh fish lying on crushed ice for sale from the market stalls. Eric once more passed the many invites to enter such establishments or to buy from the stalls, invites which came in both Chinese and English.
A bell over the door rang as Eric made his way into that antiques store. He had a moment or two to himself before a young lady approached. With her right hand she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
'Hello Eric' she says.
'Good afternoon, Miss Bethany.'
The plant indeed was returned in as good a condition as it was when it last had been handed over. Bethany moves to put it away and when she returns Eric is no longer in the store. He does however go for that coffee he spoke of last time he was here. He is also soon would joined un-expectantly by Bethany.
'A deal is a deal, right?' she asks.
'It is indeed' responds Eric.
The early morning community gatherings continued most mornings for years. They would eventually become less frequent, but it did continue, and the next generation even began to extend a tradition. Beach walks at sunset and in the moonlight would also remain a tradition. A peace has been found and life goes on, life it feels good. It feels lifted.
Time to remember can now be left for another time as for in the nursing home an older Eric has a visitor, a visitor who walks right up to him while he is still lost in a daydream. Sitting together at this large window, a porthole to the outside world, this is a moment that makes Eric feel like a young man once again for his visitor is no ordinary visitor at all.
'Feed me Seymour, feed me.'
This is a moment to feel good, a moment to feel free, a moment to feel lifted for what is life really all about? Throughout life some things come, some things go, and some things are just meant to be. Outside this ... home ... two men from a unique bureau wait. And wait they do ... only to ultimately be evaded ... still, they will go on and continue to try ... such is the nature, or at least one aspect of it, of life.
