Bad Prophecies (draft 1)

XVI

I know I tend to do this every once in a while telling you my story, but now's about the appropriate time to make a large time jump.
It's not like nothing is interesting to talk about when covering the next three years, but it isn't.
Towards the end, I did fall out of my perpetual state of melancholia but still had small episodes of questioning my existence on this earth at four in the morning.
Eventually, the yet-to-be-established slogan 'keep calm and carry on' was true for me.
And even after women were allowed to work at the Auxiliary Corps, Effie never went back, not even twenty years later during World War two, but that's irrelevant for now.
When the paperboy selling the evening paper of November eleventh, nineteen-eighteen arrived at the Petunia, he was shouting out words I could not believe.
I was on barmaid duty that evening, so I was the first person who lived there who heard those sacred words. Our paperboy, Kevin, came to me, yelling, sobbing, "War is over! War is over! Spread the word, Mrs Crowley!"
He tossed about eighteen copies onto the bar, quickly grabbed the four farthings I'd prepared when waiting for him, and ran out of the bar before I could get a word in.
"Well, it would've been nice to have a chinwag," I muttered under my breath when my shock surpassed me.
It was a low point in the day, only about seventeen o'clock, and there were only two small parties in the back, so I asked them to leave and closed the bar down.
Hardly able to hold in my excitement, I rushed upstairs and threw the paper before everyone's door. At the end of the hall was mine and Effie's door, and I came inside, waving the paper.
"Effie!" I began sobbing and fell to my knees. "The war, it- it's over."
She ran over to me and embraced me so hard I couldn't breathe, before cupping my face with her hands.
"This is true?"
"Yes." Was all I could mutter.

/

The moment Alex stepped off the temporary bridge connecting land and ship, I ran forward and proceeded to slap him, then I grabbed the collar of his shirt and kissed him.
"Well, hello to you too," He said when we parted, and I chuckled.
Then a very loud gagging noise emerged from behind us.
"Will you two stop fornicating on the dock so I can go home?" called Effie.
"Oh yeah." I turned around and gesticulated in her direction."You two have met, I suppose?"
"Yes." They chimed in unison.
"What did you talk about?"
Alex began, "If I recall correctly-"
"Shagging." interrupted Effie.
"Yeah, that."
I giggled, "I'm glad you get along."
"The real question is who you're going home with," she said, jokingly.
"I'm sorry, Effie, my darling but I haven't seen my husband in four years and two months. Suffice to say, I'd rather be making love to him tonight."
"Fine by me." Alex shrugged.
"And if you ever want to leave him, you know where to find me, Pumpkin."
She briefly curtsied and went off.
"I think you did well for yourself." said my husband.
"I wouldn't have had to if you weren't such a massive knobhead. Can we get on?"
"Can we."

/

Alex and I lay in bed together that first night, the cold air of November coming in through my bedroom window. My bed had been made and unused for years. A thick layer of dust coated everything I had left behind when I'd moved in with Effie, including the floor and the window sill. It looked so sad when we first returned, there was a clear absence of the love we'd filled the space with over the previous twenty-five years. My pa had never dusted or touched anything inside, having locked the door, waiting for me and my husband to come back someday. And come back we did.
"Angel?" He breathed.
"Yes?"
"I've missed you."
"I know. I missed you too. Fucking idiot."
He softly chuckled.
"I know, my dove. I'm just so happy to be here with you again. I love you. Don't you ever forget it."

/

Walking down the streets of London with My Man, in those few weeks after the war, I had never felt more alive.
We'd gone down to collect the rest of my things from Effie's and become reacquainted with the bedroom that neither of us had slept in for four years.
My parents were quite delighted to see Alex again, particularly my mum. At the first tea we shared as a family after the war, Mum had asked Alex for a private chat, after which he looked quite shaken.
He later disclosed to me that my mother had threatened to waterboard him in holy water if he ever made a voluntary decision like that again.

That Christmas was all about remembering why I had chosen this silly little excuse of a man to be mine for all eternity.
With another trial defeated, Alex gifted me a charm for my bracelet. The ferns, like from our wedding.
I simply handed him a box with every single piece of clothing and embroidery I had made within the previous four years.
We didn't do very much over Christmas, we spent the majority of the three days in our room, catching up, and sometimes just lying in silence.
Our discussions ranged from abstract metaphors, that were lush with the pairings of literature and what we'd learned from a century and a fifth of being alive, to much easier, more human things to speak of.
One evening, Christmas day, I think, Alex was sitting at the desk, and so I leaned over, put my head beside his and wrapped my arms around his neck.
"So, be honest, how was your time with Effie?"
"Unspeakably sad," I stated, deadpan.
"Oh, why?"
"You've tainted me."
Alex seemed very confused.
"How so?"
"Because ever since I've met you, I've never been able to be happy without you."
He smiled softly, I could see that even in my peripheral vision.
"Wipe that grin off your face. It's your fault."
"There's my girl."
We both went silent, tuned into one another's breathing. I don't breathe out of necessity, but because it is beyond creepy to know someone who doesn't breathe, especially if she's your wife.
"Angel," said he, "if you feel guilty, don't."
Taken aback, I muttered something completely intelligible.
"I loved someone else, too, once."
I can not begin to express the relief that came to me. I felt the weight of Eden fall off my shoulder.
"Oh, thank Her. When was it?"
"It was long before we met. Circa eighteen-nineteen-ish. Maybe a little later."
"Who was it?"
"Noah. His name was Noah Archer. He was a human. I did plan on staying with him, at least until he had to settle down and marry the first girl his father introduced him to."
"Well, what happened?"
"He collapsed dead from a sudden fatal arrhythmia. He was only twenty-four." At this moment, I realised Alex had started crying. Only softly, retaining his smile. I held onto him tighter.
He laughed suddenly, "I never even got to tell him The Truth. I'm pretty sure we were destined to fail. But that's okay. I have you now, my pretty darling. And we are forever, you and I."

/

I've always thought about what the Garden Of Eden was like. My parents told me stories when I was little, the sort of stories that human parents would tell their human children to help them rest easier. For me, the stories were purely anecdotal. They didn't know any other way. They had seen everything that had ever happened. To me, Eden wasn't a faraway land of fairy tales and unprovable stories of Genesis. Eden was a real, true, tangible thing. I think that is one of the downsides of being The Nephalem. I've always known a bit too much about the world. Things that people raised on Earth aren't supposed to know. My parents don't always like to admit it, but they always considered themselves to be Human Enough, and raised me accordingly, especially my pa. Humanity, on the other hand, was intangible. It was a simple fact that could not be changed, I would never be a human, end of. I barely even existed. In fact, who was to say that I did exist?
Perhaps I was some mass hallucination of angels, demons, and humans alike. I was never even born like humans are.
For my own sake, I tell you that I was born from the ocean, cast from the bones of drowned sailors, that the salt never left my body.
Alex made humanity tangible. He made the idea of my existence more tangible.
You sort of get used to it. That feeling.
So, having finally escaped the feeling of fleeting Eden, reunited once more, Alex and I set sail for the Americas shortly after New Year's, Nineteen-Nineteen.