The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 2 - The One Who Stood Out

The garbage can had been turned upside down on the driveway and my neighbors were watching me wipe the remains from last night's dinner off the eighth newspaper that I had now gone through. There! Page twenty five and a bright red circle that bragged of yesterday's mistake.

'Florist' it said. Wait, florist? There was nothing about my interview nor the strange dream that I had had last night that so much as hinted about a career as a florist. The address was correct, meaning I had gone to the right building despite my bad sense of direction. Not minding my peering neighbors and their nosy whispers about the girl-who-had-gone-mad, I brought the newspaper with me as I hurried down the street.

Pieces of logic and fantasy doesn't belong to the same puzzle, you see, and so my dread for Lizzy's life would be just that - apprehension based on insufficient evidence. Dreams were not reality - end of story.

The bar sign wasn't lit.

Gus would always keep it lit, at any time of the day, for keeping the bar open meant extra money, and extra money meant an extra day for a bar endangered of going bankrupt.

Yet that morning, the bar sign wasn't lit.

By the time that I had gathered the courage to push the door open, and the taunting ring of the bell had swayed above my head like an echo, my heart had already skipped its first beat. I swallowed. I knew what was coming, for even if imagination and realism had always been miles apart from a perfect fit; they sure didn't clash now.

Gus was in tears.

The rounded face of my previous boss seemed more pig-like than any other day and for once he seemed more vulnerable than vigorous. He shook his head slowly, hands clenched in a prayer as his elbows pressed against the bar counter to keep his heavy body from falling back into his stool.

"Lizzy," he grunted, "Lizzy aint comin' back," his snuffles strengthened the portrayal of a pig, "aint comin' back she is."

He poured himself another drink, wiped his nose with his hand, his hand with his apron. Gus then shared with me the tale of a maiden's broken heart.

Literally.

He restlessly turned around to wipe the dust away from a frame that hung on the wall. A painting of three flowers. Peaceful.

"If only we could sleep our pain away." He huffed.

At that very moment I wished, or prayed if you will, that this was yet another one of Gus' famous misunderstandings.

It wasn't. Phone pressed against ear, silent but suffocating. A tune overtaken by an automatic response: the owner is not available to pick up your call at this moment, please try again. Try again later.

I found myself running. The building that had taken me so much time and effort to find the day before now seemed like the house of an old friend whom I had always visited; I knew exactly where to go. And I knew exactly whom to blame. I dried my cheeks with the back of my sleeve; I wouldn't have noticed the tears falling if it weren't for the window by the door (or should I so rightfully call it the entrance to the claustrophobic hallway of hell-jobs?)

Everything stood silently the same on floor number two (besides, of course, the lack of the flowerpot). I didn't bother to knock before entering his office. Call me rude, but you see - No meeting of his could ever have been more important than the fact that my best friend would never get to smile at me ever again and no time of his could ever have been too precious to keep me away from letting him know just how much I despised him.