Le Coeur

Chapter Two

~ Chapter Two ~

The entire world was in an empty, mourning state- everyone hiding in the depths of their houses, with the occasional one walking around town like a drunken man- sipping his sorrows away. Anyone you saw was dressed in black, drenched in tears-and draped in sadness.

Who knew a guy like Prince Archard could create such a mood.

Don’t get me wrong though, there were still those who were secretly celebrating this event- Leroux being one of them.

“Ahhh” he sighed, with an edge of smugness in his voice, “What a wonderful day this has turned out to be”. I look around me, hoping to god- no not god anymore; to Buddha-that no-one had heard his casual remark.

“Shush, you idiot. Don’t you have any common sense?” obviously my expression was pretty desperate- as he closed his mouth to any witty remarks he had planned.

After walking in silence for a few minutes more-through the ghost town of Le Coeur- he could no longer contain himself.

“Ok what the hell is wrong?”

I turn to give him the “look”.

“Oh For g-urgh, Buddha’s- sake, a man is dead! Where the hell have you been these past two days?!”

“Na duh”. His brow knit together, “But when did you ever give a damn about that nut-head?”

That shuts me up. Why did I care? I was supposed to be like Leroux- walking around with a smirk on my face, a skip in my step- but instead, I was just another one of the weeping population.

“I guess it’s’ just that look she had on her face- so filled with that sadness- it makes my blood run cold every time I see it…” My face drops as I take in my friend’s expression. “I just said that aloud didn’t I?”

Lerouxs’ voice was at a slightly higher pitch than his usual cool-headed tone, as it does every time he becomes confused.

“Uhh, yep. But man, who are you talki- oh. Miss D’or. But what does she have to do with anything?”

So without any hesitation, I tell him. I tell him everything that happened on that night- including Patrice’s surprise visit, and even the part about my keys being unusually warm- which, naturally, sounded completely bonkers.

After I stopped talking, all he said was, “so Jesus sent down the ugliest angel out, huh? Figures. I guess he was being all ‘the world loves everyone’, even the uglies, hey?”

A few days later, I awoke, to the realisation that I was 10 minutes late, already, to Prince Archard’s funeral.  I must’ve even slept through the custodial mourning bells, because as I ran out my front door, I noticed no-one else was out- the streets around my house, completely lacking any human activity- apart from my lazy ass of course. So I picked up my usual barely-moving pace. As I came into close enough distance of the burial place, I forced myself to stop running, and walked at a casual pace- as if I was just shaking my legs off a little, after standing respectively still, for a long time, like everyone else of course. I saw a few people looking at me, obviously aware of how late I was- but otherwise, I had arrived un-noticed; I secretly high-fived myself.

“Psssst” I looked around me, through the sea of black, searching for the source of the call. After a few moments more, another came, “psssst”. With still no clue who was making the noise, or where they were, I gave a sharp, “what?”

A few heads turned my way- shushing me with their warning looks- but none were trying to get my attention.

“Care to tell me where you’ve been?” a little head popped up from the crowd just ahead of me.