The sky was lightening. Washes of red poured over the roof, and over the stucco walls, and over the porch and stained glass windows. It filtered through the glass and ran up and over the marble stairs and through the mahogany doorway and into the living room, dripping onto the circular staircase, and resting on the carpet, letting little streams flood each room.
They flooded the kitchen and the music room, the front room...and the study. Shrouded in the darkness of shadows was a shadow. A small shadow of a man, standing tall, with large circles protruding from his face. He stepped out of the room, walking, slowly, putting one leather shoe in front of another, one of his coat pockets bulged, and it swung listless as he meandered into the entry hall.
He took care to not push up the carpets or scuff the floors with his spotless shoes. As the sunlight swarmed in, you could see his eyes underneath what evidently was the worlds larges pair of wire rimmed glasses. They were almost alien-like, his eyes. The way the glasses magnified him he looked like some martian, come to take over the Earth. His face was that of a Chinaman, and his hair was clipped short to his scalp. He brought his wrinkled hand out of his pocket for a moment, to push himself forward on one of the oaken pillars between the entry hall and the front living room. The house was clearly a mansion, and the little man looked like a baby doll in a doll house compared to the immense size of this building.
He floated to the center of the front room, staring out the large windows which viewed the expanse of mountains, and below them a farm, now only containing a few horses, the rest were malnourished and two had been sold to two young boys. Somewhere, unleashed, and free from the historic pen, a goat sounded, followed by the whinny of a horse. A grandfather clock ticked in the corner of the room. His hand reached for his pocket and he pulled out a circular metallic ball, not a fingerprint graced the surface, almost as if it was handled by ghosts.
Starting off in his right hand, the man tossed it over to his left, and then back to his right, each time it blurred over the nameplate on his jacket, making it unreadable, and it mesmerized his alien eyes. The large grandfather clocks tick became louder.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. On and on an on and on. On and on and on and on.
And on and on did Doctor Sigan Lee toss his metal ball between both hands, letting the ghosts clench it in their wispy palms, and then let it fly into the air, back in to Sigans hand.
Time. A never-ending force that rules over all the universe, and ticks along forever, not waiting for anyone or anything, but steaming through gazillions of years. And as the doctor kept tossing the ball and the clock kept ticking, the world did not stop for Tom, and the world did not stop for Errol. It kept moving. So do we. And as Sigan flung his ball from wrinkled palm to wrinkled palm, two boys kneeled down outside, laying a final covering of dirt on the body of Errol underneath a weeping willow. One runs off and returns holding wildflowers that are a rare find in the middle of November.
After glancing at the grave one last time, the two walk down the hill, and off to the road, heading for home. Hundreds of miles away, a man and his wife eat croissants at a bistro in France. The woman holds a diamond studded leash that connects to a collar around the neck of a pure white poodle. The man's face is staring back at him a few tables away.
But let us not focus on Tom, dear reader. This is a time to accept that all of these events are past, and Colin and Eli are looking forward to a new future, and Errol rests peacefully. The world keeps moving. So do we. Pushed along by great waves that send us flying toward a grand destiny.
