The Lost Years(𝙳.𝚈.𝙲.𝙼 P𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚕)

Prologue

Josh held the little flower between his cold fingers and dug his heels into the mulch to stop the swing. It was mid February, and as Jeffrey Stamford of Stamford cremation services had said- prime funeral season. 

 He and his father were expected in downtown Manhattan to stay with friends of the family in a week. And as his father kept reminding him, arriving any later than his tenth birthday the following Friday would cause the end of the world. They were staying with loud-mouthed Besty Morgan and her family on a street block eight miles from where he'd grown up. It didn't seem far enough to stop there being reminders of everything that had gone up in smoke. He'd still been able to make little league practice and even school for a few days. But school quickly loses its charm when everyone wants to know what it feels like to be the kid with the dead mom.

He now sat on their tiny front yard swing set, falling backwards among a sea of pink and beige cookie cutter houses. He wore a black suit with itchy cuffs and a poorly stitched collar that kept brushing up against his hairline. It was too tight but he had needed a suit and Mrs. Fairbank from the dollar store had retrieved one from her son's old clothes. He was dead now too her son. Car crash back in the seventies, and Josh felt a bit like a corpse himself walking around in it. He was a short, frail child, with brown hair and brown eyes that almost looked black in the current attire. And now he had an inevitable and intense fear of death, and the dark that came with it. 

The swing creaked and screeched a little as he halted, as did the brakes of a red sports car that pulled up quickly to the curb. His sister stepped out, high heels and hair frizzed with hair spray and sprinkled with barrettes. She glanced at him- or rather through him and headed inside where the others had congregated.

Here was JJ again, to try and take him. And his father would say no and walk her back out to the car spitting terrible words and turning so red Josh thought he'd explode.

"Hi Josh," a soft voice came from the back seat of the crookedly parked car and a young girl no older than four peeked out her head.

Josh looked with almost a subtle surprise that she still existed. it so happens after tragedy that those familiar childhood smiles and joys seems to be buried alongside the coffin. 

He smiled a bit and gave a small nod, "Hi Vi."

"You'll come to play won't you?" she shouts excitedly, "when you feel better again?"

He shrugged and went back to watching the front door. It was quiet for a good long while and he went back to looking at the flower and wondering how long it would take to burn away completely. Feeling better- like it was a scrape to the knee. 

"Joshua!" His fathers voice pierced the cold air from the second story window upsetting his meditation, "Come get your bag, we're leaving."

He got up, ran the flower to Violet and then kicked gravel up behind him and jogged back to the house. The Morgan's place had narrow halls and he'd heard the neighbors whispering they'd have to leave anyway. Something about the damp.

'They should be thankful and stay,' Josh thought to himself often, 'Damp wood doesn't catch fire as easily.'

He grabbed his duffel and shoved a couple t shirts and pairs of jeans in messily. Its purple and faded, the zipper catches and he leaves his baseball cap behind on the table. 

They eat dinner at the Pub, father and son sitting next to each other at a long mahogany table.

"JJ stopped by again," his father sips a beer and stares, "She wants you to stay with her."

"Don't want to," Josh turned the page to his comic book and glanced around. Nice place, cool arcade game in the back, maybe he could earn some quarters helping old Nick Peters with his dishes again. They have a football game on the radio across the room and he can just barely make out the scores. The lights in here are awesome! Blue and sparkling...maybe he can buy some like that once they get back on their feet. His old room used to be filled with things like that, a rock collection and baseball cards and all his microscope samples from the creek. On the rare occasions his mother found time she'd walk him back there to swim and watch him splash till he was caked head to toe in mud and grass.