#3 - O'er There

"Boy, howdy! What a lovely day," the cheery cowboy called out in the hours of the rising sun. They had begun riding the horses at six and now it was eight. The sky was a powerful autumn color, the wind chilly and soft. Nathan rode along with her and looked to her face more than a dozen times in five minutes.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he laughed, and faced the sky. And to her face, once again.
"You look lovely."
"You look handsome on a horse."
"Oh, quite?" he leaned closer to her.
"Oh, quite." She kissed him, before their horses separated marginally again and they were side by side instead of together.

"I love this place," she said as he pulled the row boat. The water was crystal, and the wind soothed the midday heat. "I can just imagine- a place over on that hill," she pointed and he looked, "where we have a cozy little house- and a toddler running and giggling. And you- working at the club, tending the sheep and playing golf or writing your latest speech by the pool. Or maybe you're chasing off the marmots away from our garden."
"And what of you?"
"Wherever you want me."
"Then I imagine you're gonna be a tiger mom- making our kids work hard in school and teaching them what you teach best."
She giggled and smiled, their rowboat passing through slowly.

The banquet of flowers sat still on the counter. The vase was gold painted glass, intricate designs in black going all over it. It was long and thin most of the way, and then sprouted open, wavy and touchable. The cherry pie, it had been a gift of enjoyment but was strewn on the floor in this horror repeated. His back was aching and his clothes seemed heavy- he wanted them off and he wanted to sleep. He heard soft weeping. In a chair he saw a woman hunched over and crying. He went over and rubbed her back, kissing her forehead.
"I'm here now."
"I know," she whispered. "But not for long- again. And it happened again." again. again. again. again. again again. again. . .

He had the dream again. Every night he was sober and tired he had that same dream again- like the clockwork of the old bell tower of some forgotten town- murky and old and breaking time and time again. He dressed, walked out the speak-easy, and looked out the street. He turned his head, looked around, and back to his feet. His friend from whichever week it had been had still not comeback. Nor had any three-knocks come on his door.

There came across the street the man who owned Grandmas Attic, a local antique store in town. He was holding in his hands a large black plastic bag, and he stopped in front of Nathan.
"G'mornin'," he said.
"Morning," Nathan muttered.
"I've'a delivery for you," and he handed the vase. "T'was labeled 'H.L. Stephens'. Knew'it t'was you."
Nathan took it in hand, looking at the dust on the glass. It was not broken but was old and left alone far too much.
"Why?"
"C'est la vie," he answered.
Nathan was left on the street as the man left, and he set the vase next to him. He looked at it some time, and he looked at a hill that rose lowly in the distance. There were ravens sitting atop trees across from him, and they loomed there.

Time passed, and walking down the street came a small band of five people, a banjo and mandolin players with them. The man and woman playing guitars sang out the song into the empty street.

There, o' o'er there,
I see my lovely little mare.
O', there, o' o'er there,
I see my lovely little mare.

I gots 'er in August, 
She ran around the town.
I gots 'er in August,
She was the fastest thing around.

O' o'er the winter she got so ill.
O' o'er the winter she got so ill.
I could not save 'er,
No matter how hard I tilled.
O' she had gotten so ill.

O'er there on the hill,
I see my lovely little mare.
O'er there on the hill,
I see my lovely little mare.

Now I'll wait 'till my time is through,
Fo' I knows this little mare is true,
She don' wan' me in heaven,
'Till my time is through.

So I wait and I ponder,
'Till I can see my mare o'er there,
And I will love 'er more than here,
Fo' I'll see my mare o'er there.

It was a still hour as he sat there and looked at the ravens, remaining just as all the broken dreams in his mind.

#2 - The Circus Is In Town

Nathan woke up in bed, the smell of the alcohol of the previous night passing over into his room. The boss hadn't even begun clean-up and it was already midday. He shambled out of bed, his head fuzzy, but not like a normal hangover. There was a small pillbox on the floor, and when he looked, he saw it didn't have any label on it. He heard the front door shut. He walked out, seeing the boss going over to the closet for the cleaning supplies.

"Some kind of a rowdy dow last night?" he asked, grabbing a large glass and filling it with ice.
"Didn't you watch the St. --- news last night? Mayor Damien won his second term. He decided to hold the celebratory party here."
"Oh," he said, before mumbling almost incoherently: "way to shove your victory up my-"
Supposing his tenant's agitation, he pulled a check from his pocket. "I'm not gonna complain, since I got $100,000 from it all."
"You're bluffing."
He brought the check over, handing it to the groggy quit. In strong blue ink, it did say as clear as day, $100,000, stretching the whole of a wiggly bottom line.
"I suppose going into politics does get some people somewhere," he grabbed the check back and began sweeping the floors, taking up glass shards from the ground.

Nathan, though his legs sore, took a walk out on the town. It was silent, the air cool and light ever since the last heavy storm. There was still derbies from fallen tress, their branches all over the streets and their trunks fallen over here and there onto houses or businesses. There was currently an alert out for some wild animals that had gotten loose from a circus ring master. The matter didn't mean much at all for him, though since in his state, he wouldn't mind being mauled up.

He slipped his steps time and time again, and whenever he tried to say salutations to the rare fellow pedestrian, they looked at him funny with a furrowed brow, or they asked slurred 'what?' and he carried on. His head was light, and his feet quick, but it seemed everything was immensely slow.

At some point his vision faded and then came back, with him walking still on some street he didn't know. He saw that he had a friend, a little shorter than he but not by that much.

"You know, I live a simple life," the friend said.
"I like things to be simple," boomed Nathan proudly.
"You should've heeded her warning when she told you."
"She didn't know jack about how to run an election!" he sermoned.
"You knew you wouldn't win," the friend patted his shoulder. The companion seemed to be very large and orange, and seemed to have some kind of a short muzzle of a lion, and black stripes all across it's body.
"You look funny. Besides, we could make! it! We did make it!" he shouted at his fellow, and laughed as if his friend was the one with it all wrong.
"So you had to do something horrible."
He stopped, still as stone, and it seemed that his friend slowly drifted away down the street.

#1.5 - After The Storm

Nathan woke up with a blurry start, his head heaving and his stomach unwell. It took him a while to remember he had spent hours at Scran & Scullies, a bar for amateur bartenders and heavy drinks to heave your mind to the ground. He stumbled to the sink and leaned down to drink water before vomiting out his hangover.

The radio was still buzzing, the air of the room sized building off of the speakeasy seeming to be cold and wet. He was still on time with his rent of the place, though the speakeasy's boss didn't really like the idea of him lingering.

"There really is a nice place- that Meridian. I know you don't like heights but it's not like you can't be on the first or second floor I suspect. It's really is nice," he said as Nathan read the newspaper at the bar.
"Let me drink your drinks."
"You always go for that Scran & Scullies."
"Do I now? I don't remember going at all," he puzzled.
"You trotted out of here into the flurry at four and wasn't back till eight or nine. Your clothes were awful smelling- like some mold leeched onto you."
"Your drinks are too soft."

By midday, a great desire for burgers overtook him. He wandered from that one end of town to the other, stopping in front of Dan's Diner. The place was of average style, but the service made it great. The waitresses were all good, though his favorite was Rosalind.
"And what'll ya have today, mister?"
"A burger with American cheese and the double order of fries," he turned to fully face her as he had done many times before. "Have you gotten the chance to read some Fitzgerald?"
"I haven't, sorry. Though, when I do get the chance it shouldn't take long. I'm quick at reading."
"What have you read?"
"Again, I've just read many poems and short stories is all... most recently, anyway. Nathaniel Hawthorne, some of Edger Allen Poe's stuff, and that new writer out from Winthrop Place."
"You are well read aren't you?"
"I suppose I am," she said cheerily, before walking off to the kitchen.

Following the filling lunch, he came to stop at the public library, the 'b' slightly leaning to it's side as if it was going to fall someday soon. It was a calming place in the yellow dimmed lights. There were always many people sitting around and reading, and most he came to enjoy the company of, save for Owlen and Jane, two separate people cut from the same cold stone. Owlen would mutter whenever Nathan read anything later than 1861 or even the times before then. Jane, would glance at him time and time again, seeming to scold the simple covers of his books. The librarian, Riley Timbertteran, said that those two people had been there just as long as she had, though she never got much of a peep out of them.

By the dusk's early lights, Nathan was back again in the small compartment and sitting on his bed. The jazz music station had been changed to an early rock band, and it no longer crackled. Just when he was about to shut his eyes for the night, there came knocks at his door; three to be precise, one second intervals between them.

#1 - In The Storm

The day started with Nathan shooting a dart in the bar striking the bullseye. A few bystanders cheered him, one raising his refilled jug of the local ale. He smiled lightly and waved the appreciation. There was a long rumbling storm outside, and it seemed to have carried on for days at this point, changing from a bland and moody person moping around, to a roaring wave striking steel and starting flames.

The power went out at seven, the whole day seeming like the blackness of midnight. The boom of the thunder was mute to his ears, far away from any energy of a cheering crowd or a crying woman. Nathan left the establishment in the slow and somber flurry of people that had been captured for a week at this point, for all he knew.

His blazer was getting soaked through, seeping his button-up shirt. Though his hands were cold and his feet were sloshy, he didn't mind it at all, making his way down the street. There was general trash and debris flowing throughout the town, going down the drains and piling in the corners. He then saw an old poster of his, one where he and his wife were standing proudly together; the idea of leading the state still fresh in their minds. He had figured all things of that nature had already been washed away.

He entered the small building he was renting out, placing his wet clothes on the floor of the tiny compartment for his laundry. He turned the radio to life, and the tunes of a sappy jazz band filled the air and invaded the soft thumping of the storm outside. The radio crackled and popped, the signal weak in such a madness of water and cold air. He, half content, sat on the bed and listened. There was very little to go on in his days now, different from all the storms that had been on the sunny and shiny days from what seems a dozen years ago.