[right][sub][color=lightgray]TIMESTAMP: Sunday Evening → A Dream
[i]A world if Allison Davies never died[/i].[/color][/sub][/right]
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[color=gray][indent][indent]Beau didn’t know how long Eva would be gone for but there was always time enough for a good book. 

Antoine’s love affair with the written word began nearly sixty years ago, in a little place off the beaten track in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans. As a boy, Antoine’s family had very little in the way of finances or even a decent place to live. He was the second oldest of six children, his parents Marcellus and Monique were humble people, a day laborer and a housekeeper respectively. They were good, hard working people and even as a boy, Beau wanted to do everything to help them provide for their family. Which was how, even at ten years old, Antoine found himself scouring the Quarter to find anyone willing to hire a child.

One evening, New Orleans was struck by a terrible storm and Beau was unable to make it home. The streets were closed and he was lost in the monsoon, so the boy found the only building with a light on and hid inside. He had stumbled into a tiny bookstore, which May has well been a castle. Mister Moriarty, the kindly owner, offered the boy hot cocoa and a choice of any book to read to pass the time whilst the storm raged. Antoine found his way to the classics and began reading H.G Wells “Time Machine”.  Something about the idea of seeing what life could be like if things in the past could be changed was intriguing.

From that evening onward, Beau found himself immersed in books. He began walking for Moriarty, cleaning the shop and maintaining the books. Even during the brief time before he became a police officer, where Antoine tried his hand in the underworld in hopes of helping out his family, he always made the time to go back to that shop and help out. To him, they weren’t just words or stories, they were lessons, they were worlds he could inhabit and feel and relate to. It could take only one book, one life or turn of phrase to completely change a person's outlook and perception on a world fraught with trials and tribulations. Whenever Beau needed to know the answer, whenever he needed the answer to help someone he would find it in his books.

As he collapsed into the comfy chair that Colleen had got him for his last birthday, Beau’s chestnut eyes fell upon the framed photo on the side table, his five children smiling together at his retirement party. They were his world and the reason he pulled himself out of bed in the morning. The resolute twins, Desmond and Delphine. His little creatives, Genevieve and Evangeline and his wild child, Zara Antoinette. His babies. His life. 

Beau picked up the book next to the photograph of his family and examined the cover. It was a simple black hardback, a silver engraved tree in the middle. There was an author's name written at the bottom but his eyes were feeling slightly heavy or at least heavy enough that he couldn’t make out the name. As VAL continued to play Sam Cooke’s magnum opus [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBlaMOmKV4]‘A Change Is Gonna Come’[/url] Antoine settled on the idea that he would probably go to sleep when Eva returned. He was old now, it was past his bedtime. Though if for nothing else, he could’ve sworn it was Hamlet he had left on the table…

As he prepared to open the book, he was disturbed by a thrice knock on the front door. Had Eva forgotten her keys? Probably, she often did. It was a good job that he and Collie were going to get her a talking key ring for her birthday. She always had so many ideas. He pushed himself up from the chair he had just got situated himself in and rested the book back on the table before heading towards the door once again. Opening up the heavy door, Antoine was blinded by a white hot light, like someone had immediately turned on their high beams directly into his gaze. As the brightness faded, the old man unshielded his face to look upon a familiar figure standing in his doorway.

[color=D3D3D3]“Hey Mister Beau! Long time no see!”[/color]

Charlie looked exactly as he did the day he……wait when was the last time Beau had seen the young native boy? He couldn’t place it. He was always one of the tallest of his students, standing a whopping six foot three. He looked happy, healthy, he was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a buttoned down shirt and thick rimmed glasses with a book tucked under his arm. The morning…wait it was morning? Wasn’t it just the evening? Did Beau fall asleep? What was…why was his head so foggy?  [color=E4DF9B]“Ch…Ch…Charlie it’s early, what are you doing here?”[/color]

Brushing his hand through his shaggy black hair, Charlie pulled the book out and offered it up to his former teacher. [color=D3D3D3]“I brought you an advanced copy of my next book to proofread. It’s not finished yet, obviously but I’d love some feedback whenever you get a chance but don’t worry about that too much right now. Just think about your party.”[/color]

[color=E4DF9B]“Party?”[/color] Beau was struggling to make sense of the morning, he felt like had been asleep for days and was only now just waking up, almost to a new world or so it felt like it. The faint smell  of baked goods wafted through the house and the low humming of a female voice emanated from the kitchen. [color=E4DF9B]“Collie?”[/color] Why was he surprised to hear his wife sing? Who else would it be? He had to stop eating cheese before bed.

[color=D3D3D3]“I’ve said too much. Listen, have a great day, I’m sure I’ll see you at some point but I have to go and get gone before the wife wakes up. She can be cranky. Talk later Mister Beau!”[/color] Charlie jumped down the steps of the porch with a wave and climbed into a nearby car, leaving Beau alone, holding the boy's book.

[color=E4DF9B]“Bye Charlie.”[/color] Antoine waved as he took a few steps out of the front door to stand on the patio. Edenridge looked colorful. The sky was a light shade of blue with an orange hew sinking in the distance from the rising sun. He looked out to see the earlier risers heading to work, walking their dogs or jogging around the housing cul-de-sac that looked like it had been copied directly from the American dream itself. He could smell the damp of a summer's rain and Colleen’s wildflowers in bloom. It smelled cleaner. 

Turning and entering back into his home, Beau wondered why his head felt so cloudy? It was as if he had been drinking the night before and had only just awoken to the world. He was clinging to a thought, a whisper, the last breath of a dying fantasy. Something carried on the current of the soft summer wind made him think that something just wasn’t right. Something wasn’t as it should be and he might possibly have crossed over into the uncanny valley. He walked by the sign for his retirement party and towards the kitchen where he could hear his wife. 

It was as if it was a dream…


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