The Ending Hour
by Maya Tawipart eight
"Heaven can wait, as you should know by now
But you really don't care, and that's okay too somehow"
--Helium, "All The X's Have Wings"
EPILOGUE
It ends like this:
Due to the testimonies of Harrison Davies, Jack Harper, Benton Fraser, and Stanley Raymond Kowalski, Richard Davies was sentenced to a term of life in prison for the murders of Elise and Trudence Davies, eligible for parole after twenty-five years. Against his lawyer's advice, Richard did not attempt to present a case in his defense.
In light of his testimony, and the mental and emotional abuse and coercion that his lawyer, Meredith Davies, claimed he had suffered, Jack Harper was sentenced to two years in a psychiatric facility for his part in Tru's murder. It was, he confided to Harrison after the sentencing, just like going home.
Harrison and Isaac St. Germain returned to Boston, where Harrison re-opened his detective agency, and Isaac once again took up his life of crime. Despite this, they are currently attempting to rekindle their relationship, and are, in Harrison's opinion, doing a damn good job of it.
Spencer Godfrey is still employed as Harrison's secretary. She did eventually get her much-deserved raise, and used the extra money to buy a brand new computer. No porn site or first-person shooter is safe.
On December 21, four years after Tru's death, Harrison, Meredith, and Something Davis Something-or-other met for breakfast.
Three days later, on Christmas Eve, they gathered again at Meredith's apartment, along with Spencer, Isaac, and Davis' new pet cat, where Harrison met Cassandra Baxter for the first time. He approved, as she is, he told Meredith, "smokin' hot."
Harrison has since quit drinking, and is now smoking three packs a day to make up for it. In retaliation, Spencer refuses to make him coffee in the mornings.
Ray and Fraser returned to their cabin in the Northwest Territories, where they were never heard from again... until the next time.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Or maybe it ends like this:
Olivia drove. She drove as far as she could until she ran out of cash; then she cleared out her bank account, pocketing the last of Richard Davies' blood money, and drove some more. She went south, keeping just east of the Rockies, then spent a week holed up in Arizona as she worked up the nerve to cross the border. She read all the papers and watched all the newspapers, and finally became convinced that nobody was looking for her. Then she drove to Tijuana, bought a fake passport, and, with the last of her money, boarded a flight to London Heathrow Airport.
Her day restarted in mid-flight, and she had to do it all over again.
The periodic replays didn't bother her at first. Harrison could save the dead as much as he wanted; she wasn't part of the game anymore. She begged, borrowed, and stole until she had enough money to buy more false papers, these declaring her a naturalized English citizen. She moved to Leeds, where she met and started dating a man named Eddie. And if, once a week or so, her life was interrupted by a hiccup in the space-time continuum, well, most of the time she managed to turn it to her advantage. Once she even won the lottery.
Then the dreams began.
Dead men and women and children, clawing up from their graves, rotting to dirt as they shuffled down the street. The universe, expanding and contracting, ripping her apart down the middle as each new cycle started again. And a voice, just past the edge of her hearing, indecipherable but urgent, dry and dusty, collapsing under the weight of unfathomable time.
One day, she woke up in Eddie's arms, and the voice didn't go away.
She stole Eddie's credit card, packed a back, and took a taxi to Manchester Airport, where she booked a direct flight to Logan Airport in Boston. She waited at the gate, biting her nails and eyeing her mobile phone. Eddie called nine times. She didn't answer.
Before she boarded the plane, she tossed the mobile in the trash.
Olivia wasn't part of the game. She had moved on with her life. And she would do whatever was necessary in order to keep it that way.
END
MAY | NOVEMBER (1) | NOVEMBER (2) | NOVEMBER (3) | DAY 1 | DAY 2 | AFTER | EPILOGUE Email: mayatawi@populli.net