"I
don't know, Harvey. It's never happened before. Ronald, the policeman
said. "Sure, kids have messed around in the graveyard before, but nothing
like this. For Christ sake, they took the bones."
He took
a sip of coffee. He and Harvey were sitting at the counter at the Long Horn
diner.
"Then
the trains. Not one, but two of them. Strange."
"That's
what Ellen said." Harvey replied.
"Well
it doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to know that. Holy Cow." He sighed. His
burger arrived, he took a bite then said, "Then the two weirdos in the
park. I had to back-up Jules and Raymond. They were freaked out about the boy.
The old man then started shouting nonsense at everyone."
"Yeah,
Ellen told me about him so I had to see for myself."
"What'd
he say to you?"
Harvey looked-up, paused, then
said, " '"How terrible--to see the truth/when the truth is only pain
to him who see.' But I felt like I needed more context, so I just stood there
for a minute and then he started shouting profanities at me so I left."
"Well,
we didn't arrest him because we were too nervous. But we did make them
take the tent down. Can't spend the night there, we told them."
"What
about the jade pendant?"
"What
about it?"
"Is
it real jade?"
"Who
knows, that's the least of our worries. The priest says it's someone who was
important to this town."
"I
think no one stole it, but it rose from the grave on it's own. It's got some
unfinished business."
"Harvey,
you need to stop reading vampire books."
"They're
about love, really, Ronald. I'm trying to find inspiration for my poems. I've
been having a hard time writing lately."
"Give-up
on that woman, she's not good for you or to you."
But Harvey couldn’t and certainly wouldn’t. As he talked
back to work at the Victorian, he thought about the prophet and Ellen. He knew it was a sign, a message just
for him. The truth, he felt, was just a poem away.
His
head was down and he was deep in thought when he accidently ran into a woman
layered in red. “Oh, I’m so sorry.
I was lost in thought.”
She
smiled, then said, “Not a problem Harvey, but don’t you think you owe yourself
the real truth?” She then stepped around him and was lost in the fog. Harvey
stood for a moment looking into her wake. Suddenly, he smiled, then said. “I know what my next poem will be: The
Prophecy of Love”
