The Final Destination

Ceilí crunched a couple more steps through the woodchips in the playground to sit on the bench. A heavy thunderstorm the night before made the woodchips a disgusting murky mess, but Ceilí was too tired to register the grey water seeping into her shoes. Weariness plagued her, but she was unable to give in to sleep, kept awake by the panging desire to write about her encounters. The experiences she'd had that day spun in front of her eyes, threatening her with the prospect of forgetting.

Ceilí rose from the park bench, her shoes squelching as the sunk momentarily deeper into the muck. She pulled a journal from her pocket as she walked towards the sidewalk. As she opened the front cover to go through the journal one more time, a deep rumble cut through the wet morning air. A slight tremor shook the pavement, causing Ceilí to drop her notebook in surprise. Water gurgled from the top of the fountain. Gradually the spurts coalesced into tall columns of water and the dirty fountain assumed some semblance if its former glory.

Those walking nearby turned, amazed, to the bizarre sight. Random windows in Watershed Heights opened and heads popped out to watch the water dance up and down, sparkling dawn light across the street.

As the water lost its sparkling allure, Ceilí's eyes shifted to the small crowd gathering around the corner of the building. A smallish woman in unremarkable clothes was joining the crowd, the same woman who Ceilí had tried to help so long ago. Ceilí jogged a bit and fell in next to the woman. The two walked awkwardly to the crowd and realized that they were gathered around a body. Dressed in a black cloak, possibly a habit, a woman lay crumpled on the sidewalk, blood dried and pooled beside her.

"Wow," Ceilí said.

"Wow," agreed Marjorie, "I've never really seen anything like this."

Then Marjorie made her way back to the fountain, ignoring the groups of people gathering, and began to inspect the plants living there.

The Power of Pie

With the end of the school year past, Ceilí slept late, later than she'd slept in years. She woke around... well, the clock was out. In fact, none of the lights were working. Ceilí drew back the curtains and dressed in the glaring noon sun before stumbling outside with a hangover to seek food.

As Ceilí shoved past the stair door out onto the sidewalk, a scent of warm pastry and butter struck her. It took only milliseconds before she recognized the satisfying warmth as pie, and the slight tang that accompanied the smell identified it as pecan pie. Ceilí set off at a jog in search of the smell and arrived back at the diner where she'd begun her previous night. A line was forming, extending past the doors and onto the sidewalk. The lights were off inside the diner as with every building Ceilí passed, lending a mysterious air to the interior of the restaurant.

Ceilí joined the line behind a man she didn't recognize. He started telling the surrounding line his preference of pies, finally resulting in a conclusion that he loved chocolate pecan pies. Ceilí vocally agreed with him and then the both of them returned to silence.

Take Five

It took Ceilí all of 3 minutes to pick out a new outfit from her closet, a powdery blue dress that reached down to her knees with a revealing slit up to her thigh. Normally she found the jeweled neckline too gaudy to wear consciously; fortunately the atmosphere of Deena's Diner allowed such ostentatious attire.

Ceilí forced her feet into a pair of 3 inch black heels and grabbed a clutch hanging from the door of the closet. She wasn't at all surprised when, three steps later, both of the heels snapped simultaneously. Ceilí collapsed onto the floor and dragged the shoes back off before crawling over to the closet and pulling on a traditional pair of black flats.

10 minutes later, a woman wearing a blue dress and black flats and carrying a clutch, all of it mismatched, slipped through the doors into Deena's 28 hour Diner and immediately felt uncomfortable being in public. She forced herself to step up to the bar and sit down on one of the stools. As the hot, heavy smell of fried everything began to soak into her clothes, Ceilí sank her fourth shot and ordered two more along with a hamburger. Across the diner, she saw a young man sit down in a booth already containing a woman and begin to talk to her. Gutsy because of the alcohol, Ceilí abandoned her incoming burger and wove her way across the room, dodging the tables that jumped in front of her, to land in the booth next to the young man and across from the woman. Miraculously, both shots had made their ways over with Ceilí, and in a fit of generosity, she offered one to each of her companions.

"Long day? Mine was. Want shome of deese? I ken get pllently more!"