Children of the Barricade
Did you see them, lying where they died?
Someone used to cradle them, and kiss them when they cried.
When the barricade fell, the world did not only lose revolutionaries. People lost ones that they loved, and their worlds will never be the same. A set of one-shots about the loved ones the revolutionaries left behind.
The Drunkard (Word Count: 769)
Her father was the one who told her. He told her one morning in a clipped tone that the drunkard who lived on the second floor had been foolish enough to participate in the failed revolution at the barricade. He told her to clean up his things and box them up for the boy's mother and clear up the space for a new tenant. Her father was always about the business.
She made her way towards his flat with shaky hands and wobbly knees. Her father had no idea of knowing that the tenant's death would cause her so much turmoil. After all, he probably would have killed her if he knew of her nightly visits to take care of the drunkard.
The first time she made her way down this hallway, was almost a year prior. She had been up late to finish a particularly difficult crocheting piece for her sister's newest child when she heard someone stumbling about in the floor above her. There she had met Monsieur Grantaire fumbling for his keys. She helped him get in and put him to bed. After that, it became a normal occurrence for them.
She entered his room and saw that it was just as messy as it usually was. If Monsieur Grantaire had known he was going to die, he hadn't made any efforts to make it easier to clean up after him.
She tried her hardest to not think of the curly hair man she had grown fond of as she gathered and stacked his schoolbooks near entrance of the room. She focused on the book titles instead and was mildly surprised to see that they were mostly books on philosophy, or history books. She had never pegged Monsieur Grantaire to be the philosophical type. Honestly, she didn't imagine he was an academic type at all.
As she moved to the bed to strip the sheets, she was hit with the last memory she had of him.
"What would I do without you, ma cherie?" he slurred as she pulled the covers over him. She pushed back his curly hair and wiped his face with a washcloth before replying.
"Probably choke on your own vomit and die," she told him bluntly.
"Good thing you are here then, for I would rather hope I die a more valiant death than in bed covered in my own vomit," he remarked, closing his eyes and smiling slightly.
"You are a beautiful soul, and it is a shame that you only see me like this," he continued to ramble. "If you knew me in the daylight, you might have even fallen in love with me."
After that, he had fallen asleep and she had snuck out of his room, as was their routine.
Monsieur Grantaire had often flirted with her, and at first she was flustered and flattered. The more time she spent with him, the more comfortable he became and babbled on about things going on in his life.
Nothing was ever explicitly stated, but she could tell that he cared deeply about someone, but that that person did not feel the same about him. In fact, she had a hunch that these unreturned feelings were a large part of why he came home drunk every night in the first place.
After the mattress was stripped, she shook her head to dispel her mind of a man that she would never see again. She went back to emptying bookshelves, clearing his desk, and emptying his closet. Her father would become angry if she took too long to do such a simple task.
As soon as everything was finished, she looked around the empty room with sadness. Her throat constricted and she felt a few tears slip down her face.
She was about to leave when she spotted the corner of an envelope sticking out from the crevice of the desk. Confused, she cautiously pulled at it and was surprised to see her name scrawled across the front of it. She eagerly ripped it open.
Ma cherie,
I am sorry to leave you so abruptly, but at least you will no longer have to take care of my drunken self, as handsome as I am.
I have treasured your presence in my life. I truly would not have survived without you.
Stay beautiful.
-R
With fresh tears in her eyes, she realized that Monsieur Grantaire was wrong that last night she was with him. She didn't need the daylight. She had fallen in love with his damaged soul in their secret moments at night, and she had realized it too late.
