I think the title is pretty self-explanatory: It's an alternate ending to the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God,written by Zora Neale Hurston. Ya, not about Paradise lost; it wasn't in the sub-section categories for books. And no, I did not write the novel; if I had I would be dead by now. Anyway, enjoy!

Their Eyes Were Watching God: Alternate Ending

After the trial Janie's feet were at a loss; they didn't know where to go. The muck was insinuated with Tea Cakes presence so that the sight of the green fields, the sound of wild night dances, the smell of the swamp and the feel of its wind on her cheeks brought back the memory of Tea Cake sharp and sweet, and with it a fresh wave of grief at his loss.

No, the muck would not do.

Eatonville had its own share of unpleasant memories. It was Jody's town, and the people there- excluding her friend Phoebe- did not accept her without him. He had been a fine mayor and she was just an old widow running off with any young boy that compliments her hair. Not that Janie really cared what those people thought; they all had such high and loud opinions about anything and everything that if you listened to half of them you wouldn't know your left from your right. No, it was another force that deterred her from that town. It was the store, her prison. It was the big white house that she and Jody had lived in, where he had died cursing her. It was the dusty streets that Jody's memory strutted up and down like he was still living and they were still his streets. Jody's ghost would always haunt that town for her.

Janie could not summon enough empathy for Logan to feel any concern for what state he might be in now, nor any desire to return and see. She would not return to an empty marriage purely for stability, it would be like spitting on Tea Cake's memory and Janie didn't think she could bear the weight of another hollow matrimony anyway.

The house that she had grew up in stopped being her home when Nanny died. Janie's feet were at a loss, rejecting and being rejected by every place she knew to call home.

But in her despair Janie looked up to the horizon, the endless expanse of world laid out before her in the white light of the rising sun. And Janie saw how small her known world was, like a drop of water in the expanse less ocean, and she no longer thought of Eatonville or the muck or her old home. Instead she set out to travel the rest of her life, with the horizon always before her, the promise that her dreams would never run out, that there was always something out there worth taking another breath, taking another step for. Her stored wealth slowly dwindled until over half was gone like snow on a sunny day, but she always managed to find enough to live off of. Though there were nights she went to bed hungry and woke up cold, there was also a bountiful of new places and fresh experiences. Her hunger for the world was never sated, but it was not the hunger that consumes your soul from the inside, leaving you wretched with longing, but rather that which motivates one to see more, taste more, hear more, feel more.

During her travels Janie began to write of her life, and found that she enjoyed letting the pen pour forth her voice across the paper. Of her own biography she wrote up to the point that she began traveling, and mailed it all to her friend Phoebe. The packet of paper and ink was so large Janie had to purchase another postage stamp. But it was worth it, for from that point on Phoebe and Janie kept in close touch through mail; Phoebe forever interested in Janie's adventures out abroad and Janie happy to know the doings of the small town.

But finally the day came where Janie woke up on sore feet that wished not to travel to a new place but to find somewhere to rest. So Janie's feet made one last journey to the old town of Eatonville, Florida, who now had a new mayor that Phoebe had talked about in her letters but whose name Janie had forgotten and did not care to remember.

She walked through the dusty streets, saw people she know who looked at her as a stranger, for age withers even the brightest and most resilient of flowers. Her face was lined and her stride was no longer proud and strong, instead she shuffled her feet so that they kicked up dust before her. Her body no longer attracted the eyes of men who saw her and jealous woman's glances. Even her long, dark hair had streaks of gray in it, and it was no longer as black and smooth as a raven's wing. Instead it hung limp down her back in a brittle, tarnished braid. But that was fine.

Janie's value lay not in her appearance or her stride, it rested in her head, of what she knew of the world and what she had yet to teach of it.

So Phoebe did not recognize the old woman who strolled up to her yard and hollered out at her.

"Phoebe!"

" 'Scuse me m'am, but Ah don' know yuh. So wat'cha think youse is doin' hollering at me while Ah'm a-workin' in my yard?"

"Aw, naw! Naw! Phoebe, naw! Hasn't your mother ever done told'ya not to lie?" Janie called out, not offended but rather amused.

"Janie! Why, if it isn't my Janie!" Phoeby cried, recognizing her old friend and standing up. She did not run to her with open arms as she once would have, for Phoebe too had aged, and her legs were sore from kneeling in her garden. Instead she waited until Janie had reached her and they embraced.

"Ah missed yuh so much, Janie, Ah missed yuh so much. Eatonville just ain't de same wit'out you." Phoebe said, reemerging from there embrace and looking Janie up and down with teary eyes.

"Ah missed yuh too, Phoebe. Wished you could've seen some of dem places dat I've seen, if Ah haven't told ya enough about dem in mah letters already."

"Enough? Enough! Youse hasn't told me barely notin' yet! Ah've got half-uh-mind tuh strap yuh tuh a chair and make you tell it all from the beginning, from the moment youse was born. But mah other half is telling me tuh wash and feed yuh; yuh must be tired?"

"Ah rightly am tired, tired enough to fall asleep right here. But Ah s'pose Ah could keep mah eyes open long enough tuh brush the dirt offa me and eat ya out of house and home. Could even stay awake tuh tell yuh a lil' sometin' after suppah, if de food's good enough." Janie said playfully.

And so the two entered Phoebe's house and ate a nice supper and talked long into the night about everything they could not fit into their letters, and much of what they could. Phoebe's husband, Sam, had died a year and a half ago and Phoebe was living alone in the house. She said she was tired of living alone, though, and offered that Janie stay here. But Janie said no, and told her that she had saved a small amount of cash to be able to buy a small house of her own, but that she would visit so often it would feel to Phoebe that she lived here.

So Janie lived the rest of her life in peace in Eatonville, and the thought of Jody never bothered her, because now her cup of life was so full that there was no room for Jody's memory to push itself in there to bother her.

But then came a day that Janie laid her gray head down on the pillow, and the square-toed-one came to visit her again, and she greeted him like an old friend, for she had lived a full life here on earth and was now looking forward to seeing Tea Cake and the Heavenly Kingdom. So Janie departed from this world, with Tea Cake dancing around her and her eyes on the horizon.

Did you like it? No? Well then! I guess this means we can't be friends!

Jk, anyway, I know it's not your typical fanfic but I'm not your typical person so deal with it. Please leave and wants, queries, complaints, confusions, or compliments in a review! That's all, 'ciao!