The mud was threatening to drown out the grass, swirling and marbling round the feeble, thin, green hair-like strands. Bel found her shoes slip forward and backward, motioning and taunting her as she tried to run, but ended up almost crawling in an inhumane panic, scrabbling at the sickly, watery carpet before her. It all felt as if there was some sadist up there, making everything that much harder for her, for His pleasure, so she cursed; "God!".
She was wearing that dress, the one Freddie had simply rolled his round eyes at when she had exclaimed "There was a sale!", because he didn't care- nor did many men, for that matter, but he cared even less than average. Freddie always found away to be abnormal, alien to others, a trait which set him on his travels, but also bought him back home, and she used to feel jealous, at their first job together, starting at the BBC. Then she found that if Freddie wasn't above average, he seemed to strive to be below it as possible, daring himself to be as bad as he could possibly be- childish, but a characteristic that was just so Freddie…it just make her want to kiss him.
That dress was ruined now, cold and clingy, squelching with mud revoltingly and why was she thinking about a dress when Freddie was dead?
A voice so similar to Lix's sounded in her ear; she turned her head slightly to the left."He might not be dead, Bel". All there was was the continuous untrustworthy plain, and then far beyond that, the late night empty road.
A constant exchange of despondency and desperation seemed to shoot through Bel's legs, and she skidded and fell, her dress riding up and then the rip at the hem increasing in length. He may have rolled her eyes, Bel thought, as she lay there with only the damp as a blanket, but he liked her in this dress, had liked her in anything. She could read her Freddie, as well as he could write anything, and his gaze would always be appreciating, but not leeringly. She liked it
Bel didn't get up again, couldn't face continuing the stupid, frantic trek to the hospital, because she would never be as brave, as determined as Freddie Lyon. Lix would come, with Hector, and they would peer down at her, and help her up, and they would tell her the news she had expected, and really was prepared for, but still couldn't cope with. She hoped the grass would grow before they came, and entrap her within the greenery, smothering her and strangling her so painfully, so she'd never see anyone ever again. She hoped some youths, or better yet, Cilente's men, would come and find her, and kick her, hold her up to be punched, be ruthless and just hurt her so she could have an excuse to really scream and let out this charcoal weight inside her.
She was found too quickly, told too softly, taken to Hecter's home and treated too gently. Bel was glass being polished, when she wanted to be smashed against the wall; the next day she had to break herself, going into work, although no one else did, and planned next week's program all by herself; Tribute to Murdered Journalist, Brave and Dedicated, Creative and Passionate, Freddie Lion. Ultimately, he was given a five minute slot, by the sensible Randal, which was elongated illegally by Hector to the whole hour. Their viewings dropped that night, and Bel realised quite how special Freddie was, to them, and no one else. She loved him even more, and imagined what he would say about the crisis in the Soviet Union. She wrote it down.