!I UPLOADED TWO CHAPTERS TODAY. MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT CHAPTER 26: COUSINS AFTER THIS!
mykasa: No worries! I'm just glad you keep coming back once in a while to read. And about writing a book, I guess you're reading my first one right here! As for a proper published one, maybe I'll write one in the future...
C (Guest): I'm glad that you like this story! I'm not sure if you just recently found my story, but thanks for pushing through all those chapters!
!I UPLOADED TWO CHAPTERS TODAY. MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT CHAPTER 26: COUSINS AFTER THIS!
An Eldian's Journal
Wartime Shenanigans
Chapter 25: The Street of Embers
After I left Lina to her cloth-washing adventures, I took the spare newspaper over to see K. I looked down at the one line of the crossword puzzle I completed with her, and I couldn't help but feel a smear of awkwardness on my fingers. A thought floated in as well: 'Ugh, why did I think she would want to do a crossword puzzle when she's obviously upset? Even then, girls in general don't like crosswords, do they?'
When I found K, he was sitting by the vegetable-lacking vegetable market. I went to sit next to him in the metaphorical bubble we would typically encase ourselves in whenever we sat next to each other on the street-side. Dust was doing a rain dance around us, and the injured guitar with a broken string stood limp against the wall. A dog with droopy ears rested patiently by K's feet.
"I'm sorry again about the guitar."
"It's ok." I pulled out the spare newspaper from my bag, and K finished his response. "It's ok since you're going to be the one to fix it."
My hand froze in the bag. "How am I going to fix it?"
"You can figure it out."
I took the newspaper out, and we completed the crossword slower than usual, mainly due to the dog that sought continuous attention. Upon finishing, I simply looked up at the sky, and I was reminded of the bomb sirens from the days before. I wondered if humans were resting in the clouds with their sinful smiles stitched to their faces, waiting to toss their explosives onto us.
I told K, "We keep having bomb sirens, but no bombs are being dropped."
"The humans with fezzes like to bluff." The aching tree with a raggedy jacket and whisker beard unfolded itself vertically. "But all humans like to do that."
The dog stood along with K as if it was expecting an adventure of some sort. However, I was confused; why was K getting up? He would never get up unless I pushed him for something life-threatening, such as a bomb siren.
"Where are you going, Mr. K?"
"I need to visit an old house."
"Whose house?" I was surprised by the fact that K had known of any house to begin with.
With a mute face, he muttered. "A house with dead people." He then tilted towards me. "Would you like to come with me, H? There's something you can help me with there."
"Sure...but where is it?"
"On the edge of section F, near section D. The house is in The Street of Embers."
He pointed his finger in the direction of the street. I stood up and immediately started walking in that direction for a reason that I still don't know 'till this very day, I didn't even bother to check if K was following me.
When I realized my stupidity, I turned around to see him a block behind me, so I instantly ran back to him.
"You're walking so fast." I couldn't hold back the sarcasm.
***K's FIRST RECORDED JOKE***
With a deadpan delivery: "I know. I used to run track."
I started thinking of a possible way to get to our location faster. At the pace K was walking then, it would probably take a whole afternoon just to get there. An idea buzzed my brain when I came across another bicycle peddler with an average dose of indecency. He was displaying his supposed athleticism by riding past people on a parallel sidewalk like they were bowling pins until he ended up crashing straight into one. The victimized bowling pin got up and cursed a dictionary of swear words with assorted letters and syllables.
It reminded me of a certain man with a mouth just as foul and had some wheels—Dick the cabbage man. All I needed to do was find him. I told K what my plan was, and as a reply, his bony face groaned oddly. He proceeded to sit down on another unsuspecting sidewalk tile.
The cabbage man was a cabbage "artisan." At least, that's what I'd like to say since he seemed to devote his entire waking hours to the pursuit of selling cabbages while enjoying his hobby of public indecency. I kept my ears open for the sound of bartering and unfair prices.
After a short bout of walking about, I managed to drop in just in time for one of his sales pitches. A random woman with a veil on her head minded her own business with her child. And, of course, the mediocre salesman swooped in for the kill. Those are the kinds of people he liked targeting the most—people trying to go about their day without causing trouble.
The cabbage: "Listen here you. Cabbages are a rarity in the time we are in now. You should get one before they're gone."
"If it's such a rarity how come you have a full cart here?"
"Because...well.." It felt odd watching the man who once poured his heart out talking about his son acting like a complete scoundrel in front of a stranger. "Because my previous stock ran out so quickly. "
"Is that because you ate them all?"
The stranger's son sneezed and laughed at the same time. The cabbage man's face was steaming so much that his ivy hat must have had difficulty staying on his head.
"Let's go, dear."
While the mom wasn't looking, the cabbage man knocked the soccer ball out of the kid's hands and put cabbage in them instead. He bolted towards his cart with the potbelly counterbalancing his movements. He started pushing the cart away until a rock grabbed the cart's wheels, and the whole thing went tumbling sideways.
I watched the resident conman get conned by nature. True beauty.
I walked up to the cabbage man and bent down to his level. His face was a tomato among the leafy spheres of green. I handed him an offer instead of a helping hand.
"Heinrich?"
"If you let me use your cart for the day, I'll help you clean up the cabbages right now."
The cabbage's face retreated to pink. "Really?" Maybe he thought I was forgiving him little by little.
"Yes."
I lifted up the cart's handles and took one quick glance back at the man who was surrounded by the bumpy patches of green. He was scrambling to pick stuff up.
I bolted away with the cart.
I didn't clean up any cabbages.
As I bolted away, I heard the reminiscent words. "Heinrich! You little brat!" I turned around and caught a glimpse of the stranger's son throwing the cabbage at the cabbage man's head.
It felt great conning the conman that ruined my October on that one night weeks before. I was already indirectly hired to play guitar for someday anyway. That was as far as my forgiveness was going to go.
XXX
After I took the cabbage cart, I returned to K and the dog. K's twig finger pointed at the cart forged of deceased trees. "You want me to ride in that?"
"Yes."
The cart had two wheels and was big enough to carry a pile of bones—I assumed they were the same weight and density as K anyway. All I needed to do was hold the handles and push.
"I'm not getting in that!" K's old behavior began springing through the cracks on his face.
A wheeze that sounded like grinding gravel slipped from his mouth.
"It's not like you have anyone to impress."
As a replacement to the bag of bones, the dog hopped in the cart and left its tongue out while looking at K. It wagged its tail almost as if it was calling him over. As the final nail of persuasion, it let out a bark.
"Fine. I'll get in." He hid his guitar behind a trashcan. It's not like anyone would want it anyway, but it didn't hurt to be safe.
You can always count on a dog to help you out.
***THE CONTENTS OF A "STROLLER"***
A mutt
A baby in the form of wrinkles and a stingy armband.
I walked down the street with a "stroller" that I'm sure no one expected.
Families with babies in strollers rolled past us, and the parents opened their mouths in shock. In contrast, others simply refused to acknowledge the sight. Even babies woke up to see the anomaly that passed by them.
We paid no attention,
for we had a mission.
One that I had no idea about.
K told me directions from the cart where to go and where to turn. But with every street we passed, I noticed more and more scars on the houses that overlooked us. The buildings were low-hanging clouds made of swollen bricks and pessimistic ash. People walked out of the posters of smoke and fog like first-time breathers of pollution when in reality, they must have grown up breathing it all the time.
A voice from the cart disrupted my observations with a call-back to a question I asked earlier. As far as small-talk used to go, K had the most extreme discussion topics. "H, you asked me earlier why we keep having bomb sirens, but no bombs. I think I know why."
I looked away from the scabbed buildings and asked, "What is it?"
"The mid-east allied forces may be trying to scare us...making the ammunition of the world's greatest military worry under the threat of bombs would be great for them."
I was still confused. "If their goal is to make us scared, wouldn't dropping actual bombs do the job best? Eldians are ammunition for Marley's military. If they kill all of us, the military loses their advantage."
It made sense, even for my teenage mind. Wouldn't going the total distance of wiping off Marley's Eldians be taking away from Marley's tactical advantage? The mid-east allied forces have more advanced tech, so I thought they would surely win. (We all know who actually won the war. But of course, I didn't have a clue at the time.)
K: "Now that I think about it more, if the MEAF flew planes even close to Marley, they would get shot down rather quickly. They wouldn't even have time to drop bombs on the internment zones. Yet, the sirens are played anyway."
"Or maybe, it's all a lie." After observing people in the bar, the basement, and even on the street, I had finally learned a little something about the human mind and behavior. My ignorance opened its doors to people. "The Marleyan government could be using them to keep us in order. Fear is an effective tool to keep people in line."
K turned towards me and squinted. Even I was surprised by the dash of intelligence in my statement. However, I quickly forgot about it as a coal worker passed by and spat at my feet. Such friendly Eldians.
As we kept plodding through the fog and ash, I noticed that occasional houses stood over us nude without clothes on. All you could see were the bone-like foundations that they used as stilts to keep themselves alive. They were the pimples on the face of Section D. As we kept approaching the destination, the streets grew less populated with devils. The clouds in the sky huddled together like a football team to form a blanket of grey.
"We're here. The street of embers."
The street of embers was guarded by distorted houses that rarely contained more than two walls. Significant bite marks were left on some due to the malleable jaws of flames and the throats of flamethrowers. It was a sight that burned onto the back of my retinas. I could hear screams as if people were being cooked right in front of me, over and over again. The mutt whimpered as it looked out of the cart.
"We have to go to the middle of the street…." K's words dwindled off, and his voice was quiet compared to the corpses of screams that surrounded us.
"I-It's this one." He raised his arm rather calmly—it was peculiar to see someone so indifferent to the grim surroundings. The house he pointed to had a "U" shaped wall, and the door was open as if it was welcoming us into the charred memories it once had.
With a gulp, I put the cart down so that K and the mutt could get out. The mutt's tail was lowered, and it slowly plodded out, but K...he kept sitting without budging.
"W-What's wrong, Mr. K?"
"Everything."
The aching tree struggled as he got up, for his roots were too weak. I quickly rushed in, and I helped him up—I became his roots for a short walk. We walked in front of the house.
As we walked in, I accidentally stepped on a nameplate, but I was too nervous to really care. The inside looked similar to the house Viktor and the gang found with the boxing ring in the basement. This one, however, looked like it was dressed in an artist's charcoal. In the kitchen, a cabinet was open; it was big enough to fit a child.
"Let's go to the basement."
I helped K down the stairs, and we opened the door to mundane darkness. K told me to pick up the matchbox that was nearby, and I lit a match. The flame revealed multiple crates, and K wobbled over to one. He slowly opened the cover, and inside was…
Canned food.
K was a mysterious man in my eyes already, but this was a bizarre bonus. I wondered why there was so much canned food just lying there. Yet, it made sense. This was why he never bugged people for food on the street.
"I visit once in a while ...today's a special day, however," K said indifferently.
Once again, I had so many questions. All that mysterious build-up, just for canned food.
"H, take some of the cans and load them into that cart. The dog can walk next to us instead of sitting inside."
I picked up a few cans and walked up the stairs waiting for what happened to boil in my head. I accidentally stepped on the nameplate again when walking out of the main entrance. When I came back from the cart, I picked up the plate and saw the names.
***A NAMEPLATE***
Mr. Alex Kruger and Mrs. Liesa Kruger
The plate fell, and an imaginary crash played when it reached the bottom. What stood out to me was the first letter of the last names these people shared: "K." It all made sense to me, or so I thought. Mr. K = Mr. Kruger. But once again, I was stumped; why didn't he bother telling me his full last name before I found it out myself?
K came out of the door.
"Mr. K, who are you?" I looked down at the plate. "No...Mr. Kruger..."
The aching tree's skeleton face grew skin for just a moment, and I saw a flutter of sadness underneath the whiskers on his jaw. His emotions stayed sealed in the wrinkles, but just for a moment, they slipped. They shouldn't have been there.
"Those were the names of my aunt and uncle." He took the plate and felt the letters in the rusting metal. "They have a son."
"..."
"His name's Eren Kruger."