The early morning birds rose with the first rays of sunlight, and the first three beeps of Charles's alarm clock. He turned it off. He hadn't slept that night, just as he hadn't slept at all the night before. Only today he hadn't been waiting for a ghost; he had been contemplating revenge, in all its senses. Clara had called him twice, but he hadn't picked up the phone. Christopher had come into his room once to speak to him, but Charles didn't even look up. He knew that if he did, he would most likely strangle his uncle on the spot. His mother hadn't appeared.
He left his room at six thirty, hoping to catch some morning peace in the kitchen. After managing to swallow a breakfast, Charles grabbed his cell phone and wallet, and went out. He didn't really have an objective or a reason to wander downtown, but he did. He sat in a small French café Clara had shown him a while back, where beautiful girls would wink at him and he wouldn't even notice, and hot, steaming tea warmed his senses by the noisy streets. He took the subway to a park where fountains spurted waterfalls of blue water and sprinkled all about them with cool drops, and gardens swayed in the summer breeze, sending calming scents of flowers about the busy streets. He went to a theatre and bought two tickets to a play he'd wanted to see with Clara for a long time, a theatre with red cushioned chairs and velvet curtains, where every actor knew him by name and he would stand with Clara to cheer them on their talented ways. He skipped rocks from the boardwalk that led through the shallow parts of the lake, where the eternal horizon stretched and smiled at the white-sailed boats that searched their own limits. He visited his mother's favourite gallery, where impressionist paintings lined the cool blue walls, and crystal chandeliers lined the hallways that led from one artistic sanctuary to another. He walked along the main street and dropped pennies into the hats of half a dozen beggars, some sitting and smiling at the occasional kind heart, some playing beautiful tunes to the spirit of love, lost in the music. He looked into malls, bursting with vain teenage girls who giggled at the newest photographs of their celebrity loves, and painted their faces to find much-needed attention in a world that should have been their own. Charles walked up and down the streets, lost himself in books he took from chestnut shelves as he sat on cushioned sofas in the grand library, followed all the scents of all the flavours of life through the great breathing city, but he couldn't find peace. Not even the prettiest roses of beautiful bouquets, frozen in shop windows. Roses reminded him of his father's grave.
And of course, with his day of mindless wandering, Charles was bound to find himself in the cemetery. The immense stones of grey and green, standing, forgotten, in fields of death, waiting for a faithful visitor. And that's what it was, wasn't it? Life was nothing but a question of faith. Charles bent down by his father's grave, shuffling the rotting roses that lay beneath the grey stone.
"It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" he found himself muttering, half to himself, half to the corpse below. "Not a cloud in the sky. Don't you get tired sometimes, just lying there, only coming out at night? You didn't want to die. Why don't you just go on, go wherever it is you should go? I'll take care of it for you." Charles grasped a handful of loose petals and soil, and brought it up to his face. Grains crumbled and fell upon the grave, and the remaining rose juices wet the clenched soil with their dying aroma. He rocked back and forth awhile, not caring who saw him. He kneeled, placed the soil over the roses, and kissed the tombstone.
"I'll take care of it for you," he whispered. There were no tears.
The bright lights of the study went out with the closed shutters. Two black leather shoes stood by the entrance to the immense chamber, accompanied by the coat of a businessman. Their owner, the CEO of Manser Industries, sat by the light of a lamp and read, occasionally looking up to the door, which remained still and soundless. Sometimes there were steps in the hall, but no knocks. His peace was uninterrupted until the book lay open on his lap, his glasses askew, his mouth emitting soft snores in the dim chamber. As the CEO slept away, three maids on the third floor of the Manser house sat huddled in the empty closet of a once-important duke, gossiping in the place of work. And although they assumed that no one would listen in to their rather pointless conversation, they were wrong. Julianne Manser, the wife of the wealthy CEO, had come in to rest on the large sofa in the house's smallest sitting room. However, having heard hushed whispers, she could not help but listen. To the left of the sitting room window, a rather gloomy-looking cleaner swiped off the last bit of dirt from the windows of the corridor. He turned in his cleaning tools at the base of the Manser house, and, wiping the grime off his face, headed home. When he turned the corner of the second street, his car emitted a burst of smoke that caught an unsuspecting pedestrian puffing on a cigarette. The man looked up, sneezed, and grumbled something under his breath before grasping his suitcase and continuing up the main street. He passed the red light district, where he caught the gaze of a prostitute. Shrugging off the urge to sneeze, the man walked on. The girl watched him disappear into the city crowds and turned to catch the eyes of any other man who would pass. She tried to find the attention of a particularly handsome youth, who carried himself with great importance despite a casual choice of wear. She took note of his blond hair and reflective blue eyes, and stepped in his way. He blinked and muttered a quick, "sorry," seeming not to notice her. The young man, having other things on his mind, followed the stream of the crowd until he reached a certain building. There, he dug into his coat pocket for the keys, and pressed them into the locked door. Six storeys up, in a room with a view of the lake, Clara Flenn glanced out the window.