Disclaimer: I own NOT Hey Arnold! But I love the football-headed boy, so I write fanfics about him and his pals!
This is a little sad, or maybe too sad. Anyways, enjoy (if you like sad stuff) and review!
DEATH IS AT THE DOOR SHORT STORIES
A pink bow, please
"Dad? Are you up? We need to talk." A handsome blond man talked sweetly to his ninety years old father as he softly caressed his hand to wake him up.
"Yeah, yeah. I´m up. Tell me, Joel." He said as he sat on his bed, his deathbed. The feeling of energy leaving him felt very strange to him. He had always been a very active person. However, since she his wife left him about a year ago, Arnold felt hollow and weak inside. The weight of the years felt heavy on his shoulders.
"Just let me get the others." Joel stood up, letting his father´s hand go. He managed a sad smile and went out of the room to call his siblings.
Arnold looked at his oldest son, and felt proud of him. Every time he looked at his son, he saw a better version of himself. Joel was kind, resolute, witty, considered, artistic, intelligent and adventurous. He would have been Arnold´s object of veneration if it hadn´t been for his wife, who constantly reminded him that such a thing as a perfect child didn´t exist.
"Oh, daddy!" Océane stormed into the room, and hugged her dying father.
Arnold saw his daughter´s eyes welled in tears. They were blue, ´as blue as when the noon sunrays hit the surface of the ocean, and the clearest tone of blue is perceived on the line the horizon draws´, his wife had said when he saw her for the first time; and she was right. They decided to name her Océane, ocean in French, for the beautiful color of her eyes. What neither Arnold nor his wife could predict, was that, not only the blue of her eyes, but her personality resembled the so feared and beautiful ocean itself.
Senna and Lucca, Arnold´s youngest children, were standing at the doorframe, unable to get into his dying father´s room. Senna had always been precious to her father. She was as blond as the flower she had been named after, with a bright and cheerful personality that made everyone who met her love her immediately. Senna always had a kind word and a sincere warm smile for everyone, for which seeing her sad as a withered flower, was very hard for her father.
"Come here, dear." Arnold said calling his youngest daughter. "You too, Lucca."
Lucca was born a few seconds after Senna, they were twins. He had grown tall and muscular, resembling his maternal grandfather´s physique, but with an urge and devotion to help others which resembled his paternal grandmother´s soul. He was ´a gentle giant´, in his mother´s word.
There they were, standing next to his deathbed in the order in which they had been born, his four kids, his beautiful children. Arnold had bid farewell to his in-laws and his grandchildren whom he loved deeply. He had also held a private interview with each one of his sons and daughters, but Joel had insisted in gathering them together, so Arnold could share with them his final wish. Arnold knew he had a very short time left, and parted his lips to speak.
"My beloved children, I have lived a very happy existence. I have no regrets or confessions, but a single, easy-to-please wish." His breath was cutting short.
"Lucca, open the left drawer of my dresser, there´s a white box in it. Bring it to me, please." He said as his son followed his directions. His siblings following his movements, eyes fixated on the box.
Once in his hands, Arnold opened the box and pulled out an old pink ribbon. He reached for Joel´s hand, placing the ribbon on it.
"Here, I want to be buried wearing this as a bowtie." He said, solemnly.
"Pink? Are you sure dad? Isn´t blue your favorite color?" Joel asked in confusion, for he had seen that color adorning his mother´s hair. He had never seen his father wearing anything pink.
What he ignored was that pink, and not blue, was Arnold´s favorite color.
Pink was the color of the bow he had complimented when they were toddlers, which she kept on using for the reminiscence of that sweet moment until she became twelve. It had been the color of the ink she had used to write every letter she had sent to him while he lived in the jungle with his parents. It was the color of the lipstick she was wearing when he noticed how pouty her lips were. She was wearing a short dress of that very color the time he noticed how her body had changed, tempting him in way unknown to him at the time. The bubblegum she liked to share with him when she irrupted into his bedroom through the skylight every Saturday morning to play videogames, was a light shade of pink. She had been wearing a pink bra under a white shirt the rainy day in which he realized he didn't see her like one of the boys anymore. Her toe nails were painted in a matching hue of pink with the bikini she had been wearing the second time both of their families ran into each other at the beach. She had been listening to music with pink headphones while riding the bus, as he observed her from the distance when the realization that he had fallen in love with her struck him. And it had been on a beautiful afternoon with clouds tinted in pink when he hadn´t been able to bear it anymore and confessed her his feelings. Pink had been the flowers of her bouquet the day they had gotten married. It was also the color that decorated the tip of her naked breasts, a color he never got tired of seeing. It had been the color of the cover of her first published book. And pink was the color he had seen every moment in which both reached the highest peak of pleasure together. Pink had accompanied him every day of his life, until she had passed away. Ever since that moment, blue had flooded his existence, for he, Arnold Shortman, without Helga Geraldine Pataki, felt nothing but blue.
"Joel, promise!" Senna urged her brother, seeing the pleading eyes of her father.
"I promise, dad, I promise." Joel restrained himself from crying as a smile drew in Arnold's lips.
As the last breath of life escaped from his mouth, Arnold closed his eyes and instead of the terrible black of death he had expected to see, he saw every existing shade of pink.
…
Well, this concludes these short stories. I really hope you enjoyed them and maybe shed a tear or two. Please review!