Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 7

flowers for the vase on the table next to the front door, opposite the stairs splitting his home in half. The vase, a family heirloom, was the only object left to him that did not include more Responsibilities. Consequently, as the last of his line, the vase only symbolised the familial pressure on him to extend the only branch bloodline. It was about time for him to fill it with something worthwhile, even if temporary, before he decided to get rid of such a gloomy antique. After all, I am (what they call) gay .
    CHAPTER 3 – The Encounter
    I went to the collection point today, by the Wall's entrance, next to the area with the sensitive camera. Fresh milk and eggs spoil after the fourth day, so it was while I was on a usual collection that I also went and gathered some wild flowers along the way for the vase. However, the first time I got some flowers was a while back; I just did not have the inclination to document it.
    The kitchen usually is fully stocked by the next stop at the collection point: a normal meal would feed me for a week, if it ever lasted that long. My immortality reduces my need for conventional food due to my slow routine. Only with that recent fright did my appetite rear its head for something wholesome and hearty in the morning. Nevertheless, even that did not dent the stock or supplies. So on most of my outings for flowers I didn't have any other necessities to procure.
    The pain still won't go away. No matter how I run it through my mind, I can't think of any thought or memory that could be running amok. There is nothing left to cause any more pain or possible injury. The pain is still excruciating; a burning, with no heat, in my chest; and my food becomes a viscous paste in my throat and turns to acid in my gut. I know I have been subjected to something, and it hurts. But, for the life of me, I don't know what!
    At least I still look better than the curdled milk or rotten eggs I threw to the forest refuse pit.
    ~ Jeremy, November 29th, Journal Number -
     
    As Jeremy returned home, he held the roses he found along the way underneath his large, red jumper. It kept him warm from the incessant drizzle falling from the sky and dampening his simple clothes. Thus, his track through the wilderness to the Wall's entrance was unusually fortuitous by finding the blooms, so he was not as disgruntled as he usually was. His anxiety led him to stride through to the gap in the Wall that would hold any provisions on order, if it were a collection day. However, this was not the case today, so the handful of blooms lightened his mood considerably by making his walk useful.
    The constant cold morning rain fell: light, but enough to have him semi-saturated in seconds. He moved carefully, with perseverance, through the labyrinth of yellow grass tracks in the wild meadows. He passed the opaque hedgerows and trees that outgrew his slender and average frame and height, refusing to break his habit of a walk simply to get dry. The roses will still survive as they are by his heart, in the dry.
    With the velvet petals against his chest, he arrived home, and saw his manor in a new light. Its lines seemed too straight, and the natural design too formalised next to the wilderness beside it, sparking feelings of unease and pains again. He looked up at trellises woven with a fine tapestry of ivy over and around the door, providing a slight shelter from the rain through the arch, and slowed his pace further.
    He took a single step into the shelter with only a single tap of his heel. He froze. Only a few drops fell from the living canopy and onto his dripping forehead as he stood still on the porch. The soft patter of rain was all that could be heard as many minutes passed. The noise that had made him freeze eventually resumed from inside his home.
    It came from the kitchen. As he silently passed through the front door, muted sounds of shuffling, scrapes, soft bangs and muffled curses greeted him on his right hand side, in the kitchen. Being quiet was his skill, and silence was his self-imposed virtue; he may now be the ostentatious eccentric and an enigma in the council, but this was after he ensured his competency and safety in this sanctuary. Old skills were not forgotten as he entered. Silent and like a shadow, he crept over to see the sacrilege screaming from the room.
    Jeremy could not decide if it was the fury or fear, both burning in his chest at the evidence of an intruder, that forced him to sneak into the kitchen to