Quinque

Flynn, a man with a great learned appreciation for solitude, did not necessarily value emotional attachment; but some would argue he needed something to hold onto, if everything else had slipped from his fingers. After service, he licked a finger and turned five pages in the registry.

“T...t...Tanner...Tawley...Taylor-bingo.” Flynn punched the phone number into his beeper. Flynn reread the signatures:

‘Veronique Blue Rothbourne-Taylor
Marcellus Dominic Taylor
Jane Taylor.’

He could no longer harbor any doubt. She was nearly comically, evidently, adopted.

-

Something in Jane truly wanted to attend the funeral, cemeteries were a place of comfort for her; they, like memorials, were mostly for the living. She was certain that the dead could not care less where they festered, for soon they would be one with nature once more, and in that, nothing else mattered.

Mr. Theodore would be laid to rest under the stateliest tree of willow Jane had ever seen in reality or photo. It blossomed snowy flowerings and hung over the procession, as if in loving embrace. Jane found few things truly beautiful anymore, yet she stood in wonderment, gazing up under it during the lowering of the casket. He was interned several plots away from her mother and father’s mausoleum.
Jane broke her gaze, searching for it. She had been here once in the past, however she had not returned since, and she had been prepubescent then. She turned, trying to scan beyond the endless bereaved onlookers, only to find his familiar face again. Turning away in slight aggravation, she walked off and away; no one was aware. She sprinted towards the cloudy marble crypt.
Flynn watched her go, assuming she knew who was inside, he merely observed as she closed the heavy door behind her. Turning back towards the service, Flynn waited, glancing back occasionally, and when she did not reappear from beyond the doors, he grew fretful.  Deciding what he would do, he broke away from the crowd, and found himself approaching the tomb as well. Courteously, he knocked thrice; and when there was no response, he entered himself, finding that the lights were turned on; and a sobbing, barefoot Jane sitting in the corner. Jane did not appear surprised to see him.
Flynn kneeled immediately beside her, she turned her face away. “Don’t ask me if i’m ‘okay’” she demanded.
He lowered his gaze in pity, “I wasn’t going to.”
“Please leave.” She wiped under her eyes with her index fingers.
“Not without you, friend.” Flynn insisted. He stared her down with great concentration before sitting fully on the floor near her in his grey dress pants; it was if he were counting her eyelashes, before long she grew tired of the palpable, mystifying tension, and Jane closed the space between them with earnest. Under the effect of infatuation, time seemed to stretch on into an endless cosmos of eternity, but alas it could not be called a kiss by definition. Rather, one with a crude perspective could say Jane punched him in the mouth with hers. It was awkward and angry, and neither one of them necessarily enjoyed it, but rather understood that somehow it was imperative, as if this embrace would maintain the balance of the universe. It certainly held their worlds together. Jane departed from him, baffled. Wordlessly, she slipped back into her shoes and headed for the door. Flynn let her go; it was not as if they would never see the other again. For she was as much tied to this town by despondency as he was; and though it was sickly bittersweet, that was what he enjoyed about the revelation. He did not feel deprived by her flight.

Vague, otherworldly things appeared clearer to Flynn now. It was possible, that if charming maids and knighted heroes who often slayed dragons in the hearts of men, dared to exist in reality, then they were always far too extraordinary for this world, and therefore must leave, far too soon.