by Basil Benson » Fri Jul 15, 2016 2:17 am
"Don't!!!" He cried out, but it was too late to stop her. She had revived the neighborhood, and it was more than willing to tell his secrets to them.
The dust had a strange reaction to the neighborhood, causing everything it touched to become modern and brimming with life. A dark haired boy with bright blue eyes was seen repeatedly through-out the streets, like a plague of wirey, lively scouts. He was at various stages in life right up to the cusp of manhood. Given the example of what he had grown into, these boys had to be reflections of Basil himself. These boys were often present with people no one but Basil would be familiar with, save two.
The Red-headed man whom Colette knew to be Howard existed too here in various stages of life, though none ever younger than a young man himself. Every version of him seemed to be keeping little Basil safe. Having a smoke and watching him closely while Basil danced and sang showtunes on the sidewalk to him, grabbing him by the shoulder as he tried to step out into the street, taking a kitchen knife away from a Basil who was ill advisedly waving it around like he was a swashbuckler just inside one of the shop windows.
Colette would also recognize several versions of his mother Jessica also amid several different activities at the same time at various points along the street. Cleaning a Basil's face with spit and then fidgeting with his clothes on one corner, standing next to a lamppost obviously scolding him about something elsewhere.
The most unusual occurrence of his mother was in a doorway, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the left side of the door jamb. The weird part was that leaning on the opposite side of the door-frame was a young woman just coming into adulthood who held a passing resemblance to her, dressed in the sort of gothic garb that was popular not but a few years ago. It couldn't be a reflection of her, the wardrobe was far too recent. And Basil was an only child as far as Colette knew. A niece perhaps? After a moment, Jessica passed her cigarette to the unnamed girl, and the anonymous female took a drag before handing the cigarette back to Basil's mother.
This girl would appear in a few other places as well. Drinking alcohol straight from the bottle alone on a stoop, walking by herself up the street with a hood pulled over her head and her hands in her pockets, admiring herself in a mirror inside one of the shop windows while wearing something just as shiny and tight as Colette's own outfit.
There were also other 'repeat people' that absolutely no one knew, though they could take guesses at who they might be to Basil.
A stern looking man kept looking at them from a variety of positions up and down the street, in and out of shops, but what he was watching for wasn't apparent. He bore no resemblance to Basil and as such, it was difficult to guess who he might have been. In one instance, the stern man was yelling at an elderly couple inside of a home, but with so many people in the streets right now, what they were fighting about couldn't be heard.
The Elderly couple dominated the neighborhood, only seconded by Basil himself. There were tons of the pair of them all over the place. The Old man inside a home window with a nearly asleep,tiny Basil sitting in his lap as he talked, the two reading together on a bench, the elder a newspaper and the younger a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Old Man pushing behind his bicycle and letting go, forcing Basil to ride without his training wheels, the old man and the boy sharing a bag of jelly babies.
Nearby to them, the old woman could be found sharing tea with Basil inside a home's window, in another making arts and crafts together, and in another playing doubles on a piano.
For his part, the aspect of Basil they'd up to now been working with, the Bohemian, was obviously trying to tune out these people as he kept turning away only to be faced with more of them. And so it finally came that he had to focus on one scene in order to drown out all the others that were currently playing out in front of him.
A little Basil wearing a yarmulke pulled the drapes open on a window, and excitedly placed a menorah there for the rest of the neighborhood to see. With the assistance of the older gentleman they lit a Shamash candle, then the six other candles that were larger than normal together, and placed the Shamash back in it's proper home in the middle. The older woman and Basil's mother joined them, though Jessica seemed less than thrilled to be involved. Together, they began to recite something none of them but the Bohemian would technically understand, but Sam would probably get the jist of what was going on here.
"Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha'olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah."
In kind, the Bohemian would inch closer to the window, and continue into the next blessing with them.
"Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha'olam, she’asah nisim l’avoteinu, b’yamim haheim bazman hazeh..." He added. The young man slowly leant his head against the glass and started to cry.