I wrote something a little while ago...
I wrote this a month ago or so, and I wanna get it published. So I'm tossing it up here to see if anyone has any constructive criticism, feel free. :)
The Sun Will Rise
Ray could remember the first time he met her. Her name was Elaine; she was eighty-nine and his next door neighbor on the fourth floor of his building. The building was an old brick boarding house a dozen or so blocks away from the end of Lake Shore Drive, overlooking one of the public beaches of Chicago. He'd encountered the tiny woman (she was only five-foot-four) in the hallway outside their apartments early one morning as he was returning home from his night shift. She had been putting the keys in the pocket of her coat, and dropped them accidentally, jangling noisily on the floor. A small charm she kept on them broke off and skittered across the hall toward him and he bent to pick it up for her. She thanked him and smiled sadly at him as he handed it to her.
"Why thank you, young man. I suppose it was just it's time to go." She'd looked at the charm with a bit of a frown. "My granddaughter gave me this keychain when she was five years old. I think she'd gotten it out of a quarter vending machine... Lord that must have been nearly twenty years ago now..." Ray smiled, and she chuckled a little. "I'm sorry, listening to me rambling on like this. You must think me a senile old hag." The woman gave him a grin and she extended her hand. "My name is Misses Elaine Burlow, but please, call me Elaine. You just moved in next door, didn't you? What has you coming home so late, deary? Did you have a wild night out on the town?"
Ray smiled and shook his head, taking the old woman's hand gently. "No... No. I'm just getting home from work. I work the night shift at the UPS distribution center across town. My name is Ray, pleasure to meet you." He quirked an eyebrow at her as she let go of his hand. "But what's a lovely little lady like you doing up so early? It's still dark out!"
"Dooohhh," she chided. "Don't you worry about me. I can take care of myself." Winking at him, she produced a small spray can of mace from her other pocket and waggled it at him before returning it to its hiding place. "Although I don't suppose a strong young man like you would be willing to accompany me for added safety." She winked and chuckled again. "I have to go raise the sun."
Ray wasn't entirely sure he knew what she meant, but he did know he was tired. Sore and tired. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Burlow but-"
"Please, call me Elaine. Don't make me get the mace."
This time, he couldn't help but stifle a laugh at the sudden attempt at a menacing face the elderly woman made. He tried to look apologetic, but couldn't quite hide the smile. "Sorry, Elaine, but I had a pile of boxes fall out of a truck on me tonight, and I could really use a soak in the bath..."
"Well, that's alright." She smiled and patted him on the arm. "Another time then. I'll have to settle for that smile instead." Turning, the woman began to walk away.
"You have a good morning, ma'am." Ray went to his door and fumbled for his key.
"Don't you 'ma'am' me, young man," she called from down the hallway. "And don't you go looking at my rear either. I know you are. I may be old, but I'm still foxy and I know it."
Ray outright laughed that time as she rounded the corner out of sight. He'd thought about her as he'd gone about his pre-sleep routine. An odd little woman, she had to be nearly ninety but certainly didn't act like it. What could she have meant by "raising the sun" was the big question, but he'd eventually drifted off to sleep wondering if her twenty-something granddaughter ever visited and if she was available.
---
Ray encountered Elaine almost every morning after that, except when he ran into problems with slow trains or cranky shift managers. She always had something witty to say, he always had a polite retort, and she always asked him if he'd like to accompany her to "raise the sun." A month and a half had gone by before he finally decided to take her up on the offer.
He arrived home before Elaine had left that morning, and waited for her, sitting on the windowsill in the hall outside his door. The sound of her unlocking her door woke him from the daze he'd been in; first the deadbolt, then both chains (she'd installed an extra, much to the annoyance of the land lord), then the doorknob as she opened the door.
"Before you even ask, Elaine, ma'am, I've decided to come with you this morning. My curiosity finally got the better of me."
The little woman huffed faux angrily at him. "Nice to know it was your curiosity and not your concern for my safety that finally won out." She poked her tongue out at him and he blushed slightly. "Now come along, there's a pier just past the end of Farwell Avenue I need to get to before the sun gets tired of waiting for me and finds something better to do." Locking her door, she puttered off down the hall, abruptly changing topics to a recipe she'd seen on the Food Network the previous day for "Vampire Chicken, they'd called it. All it was was a chicken with wine sauce with a piece of wood shoved through it for no apparent reason. As if dentures aren't bad enough, now they want to give me splinters in my chicken!"
They walked down the beach to the pier, and Ray followed her to the end of the pier where she produced a towel sized cloth and sat on it, cross legged, facing east, looking out across the waters of Lake Michigan at the grey glow, just breaking over the horizon. Ray stood behind her, not quite sure what he was supposed to do.
"Sit down and watch, dearie, I'm going to raise the sun. For all I know, it wouldn't come up without me, you know, the world would end and all. I've been doing this since I was a little girl. I've no idea who used to do it before me, but they're probably long gone by now..."
He sat down behind her, off to the side, and the old woman drifted into silence as she stared out at the horizon. She placed her hands in her lap, as if she held a medium sized ball, one hand cupped in her lap, palm up, and the other a little ways above it, cupped palm down. It took a few minutes, but he eventually saw that her hands were moving as the light on the horizon got brighter. The sky got brighter and brighter as she lifted the imaginary ball between her hands, until eventually the sun broke the horizon, gigantic and yellow, shimmering over the water, turning the whole sky a myriad of warm colors. He marveled at the sight, he'd seen it so many times, coming home on the train from his job on the south side, but had never really stopped to enjoy it.
Finally, the sun was fully above the horizon and her arms were lifted up to the sky. She lowered them and stood. "I used to do this standing up, you know. Balancing on one foot even." She stood on one foot to demonstrate, propping her foot against her other knee for support. Ray leapt to catch her as she wobbled, but Elaine cackled and regained her balance. "Oh don't be so rash, I can take care of myself, you know. I'm not some frail old thing that gets blown about in the wind."
Ray smiled sheepishly. "Sorry... You do this every morning, right...? Even in the rain and snow? That seems... unsafe for a ...lady of... your... stature."
She poked her tongue out at him. "Oh hush. I'm not about to catch hypothermia at my age. I stay inside and do it from my window on days like that. I just prefer to be out here for the view and the quiet. Can't hear the cars and the people from way out here, you know. Just the water and the birds and me." She bent and picked up her blanket, folding it and tucking it under her arm. "Well, we best be getting back, that's all I needed to do. Poor thing wouldn't know where to go in the sky if I didn't hoist it up there myself. The sun, that is."
He followed her back down the pier, up the street and back to her door, the little lady prattling on all the way about a hat she wanted to buy.
Months passed. Ray found himself paying attention to the time of the sunrise, always making it home in time to encounter Elaine before she went off when the weather was good, or to look out his window at the sunrise when it wasn't. He went with her on occasion, and found that more often than not, he was the one babbling on and on while they walked. They would go to the end of the pier and sit, and he would watch, but never participate. "One at a time, dearie," she'd say. "Don't want the poor thing confused by an extra set of hands. Might get scared and not show."
He often asked her, after their time on the pier, if she really believed that she was lifting the sun into place to start the day, and how it knew where to go after that if she didn't show it.
"Oh, I suppose it just needs a bit of help to figure out where its path begins. After that it's sort of like driving a car along a one way street, I imagine. I've never had to do more than make it rise in the past, so I don't see why it would need me to start now." She smiled knowingly.
"You really do think you make it rise like this every morning? What would happene if you didn't do it one morning?"
"Oh, I imagine it just wouldn't come up then. The world would probably end. Although I'd never like to find out."
---
Years went by, the same thing every day, Elaine raised the sun, and Ray watched patiently. This morning was different though, as he stood outside his door waiting for her. It was getting late, the sky was light, and she hadn't come out to greet him yet. Perhaps she'd already gone, earlier than usual. The morning was a beautiful one and he was sure she wouldn't miss it. He checked his watch again and knocked on her door, just in case.
A young woman answered, late twenties, her hair slightly mussed and her eyes red from crying. She sniffled slightly as she looked at Ray through the door chains. "C-can I help you....?"
Ray couldn't speak for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Oh... I'm sorry to bother you, miss... but is Mrs. Burlow home?"
The woman's lips trembled and she choked back a sob. "...You must mean my grandmother..." She looked down. "She... She passed away yesterday evening... Her cleaning lady found her in her armchair. She-" Her voice caught and she couldn't continue.
He couldn't believe it, she'd been her old sour self only the morning before... "I... I'm so sorry... I live next door. Your grandmother and I would often... go walking in the morning." Tears came, but he fought them back as he looked at the granddaughter he had once drifted off to sleep wondering about. "I'm sorry, I'd like to talk more, but there's something I have to do."
Ray ran down the hallway, leaving the girl bewildered and sobbing. He hurried to the pier they had gone to so many times, his mind buzzing. How could she be dead? Was there anyone else to raise the sun? What if he couldn't do it? Hell, why was he even trying? For all he knew, she was just a crazy old lady who thought she had magical powers and this was all pointless. If that were the case, then he should be back in the apartment building consoling Elaine's hopefully single bombshell of a granddaughter.
But what if she was right? What if the sun didn't rise.
Either way, he was running out of time. The sun should be breaking the horizon over Lake Michigan any second now and he had to hurry. "This is stupid," he mumbled to himself. "I can't do this; I've never done it before. Why the hell am I trusting that crazy old bag." He shook his head, clearing out the thoughts. He didn't want the world to end, right?
Reaching the end of the pier, he tried to remember the pose she had shown him years before. Standing on one leg he tried to balance, but had to grab the guardrail for support. Finally, he managed to balance and raised his hands to his waist, just like Elaine had so many times before. He stared at the horizon, looking for the sun. "God I hope this works..."
He placed his hands where the sun should be and slowly started raising them up, inch by inch.
The sun rose.
It broke the horizon and he grinned. He kept going, lifting it higher and higher, slower and slower, until his hands were high above his head and he let it go. He ran back to the apartment building and knocked on Elaine's door again. Her granddaughter answered, eyes still red.
"I'm sorry about that, miss. It was terribly rude of me, given the circumstances, but your grandmother would have understood. You see... I had to go raise the sun."
The Sun Will Rise
Ray could remember the first time he met her. Her name was Elaine; she was eighty-nine and his next door neighbor on the fourth floor of his building. The building was an old brick boarding house a dozen or so blocks away from the end of Lake Shore Drive, overlooking one of the public beaches of Chicago. He'd encountered the tiny woman (she was only five-foot-four) in the hallway outside their apartments early one morning as he was returning home from his night shift. She had been putting the keys in the pocket of her coat, and dropped them accidentally, jangling noisily on the floor. A small charm she kept on them broke off and skittered across the hall toward him and he bent to pick it up for her. She thanked him and smiled sadly at him as he handed it to her.
"Why thank you, young man. I suppose it was just it's time to go." She'd looked at the charm with a bit of a frown. "My granddaughter gave me this keychain when she was five years old. I think she'd gotten it out of a quarter vending machine... Lord that must have been nearly twenty years ago now..." Ray smiled, and she chuckled a little. "I'm sorry, listening to me rambling on like this. You must think me a senile old hag." The woman gave him a grin and she extended her hand. "My name is Misses Elaine Burlow, but please, call me Elaine. You just moved in next door, didn't you? What has you coming home so late, deary? Did you have a wild night out on the town?"
Ray smiled and shook his head, taking the old woman's hand gently. "No... No. I'm just getting home from work. I work the night shift at the UPS distribution center across town. My name is Ray, pleasure to meet you." He quirked an eyebrow at her as she let go of his hand. "But what's a lovely little lady like you doing up so early? It's still dark out!"
"Dooohhh," she chided. "Don't you worry about me. I can take care of myself." Winking at him, she produced a small spray can of mace from her other pocket and waggled it at him before returning it to its hiding place. "Although I don't suppose a strong young man like you would be willing to accompany me for added safety." She winked and chuckled again. "I have to go raise the sun."
Ray wasn't entirely sure he knew what she meant, but he did know he was tired. Sore and tired. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Burlow but-"
"Please, call me Elaine. Don't make me get the mace."
This time, he couldn't help but stifle a laugh at the sudden attempt at a menacing face the elderly woman made. He tried to look apologetic, but couldn't quite hide the smile. "Sorry, Elaine, but I had a pile of boxes fall out of a truck on me tonight, and I could really use a soak in the bath..."
"Well, that's alright." She smiled and patted him on the arm. "Another time then. I'll have to settle for that smile instead." Turning, the woman began to walk away.
"You have a good morning, ma'am." Ray went to his door and fumbled for his key.
"Don't you 'ma'am' me, young man," she called from down the hallway. "And don't you go looking at my rear either. I know you are. I may be old, but I'm still foxy and I know it."
Ray outright laughed that time as she rounded the corner out of sight. He'd thought about her as he'd gone about his pre-sleep routine. An odd little woman, she had to be nearly ninety but certainly didn't act like it. What could she have meant by "raising the sun" was the big question, but he'd eventually drifted off to sleep wondering if her twenty-something granddaughter ever visited and if she was available.
---
Ray encountered Elaine almost every morning after that, except when he ran into problems with slow trains or cranky shift managers. She always had something witty to say, he always had a polite retort, and she always asked him if he'd like to accompany her to "raise the sun." A month and a half had gone by before he finally decided to take her up on the offer.
He arrived home before Elaine had left that morning, and waited for her, sitting on the windowsill in the hall outside his door. The sound of her unlocking her door woke him from the daze he'd been in; first the deadbolt, then both chains (she'd installed an extra, much to the annoyance of the land lord), then the doorknob as she opened the door.
"Before you even ask, Elaine, ma'am, I've decided to come with you this morning. My curiosity finally got the better of me."
The little woman huffed faux angrily at him. "Nice to know it was your curiosity and not your concern for my safety that finally won out." She poked her tongue out at him and he blushed slightly. "Now come along, there's a pier just past the end of Farwell Avenue I need to get to before the sun gets tired of waiting for me and finds something better to do." Locking her door, she puttered off down the hall, abruptly changing topics to a recipe she'd seen on the Food Network the previous day for "Vampire Chicken, they'd called it. All it was was a chicken with wine sauce with a piece of wood shoved through it for no apparent reason. As if dentures aren't bad enough, now they want to give me splinters in my chicken!"
They walked down the beach to the pier, and Ray followed her to the end of the pier where she produced a towel sized cloth and sat on it, cross legged, facing east, looking out across the waters of Lake Michigan at the grey glow, just breaking over the horizon. Ray stood behind her, not quite sure what he was supposed to do.
"Sit down and watch, dearie, I'm going to raise the sun. For all I know, it wouldn't come up without me, you know, the world would end and all. I've been doing this since I was a little girl. I've no idea who used to do it before me, but they're probably long gone by now..."
He sat down behind her, off to the side, and the old woman drifted into silence as she stared out at the horizon. She placed her hands in her lap, as if she held a medium sized ball, one hand cupped in her lap, palm up, and the other a little ways above it, cupped palm down. It took a few minutes, but he eventually saw that her hands were moving as the light on the horizon got brighter. The sky got brighter and brighter as she lifted the imaginary ball between her hands, until eventually the sun broke the horizon, gigantic and yellow, shimmering over the water, turning the whole sky a myriad of warm colors. He marveled at the sight, he'd seen it so many times, coming home on the train from his job on the south side, but had never really stopped to enjoy it.
Finally, the sun was fully above the horizon and her arms were lifted up to the sky. She lowered them and stood. "I used to do this standing up, you know. Balancing on one foot even." She stood on one foot to demonstrate, propping her foot against her other knee for support. Ray leapt to catch her as she wobbled, but Elaine cackled and regained her balance. "Oh don't be so rash, I can take care of myself, you know. I'm not some frail old thing that gets blown about in the wind."
Ray smiled sheepishly. "Sorry... You do this every morning, right...? Even in the rain and snow? That seems... unsafe for a ...lady of... your... stature."
She poked her tongue out at him. "Oh hush. I'm not about to catch hypothermia at my age. I stay inside and do it from my window on days like that. I just prefer to be out here for the view and the quiet. Can't hear the cars and the people from way out here, you know. Just the water and the birds and me." She bent and picked up her blanket, folding it and tucking it under her arm. "Well, we best be getting back, that's all I needed to do. Poor thing wouldn't know where to go in the sky if I didn't hoist it up there myself. The sun, that is."
He followed her back down the pier, up the street and back to her door, the little lady prattling on all the way about a hat she wanted to buy.
Months passed. Ray found himself paying attention to the time of the sunrise, always making it home in time to encounter Elaine before she went off when the weather was good, or to look out his window at the sunrise when it wasn't. He went with her on occasion, and found that more often than not, he was the one babbling on and on while they walked. They would go to the end of the pier and sit, and he would watch, but never participate. "One at a time, dearie," she'd say. "Don't want the poor thing confused by an extra set of hands. Might get scared and not show."
He often asked her, after their time on the pier, if she really believed that she was lifting the sun into place to start the day, and how it knew where to go after that if she didn't show it.
"Oh, I suppose it just needs a bit of help to figure out where its path begins. After that it's sort of like driving a car along a one way street, I imagine. I've never had to do more than make it rise in the past, so I don't see why it would need me to start now." She smiled knowingly.
"You really do think you make it rise like this every morning? What would happene if you didn't do it one morning?"
"Oh, I imagine it just wouldn't come up then. The world would probably end. Although I'd never like to find out."
---
Years went by, the same thing every day, Elaine raised the sun, and Ray watched patiently. This morning was different though, as he stood outside his door waiting for her. It was getting late, the sky was light, and she hadn't come out to greet him yet. Perhaps she'd already gone, earlier than usual. The morning was a beautiful one and he was sure she wouldn't miss it. He checked his watch again and knocked on her door, just in case.
A young woman answered, late twenties, her hair slightly mussed and her eyes red from crying. She sniffled slightly as she looked at Ray through the door chains. "C-can I help you....?"
Ray couldn't speak for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Oh... I'm sorry to bother you, miss... but is Mrs. Burlow home?"
The woman's lips trembled and she choked back a sob. "...You must mean my grandmother..." She looked down. "She... She passed away yesterday evening... Her cleaning lady found her in her armchair. She-" Her voice caught and she couldn't continue.
He couldn't believe it, she'd been her old sour self only the morning before... "I... I'm so sorry... I live next door. Your grandmother and I would often... go walking in the morning." Tears came, but he fought them back as he looked at the granddaughter he had once drifted off to sleep wondering about. "I'm sorry, I'd like to talk more, but there's something I have to do."
Ray ran down the hallway, leaving the girl bewildered and sobbing. He hurried to the pier they had gone to so many times, his mind buzzing. How could she be dead? Was there anyone else to raise the sun? What if he couldn't do it? Hell, why was he even trying? For all he knew, she was just a crazy old lady who thought she had magical powers and this was all pointless. If that were the case, then he should be back in the apartment building consoling Elaine's hopefully single bombshell of a granddaughter.
But what if she was right? What if the sun didn't rise.
Either way, he was running out of time. The sun should be breaking the horizon over Lake Michigan any second now and he had to hurry. "This is stupid," he mumbled to himself. "I can't do this; I've never done it before. Why the hell am I trusting that crazy old bag." He shook his head, clearing out the thoughts. He didn't want the world to end, right?
Reaching the end of the pier, he tried to remember the pose she had shown him years before. Standing on one leg he tried to balance, but had to grab the guardrail for support. Finally, he managed to balance and raised his hands to his waist, just like Elaine had so many times before. He stared at the horizon, looking for the sun. "God I hope this works..."
He placed his hands where the sun should be and slowly started raising them up, inch by inch.
The sun rose.
It broke the horizon and he grinned. He kept going, lifting it higher and higher, slower and slower, until his hands were high above his head and he let it go. He ran back to the apartment building and knocked on Elaine's door again. Her granddaughter answered, eyes still red.
"I'm sorry about that, miss. It was terribly rude of me, given the circumstances, but your grandmother would have understood. You see... I had to go raise the sun."