Driving back to the bay where he soon would be trapped forever again, Sam could not stop himself from thinking back to when Rose was still sitting in front of him at the parlor. She was like an apparition to him—a memory of sorts—a feeling that she wasn't even real anymore. Her sudden disappearance, and the sudden change of scenes, left Sam behind to an emotional roller coaster he was riding. That is to say: he was shocked. He was not sad. He was not happy. He felt empty inside as if Rose had taken his heart, broke it in two shared little bits, and left him with a jagged end, and her, the other half. Sam was in sort of a dazed state when he drove home in his bright light blue Cadillac, and he thought to himself on the way back. It was during that ride home he felt the most awake he had ever been in years. He realized it was because of the acting and doing instead of the thinking that made life feel dream-like, and it was only during that ride that Sam thought for the first time in years. He thought: What was that? Why did that feel phonier than the life he was forced into years ago when he met Cecile? He thought some more as he drove along the coast of Bodega, smelling the salty sea and the bay breeze. After a while on the coast, Sam drove through a forest of beautiful tall deciduous trees raining down their crispy ripe orange-brown leaves that swirled in the cool bay breeze. The gate came into view, and soon the clearing opened to the house on the edge of the cliff overlooking the crashing waves. Sam pulled up to the house to find it quiet. Too quiet. But Sam was used to the desolate feeling living in a beach home residency: everyone was out or gone, or at home away for business, because a plethora of the miniature condos were vacation spots for the rich businesspeople who worked down south in the Bay Area.

As Sam walked up the rickety stairs, he stopped to think for the second time, but now, for the worst. He slowly walked down the splintered wood, around the house, ducking from the dirtied windows. There, he saw the bright blue sea, so light from the sun's reflection, it was white with glittering sparkled diamonds twinkling in the summer's sun, but the young setting sun as well covered the sky with a light warm, golden yellow, and the sea became indistinguishable from the sky. He heard gulls cry off in the distance.

The scene was picturesque.

Sam walked up to the kitchen window and peered in: He saw Cecilie there in a deep masculine blue apron cutting carrots and watched as she finished, placing the knife down, and picking up the freshly cut baby carrots to then place them into the salad bowl. Sam stood there watching Cecile cook, utterly fascinated by the common skill for survival. It was enchanting the way she moved about in the kitchen; an almost magical reality as if the normal day to day mundane tasks of serving our natural needs became something worth living for. Sam was overshot with euphoria, living vicariously through Cecile's actions. He was becoming giddy with oxytocin and began to perform a rash decision. Life was as if nothing had happened in that one moment of time, but Sam was so unaware about uncovering the horrible truth that haunted the poor family.

The ghost of yesterday's today's and tomorrow's glided up the splintering stairs and carefully opened the portal to the unharmed world to see Cecile (still not noticing), and to the baby blue, now faded kitchen which was filled with the yellowing sun. He was gracefully careful while striding up to the peaceful forest creature, so he slowly moved his hand forward towards the silvery shining blade that reflected the dying sun in a fiery blaze. However, Cecile, an instinctual mother, caught wind of his insanity and cut him off short. She was very much aware of his intentions (even if Sam was unaware of his thoughts and wishes).

"Sam!" Cecile cried out, smiling as a gesture of love, and to a love she hasn't seen in a while. "I-I-I." Cecile smothered the slumbering apparition. Then, her love and affection disappeared in a matter of the tables turning.
"Where the fuck have you been?" She scolded. It was out of the blue because Sam was expecting nothing more than a friendly kiss and smile.

"I-I-I... What'd you mean? I... I was only out for the day... I..." He began softly, but Cecile interrupted his awkward stammering.

"You have been gone four years, Sam!"

How many years?

But he was only out for the day with Rose. Nothing else happened besides the ice cream, and the melting appendages...

Life goes on without a notice. One could be happily sitting peacefully by the clock, turn for one enticing experience, and then notice the hours just turned to minutes, and minutes to seconds. Then, while hiding inside like a hermit during those rough and coarse times, the hours were prolonged to feel like an eternity, and then to look back on the days to fly past like a hummingbird scavenging for its last flowers. Hours felt forever, days were never enough, and sooner than later, summer was in, and three months had gone by without the mark of one's calendar. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etcetera had turned the same, and no one was able to tell the difference. Oh, how the times have changed as a result of the new decade, but so much happened the first few days of new March, that the rest of the year seemed almost weak to that pseudo spring month. Even though time seemed to pass us by almost instantaneously, and other times not so much, we still lived by the clock. The clock dictates our everyday life. We eat to the clock. We go to work to the clock. We plan our life according to the clock, and yet we refuse to believe the ticking of that metronome counting the last beating heartbeats we beat, and the last breathing breaths we breathe, but who's to say we have to be led by that dictator. After all, America is known for its freedom.

Cecile still stared at poor shamefully clueless Sam for a while before she slammed her fist onto the counter and woke up the dazing man.

"Sam, I'm... Just at a loss for words right now. I don't know where you went, or why, but..." Sam finally looked up at Cecile who honestly appeared hurt by his actions. However, Sam was innocently unaware. But, just as Cecile was going to spill her thoughts and feelings, the man of the house trotted in with perfect timing better than any mind reader.

The little boy appeared in Sam's view: He was tall for a four year old, might have even been the age of six, but he had beautiful deep sea blue eyes that sparkled in the sun, and the most relaxed playful smile the world has ever seen. They were the eyes of the beholder; the one that sees everything. They were eyes that could see through the lies and even understand the conversations between his mother and father. It was sad the little boy understood more than his elders. It was sad that it was thought to be so by the younger generation.

Sam believed in his reality, he just had to believe from seeing his son. His son. His.

"Daddy!" Oh my lord his heart lurched for the brilliant boy.

"Timmy?" The boy ran into his fathers arms.

"Daddy, where have you been?" Sam looked up to Cecile who disapprovingly glared down. Then, he faced back to the smiling angel.

"Well, I have been on a very important business trip, but now I am back. I am back, Timmy." The boy frowned and pulled away from Sam in a face of disgust and confusion.

"My name is Tommy." Sam froze at the sudden change to life; the sudden appearance of evidence of his faulted reality. "Can you play with me?" Tommy pleaded innocently.

"O—of course." Sam responded distracted by Cecile's persistent stare. Her green eyes enviously glared at the man who suddenly won the affection of her son.

Cecile wanted to be in a state of limerence just as Sam was. She wanted to downplay his major flaw. She didn't want to be the villain, but Sam was the true author to his story. She was only his puppet, and him the puppeteer. Though, Sam couldn't help but be in that state forever, and thus forever in love with his rose bushes. He could see all but the grotesque qualities of the rose with its gnarly thorns and the jagged edges of its leaves. He was too innocent to accept those qualities.

"Yay!" Tommy ran off into the other room with his voice trailing off behind him.

Oh, how innocent that boy was.

Sam got up from his knees to resituate himself, but as he held fast onto the counter, Cecile had moved on to tend to dinner. He felt life had regained some sort of structure and that nothing could offset his perfectly balanced life, not even a measly panic or psychotic episode.

The sound of the waves and gulls radiated from the open window, and he could have sworn he heard a peaceful piano playing off in the distance.

Little boy Tommy came back, rushing into the room. Darling, you are radiunt, absolutely radiunt, but with his miniature hands, he dragged Sam out the door, down the rickety steps, and across the lawn, and as they glided past with the wind in their eyes, life in the dead came back, and the green grass grew. However, the green grass was cut short as if recently mowed, and that fresh feeling cleared the atmosphere.

Sam finally felt that he could breathe again.

What must have been hours as Sam and Tommy tossed a frisbee back and forth, the sun started to set, sitting on the horizon smiling lustrously back. And just as what would have concluded a wonderful summer's day, Rose drove up. Although...Sam didn't acknowledge, or even notice her, until she walked up.

"Hey, Rose." He said casually. Rose nodded in recognition. "Tommy, this is your..." He looked up at Rose once more to see her lovely smile. "This is your aunt, Rose."

"Auntie Rose?" Tommy replied.

"Yes...?" Rose played along, confused.

"Let's play together. Throw the fizzy!"

"Sam! Sam, darling!" Cecile yelled vociferously from the porch, yet somehow still in the sweetest tone she could muster. Sam followed her into the house where they became one. Tommy understood, but Rose was oblivious.

"Come, Mr. Shelby, we are off to find new adventures!" Rose exclaimed and then walked him down the mythical pathway to the hill the tree where butterflies were thought to have manifested from, wisely gazed off into the distance. Together, they picked white daisies, picked apart their pure pasty white petals, and with those petals, they smashed them into a gooey, clumpy pulp. Tommy imagined his mom and Sam as the daisies that were squished in his palm—he imagined that's what mother had done to that man. After quite some time—the sun was still hanging on the edge of the world now—Tommy let loose the knowledge of a beautiful place out back he had found whilst exploring.

"Yes, and it's purtty." He slobbered through his wet lips. Rose smiled. "Want me to show you?" He said without looking up.

"Sure." Tommy followed Rose up to the grinko tree where she stood underneath its beautifully green leaves, but when they reached their destination, Tommy began to speak. He spoke as if Rose had questioned him relentlessly like a detective trying to get the boy to confess his father's crimes. He didn't want to convict his father, but his innocence became his downfall, yet, what surprised Rose the most was that Tommy sounded reluctant even though she hadn't spoken. He seemed afraid to stand beneath the tree.

"Auntie Rose?" He wearily whispered.

"Yes, Mr. Shelby?" They both spoke staring at the grass they trampled over with their feet. When he got to the top where Sam had previously buried his sanity, Tommy stopped mid stride just as his father did, and turned to suggest another destination. "But Mr. Shelby, we haven't reached our final destination yet. Why choose another?"

"I want to show you some-ting." That is our final destination—our final resting spot—but neither one of us is ready to leave.

The way Tommy spoke made Rose uncomfortable. He was an old man stuck inside a child's body—quite the opposite of Sam. Rose then worried for the sanity of both Sam and Tommy with the wonderance of how Cecile must feel and act upon this backwards way of life. But Tommy still had those finite details pertaining to a child, and only that.

Rose lost him through the brush, and as she was rounding the bend, she heard the ripples before she saw the gorgeous reflection of the angel. He was staring down at the small tides he created until they seemed to fade, and when the fish created more, the boy puffed with frustration, but then all went quiet in the forest, and the child took a deep breath, and calmed himself. There was something in his reflection that enticed him, or maybe it was just him being human, but he stared and stared at his rippling reflection until he felt his mind and body separate.

Who was that man in the pool?

No one.

It was why people loved reflections and not transparency: They couldn't see the truth. They only see what they want to see. Of course, the mirror doesn't lie, but it can be altered to say what you want it to say by imagining a mirror of lies. Humans get so worked over about the singularities they forget the overall picture, and soon they start creating pictures of themselves until they ask: "What's transparency without a little fib?"

They were wrong, of course, for it made no sense. Then again, no man is fit for a glass house. A man's home is his golden ticket for privacy. There, he can wallow in his epiphanies that the mirror was a lie, and that his fibs were falling apart in the palms of his hands. Yes, ask again: "What's a lie if you live in a glass house?" At that point, the only person you are fooling is yourself, and we all know that is impossible since the only person able to lie to oneself is one that doesn't know one is doing it to oneself. That is, they are in complete and utter denial like Sam. But poor Mr. Shelby was in way over his head with this one.

"Mr Shelby," Rose swooned.

Tommy allowed that woman to fawn over his new name with the "Mr. this" and "Mr. that," but he yearned for a life outside this childish one. He knew that he could do better than his old man. He knew he was better than life with the clinically insane. He was sadly born into this life. He was given one roll of the die, and he turned up with this hand.

Damn them. Damn them all!

"Well, look at this, Mr. Shelby. You seemed to have found a sanctuary. Can I be allowed inside?" Tommy reluctantly trusted this woman, but when things kicked off with the two, they were then set for life. They would be inseparable like the ant and wasp. Like Peter and Mary. Like Thelma and Louis.

"Auntie Rose, do you think the...The water moves because it doesn't like me?"

"What makes you say that?" Rose was there standing next to Tommy as he spoke, but then Rose bent down to stare at the water with him.

"Mother smashes all the mirrors in the house because she says our reflections haunt us. But I like my reflection, Auntie. He's my best friend."

Rose now realized this boy hadn't any friends. He was a suspected loner; an aloof man at worst, but at best only an introverted antisocial lost kid. Rose, not knowing how to help, allowed the boy to stare at his reflection, but then tried to stop him from being lost in his depressive thoughts by disturbing the reflecting pool.

Tommy began to feel anxious at the movement of the water. He began to despise Rose for the fact of even existing in his quiet space, but, after realizing he was the one who brought her here, let it slide once again.

If it were not for the aging sun, and Rose's persistence on going back for dinner, Tommy would have stayed there at the pool like Narkissos. Rose, however, inadvertently became somewhat like Tommy due to their love hate relationship with their reflection because she knew she had a past with the lying mirrors. Rose never really trusted the mirrors anymore to provide her evidence on the difference between reality and psychosis for the lines had blurred into a pinkish hue.

By the time Rose and Tommy reached the steps past the dry fountain, the sun soaked up all the color with him, and slowly died out of existence beyond the atmosphere and the edge of the earth. Tommy was a little too eager to go upstairs where his mother and father were not situated, but Rose stayed put thinking she needed a real invitation in, and so Cecile, who was happily reading in the living room, looked up and sort of acknowledged Rose from her chair with a simple friendly nod. Sam was still traumatized by Cecile, so he hid in the kitchen behind the counter, pouting like a hurt puppy.

And he was hurt.

He was sore because of Cecile—Rose found him there while she was grabbing an apple, and as compensation, she thought for a brief moment of giving the apple to Sam, but only briefly. Sam looked up at his roses and felt unrequited love, and because of that, forced himself into a painful punishment of echoing the words of his roses.

Earlier, he went out back to the bushes when the sun was only an aging child where he noticed that Cecile had hazardously trimmed away at the beautiful red rose petals. He also noticed they were limp with distaste and dehydration. Oh, how could anyone treat a beautiful creation such as this like how Cecile did? She envied those roses to the point of purposefully dumping glyphosate and salts from her kitchen to kill the roses, and it worked.

It worked too well.

"No! My roses, they're dying. Why would anyone do such a thing to such a wondrous body of life? Why are humans killers? Why must they kill?" It was out of unrequited love that anyone would do said things for entertainment and reactions from the affected, but Sam's roses were still dead.

In a state of depression, Sam somehow found leverage under his feet and got up to decisively commit to his last and only rose.

"Where are you going, Sam?" Cecile anxiously yapped from her chair.

"Sam..." he mocked her.

"Sam! What the hell!"

"Hell." He echoed.

"What about Tommy?" Cecile wanted him back now that he was leaving again, or so Sam imagined. Cecile was better off without his nonsense anyways.

"Tommy," my boy. So, Sam and Rose were off riding in his Cadillac back home. She never could control him, that Cecile—she somehow hoped things would have been different once they married, but she was wrong. Fighting psychosis or devoted to neurosis, Sam was long gone.