Begin (COMPLETED)

Chapter 16- The Illustrated Man

"I know," Riley says as they stop under that same streetlight once again, "But it fades, everything does. Eventually, this hunger in you will burn out and you'll taste nothing but ashes and smoke. You'll eat steam for breakfast, fumes for lunch, and exhaust for dinner until you finally feel full."

"How do you know that?" Jordan asks, skeptical.

"Because I'm living the same life as you, just one step ahead."

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They keep walking until they finally arrive at Jordan's trailer. Riley's mind flashes in dim recognition.

"This is where you live?" She asks, walking up to the front door of the trailer that's barely closed, groaning with the slightest touch.

"Yeah, but it's not for you to mess with," Jordan mutters, kicking the door shut loudly.

"Well, what are you doing here?" She gestures at the land of trash around them, a small weed blowing around for comedic effect.

"What, living in a ghost town?"

"I was going to say a dump, but sure, let's go with that."

"Because I am a scavenger, a... oh, what do you call it? A salvager, I save things. People throw things away because they think they're worthless, but I choose to believe that there's some hidden potential, and hidden potential sells. Well, when it's no longer hidden that is." Jordan muses, reaching out for something near the bottom of the closest pile.

"So you sell opportunities other people can't see?"

"In a way, but you make it sound a lot more fancy. I just fix up stuff and sell it to whoever has an open mind and more importantly, an open wallet."

"How funny," Riley teases. "It's not nice to steal money, you know."

"Hey!" Jordan protests. "It's not stealing if they give it to me, and besides, I do good work."

"What's this?" Riley yells, holding up a broken lamp from inside the trailer.

"I told you not to go in! I knew you'd start messing with things," Jordan mutters, taking the lamp out of her hands.

"But what is it?"

"A lamp." She grins, opening the door to the trailer.

"I know that, but like... why are you fixing it?" Riley asks, following Jordan out.

"Because..." She looks at the cracked lamp carefully, running her fingers over the lamp's many scars. "Because it's got potential. Just imagine how pretty it'll look once I fix these cracks... since I broke it in the first place earlier. It was beautiful, and it will be beautiful when it's fixed too."

"Looks like you painted over something," Riley comments as Jordan pulls out a bottle of glue and begins fixing it.

"Yeah, it had this weird butterfly pattern on it. I just wanted to make it plain, simple. Something that's easy to look at, not too distracting, you know?"

"Well, I would've liked to see the butterflies. They're pretty." Riley watches as Jordan seals the last crack with a single stroke of the hand, and the lamp is fixed. Now the face of the lamp is covered in fine lines making an elegant spiderweb pattern.

"Well," Jordan says mockingly, "Pretty doesn't sell."

"What kind of logic is that?" Riley asks, finding an old toy sword in a nearby trash pile.

"Everyones. People want functional, out of the way stuff. They don't pay for beauty. Beauty isn't useful."

"Fight me! I love pretty things!" Riley yells, swinging the sword.

"Like what?"

"My face!" She screams seriously, her whole body shaking with effort as she jabs the sword forward and thrusts towards Jordan's stomach.

"No need to stab me over it, god, so overdramatic. You're like Juliet."

"Who?" Riley stops, the fake sword quivering in the air.

"Some lady in a play who "kills" herself so she can illegally escape with this guy she married who ended up killing somebody because he called his enemy his cousin, which was true at the time, but not that flattering apparently. Then he gets banished and sneaks back in to find her "dead" and then she wakes up and finds he's killed himself so she kills herself and we find this mess funny or somethin'. Don't ask me, ask Billy Shakes, that good old famous playwright." Jordan says, spitting knowledge while snatching the sword from Riley with little effort.

"Famous what now?"

"Die, you uncultured swine!" Jordan screams, pretending to slam the sword through Riley's body.

"Oh nooooooooo," Riley groans, putting her hand up over her face. "I've been stabbed. You'll pay for this someday but..."

"But what?" Jordan asks, amused.

"I gotta come up with a pun first. Gurk." Riley falls over, playing dead.

"You're ridiculous."

They continue to play and act out different scenes, a land of dragons and adventure before their eyes in what is nothing more than a junkyard to anyone passing by. Laughter bounces off of the clouds as they race each other, running this way and that. Climbing piles of trash that became walls to castles, they fight wars in the dirt. They joke and cry there, telling stories of people they never knew. Scraped knees and dried tears fill the day until Jordan looks up, surprised at the setting sun.

"It's getting dark out." She says, helping Riley up off of the ground.

"We've been out here that long? Doesn't feel like it."

"I know, but you should go home. Come on."

Jordan begins to walk towards the end of the dump, expecting Riley to follow her.

"You don't have to walk me home, you know." She says, silently choosing to follow Jordan as they make their way towards her house.

"Maybe, but one day, you'll wish you still had me to walk you home."