"Come with me," she said, her voice strangely full of unspoken promises and mischieviousness that both frightened and lured Ed to hold her hand she held out to him and follow her lead, deeper into the sunflower patch.
As they walked further in, the surroundings of leaves on thick stalks grew heavier, the soft, large petals brushing Ed's arm and, occasionally, his neck. The sunflowers, this far in, were tallest, and shadows from the large circles of seeds and yellow petals above them grew more and more overwhelming.
And then they were there, in the center.
She layed herself down on the soft, warm earth, underneath the dozens and dozens of sunflowers surrounding them. He knelt down beside her, and she put onto him the headphones and said "Stand back up, and just listen," and so Ed did.
She took his right foot, pulled up her shirt, and took off his shoe and sock, which she put arm's length away, between two sunflower stalks the size of Ed's wrist. Taking his bare foot, she placed it upon her breast. "Can you feel my heart?" she asked.
Ed nodded.
"Ok, press play," she said, and music filled his ears as her left hand held his foot to her heart, and her right hand moved towards her white, loose, elastic-waisted pants, a gentle pull down and uplifted bottom, she revealed to him a sensual patch of soft, dark hairs, almost in the shape of a heart, and her fingertips were slowly moving around in a back and forth motion.
Ed could feel her heart beating faster, from the bottom of his foot, the tips of his toes resonating each beat, and the feelings went up his ankles, up his thighs, and got beyond warm, beyond blood rushing.
Her lips were open, and she was watching Ed at times, and at other times closing her eyes and, with raised eyebrows, seemed to be reaching places inside herself that Ed was sure were peaceful. It sure looked like it was peaceful, until she opened her mouth wider and her heart almost seemed to slow down, stop and then pound with such fierceness that Ed worried she was going to die right there in front of him.
Her knees came up, Ed knelt down, and not knowing what to do or say, kissed her on the lips. She grabbed at him hungrily, and started to pull at his clothes. "I'm not sure what to do," Ed said, as he took off the headphones and placed them down beside her, while helping her with his shirt and pants.
"I'll show you," she said.
Ed let her show him. And it was during a moment, just moments later, as the hum of bees above them became a harmony of pollination, and as the sunlight moved slightly past two large sunflower heads and danced upon Anarchy Girl's eyes, and as Ed felt himself digging and seeding, growing and coming into life, lifting and rising as high as sunflowers go, feeling the warmth of the sun in shady spots, being saturated with her rain, seeds inside himself falling to the ground to replant, replenish, rebirth... he let out a long, sad cry of clarity and strength, replenished, filled up completely and at the same time absolutely absolved, and very exhausted.
Elizabeth found her work shoes under the couch, a sock in one from last night, the other sock missing. Her hand reached under the couch and felt the cotton, and was pulling the sock out from under the couch as the phone rang.
Standing up, with the sock in her hand, she answered the phone with a gasp of air from moving so fast. "Hello," she said, in almost one syllable.
"Elizabeth?"
"Yes?"
"It's Mitch."
Elizabeth felt her heart rev.
"Elizabeth," Mitch said, cleared his throat, and continued, "are you working tonight?"
"I am, but only half my shift, it's so good to hear your voice, you sound like I thought you would sound, too," she said, and sat down on the couch, the sock in her hand draping over her knee.
"I was going to i.m. you to let you know I would be calling, but then I, well, I just wanted to call, I had to make sure you did something tonight," Mitch said and Elizabeth could hear the sounds of keyboard keys being tapped with his fingers.
"Ok, tell me what to do," Elizabeth said.
"I'm pretty sure you go outside each night, to see the billboard sky," Mitch stated.
"Most nights, yes. Tonight, though, well... it's a long story. See, it's my friend's birthday, he turns a hundred years old today. I'd written to see, well, this is all probably going to sound crazy to you, but I tried to get this customer who is my friend a billboard birthday greeting, and, well, it didn't work out. I made him a scrapbook of computer images from the past 100 years instead. It came out great. He'll love it. So, tonight, his family is having a birthday party for him, not far from work, and my coworker is coming into work early so I can attend the last hour of the party."
"What time will that be?"
"The party? It starts at six, but I'll only be there for the last hour of it, around eight until nine."
"That's perfect. Do me a favor. When you leave at nine, take him outside with you, and watch the sky."
Elizabeth quickly brought her hand up to her mouth in disbelief, and the sock gently pelted her in the cheek. She began to laugh, and Mitch, hearing her laughing, said "I gotta go, see you in a few days."
"Mitch, wait," Elizabeth said anxiously, but the connection was cut.
Elizabeth layed herself back onto the couch, and was rubbing her forehead with the sock, smiling, but with her eyebrows in a concerned stance, looking at the ceiling and knowing something both wonderful and serious was going to happen.
In many ways, it already had.
Ed stood at the shore, barefoot and stoic. When Anarchy Girl had left this world suddenly, days after moments in the sunflower patch, the only memory left inside of him, the hardest one of all to remember, Ed realized it was her leaving this life that had most effected him.
It was not the loss of childhood, it was not his father's tirades, it was not dead frogs and it was not the bruises on his arms and legs throughout his life that had ripped from him the will to connect, to live, to love. It was knowing that hope was possible, that life was his to build and construct, and for some reason he'd thought that hope was literally Anarchy Girl herself.
But it was more than that. It was not in the touch of her hands on his foot, it was not in the feel of himself with her and within her, it was not just her heart beating stronger, it was not just the bees humming, it was not just sunflower seeds pulled out to spell YOU. None of it was about the moments.
All of it depended on him. How he gave in. How he gave up. What he was willing to do to feel the hope again. Because the world is full of people, places and things, but the connections, and how connected to each thing, each person, each thought and feeling, has little to do with these things, and everything to do with himself. Everything to do with opening up the one connection to self, receptive to the connections possible, that's all it takes. His father could no more shut it off than Anarchy Girl could open it up, it was just Ed, only himself, he realized, only he with the ability to shut or open himself to the world around him.
His feet touched the ocean waters in long steps forward.
Elizabeth stood outside with Bill, a few feet from the parking lot lights, gazing up at the sky together in wonder.
"I like the scrapbook you made for me, my great grandchildren still can't understand how I managed without things they have lived with for their whole lives," Bill said, as he lit a cigar.
"I'm so glad you liked it," Elizabeth said softly, her eyes fixated on the area the billboard sky lights lit up this time of night. Her heart and mind knowing what to expect, but also wondering how it would be possible. If it were to be possible, if it were to be at all.
A puff of gray smoke blew into the air surrounding them. "I wouldn't mind another century of living," Bill said as he felt Elizabeth's hand rub his back as she said to him, "Bill, oh, he did it, the billboard, look!"
Ed floated on his back in the ocean, looking up at the sky for the lights of hope and connection. Would a new company address show up tonight, someplace with hopes and dreams of more business through a billboard in the sky? Ed thought about all the hours of work that had to go into each payment for lights and letters on the backdrop of moon and stars. What lives were led behind each hour worked, who were the people behind the dreams and hope? With so many people having so many ideas, it was somewhat astounding that sometimes they all connected to achieve the same thing. Sometimes hundreds of people. Sometimes thousands. Sometimes, just a few, two or three.
And sometimes just one.
Ed turned around to swim a bit further out, just a little closer to the distant shorelines he could not see, where the hopes and dreams of many worked hard to bring to Ed, without even knowing they were, hope again within the neon glow of shining words upon an eternity of sky.
And as Ed swam, on the ocean surface, a calm mirror for a moment, reflecting something to him that looked and felt different than all the other times, Ed rolled back over onto his back to float, and then found himself instead letting his legs fall beneath him as he moved his hands slowly in the water to keep himself buoyant, there in the sky on a billboard technology had created with the hopes, dreams and hard work of so many over so many years, lit up words that brought Ed home.
HAPPY 100TH BILL