Lost ✴Contest Winner✴

I

Philip Ripton was an expert when it came to losing things.

He had lost his job the moment he married the untouchable. His parents perished of consumption, and any remaining piece of his tattered reputation was buried along with them, deep in the cold Irish soil.

He'd had his heart broken twice, the strands of past love rent and twisted into unfeeling stone by those he'd once called beloved. Even before, he had had a short temper; there were many times when alcohol had whispered rage into his intoxicated mind. It was foolish to stand around shouting instead of letting your fists take over the talking . Oh yes, it was much easier to let them speak for you.

It was just another bar brawl that day, just another punch to dodge and yes, it was far simpler than talking when hunger gnawed at you and something that twistedly resembled love was fuelling you.

Winter was in the wind, and suddenly there was blood on his hands, a dead man on the cobbles in front of him and a broken murderer standing where a lad used to be. Shouts echoed in the streets, running seemed a good option, and yet as he fled one fact slowly seeped into his sorrowing mind.

This was the day when he, Philip Ripton had lost everything.

~~0~~

After a couple of minutes of fruitless searching, he was positively delighted to have found one.

The young lad delicately pulled a ripe pear from the branch, twisting the fruit until the stem snapped. He leaned against the trunk of the tree, seven feet off the ground and perched on a branch like a bird, staring off at the shifting golden fields before him.

The warm summer breeze whispered in the sky as he thoughtfully chewed his pear, relishing in the simplicity of his delights. Underneath his leafy abode, people would often pass, lads chasing one another, lasses giggling at the words that they whispered, all carelessly trampling barefoot through the grass. Even now, a lone child strode, gazing up at the cathedral-like arcs of branches, searching among the leaves. Curious, Philip slipped to a lower branch  to better see the individual.

The first thing he thought when he saw her was that she must be awful dumb if she thought she could eat a raw quince.

He wished the first thing that he'd thought was that she was beautiful. He wished he had noticed the delicate features of her face, or the way her eyes glinted in the golden light. God, he had been foolish, and in years to come he would hold the shining memory close to his heart and rue the the fact that he was so quick to judge the lass.

He watched in almost defiant delight at her reaction to the sour fruit, and noticing with a start a strange quality to the child below him. It was difficult to place, difficult to say what was wrong with her, but she seemed uncannily perfect, a living statue only breathing by the will of some deity.

Blue eyes flicked up to the foliage that loomed above her, more importantly at the snickering boy in the pear tree. Her eyes narrowed, and Philip's grin disappeared.

"Who are you?" she asked, voice ringing annoyedly through the shadowy grove.

"Philip," he answered plainly, "just Philip."

"That's a simple name," she scoffed, " a simple name for a simple boy."

"Hardly," he said angrily, slipping down the bark of the tree, "you're the one," he hit the ground, "who tried to eat a raw quince."

She was quiet for a moment, shrinking, delicate and sad.

"I thought it was a pear," she replied softly, "I don't know what a quince is."

He was shocked, and it matched her quiet sadness perfectly, the two standing in a silence that engulfed everything. The trees were gone, the wind and sun were devoured by the ruthless quiet, it was only them in a world of impossible white.

"Well," and the vision was broken by the scrawny lad, popping like the bubbles that rose from washbasins, "I could tell you. If you'd like."

She smiled beautifully.

"That would be nice."

~~0~~