Ficly (an excellent one I might add) to entertain while I continue work on a slew of project. Short story tomorrow or Thursday.

With a kind of blind devotion to the task, they sat there, under the lilac, sheltered from the August sun. Out past the fence at the end of the grass, there was little. Some stone, some concrete, some ash. This lilac park might be the only color left, and there they lived.

Twice a day, men in suits would arrive with smokes and food, and sometimes they would watch, and other times they would just turn and stalk out of the park into the abysmal ashen world beyond, a constant gray flurry of snow.

None of the people in Lilac park ever paid any attention to what lay beyond the gate. There was nothing of interest. Inside their Eden, there was euphoria, and comfort, and for the most part, a deafening silence.

They had lost their words.

There was, perhaps, nothing left to say.

One morning, when the sun lifted behind the brown clouds out to the east, Remaan Tesh stood, and yelped something unintelligible.

The day continued uneventfully, as every day always did.

The next morn, the group awoke. Remaan was gone, and behind their complacency, one could not be sure that they had ever known he was there, or cared.

Originally on Ficly: http://ficly.com/stories/17970

-Adam