Who Is Earl?

She stood there looking at Earl and Marvis, she wondered how she was going to ask, tell them what she had just heard about the twosome. Earl would probably call her a troublemaker and punch her directly in the face, Earl had no problem hitting a woman that was spreading lies that would change his life, that would change Marvis’ life was a different story. One guy did and they had got into a yelling match which resulted in a fistfight. The other guy hasn’t been seen since that awful day, a day that changed how she looked at Earl. She kept one eye on him whenever he was around her, she just didn’t trust Earl as much as she did before.

Earl could be the sweetest man alive, but there were those days when you knew when looking at Earl not to get him mad. He would open the door for women, smile briefly, and nod at other men, he was respectful of the elders and trusted people until they tried to use him more than once.  On the other days, Earl was a menace to anyone that tried to cross him, he would cuss more than use normal words that were pleasing to other people. Earl was a friend to everyone who was friendly and nice to him.

She stood there looking at Earl and finally decide to dive right into telling him what she had heard was about to happen. It would change his life for all eternity which was a long time in her book. Someone should tell him before he enters the city and gets thrown into a dark room to be questioned which results in the punishment of a lifetime in the eternity sun. She heard that once you have the punishment there is no returning because the eternity sun would burn you alive, there would be nothing left of her town. 

Zeeyabe had been found by the imperial soldier about two hundred years ago which it had been full of towns with people in it, the people had been enjoying themselves until the soldier dropped acid full bombs on their towns to kill them off. People would run into caves and tunnels just to save themselves from the bomb raids.  Zeeyabe was now a planet that only had a handful of people on it.  She had been left on the planet by her parents when they decide that she was too much trouble to raise her, her parents wanted to be treated with kid gloves and to be the talk of the town. Her town, Streamsville, was on another planet which meant the people were kept separate from newcomers to their town until the government gave the all-clear which meant that they had been researched to find out if they were troublemakers or scammers.

“Earl, you have to promise not to kill the messenger. I have something to tell you which I know is going to make you mad and I don’t want your anger to get the best of you or me. “ She paused to let that sink into Earl before she continues by saying, “The police are looking for you. They are saying you killed someone this afternoon. The way I hear it was that you were talking to this person and your temper went soaring which you couldn’t control, so you killed the person. The police stopped me and demanded that I tell them where you are. I said I haven’t seen him for at least three days. I am sorry, Earl, that I was the one to tell you.”

She watched as Earl stood there for a few seconds before saying, “I was with Marvis all afternoon.” He looked over at Marvis who was about to say that she would tell the police that Earl was with her all afternoon. The two women stood there looking at each other before Marvis said, “It wouldn’t help, will it? They will say I am just covering for Earl.”

Not knowing what to do, they stood in a circle waiting for someone to come up with a smart idea for getting away with this problem. How could they come with an idea to save Earl for going to the death chambers, each wishing they had an answer for this problem. Marvis stood there wishing they had got to town before they met her. It was her part to bring Earl into the town so that the soldiers could arrest him. It was going to take several men to bring Earl to the ground because he was used to fighting more than one person at a time. How was she going to get Earl into town without him realizing what she was doing and why? How was she going to explain this to her boss? She had her orders and she was failing them miserably.  She was not going to come out well in the end. If only she could think of an idea to get Earl into town, but she was drawing blanks.  Her boss would make her an example of her instead of doing that to Earl.

“Earl, let’s get close to town and see what is going on. I mean if the soldiers see you, both of us know that you can outrun them. I don’t know what else to do and if we get close to town, we can make sure they are looking for you.” Earl stood there for a few seconds before saying, “I am not going near town. The soldiers will have to come searching for me. I am not going to run for my life because I didn’t do anything wrong. Why do you want me to go into town?”

Both of them stood there looking at Marvis wondering if she had double-crossed them with the soldiers. She seemed to be getting awful friendly with them. She had waved at them when she thought no one was looking and they both had heard that she had something going with one of the soldiers. Earl took hold of her with both of his hands on her bare arms and said, “Answer me!”  Tears flowed out of her eyes before she said, “Yes, I did. They told me they were going to throw you into prison for a couple of years, they said nothing about murdering you.”  She stomped on his foot and when his hands dropped, she took off on a run for the town to tell the soldiers to check the woods.