A Bittersweet Sunset

Author's note

I took inspiration from the character le Survenant in Germaine Guèvremont's novel Le Survenant to create Jonas, the new person in town in my short story. They are similar in the sense that they are both strangers whose origin remains unknown.

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Honeyhill was like any other washed-out town of the countryside. The old pastel houses stood like lonely scarecrows in the dry wheat fields that lined the cracked roads. The winters there were long, dreary and dark whereas the summers plunged the townspeople into a sort of comatose state. It was during one of those summers that Jonas first step foot into Honeyhill. Lady Juliette was the first one to spot him walking down the main road. She was siting on her porch like she always does, smoking her late afternoon cigarette that fitted snugly in her cigarette holder. “Lady” was a remanence of her earlier days when she used to entertain men in a fashion that caused quite a stir in Honeyhill for a very long time. Hated by at least half the town when she was young, she became in her old age the only woman who could do and say whatever she wanted; after twenty years of gossiping about Lady Juliette, the town finally became disinterested in her and was now looking for a new prey to pounce on. Unaware of the looks he was getting from the town’s folks, Jonas approached the small café he saw from the bus stop. Holding his suitcase in one hand and opening the double doors with the other, he made the bell jingle as he strode over the threshold which caused the people inside to look his way. The conversations suddenly died down, the music of the chime swaying in the soft dusty wind the only audible sound in the room. Maggie, who was standing in front of the cash register, looked up from the magazine she was lazily skimming through when she sensed the sudden change of atmosphere. As soon as her eyes landed on Jonas, she held her breath, unable to look away. She instinctively passed a hand through her disheveled hair to straighten it up and quickly glanced at the pocket-sized mirror she always kept on her to make sure her lipstick was still on. It was not everyday Honeyhill had the chance to welcome strangers and when, by some strange miracle, lost travelers washed up on its empty streets, they were always uninterestingly old. However, Jonas appeared to be in his mid-twenties and Maggie couldn’t help but notice how his big dark innocent eyes contrasted with his angelic features. She put on a seductive smile, trying her best not to look like she fell in cow dung on her way to work which she did. Arthur, the son of her neighbors, had strike again just this morning. He liked to pretend she was an alien from space and that the cow dung he threw in her yard were portals that would bring her back to her own world. Since he was only ten, Maggie usually let it slide, but upon seeing Jonas, she thought to herself that she better have a serious talk with that little devil’s parents when she comes back home. Of all days, it had to be today that she encounters the most interesting person in town aside from Lady Juliette, of course.

“Excuse me miss. Could you tell me where I can find a place to stay the night?”, Jonas said while sporting a smile.

Maggie tried her best not to blush in front of him. How could someone be so handsome?

“I happen to know just the place”, she finally said. “It’s Lily’s inn. Right down the street.”

“Thanks. I’m Jonas by the way”, he replied while extending his hand for her to shake.

“My name’s Magnolia, but everybody calls me Maggie”, she responded.

When their hands touched, she felt an electric shock.

“What brings you in this boring town if I may ask?”, she said, trying to prolong their exchange.

Jonas’ smile suddenly darkened before brightening up again.

“I got off at the wrong bus stop and apparently the bus only comes­—"

“Once a week”, Maggie interrupted. “So you’re a poor soul that had the misfortune to land here by mistake”, she said with amusement in her voice.

They both laughed for awhile before falling into the kind of silence that can only be heard when strangers meet for the first time.

“I guess I’ll see you around?”, Jonas said, picking up his suitcase.

“Yeah”, Maggie responded gleefully. “Let’s meet up some time.”

It was not until he was gone that Maggie realized she had been holding her breath all this time. What was this feeling she was experiencing? It was certainly different from when she first kissed Rocky in the grocery’s store parking lot. Just the thought of it made her pout in disgust. After seeing Jonas, Rocky now seemed like a cheep version of him. All this time, she had thought love was a mixture of cigarette, beer and sweat from summer heat. Her willingness to be subject to Rocky’s attention last summer could only be explained by the braindead heat that takes over this town in late July, Maggie reasoned. That was probably why she had let him touch her in that way. It had to be.

While Maggie was having an inner debate on why the hell she once believed she had feelings for Rocky, Jonas had already settled in his room. It was far from what he was used to, but he was not particularly picky. The bed creaked under his weight as he let himself fall on the thin mattress. If he was going to be stuck here for a while, he might as well enjoy himself. Letting the window open to ventilate the room which smelt like dried roses married to a tinge of mold, he picked up a book he had bought without much thought and started reading until late that night.

On the other side of the road, just across Jonas’ window, lived Richard better known as Rocky. His room happened to be at eye level of the second floor of Lily’s inn which meant he had a direct view of Jonas’ room, now the only source of light in the darkening evening. The gentle sway of the flower-patterned curtains under the gentle breeze gave away Jonas every move by creating a sort of intermitted shadow play. Taking one last puff of cigarette, Rocky then spat over the railing of his flimsy balcony and threw his bud onto the street where a pile of cigarettes had already started to form. He gave one last venomous glance towards Jonas before shutting his door with a thud. He hated people like him; they thought they were better than everybody else just because they were from a big town. Nobody knew yet where he came from, but he heard from Mike that Maggie couldn’t stop blabbing about how he was “sooo distinguished”. “What a joke”, he thought. “She barely spoke to him. How could she know if he was…what was that word again?” He struggled to remember but ended up realizing that he didn’t really care. Rocky wasn’t very good with words. He barely made it out of high school. “C’s get degrees” was his ultimate motto. He took out a cold beer from his mini fridge, opened it with expertise, licked the side of the bottle where a drop of alcohol had escaped and turned up the sound of his TV. Maggie was his girl. She will always be his girl.  

The pounding sound of the TV made Samantha groan in her bed. She rolled over to figure out what time it was. An angry two o’clock flashed in bright red light as she turned the alarm towards her, making her eyes squint. What did Maggie do again to make Rocky act this way? Did it have something to do with that new guy in town? No, Laura’s daughter wasn’t the problem here. Rocky was an obsessive guy who couldn’t let go of a girl who never even loved him in the first place. Why was he so hung up on her? Sure, she was pretty. She had that sort of rustic farm charm if that was what you were into. Samantha had nothing against Maggie, but she did hate the fact that she was the one suffering from Rocky’s tantrum. “We’re not even friends and I feel like we’re an old married couple that fights all the time”, she said aloud, her voice suddenly rising to a crescendo in the hopes that it would surpass the sound of the TV seeping through the ceiling like an infectious fluid. She let out a sigh of frustration. She needed to catch up on her lost sleep. Seriously debating whether she should go pound on his door or muffle the sound with her pillows, Samantha decided on the option she found out worked best when Maggie broke up with Rocky for the first time and he cried for a whole week while listening to AC/DC. She took out her radio from under her bed, plugged it in and put the volume to the max. She knew by experience that her radio was louder than his TV. A devilish smile played on her lips when she heard him open his window and let out a string of curses directed at her. The word “crazy” mixed up with some other curses she didn’t really want to repeat made her beam in delight. Soon after, she heard some shuffling noises and Rocky finally went to bed. Samantha put her radio away before snuggling back into her covers. She couldn’t wait to tell Willow all about Rocky’s new antics. 

While Samantha and Rocky were having their usual rift, the rest of the town seemed to have gossiped even in its sleep since the news of a handsome man stranded in Honeyhill had spread like wildfire over one single night. Apparently, Jonas was both a dandy squandering his family’s heritage by traveling the world and a dangerous fugitive in hiding. Willow preferred the former even though she didn’t believe it to be true. She hated that Honeyhill couldn’t stop itself from meddling into people’s lives and rarely paid much attention to all the insane stories it came up with to entertain itself. It was because she never partook in this collective forked tongue game that she was the only person in town who had an impeccable reputation. With her silky blond hair, her light green eyes and her gentle disposition, Willow was like a fresh breeze in a place shamed by hypocrisy. It was almost a miracle that she had been able to survive amidst wolves and serpents alike. Even though Willow never cared much about boys, Jonas was on her mind ever since she saw him walk down the main road with the sun following his footsteps. She was in the mid of playing Une barque sur l’océan by Maurice Ravel when Jonas appeared out of thin air in the corner of her eye. The gold hues that the afternoon light painted on him took her breath away. At that moment in time, he was like a Monet’s painting, a beautiful mirage that defied the realism of materiality. She blushed and looked away, her heart racing. Was beauty supposed to be this painful? Willow smiled. She had finally found someone more beautiful than art.

Jonas was by the creek Magnolia showed him when she gave him a tour of Honeyhill two days ago. He didn’t sleep very well the first night he spent at Lily’s inn because of a fight between neighbors, but know he felt quite content near the water; the dry dusty air that gave everything a rusty color was more bearable here. Noises on the other side of the creek made him suddenly look up from his book. A girl was setting up an easel under a tree. He saw her put a blank canvas on it and take out some brushes, paint and other art supplies. Her yellow dress swaying softly as she was getting ready to paint. When she took off her straw hat and lifted up her face towards the sky, Jonas thought he saw an angel. Their eyes met. She smiled.

A few days later, Samantha and Willow were sunbathing like they always do on Sundays. The breeze was spreading all around them the scent of hydrangeas.

“Have you heard? Jonas didn’t hop on the bus like he was supposed to”, Samantha said to Willow. They were sitting on Willow’s front steps. Her blue and white house was the prettiest in Honeyhill. She even had a greenhouse in the garden. Samantha would be lying if she said she wasn’t jealous of her friend. She wished she could move out of her dreadful apartment and live in a big fancy house, take piano lessons and afford to go to college like Willow did. 

“Earth to Willow!” Samantha exclaimed when her friend didn’t respond. “Were you listening? I know you have your head in the clouds, but you could at least nod once and a while to make me feel like I’m not talking to myself.”

“Sorry Sam. I just spaced out a little”, Willow absentmindedly said while playing with a daisy she plucked from her garden.

She was trying hard not to smile from ear to ear. She didn’t want anybody to know that she was seeing Jonas. It was a secret she lovingly kept to herself because she thought love was sweeter that way.

“Are you…smiling?” Samantha poke Willow’s face in amusement.

Willow pouted to stop her lips from curling upwards, but she couldn’t hide her excitement any longer. If she had to tell someone it would be Sam. They were friends since kindergarten. She didn’t want to lie to her.

“Jonas and I…”, she trailed off, not sure how to put something so full of emotions into words. Words sometimes weren’t enough to express what she felt inside. They existed only in the boundaries of human language, but the mind…the immateriality of it could never fully submit to something as tangible as words. How could it? How could anybody think otherwise? That is why she loved impressionism. In it, she found an escape from reality’s harsh logic. She saw through the brush strokes gentle yet raw emotions. When she stared at paintings from this art movement, she felt like she was witnessing the purest expression of the human mind. The silence that followed made Samantha realize what her friend wanted to say but couldn’t. She understood what was left unspoken. Her friend was in love for the first time. 

The rumors about Willow and Jonas didn’t start because of Samantha. They were only the natural consequence of Honneyhill’s preying eyes. The whispers were sparse because the town really did love Willow, but they were very much alive. Maggie heard from Nic who he himself spoke with Mrs. Vivian who swore she saw the lovers together that the handsome stranger was under the pretty spell of the richest girl in town. In Honeyhill, a chain of three people was an enough reliable source to brand the information as truthful. Maggie was in tears. Rocky was ecstatic. He didn’t know that the minute Maggie saw Jonas it was over for him. How could she be with him now? How could she force herself to unsee the stains on his shirt or his misogynistic ways? They broke up a long time ago anyways. However, Jonas wasn’t here to stay. He enjoyed Willow’s company. He really did. He fell for her without a doubt. They were happy for a few weeks, but every time he didn’t show up at the bus stop, he felt like he was going to stay stuck here forever. He had a life to get back to. He was only passing through. He only got down at the wrong place. It was a mistake. That’s what he told Willow just before getting on the bus. “But was it a beautiful one?”, Willow said, holding back her tears. “I can stand being heartbroken, but only if it is for something that was beautiful”. Lady Juliette who saw everything from her porch didn’t hear what Jonas responded. When he was gone, Willow just stood there in the middle of the street, looking at the retracting bus in the horizon. The town’s folks had gathered to watch what was going on. Lady Juliette saw that they were all looking at Willow with a mix of pity and disapproval. “She shouldn’t have let him sweet-talk her. It’s her fault if she trusted him. Look how she dishonored herself” was what they all seemed to think. “What a bunch of hypocrites”, Lady Juliette thought. Only Samantha ran to where Willow was standing to hold her in her arms. Lady Juliette got up and slowly joined the two girls. “Come”, she said warmly to them. “I’ll give you girls something to eat. The sun is setting”.