Chapter 2 - RED ROSE

The old man who accompanied Chris reached his hands towards Chris’s hand to look at the book which Chris had in his hand, just when he was about to take from him, Chris moved the book away from the man as he looked at him with disbelief. Chris then said, “This is the only thing I remember from this whole weird day, why would you try to take it from me?” and with a saddened look the old man said, “why would you hold such a useless book so close to you heart Chris, why not let it go?”

Chris could not understand what the man meant by calling the book useless, and as determined he was, he took a closer look at the book he held onto. The book had a red coloured cover, with the words ‘ROSE’ written on it in bold, the first page of the book was blank, as to make you even want to read any contents which it could provide. Yet the second page read, ‘rose’ which were the only words written in the whole book. Chris could not understand what was meant by the word Rose written in the book, thus he gave the book to the old man.

Chris continued walking as fast as he could along the road of his town, he walked s much that he forgot all about the old man who had been accompanying him, when he reached the inside of his house his wife greeted him with a smile and said, “Did you forget something Chris? You’re not supposed to be back for about an hour sweetie.”

Chris opened the door which was behind him and for some reason the sun still was still up, although a moment ago he could’ve sworn that it was noon, even the sun had set well over an hour ago. He stood there trying to understand what was going on with him, yet he could not put a finger on it, his wife then walked towards him and said, “You said you were going somewhere with a friend of yours, was he not able to come with you?”

‘A friend’ Chris thought to himself, having no recollection of meeting up with anyone not to mention a friend his own wife has no knowledge of. Everything about his day started to make him feel uneasy.

What made things even worse was the book which was placed right on the coffee table. it was a red book, the same red book he had gave to the old man.

Chris could not understand how the book had made its way back him even after he had given it to the old man who dissapeared, he then walked straight to the brown coffee table placed right next to the sofa his wife had been sitting as she waited for him to return safely. just when he was about to get his hand on the book, his wife picked it up, looking at her baffled husband his wife said, "I found this book on the dresser this morning, you usually don't take much interest in novels, when did you buy it?"

Chris answered promptly with, "I never bought that book, to be honest we haven't been to any book stores in five years, maybe there was a mix-up with the delivery or something." Even after giving that sort of excuse to his wife, he himself could not convince himself of such, the mere thought of a book appearing on its own in their house scared him to death, although he kept his cool so not to alarm his oblivious wife.

The whole atmosphere in the house caused a lot of uneasiness to Chris's family, not to mention when they dined together as a family, sitting together with their ten-year-old son Harry, He was a fairly cute looking kid with a single dimple on his left cheek which popped up every time he smile or chuckled un-controllably. the house was somehow gloomy that night, there was no affection at sight, no smiles in place. rather than a close family having supper together it felt more like they were accquantances who are forced to know each other.

even with every little effort Chris tried to talk to his family, they constantly gave him a cold shoulder, more like his presence did not matter to them in the first place thus him being there caused a lot of discomfort to them.