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Write An Alternate Ending Of Sosthene Short Story

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With night slipping through the cypress, men began arriving at the green door. The brass knocker tapped its signal, and in strolled a man wearing his not quite Sunday best, the jingle of coins in his pocket. Monique, Marie and Collette danced with the visitors, dropping coins in a mason jar by the phonograph. Sosthene, in her wing-backed chair, watched from across the sitting room, making sure each nickel clinked in the jar. At a nickel a dance, the phonograph paid for itself within a month after Sosthene bought it in New Orleans. Near the sideboard by the stairs, Elizabeth brushed her red hair behind her ear and poured warm bourbon into short, wide glasses. Suited men made small talk, gulped the whiskey, and buttressed their courage before …show more content…

Jack knew. He lost count of how many times he heard the story while growing up in the house, but he did not stop Sosthene. “Had six horses shot out from under him. Two of them were clockwork Arions.” Jack lifted his eyes to Sosthene. She never before mentioned that the Major rode one of the first soul-powered machines during the war. “Daddy chose to live both times, Jack, but he was never the same.” Jack brushed a hand over his thigh, trying to throw off the ache as easily as brushing off lint. “Sosthene, it's not just my leg…” Sosthene took a swallow of the warm drink. “Anyway, that's the past,” she said with the half smile of a woman accustomed to smiling away tears. The music came to a twangy halt, and before the last note faded, Monique slipped away from Remi Doucet. The grocer's boy accepted a glass of bourbon from Elizabeth, his eyes never leaving Monique as she hurried to Jack. Monique leaned over Jack, her hands on his knees, a broad, inviting smile on her face. “Come on, Jack. Let's dance.” Biting her lip, her hand slid up his leg, over his thigh. Jack laced his fingers with hers to keep her from going any further. “I can't.” he said. “You don't know how much I want to, but I can't.” “Don’t worry. I’ll put a nickel in the jar for you.” Jack glanced to Sosthene for …show more content…

Monique caressed the side of Jack’s face. “Oh Jack, what did you do?” As much as he hated the question, he needed to hear it from her as much as he needed to answer her. He wanted to tell her the truth of the Chosen, why they thanked one another with silence. In giving up his anima to fuel the magnificent war machines, he forever lost those missing slices of his soul, and those empty parts of him were already dead. He wanted to tell her about the fire of another soul’s hatred ripping through him when German lance beams tore through his Icarus, about the nauseating taste of his own flesh spattering across his face, and that flying so close to heaven, an Icarus devil had killed their children before they could be born. He wanted to tell her that while falling, the Icarus voice was so powerful, so alluring, he nearly gave up the last of himself to the machine. But most of all, Jack wanted to tell Monique that he threw away immortality when he cried her name to the sky, and that she, not a machine, owned what was left of his ragged soul. Yet, Jack found he could not tell her, and though he chose to live, he felt more a coward than a

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