Alright, I'm going to post the last paragraph as well to lessen any confusion.
Jaresh sighed and walked down the steps that were no longer his; past a fountain he could not call his own, and strode around a tree that he realized he might never see again. He turned despondently and faced the building that was his home no more. Then, with another sigh, he turned back and walked away.
◊◊◊
Four Months Later:
Jaresh had been sitting in the little roadside tavern for what felt like days, but he knew it had really been less than an hour. He was only on his first drink. He never did have a stomach for liquor. He’d made a sorry attempt at inebriating himself, and had taken only three sips of his drink before it occurred to him what a stupid and unnecessary thing he was trying to do. So he stopped drinking, and stared into his glass miserably. After the first half hour he saw that there were unrecognizable things floating in his cup. He grimaced, and pushed it away from him.
At the end of his wallow, Jaresh stood, tossed a coin on the bar, and trooped out of the door and down the street towards his dwelling. He had been working in a small workshop on a weekly journal that had gone out of business not even three days ago. After losing the benefits of wealth and comfort from his mother, the alienated Jaresh had poured his heart and soul into The Mourning Sun, which was a spoof on the actual Morning paper. He had even been promoted to assistant editor a week ago, but then they had made the mistake of printing a satirical comic strip about a political bigwig who had practically bought his way into a Grand Eldership. Their last mistake as a paper it so happened. And so Jaresh had tried to drown his sorrows, but all he had managed to do was summon up old grievances in addition to those that were already on his mind.
Jaresh marched back to his apartment over the town bakery. He wasn’t living in his hometown anymore. After his estrangement he had traveled North, and now resided in a small town that lay on the outskirts of Soura, a major city where the industrial market had skyrocketed. The village was officially titled Hezbourn, but the native town-dwellers still called it by the name the people of the old tongue had erected it under, Gasbagh. Jaresh secretly chose to call it Gas-bag in his head, but use of the particular endearment would most likely offend the majority of the population, and though it was small, the residents, when angered, could be vicious. And Jaresh was certainly no match for the wrath of the Hezbournian populace.
When he reached the bakery over which he resided, he brooded outside, waiting for the proprietor to go home. Regrettably, Jaresh was several days behind on his rent; it was supposed to be paid at the beginning of the month. If he was seen, he would be asked pay for his room, and he didn’t have the money to buy a peanut after his wasted coin at the tavern was spent. So he sulked in the alley that shouldered the building, wondering how he would manage to break into the bakery to steal a slice of bread. He fully intended to pay the baker back for the little things he had had to “borrow” now and then. In fact, he promised himself, I will pay him back, just as soon as a get a job. With a jolt, it suddenly occurred to him that he could always ask Sire Knoll, the baker, for a job. But, though he had been in seclusion for a few months now, and try as he might, Jaresh still could not be rid of the mentality that he was high-class, well bred, and above the labor and toil that came with working for a living.
He heard the door to the bakery slam, and, assuming it was his landlord, darted around to the back, where he unlocked the molding door and shoved it open to reveal, not the empty, dark, bakery that he was hoping to see, but his landlord, sweeping up after his last customer had left. Jaresh froze, wondering if he should run, or stay to argue himself out of payment. The baker chuckled, and gestured to a seat.
“You look like a rabbit caught eating the gardeners’ lettuce, Jaresh. Come and sit. I want to talk to you,” he said.
Jaresh was about to make an excuse and leave, but the baker set his broom down against the counter, and sat, patting the seat next to him. Jaresh resigned himself to the obvious: he had no choice but to sit and talk, like a good boy. He sat down, and proceeded to stare shame-facedly at his own shoes.
“Now, Jaresh. You and I both know why it is that this conversation is going to be a little awkward. You haven’t paid your rent yet.”
“But I was going to, I was just-“
“Yes, yes, I know all that. In fact, your friend from the paper came and asked for you the other day, and he told me you’d lost that job at the paper. I’m real sorry about that. So, you just let me know as soon as you get a new job, and you can earn your keep then. Froll knows, I could have used the help when I was your age.”
Jaresh flicked himself discreetly, checking to make sure that he was awake. He wasn’t.
◊◊◊
Jared King awoke with a start. He sat up in his bed and looked around him. For the past three years, he had had the same, recurring dreams. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He’d had the same dream in essence: he was an Elf, not like the little Christmas elves, like an Orlando Bloom, Lord of the Rings kind of Elf. Long hair, green cloak, pointy ears, the whole deal. Jared couldn’t understand it, couldn’t completely wrap his mind around it. Because he had been having these dreams since long before he’d seen the Rings movies. Actually, he had only seen Lord of the Rings in the first place because his friends had told him that there was a very “realistic” depiction of Elves in it.
Jared rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat. Time to go to work.
During much of the morning, Jared was assailed by various rookies asking him how to spell a word, or if they should “cut or keep”, or “can this person write”, or “are you busy right now”? Jared was an editor. He oversaw most of the Children’s department of the Happy Sun Books Corp. and wrote a little here and there himself. He lived in a decrepit area of Phoenix, Arizona. He had no family that he knew of.
He’d been in an airplane accident over the Pacific almost four years ago, and washed up on the California shore, nearly dead, with no idea of how he had survived. And he must have hit his head, because he was also suffering from a severe case of Amnesia. He couldn’t even remember how to speak at the time. He had kept spouting gibberish at the doctors trying to examine him. They’d managed to decipher his name: Jared. It was about three months after that that the dreams started. His analyst told him that it was obviously his subconscious attempting to fill the considerably wide gap in his memory. He agreed verbally, but in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder.
It was time for his lunch break. Jared bought a sandwich at the drugstore on the corner, and took a walk around the block, chewing carefully. He’d also lost a couple of teeth in the accident, and having to chew very cautiously for that time had turned it into a habit. He turned left at the end of the block and walked across the street, thinking and eating. He ambled past a bar and grill that had just started business here. It had an open patio, and a soft ribbon of smoke from the grill rolled its way out from under a small canopy. Already there were two or three men in there, drinking themselves through the day. He shook his head, and then suddenly froze in his tracks as the smell of liquor reached his nose. He blinked quickly, as the world around him transformed into the tavern from his dream, and he saw himself, as the Elf, sitting on a stool at the bar staring at his glass.
“I never could drink alcohol,” he, Jared, whispered, and closed his eyes.
They didn’t open again until he heard a voice calling to him; it was a soft, urgent voice.
“Hey, are you all right?”
It was a woman’s voice. He realized with a start that he recognized it. Probably someone from his work. Maybe it was Julie, in Science Fiction. He opened his eyes. He was on the floor. Why was he lying on the floor? It was dark. Nighttime. He was outside. He heard laughter and someone singing the happy birthday song. He was still in front of that bar and grill. What was he doing on the sidewalk, in front of a bar, at night?
“You must have blacked out or something,” the voice said. Jared’s eyes focused, and he saw a woman with long, dark hair and blue eyes leaning over him. He recognized her face, as well. She gasped as she got a clear view of his eyes.
“Jaresh?” she asked, her voice breaking slightly. He gawked at her. She swept her hair behind her ear, and Jared saw that it ended in an unnaturally sharp point. He stared, and then, as his mind slowly identified the face that he was sure he knew, he could only find one word to utter.
“Thara?”
