Rare Perception

Occasionally, the end of one story is the beginning of another...

           Sometimes, the end of a story is the beginning.

Such stories are hard to pinpoint, as �" by their nature �" they are incapable of being perceived by the individuals involved. Even an outside observer can find it difficult, without the proper perspective. Thankfully, some creatures have this perspective.

Allow me to explain.

Lilian Maxwell. Orphaned at six in a car accident, she tried to make a difference in the world after she left the system at eighteen. Slowly, she clawed her way to a comfortable position as a hotel housekeeper, but she spent her afternoons and evenings on the streets, looking for one person to help. Wandering the dirty back alleyways, she tried to assist everyone who would speak with her. Most refused her generosity �" they saw it as pity �" or were blinded by their own pride. A few would ask for five dollars before they rolled off to the nearest bar.

Unfortunately, some lives don’t last. Lilian had found a starving child �" little more than a toddler �" huddled in the corner of a makeshift shelter created from wooden pallets and rotting cardboard boxes, bedraggled and dangerously skinny. Rushing off, she had bought a loaf of bread and some meat. Returning back to the child, she fed her slowly and carefully, trying in vain to find out who the child was. After two hours, Lilian was forced to accept that she had done all she could. With a sigh, Lilian finished her errand of mercy and left the alley the child was located in. Looking down at the ground, tears welling up as she hurried away, she failed to notice the oncoming car.

The police never found the individuals responsible. 

But as Lilian lay there, the life draining out of her, the child crawled out of her shelter and knelt beside Lilian, keeping her company as sirens began to wail and come closer. When the paramedics arrived, Lilian was only semiconscious, and with her final stuttered, slurred words, Lilian was gone.

However, due to a resemblance between her and the child and the fact that Lilian carried no identification beyond her hotel timecard, her final words led to the paramedics assuming the young girl was her daughter. The girl was placed in a foster family, with Lilian’s meager savings kept in trust for her. When the child - who had been named Rachel -  was around twelve, she was told what Lilian had said before her death. Hearing the words, she felt a sense of overwhelming debt. Rachel had no memories prior to that event, and believed her life started with that single event to the extent that she had asked for that day to be her birthday. 

Rachel adopted the last name of Maxwell that her personal angel had left to her and attended college. She opened a small orphanage and school where she took in girls who had been like her - orphaned, abandoned on the streets. She ended up adopting four girls, and all went on to accomplish many deeds - some small, some great.

I watched all of this happen, and I may tell you, if it were not for Lilian’s generosity, Rachel would not have survived that night. 

Lilian’s last words were, “Take care of Rachel, she’s the last I can help.”

Rachel’s first words were, “Where’s the pretty lady?”

Lilian would have said her life ended uselessly. 

Rachel will tell a different story.

Stretching, I pad softly away from the orphanage, leaving Rachel and her children playing on the grass.

After all, this is the end of a story, and only a long-lived cat with rare perception knows when other stories must begin.

Author's Note

Flash fiction, written for the prompt "Write a story where the end is the beginning."