Avalon

To the rattle of pocket change and Johnny Cash singing God out into the street.

One hot, steamy night, in the Pink Pillow Marriage Parlour, beneath the paling glare of garish flickering neon lights, she had entered into a loveless arrangement with one, Colonel Jay J. JONES.

The Colonel was a veteran of two world wars.

They had met each other two steamy nights before in a Memphis hotel bar the blue haze of cigar smoke and sparkling champagne.

Colonel Jay J Jones was an old southern gentleman through and through, and true to his word he took his young bride to his crumbling, albeit extensive family estate Avalon, which nestled beside the quiet Alabamee in the lush green lands south of Montgomery, Alabama.

There they lived comfortably albeit in a faded southern style for about a twinkling of a year.

A rare chill in a blustering starless night, rattled the shutters and verandas of Avalon heralding the storm that was to follow. The old colonel, who had always led the charge, had gone over the top in ardent pursuit for one last time with such fervour and amorous passion that in the midst of battle his brave old heart failed him, sending his spirit spiralling heaven bound savouring this final tumult.

Evelyn bid farewell with the sweetest smile and a single flower, which she kissed and left at the graveside of the old soldier. That had not been so difficult, she heard herself saying, and now at the age of twenty-five, Evelyn J. Jones, or Jay as she was known by to her few friends, had inherited enough of fortune to aspire her to want just a little more.