| Little streams of light, that peek through the closed window curtains, fall on the couple lying on the bed. Stephen Sharp and his wife are sleeping peacefully. The babies, in their bassinets, are uncharacteristically quiet. Perhaps they were for once complacent with their respective existence. Or perhaps (and probably the more likely scenario of the two) Sheridan and little “SA” could sense what was coming, and they felt bad for their parents. And so it begins… A loud shrill ringing breaks the calmness of the scene. Sharp, well and truly asleep for the first time in ages, rolls over, but not before saying, “It’s your turn to change it, Suzy.” Suzy opens one eye, surveys the room, and closes it again. Another ring. Suzy opens her eyes, this time to glare at the source of the noise. As to mock her, the phone rings once more. She gives up and reaches over and answers the phone. “Hello?” Suzy says, her voice hoarse from sleep. “Oh, hi… Actually, we were still sleeping… No, they’re actually being quiet for once… If they needed something, I’m sure they would have let us know… I know that…” Sharp, happily oblivious to the conversation occurring beside him, sleeps on peacefully. Suzy looks at him, already tinged green with envy. At least it’s not morning sickness. She sighs. “I appreciate the call… What?!?” Suddenly Suzy’s eyes go wide. Her caramel skin pales considerably. “No, please… Don’t be silly, it’s just that… But… But… BUT… No, don’t hang up! WAIT! SHIT!” The loud obscenity and the subsequent slamming of the phone wakes her husband. He turns to her. “What’s wrong, honey?” Sharp asks with as much concern as he can muster at 7:23 AM. “You feeling sick?” Suzy looks at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “No… it’s worse,” she says, looking apprehensive. “Your mother is coming over today.” Cue ominous music: Dum dum dum!!! _________________ “Transform, and ROLL OUT!” called the large red semi-truck. And so they did. All of them. The Volkswagen, the Ferrari, the Cop Car… He didn’t know what type of car that was, other than the fact that it was a police vehicle, and that it was the only one he had so far. Oh, and that his idiot brother had already knocked the windshield out. For that, he’d pay, but not until Transformers was over. It was a peaceful, dull existence, his childhood was. The only chair shots or raucous crowds were on Saturday nights, rather than throughout the week like it would be in another fourteen years or so. Yes, Stephen Sharp’s childhood was pretty plain… Only he was Stephen King back then, but that’s neither here nor there. No, this story isn’t about his name, and how he’d shed it to spite his absentee father… This is a story about his… “Mom!!” his brother, Christopher, the middle child eventually, but the only one he had at present, ran hollering into the kitchen. Apparently, he didn’t like being hit in the head with the… what were they called again? The large bouncy balls you sat on and held the handle? We’ll just call them ‘pogo balls’ for a lack of a better term. Regardless, it was an established fact that Chris strongly disliked being beaten about the head with pogo balls. Stephen had often suspected this was some abnormality in his genetic make up, and proof that they were not, in fact, brothers. Not that Stephen was particularly fond of taking the five pound, fully inflated ball upside his head at a full swing himself, but he would never whine so much about it. Stephen’s mother must have been some kind of saint to deal with the little cry-baby so often. Honestly. To have to listen to his incessant tattletaling every day like this, just because Stephen was trying to play with him… “Jesus H. Christ,” called the voice of the saint in question. Stephen had long ago learned that this was, in fact, his nickname whenever he was in trouble. He took it to mean that he hadn’t really done anything wrong, but was going to be punished anyway. That’s what happened to the first one, right? And so, with his pogo ball slung across his young shoulders, he would trudge along the long and weary walk from one end of their small house, in the living room, into the kitchen immediately adjacent to it. There he stood before the diminutive woman that had spawned him and his more fragile sibling. She stared at him with shock in her eyes while Christopher stood to her side, gripping his nose and facing the ceiling. ‘Hey,’ he thought. ‘I hit him in the back of the head… he’s obviously faking!’ “Look what you did to your brother!!” she wailed, looking at the smears of crimson on her thumb and forefinger where she’d apparently first gripped the nose. “But I didn’t hit him in the nose!” he’d cry, exercising his brilliant use of the language even at such a young age. “Is this what you hit him with?!” she’d respond, obviously missing the point of all this, and snatching the pogo ball away from him. What a ridiculous question. It was obviously the biggest inanimate object in the room, and therefor a perfect weapon. “But I didn’t hit him in the nose!” he continued, obviously swaying her to his side with his undeniable charisma. To illustrate this, she drew back the pogo ball, as though ready to swing it. In some cultures, this would mean that Steve now owned everything to her right. They seldom gestured with pogo balls in Botswana, but it was nearly the exact same motion. He ran, joyous in this revelation… The Pogo Ball of Doom knocked his spindly ten-year-old legs right out from under him, and he slid on the linoleum floor. He sold it as though he’d somehow broken his ass and neck. This was sure to end the persecution, if it were not for Judas turning on the water works at the realization that his nose was still bleeding. “Owww…” Steve moaned, holding his elbow, then his neck, then his elbow again in a complicated gesture meant to admit and repent his wrong doing. “I didn’t hit you in the arm… neck… arm! But you still got hurt, didn’t you!” Ridiculous. That logic was flawed on so many levels, he’d not dignify it with a response other than to continue his air traffic controller routine, moving his hands in preset patterns that made sense only to himself much the way the weird little guys with the flags would on an air craft carrier. “Damn it,” she exclaimed, looking at his simpering faker of a brother. “It won’t stop… Have you been squeezing it?” “That’s why it’s bleeding so much!” Steve offered from across the room, to which he received a dreadful glare. There was simply no getting through to the woman. “I’m gonna have to bring him to the doctors, it might be broken!” she babbled in her frustration. He only cried louder now, as though the realization that his nonsense was going to result in a hospital visit now made his injury MORE painful. “You just sit there and think about what you did til I get back!” Oh yes, that’s very likely what he’d do… Sit on the floor and think about how he’d fallen over the damn pogo ball. What a brilliant way to spend the afternoon. No, Stephen thought… Thundercats was on next. _________________________ “She’s completely bonkers!” Sharp rallies, storming around his kitchen, splashing his hot black coffee to and fro. Suzy lists her head to the side and raises her eyebrows a bit, not looking over at her husband as she cradled his son by her breast, using her free hand to agitate his daughter’s little bouncy seat mounted on their kitchen table. “Mad as a hatter!! I can’t have her around the kids!! You should have seen her with us!! Just completely whacked!! Ow, SHIT…” his tirade is cut off as he attempts to absorb the caffeine via osmosis, and fails miserably, instead scalding himself. This raises a snicker from his daughter, and his son, though oblivious to what has happened, joins in. At least he’d have a use for all that archival footage he had of himself in the ring. Yes, seeing him suffer was like baby cat nip. He at times swore that was the very reason they came to the planet. “Stephen!” his wife scolds, which is almost, but not completely, entirely unlike scalding. She turns to him and speaks in a hushed whisper. “Watch your language in front of the babies…” Yeah, this from the woman screaming the self same expletive this morning because she had to hang up the phone. Yes, much worse than hot coffee on bare flesh! OH so much worse. “When is she supposed to arrive? Maybe we can not be here…” “In about an hour, I think…” she replies in a matter of fact tone, finishing topping off the youngster. “Finish your coffee, so you can burp him.” “Ah, yes… just let me find anywhere I’ve missed… Oh no, I may have to get a refill to POUR DOWN MY BACK!!” Once more, the children cackle. Maybe it was just him raising his voice they found comical. He liked to think that they were just voicing their approval. “C’mere, you little fiend.” He says, fetching the boy after setting down his coffee. The child smacks his lips, and then mauls his fist for a moment, gumming down his little round hand for no apparent reason. Well, not apparent until he’s mounts on my shoulder, Sharp thinks. Then he’ll either smear that saliva covered little ham-fist on the side of my head, or he’ll force it deeper and activate his gag reflex. Then I really will need the coffee just to strip the old milk off my flesh. Resigning himself to defeat as he sees the daughter being withdrawn from her bizarre seat and latched onto the other breast, he carries his son back to his room to find some clothes. The bed beckoned like a siren on the rocks of a distant shore, tempting him to crash against it and never return. He would then have to squeeze tiny ‘Ese’ into a bottle and wish him luck on the long voyage home. With any luck, he’d be found by some old Greeks, and raised to slay a massive aquatic beast to save the world. Yes, that would be a desirable legacy. His mind flashes to the scene, his son looking like a younger him, wearing a tattered toga and withdrawing his sword from what resembled a massive sea monkey… “So, Stevius Antonius… The Cracken is slain, and the world owes you a debt of thanks!” said the Persian looking gentlemen, needlessly wallowing in exposition. Obviously you’ve seen this movie… “Yes, and yet… it would never have been possible if my father hadn’t squeezed me into that tiny beer bottle, leaving my destiny to the fates.” He nearly shed a tear at the beautiful thought. Then he does when he sees his son’s reaction to his sleep deprivation induced swaying. “Oh, joy…” he mutters, holding the child out in front of him as though he were Medusa’s head itself. “I needed some cream in my coffee.” Setting the little foaming beast between the pillows and dabbing at his face with his hand to clear away the remainder of breakfast from his little chin, Sharp forces himself to smile. “Someday, when you’re big and strong, you’ll be able to vomit without getting nearly ANYTHING on you!” At a loss for what else to do with the fetid waste on his hand, Sharp sighs and wipes it on his pajamas before taking them off and going to his closet. With his back turned, the child was free to resume it’s natural form, that of an eight headed hellion that consumed years of Sharp’s life from all the way across the room. He quickly spins around at the slightest sound, sure he’d catch him in the act, or at the very least prevent him from rolling off the bed. But there, staring back at him is that cherubic, drool covered, toothless grin. Yes, so long as I’m uncomfortable, he was happy as a pig in shit. Thank god mother was coming. ____________________________ “God…” continued the long winded priest. Steve had stopped listening about twenty minutes ago, but kept track of mentions of ‘God’, because it became his way of keeping track of time. He was only occasionally thrown off whenever ‘Jesus’ would come up, because frankly… who ISN’T jarred from their day dreams whenever they hear their name? Secure in the fact that he hadn’t struck his brother since arriving at the church, however, he felt comfortable in losing himself within himself again. This was every Sunday for the first 15 years of his life… At least as far as he could tell. After awhile, you could have brought him to a rock and roll concert, and so long as you had called it “church” ahead of time, it was forever stricken from his memory. Once he hit fifteen, he would use the excuse of going to Saturday mass to sleep in on Sundays, and just hang out with friends all night the night before. Having the house to himself til around ten gave him plenty of time to recover from the previous night’s festivities. But for now, he was twelve and trapped on the pew beside his brother, who had to be moved down away from him due to his annoying habit of kicking the pew in front of them(which he’d hit him only once for, and no one had seen, so it doesn’t really count…), and his mother, now between them and carrying another brother that would be born only a short time in the future. Trapped there with little to do except for think about how god awful uncomfortable it would be to be stuck to a Cross like that. Not just stuck to it, but after having CARRIED it for so far and so long, to be nailed to it. Nailed to it! What was that all about? Jesus was a carpenter, right? So he built things out of wood. He probably MADE the Cross, and to show gratitude for this, he was made to carry it around like it was more important than he was, then get stapled to it and propped up in front of everyone, laid out for the world to see. And even though he had all these crazy powers, he stayed up there. He didn’t break the Cross, and jump down, heal himself up like Wolverine and take off… He stayed right where they left him for a long time. He was a person, with feelings, and things to do, and people to see, and he stayed up there… So why was it that the Cross was what was on display, up on top of the church, and even in here? That empty symbol got top billing over the guy that made it what it was… What was the Cross without Jesus? Just a couple of pieces of wood slapped together into a shape like a person, but it was nothing until you had somebody willing to bleed on it and turn it into a symbol. Where would that boring, two dimensional shape be without Jesus there to liven it up, and make it into something with some meaning behind it? And why the hell did he even stay up there anyway? Steve knew he wouldn’t. Screw that. He’d wait a couple minutes, maybe an hour… just until everybody was done thinking how great it was that they’d slapped him up there like that. Then he’d hop down, and somebody was gonna catch a damn pogo ball upside the head. |
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