We made our way back home, But it felt different than when we left, as if inhabited by some ominous spirit intent on evil, or maybe , we’re the ones who have changed? Either way the hike back was way more challenging, for me physically ,yeah , but for both of us spiritually. What would we tell mom? How could we even face her scorn, it was going to be emotionally harrowing. What’s done is done though, this is us now, my face and Zaith’s hand forever branded by the forest as foolish foragers, or brave contenders in the coliseum of trees, two sides of the same coin I guess.
We halted at the crescent of field surrounding our house, we both stood with no eagerness to approach it. It was now about 5pm and the sun had dropped just low enough below the garrison of clouds to glaze the fields in it’s amber rays. A peculiar sunset that only ground dwellers could appreciate, sculpted by the horizon of clouds rather than earth. And after a few hours you could witness the second traditional sunset. The type of sunsets that were in-ascertainable to even the rich, at least in “Peregrim City Citadel” , A sanctuary secluded in it sea of clouds, sequestered for the affluent half of humanity in this area. But what they gained in luxury and security, the lost in the serenity and adversity of nature. A city so seditioned from the natural world, drowned in the forever mist of the clouds near the pinnacle of the spire pines, it was shielded even from sunsets.
He could see his mom in the distance, Vance caught the first glimpse of her on the porch sitting in her old wooden rocker, even barley visible he could tell it was an unsettling agitated pace while smoking a cigarette with her mechanical arm, a pose he could recognize even beyond the full registration of his eyesight. “Oh yeah! We’re totally screwed” Said Vance with a comedic sense of apathy toward on more ordeal for the day.
“Yeah , I don’t think we could possibly worry her anymore that we will today.” Said Zaith hunting for any thread of a silver lining with a dour hesitancy in his voice.
“Fuck, let’s get this over with.” Said Vance, as he lead the march of defeat back to their home. “If we don’t survive, I love you bro” Said Vance with a thick sarcasm, that pulled a smile out of Zaith. They gradually grew closer the house wading through the waist deep wheat brush. They could see their mom and her vacant stare back at them grew bigger the closer they got, as if some angry moon was slowly falling toward earth consuming the tranquil vacant sky with it’s presence. For them it felt like the longest walk of their life. “Guess I already lost an eye today, can’t be too much worse than coming home with my first tattoo.” Vance told himself as they made their turbulent approach to the clearing around the house.
She wasn’t mad this time. They only made it halfway to the porch before Anorlana shot up out of her seat and ran down to see them. In her grease covered jeans and short sleeved t-shirt. He lit cigarette fumbled from her unfocused grasp of her fingertips. She was never clumsy anymore, after losing her arm, if anything she was an off duty ninja bade duelist.
“You’re alive.” She said as her bloodshot silver eyes began running with a river of tears, down her orange sunset torched cheeks. Vance and Zaith both took their helmets off now,Vance dropping his on the ground. Both thinking keeping them on would somehow shield them from their mother’s feelings. She just wept. I couldn’t help it I cried too, we all did. I've never seen her so sad, just breakdown like that, I couldn’t handle seeing her like that. We were all just happy to be here. She wanted to be mad, she tries so hard to be strong , but she was so worried, and the relief was just so overwhelming. Vance and Zaith both grabbed their mom with the tightest hug they could give her, all of them gasping for air as tears streamed down their cheeks. “I… I.. ughh I’m sorry!” Said Vance struggling not to choke for air as he sobbed, feeling like he had let them both down.
“Don’t! Ever… leave again!” She said barley managing to put words together between gasps for air, In a frantic irate state just releasing her emotions more than fully rationalizing what she meant.
“I know… I’m sorry, I just get so lost in the thrill of the moment.” Said Vance resting his chin on her shoulder with soft sober tone of reflection, as the sunlight poured over every blood dried crevice of his new wounds.
“I heard the ship flying in the area.. and my heart sank.” She said now regaining some semblance of her composure, now tethered to them with an unrelenting grip. “Then I saw you two coming back I was so happy, and then I saw the blood and the fear came right back, I wanted to be angry but I was just happy, you’re both becoming men now, and… It kills me that I can’t keep you safe anymore.”
She said as her mind flooded with memories of them growing up, before she released them and stared into their faces again, first with Zaith , then hesitantly Vance. Tears continued streaming as tried to see them as the adults they were now becoming, but also being overwhelmed when she locked eyes with one of her son her son’s now missing.
“I love you both. But we’ll talk later.” she said as she turned away to just cry, with a hint of agitation. Feeling like she not only failed them , but she failed her husband while he was away. Unknowingly feeling the same as Vance. She stormed her way through the red dirt up the grated metal stairs, past the paint plastered columns on to the weathered wooden boards of the veranda terrace, before entering the house, releasing some of her emotional ammunition stockpile in every stomp firing her legs downward like guns a shooting range
“Phooooooo” Releasing a deep sigh through his whistle shaped mouth. “Is today over yet? please.” he said half rhetorically just wanting to break his trance.
“No still, got to shower and get cleaned up.” Said Zaith with his own sigh.
“Do we have to?!” Replied Vance thinking he just wanted to dive int his bed and forget the day already.
“Yeah. I think so!” Said Zaith with a half tired laugh, having considered not bathing as well.
“I know you’re always the bearer of bad news, but could you try not to enjoy it that much?!” Said Vance with smirk squinting his lone eye at his brother.
“Well one of us has to be the mature one!” Said Zaith with a bit of excessive smugness.
“Yeah.. But without me who would keep us from dying of boredom!” Said Vance with a tooth heavy grin trying to match Zaith’s smugness, realizing symbiotic their differences were at times.
“And someone’s gotta keep us from Dying- dying!” emphasized Zaith laughing while rolling his burning ruby eyes against the sunset’s beacon vigil, implying that sometimes his brother was too reckless for his tastes. Vance just shot back his familiar devious grin to his brother, who’s nearly transparent hair looked a bright blond color on one side in the full radiance of the suns berating bellows of the glaring aggregation of scarlet light.
Time devoured the hours as the sun sank into dusk. Both of the boys took exceedingly long showers, a negligibly effective attempt to cleanse them of the day’s emotional weight. They both sank into their bed as if summoned by an extraterrestrial transient gravity spell that ricocheted into their reality. Vance saw Zaith, his mom his dad as if they were together before he was deployed. He could see from both eyes again. They appeared to be their current age , but Vance felt smaller as if he was a child again, as if he couldn’t interact with them separated by some sophisticated glass wall that made him 100% invisible. It was the past and the present mixed together into what he wanted for the future. But he felt helpless, trying to fill the void of his father’s absence upon them all. “What is this? How?” as reality came rushing back to him and he realized he had been visited by a sentient nightmare, that had made it’s way in by mantling up the slopes of the eve into the normally closed window, standing above where he slept, with it’s black branch limb like fingers massaging their way into his flesh, injecting black clouds of doubt and anxiety into his fantasies to admire what it would produce inside of him, Determination? Fear? Or just leave him a rattled husk of contaminated confliction?
The light-less night sky was bathed in a formaldehyde ocean of black clouds where stars sank into the depths of the drowning waves and were forbidden from sight. The wind of a fresh son to be monsoon was being cooked by humid summer night and the wind battered the rickety wood house like a ship at sea, that sent a noticeable sway through Vance’s room on the third floor. But it was too late the being had finished it’s transfusion of terror into his heart and siphoned some sort of delight from his unrest. It superseded itself with a gust of wind that slammed the shuttered loud enough to wake Vance, as it frantically jump out the window, before reconstituting itself into the camouflage of clouds. Vance awoke tossing and turning as if in revolt of some conspiring agenda, only to realize he was back in his bed. But with one of his eyes missing the blackness seemed more dark than usual, even though his other eye was now adapted and could make out blue lined silhouettes of his furniture, and the howl of the wind that usually put him on edge now made him feel calm. He was at home, he wasn’t in his nightmare, he wasn’t powerless, he could be there for his family even if he let them down sometimes. He sat up in a fog of um-alertness as he meditated in the darkness, feeling a chill as the breeze pulsed at the beads of sweat, some of witch sank into his debris of stubble.
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He collected himself and tossed on some sweat pants before making his decent downstairs towards the refrigerator. He could not go back to sleep after a 5 hour nap, and his body was reminding him that he hadn’t eaten dinner. “I guess I am hungry , but my stomach still feels uneasy, like I’m digesting anxiety from the day instead.” he staggered down the stairs letting his feet limply collide with each step levitating down as he leaned more of his weight on the wooden banister awkwardly affixed to the wall in the narrow closest door sized shaft of wooden stairwell, that might as well have been lit by torchlight, with an exposed wire running along the ceiling stringing together a few hanging bulbs that were barley clinging to life, with a only a scarce amount of light left to act as a waypoint through what felt like a mine shaft that was the junction system from the attic to the basement and levels in between. The contested structure was offset by the more well polished lumber, vaulted hallways, and natural skylight channel that ran through the upper two levels of the house, allowing for a small square planter int the second floor hallway, that could possibly have been a misappropriated shaft of a sawmill or laundry chute. He descended with as few squawks from the wooden floorboards as possible, which he hoped were masked by the sound of the wind against the house anyway, but he wanted to take any precautions for avoiding anymore social interactions for the day if he could he could. He made his way to down to the living room, from the gloom flooded tunnel. Curious to see an ambient light coming from the kitchen, and the blue glow and hum of the running television set, he stealthily slid his feet forward one at a time. ”Someone’s up right now too? Zaith?” he thought assuming, because his mom was a fiercely acclimatized early bird. To his surprise he saw his mother laying sideways on the couch half covered in a blanket lost, in the ambience of some sitcom rerun.
“Hey.” he said faintly, not wanting to startle her but also checking to see if she had fallen asleep with her eyes open.
“Oh! You’re awake too?” she said snapping back to reality, pushing herself up to a sitting position, with her robotic arm sounding like a computer booting up as it lifted her.
“Yeah I guess, I wanted to sleep longer but my mind was too awake I guess.”said Vance.
“Yeah, I couldn’t quite rest either, I would doze off but not for very long, It was just hard seeing you come back wounded, and there was nothing I could do to help, like you inherited my recklessness somehow, and I was supposed to save you from that but I didn’t…”Said Anorlana staring at her mechanical as if it was a reopened wound.
“Yeah, there was nothing you could do, it’s not you’re fault, even if you told me all the right thing’s , I probably wouldn’t have listened. Besides , I think it’s dad’s side of the family that usually get’s me in trouble. It’s like I’m always hunting for something, and when I find something cool, or get what I want, it’s never enough, It’s not legendary.” Said Zaith slumping down into a relaxed position next to his mom on the couch.
“I guess it’s time I should tell you about your father, he hasn't always been who you know him as, he’s changed a lot since he met me, since we had you two.” She said as a nervousness washed over her face and she looked down for a second.
“Yeah, I get that, everyone changes, I feel like I've changed so much in just a couple of years, I used to just be so carefree tanking things for granted, now I feel so responsible, for everything around me.” Said Vance almost staring through his mother giving as calculated answer as he could come to about himself.
“Yes, I know how mature you’ve gotten even if there’s things I disagree with, I respect that, and I’m proud of you, and I know you got to be your own person, but that isn’t necessarily what I mean.” She said with a look of fondness and appreciation that gradually descended back into a detached wordiness. “It’s hard to explain, but I see so much of it in you. That fierceness ,a cosmic drive toward destiny, a wildness that I thought would be impossible to tame at one time. It’s like a call that you can’t not answer, a fire idling inside you, waiting to ignite everything around you, for better or worse. I’m just scared for you, It's like a magnet for chaos, that draws people to you, just like your father. And for a while I accepted death, for us both, I would follow him willingly, wherever fate would have us go together. Like staring into a campfire on dark night, felling safe, but knowing getting too close to it would mean your own destruction.” she said softly studying Vance’s face for his reaction, as if she could see him haunted by the same ghost as his father.
“Yeah…, I think I understand exactly what you mean. It’s like a dark procession is summoning me, challenging me, calling me to do it’s bidding. Even if I feel like I’m in control and things usually work out alright, I know it’s a gamble, and sometimes I don’t even know what it at stake if I lose.” Vance said tilting his empty eye socket toward his mom to examine as a new trophies of his foolishness.
“It’s no more your fault than it is mine, I thought, If I raised you different maybe you wouldn’t be pulled into the same type madness as your father, but I think it’s just inevitable, something programmed into you. But it’s always been a madness that iv’e trusted, it’s hard to explain, but in a world of chaos and war that never seems to end, the madness almost becomes a mundane feature of the world, but in a pessimistic sort of way. But his madness was different, genuine, comforting optimistic and clever, I’ve always appreciated it. But I guess those old quotes of ancient wisdom are true, ‘Sanity in a crazy world can look like madness.’. But you are a problem solver, even you create them for yourself. I believe you’ll do great things.” She said gently caressing his cheek just below his new scars.
“Thanks mom, it’s reassuring to hear that I’m not as crazy as I think sometimes, and maybe that’s why I go along with my crazy ideas sometime, because I trust them and I trust myself to carry them out. But I’m just sorry, you know it’s hard, I know you worry about me. And my biggest fear more than myself Is Zaith, I drag him into my adventures, but yesterday was the first time I really felt scared, for us both, but especially for him. And I don’t know but that somehow pushes me to be a better person, I need someone to protect. That fear, that I let him down, that I might have personally put him at risk gives me an extra level of determination that I can’t access alone.” Said Vance trying to pry into his own motivations that he had not often taken the time to consider, being too often pulled by the current of inspiration.
“Well I wanted to be mad, but I’m just happy both of you came back, mostly in one piece. And I’m actually proud of you how you both challenge yourselves to grow, It’s not easy, but now you know the full cost of your actions.” She said nodding her head gesturing towards his scar.
“Yeah, probably 2 ‘lucres’, not that I could ever afford that in my lifetime.” He said with an ambiguous amount sarcasm, as if he had given himself a new goal to shoot for, giving a more calculated predetermined answer than his mom was expecting.
“Oh I’m sure you’ll find a way! But, Yeah two years worth of ‘scripts’ (one months salary) is out of our price range even combined with what we make from the farm. We could barley come up with the down payment on a new eye, especially the realistic ones. Must be nice to have a stockpile of ‘demerits’(10 years worth of lucres) like those professional socialites in Peregrim. She said with a slight disdain for for their current social climate. “But it look’s like the med unit did good job cauterizing the wound.”
“Yeah, painful! But good not something Id want to go through again , if I can avoid it.” He said with a delirious drowsiness in his stare accompanied by a conniving grin, assuming at some point in his life he’d almost certainly end up using it again. “But it’s late I should probably tr to rest and recover. But it was nice taking time to just talk mom, I know we get so caught up in chores and projects we don’t always get a lot of one on on time like this.
“Goodnight darling, and don’t worry about chores too much tomorrow I’ll see what I can get done without you, just do what you can, and maybe try to take it easy, and maybe cruise out to town and see if the replacement store has any eyes in stock, or if you can order a matching replica.”
“Yeah, aisle do that, It’s been hard keeping myself busy sometimes since I graduated, I haven’t exactly acclimated to my schedule. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I only see Zaith on weekends goes back to the ‘Formative Improvement Educarium Installation’ The youth programs aren't that bad, but the last four years were hell for me, but getting through it so I could help Zaith get through it too was the only thing that kept me going some days.That place is a prison for kids to keep the out of mischief, ‘Mandatory Military Potential Preparation.’ or whatever bullshit slogan they’re selling it as. Can’t say it was all bad, it does teach you the brutality of the world , combat and weapons training, but part of me wonder’s if all that’s necessary, I just wish he didn’t have to go through it, like me. I’m just scared for him, hopefully they place him in the academic department, cause if they place him into the combat curriculum like me, I don’t know if he can handle it. He’s not a fighter like me , he’s thoughtful, he’s smart, and just hope they don’t make him different than who he really is, you know?” Said Vance confronting his frustrations with uncertainties in the world, his future.
“Yeah I know … I worry about it too, but, I’m the mom, that’s my job! But for now just try to get some rest, no matter what we’ll all get through it together. And, at least you get paid for your time in ‘Prison’”. Said Anorlana trying to put a positive spin on it, even though she had mixed feeling on the whole government sponsored program.
“Yeah I guess you’re right Half a scrip a month for attendance really does add up, especially when you don’t have time to spend it.They really know how to get people hooked on that steady stream of government income. But I’ll try not to fry my brain overthinking things and just get some good rest.” Said Vance before he released a groan as he struggled to pull himself up from the cough he was beginning to sink into, before staggering up the stairs back into the cavernous tunnel leading to his 3rd story lair.
“Damn , I wanted to tell him more about his father, but I guess it just never came up, and it was a long day, but I think it’s the right time to tell him, he’s old enough to know, who his father is, who we were… but another time I’m sure, he has his whole life ahead of him to find out, but the sooner the better.” She thought, and stared in reflection the day’s events knowing there was more she would have to get off her chest eventually, that now seemed more immediate importance due to recent circumstances.