Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Black Ring: Prologue, Part 2

It was just all so sudden: he walked over there knowing her parents wouldn't be home, walked in without knocking as he normally did when they were gone, and stepped into her bedroom to see Ian and Julie lying there nose to nose. What were they doing, or what would they say they were doing? What would be their excuse?
 “We were just discussing the deeper meaning of life and preparing for future lessons in philosophy for college when a seizure overcame me and Julie was giving me mouth to mouth and you walked in at the moment her tongue became disengaged from my throat,” Ian might say.
Or maybe Julie would chime in: “It's not what it looks like, I was just practicing on Ian what I was going to do to you later, after all he is a suitable stand in, don't you think? When I'm screwing Ian, in spirit I'm really screwing you!”
At any rate, it was over, for both of them. As he reached his house, he was determined to find his own way. Sure, he had already been accepted into the same college as Julie and Ian, but he didn't have to go there. He might have just barely squeaked out a 3.0 GPA when school was all said and done, but he'd find somewhere to start a new life with new friends and a new girl. Maybe he wouldn't go to school; maybe he'd just dive into the workforce. There might be a lot of sharks in the water ready to devour a small fish like him, but he was more up for the challenge of that then having to see either Julie or Ian ever again.
He made his way to his room avoiding any eye contact or words with his mother or stepfather, afraid the slightest bit of human interaction would send him into a barrage of tears and unstoppable shakes. As he went into his room he quietly closed the door, as much as he wanted to slam the door shut several hundred times he knew that would quickly arouse suspicion. Once he was in his room he quickly drew the blinds to make it as dark as possible in the room. Eventually, they would come to his house to tell him that what he had seen was an accident of some sort, and at that time he would alert his parents that he didn't want to see them. Of course, they wouldn't stop at the door, they would try knocking on the windows when the door didn't work and he didn't want to look at them.
Right now all he wanted to do was turn off his mind and give into a movie or TV show or something that didn't require a thought to enter his sad little brain. Maybe Tenacious D, the HBO skit “Death of a Dream” seemed apropos at the moment. What was the next step in the death of his dream? Maybe Door to Door Rocking? No, there's too many memories to be had with Tenacious D to keep his mind on the current situation at this time. An action movie might fit the mood better. For sure a few explosions would cheer him up a bit. Maybe Predator. The idea of a humanity murdering unseen alien force ripping through a team of special ops soldiers only to be thwarted in his scheme to take over the world by an overly ripped Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed to warm his broken heart. It seemed like an allegory for the soul: the Predator was his heartbreak, and now Schwarzenegger must be his mind fighting back the heartbreak and ultimately defeating it.
As he lay on his bed, huddled under covers and pillows watching his mental metaphor on film, it came much sooner than he expected. He heard the rat-a-tat-tat on the front door followed by the muffled sounds of his mother talking to someone. The edges of his sight became black and his vision blurry as his heart began to race with the sound of footsteps making their way down the hall toward his door.
 “Bryson, Julie and Ian are here to speak to you,” came the typically soothing voice of his mother through the door delivering this message of certain doom.
Thickly he replied, “I don't want to see them right now.”
 “Why not?”
“I don't want to talk about it. Please just tell them to go away.”
 “Okay,” the response seemed to almost question if this was truly his wish, but she reluctant seemed to trudge back down to the hall to deliver the message. He heard her muffled voice from the front door followed by the sound of it closing. He started to breathe a sigh of relief, but the sigh caught midway in his throat as he realized this can't be it. Sure enough, the steps came back down the hall once again. “Can I come in?”
 “Not right now, Mom, I'm indecent.” He felt like a fool as the words came out of his mouth. Was he now transported to the early nineteenth century that this phrase now issued from his lips. Of course, he knew he meant this more about his mental state than his physical appearance.
“Okay, well if you need to talk about anything, your stepfather and I are here for you.”
“Thanks Mom,” the words came out thicker than before and he had a hard time getting them out as a couple tears leaked onto his cheek. Of course, he would never talk to his parents about what happened this day, not in twenty or a million years. They'll question his choices once he makes them, but they were his choices to make and they'd just have to accept the fact that he made them. Right now wasn't the time to think about those choices though.

Not to mention the attack on his mental state wasn't quite over yet as the rat-a-tat-tat came to his window.

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