Meet The Family

Homo User

According to Pliny, Homer once had his second most attributed work The Iliad fit in something as small as a walnut shell. In the early 1700s the Bishop of Avranches proved the asserted fact by confining the twenty-eight-century-old epic to a walnut-sized shape. Julian recalled this fact as he was going through the night when his son Boris decided to have that pep talk with Damian. The same talk he had had with his son when he was a fine young lad at the blossom of his youth. He knew the moment to have that same talk again would come once. Sooner or later... It was a fact, actually! In a nutshell, he had to make a move... or else!

No matter what his son would do, or would try on him, Julian knew it was up to him to fix it. So when Damian had his next free afternoon, Julian took the opportunity of now-grown-up Boris not being around, to have his own talk with Damian. However, he couldn't hold up his bewilderment as he was now confronted with the darkness of his past.

"So, about the talk that day..."

"What talk?" Damian enquired.

"The talk you two had... About your gender issues--"

"What about?" Damian retorted, but feeling his grandfather discombobulation he added, "Mummy told me, you know?"

"Told you what?" Julian's eyes widened a bit as he hoped to hear from his grandson what he so grimly had awaited to hear long, long ago--and then opened all the way through as his beliefs had been confirmed.

"That..." Damian was perhaps not mature enough to understand those words, though he said them with blunt enough conviction to get Julian past his own self-restrainment. His first reaction appeared to be an embarrassed laugh, as he walked around the chair where Damian was sitting. Before slowlybending himsel over its back, he managed to sigh his question out,

"What makes you think that?"

Damian, the senior's only grandson, had discreetly chose the time for sitting down together, ponder some of his words a bit, then bashing away that silly question of his -- to him. Hiding his bewilderment between his teeth, the once smiling chevalier stood up from his seat, quite seriously questioning,

"I repeat, what makes you think that? What makes you think -- out of all you've known about me-- I've had been into a situation just like yours?"

Damian stuttered, "I don't know... I've heard things... But I don't know, Grandpa..."

The boy raised his gaze into his collocutor's expression. "Grandpa?" The boy suddenly got up and responded as Julian held his arms open and gave him an old bear hug.

"You remind me of the time I was just a young lad like you... Don't you make the same mistakes as I did!"

Damian freed himself with the same swiftness he had squeezed those arms within, jumping right back at him with a hand on his shoulder, "See? I knew you've told me that before!"

"No, I haven't. I've never said that!" promptly erupted the old gentleman. "Okay, okay. I may have -- or have not -- said that... But I doubt I meant it to be taken seriously at the moment?"

"Does that mean it was serious once?"

Ever since that talk at the dining table; his son never bothered to reach the principal -- he thought he should have stood out for Damian, not just up and leave. Now he saw the problem he'd got himself into...

"Damian" Julian called him, "Damian! Comm' ere."

"What is it, Gramps?"

"Sonny mine, you see, we were brought out to this world as monkeys able to stand over two straightly aligned feet. Over years and centuries of History, we've learned to develop tools, prey on other animals, store our own food and hide inside our fortresses -- And now we took a step further, and became natural users. And that says it all, Sonny--"