SUPERWORLD

François II

What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? But there was nothing left to be done, the police were packing up and Hosni had been taken to the hospital, only as a precaution.

"Is there anyone we can call for you?" A female officer asked him.

"Mon grand-père, s'il vous plaît." His shaking hand offered the police officer his cell phone. A moment later, his grandfather arrived and ran out of the car, faster than François thought to be possible for his old bones.

"François! François! Are you alright? What happened?!" The old man shook François by the shoulders.

"I turned in the ticket, grand-père, we're rich." François' head moved like a slow spinning top, about to tip over. "Don't shake me, I'm doing it to myself already." François breathed.

The old man laughed, grabbed François' head between his palms, and kissed his forehead.

"The ticket be damned! I'm just happy you're alive! Young lady, would you be so kind as to help me put my grandson in the car?" Grand-père asked the police woman. She nodded and they both lifted François to his feet, shaky as they were, like a newborn deer.

Back at home, François was sitting on the couch in the living room, the news was on but he didn't watch it so much as he stared through the tv, letting the noise wash over him. Grand-père has made him tea and the old man busied himself in the kitchen making bouillabaisse.

"You think she'll take me back, grand-père?" François called to the kitchen.

"What?" The old man asked, looking away from the stew for a moment.

"Mon cœur, Élisabeth. I won't owe her any more money once my check comes. I'll be able to send Framçoise to any school she wants. Lizzy will surely love me again, no?" François questioned himself and his grandfather. The old man tutted his way to François with a bowl of fish stew and set it on the table in front of him before heaving a big sigh.

"Your grandmother's recipe, of course. What's all this business about Lizzy?"

"I'm going to win her back. I was too poor to take care of her and Françoise back then, that's why she left." François explained.

The old man grimaced and eased back into his chair, then:

"Mon fils, there is more to life and love than money. Lizzy may take you back, I have no way of knowing, the heart is a secret locked in a vault shrouded in mystery and even through all my years I've only been able to crack it once. But women, they are like the snowflakes, each one with her own pattern. But what I do know is this: if you do try to win Élisabeth back, do not do it with money and favors. Do it with truth, humility, and honesty. I've known her enough to know that she never cared about money, and she didn't leave, you did." The old man spoke in a low voice, each word enunciated, as if he was talking to a slow child.

"I had to, Grand-père, you know I did! I could not pay for a child or pregnant woman. I had to pursue my art so I could become famous and pull all of us from poverty!" François pleaded.

"So you say, mon fils. Eat your stew, you'll need to recover all the strength you can after what happened today." The old man turned away from François and pretended to watch Tv.

François took a spoonful of broth into his mouth, the taste of salt and fish reminding him of the ocean.

Back when I was young, with Lizzy, down by the beach. We were beautiful then, I was bronze and rippled with muscle like Poseidon, and she was my curvy little sea nymph, pale skin shining in the sun. We can go back to those days, like it used to be. Me and her, frolicking in the sand. Of course, Françoise will be there too, making a lovely sand castle. Wait, is she too old for that? What do teenagers do at the beach? Oh....I hope she will not be doing that. Wouldn't want her ending up like her poor mother, now would we?

François finished his stew and went up to the attic, the ancient steps creaking under foot. He looked around at the veritable hovel he once called home.

Soon, I will have a closet this size, with a room three, no, four times as big to live in!

He threw himself onto his lumpy mattress and looked up at the rafters he once tried to hang himself from, an old painting he had done stuck up there, laid across the beams. The sunken visage of a woman, all done up in blue, looked down at him from her tattered and patched throne holding a bowl full of crumbs.

Lady Poverty, I painted you when I had nothing. Now look at me, envious that I am your whipping boy no more!

François smiled to himself and drifted off into sleep, planning how to spend his riches before his dreams took him. And in his dreams, there were no riches, only blood.Though he would not remember when he woke, blood, and a giant.