Deamons

Chapter 14 Splat part 1

Splat

There is a feeling that everything is going to workout and life is good and will stay good. If you have that strive to keep the feeling and if you have lost it fight to get it back. It is not the same thing as hope. Hope is trusting that things will workout in the end most likely with a smidge of help from the divine. Starke will never see Kate smile at him again. In a year she will move away, and never to be seen again. Craig, maybe the best friend he ever had will be lost soon as well. In fact, everyone that saw him as this kid with all this potential and gifts will never look at him that way again. He was right about one thing. People never saw who he really was, and they still do not. They just jump from one mistaken view to another.

Craig's dad's truck pulls in front of his great aunt's place. He is a man of few words and does not like what he saw earlier that day. He talked to Starke's parents on the phone and they never asked how the boy was or really anything about him. They just told him how miserable the boy made their life and the heartbreak it was to raise such a monster. Then they threatened him. The whole harboring a runaway thing and legal charges a possible lawsuit, blah, blah, blah. HE wanted to hang up the phone, drive over there and kick their ass. The bitch mother and the pansy father. By God he should have done more for this boy, he thinks. Starke gets out of the truck, thanks Craig's father for the ride, the roof over his head he provided him and the food. Craig's father just says good luck. Starke walks up the steps to his great aunt's door. Craig's father does not even wait to see him go on, driving off before the boy reaches the second step.

Craig's father had to move on. He never cried, but he is now. He slams his fist into the steering wheel of his truck. The road home will be longest loneliest ride of his life. If only he had more money. If he did he would have hired the best lawyer, he could find then have him find for him an even better lawyer. He would kick those bastard parents into oblivion. "Bad apple!" Craig's father screams. The car next him runs the light. A scared senior citizen must have thought he was going to go postal. He would have forced them to let Starke live with them if only he had the funds. Big shot funeral director. "Fuck him!" He looked around and realized it would be a long lonely drive. He rolled his window all the way up.

Starke made his way up to his great aunt's apartment. She lived on the second story of her half sister and husband's house. Ah, Starke thought he could rest again. He is so tired. The stress of it all overtaxing his nervous system. His great aunt is warm and her place comforting like hot apple pie. He takes off his shoes, lays on her couch and falls asleep in front of the television watching the same kind of shows he always did, ones where all the not so great problems are solved in half an hour.

"What the hell is this place? All these crosses hanging around and no screaming. How are we going to get any work done?" Envy asks. He is not alone. About half the deamons are wondering the same thing. They are siding with Death who insists he should have took the boy when he had the chance.

Hope is swelling and finally feels in his element. "This is good, this is right. We may all grow on these grounds," Hope says. Strength nestles in for a nap, he needs the rest. Diligence, Creativity, even Kindness all rest as well like babes in a crib. Nothing here to threaten. A sanctuary of love for an embittered boy.

The deamons siding with Death march over to Rejection who is calm and cool with his feet kicked up sitting by the orbs of the eyes. "What are we going to do if his great aunt gets him to say the words?" Death asks. "He won't say the words. I am in control. We will be out of here in two shakes of a rattlesnake's tail," Rejection explains. "You with the big ears. You better be right," Death says.