Deamons

Chapter 17 The good Doctor/psyche! part 1

The good Doctor/psyche!

They walk out to their car. The did not bring the hearse go figure. Starke realizing, he left his laundry bag inside steps back toward the steps. Ms. Mundy is at the top of the step still having walked them out. She smiles at Starke for the first time and Starke thinks he sees half a wink. He grabs his bag and when he walks past her again she says, "Good luck".

Inside Hope likes what he hears. He does not see her face, Rejection is at orbs of the eyes, but he hears her voice. "What do you think Intuition?" asks Hope. Intuition is the only gift with a blue hue. Most of her work involve reading an emotional energy from someone and discerning the course those emotions might take a person. Many factors come into place. Things like does a person follow through, are they lazy, are the energetic but easily distracted. The list goes on and on. Intuition is a gift that only gets better with the more life experience Stake has. This Intuition has seen much bad early on. Starke is a shy kid. One day after being lifted of the floor by his mother pulling his hair he had to go to school, there his teacher singles him out in class. She made a real fool out of him and he suffered from it. Intuition felt much of it and knew it was likely to happen. Knowing what was coming and her not being able to help created a chasm of sadness in her she turned bluish that day and has been ever since.

With what Hopes asks its complicated. It is like the spooky effect in science and then some. The observer can change the outcome. If she passes information on and say Starke freezes with fear, then a different outcome may happen worse then the one that scared him. The pinball effect happens too when gifts and deamons react to a certain prophecy and their actions change the outcome. With all that Intuition weighs the what she knows and feels. She mentioned having a child that stutters and there seem like there were more pain below that. Was that part of her initial reaction? Her dislike was clear on her face and actions when they arrived. There is that. She calculates on. Comes up with her best answer. "We shall see. I think she will set us up for a fair shake." There is more, with Ms. Mundy and others that intuition senses but that must stay with her. "Well let's pray for the best," Hope says. "That is what you do," Intuition answers.

Its awkward for Starke riding with his parent's home. They are more like opposition then family now. He shuts his eyes pretending to sleep. Feels safer that way. More like he is not there. He thinks about his great aunt's apartment on the second floor of her half-sister's house. The little closet in the attack with a window where he kept his toys since he was young. He would hide away and play in there for hours. Safe from the world an immediate family. If only he could live out the rest of his days like that. Safe with boyhood imagination playing cowboys and Indians for the rest of his days.

"I'm hungry," his mother gripes. "What about him?" his father asks. She looks in the back seeing him pretend to sleep. "He can eat peanut-butter and jelly when we get home. Like Ms. Mundy said, we spoil him too much". "What do want?" his father asks. "Look there it is. Dr. Peacock. He has a sign on the road and all. I want a steak sub," his mother says. Starke peeks out at the office building they passed. He has to turn his head back to see it out the back window, then turns back to feign sleeping.

At home he takes his bag in and debates unpacking it or having it ready to run again when she calls. "Starke get up here now!" The nice act at Ms. Mundy's office is gone now. He runs up the steps. Their subs smell so good. He hopes she will give him half of hers. She got a whole sub, way too much for one person to eat in one sitting. "Make yourself a peanut butter jelly sandwich!" He is hungry. He was going to wait to come up and eat until after they got out of the kitchen. He piles the peanut butter on he is so hungry. Then reaches for the jelly. "Uh, uh! Allan look at all that peanut butter he is using! Look at it Allan!" "You paying the food bill around here boy!" Allan screams. Starke wants to climb in a hole. If running had not proven so unsuccessful he would do so now. He will wait. Plan his next leap. Have Craig check into that home in Florida he told him about. He takes out the knife and scrapes some of the peanut butter off. "What are you going to do with that boy?" Allan screams. Starke shakes a little. Fear setting in the deamons inside run to feast. It creates a queer anxiety in him. "Put the peanut butter back on the sandwich then put the jelly back! You already wasted the peanut butter you are not wasting my jelly!" Allan screams.

Starke does and puts the bread together. The peanut butter is thick. His mother smiles pleased. He takes a bite. It is hard to swallow and gets caught in his throat. His mouth so dry he almost chokes. He grabs a glass and opens the refrigerator again instinctively going for the milk. "What do you think you are doing!" his father screams so load he almost drops the milk startled as he is. "You now how much milk is boy! When you start paying for the food around here you can eat whatever you want!" his father commands. His mother is smiling ear to ear almost the happiest he has ever seen her. He goes over to the sink and gets a glass of water. He moves slow not sure what he is allowed to do and wants to give them a chance to stop them before he makes a wrong move. "From now on you don't eat a thing out of this kitchen without one of us here to approve it, and don't come ask us you have to wait until we are in the kitchen to ask," his mother says.

He goes done in his room finding peace in sleep. The deamons want to have at him. They are ready too. They come out of every corner like cockroaches in a dirty feed joint at night, masks in hand. Rejection chimes up like a father saying lights out at a slumber party," There will be none of that tonight. Let them over there have some time." "What is wrong with you!" Envy screams out. He is holding Death's snake mask. "I want my damn turn with thing!" he screams. All the deamons are grumbling. "You want to be one of them? You want to defect? Try it," Mistrust beckons. Rejection lets them have their say. He knows they will scatter back to where they hide. Then he goes back to his orbs.

Strength grabs Imagination. "There is not a whole lot of positive here in his life," Strength says. "You want me to create something like I have done when he played with his toys?" Imagination asks. "Not at all. We need to build his mind up. Seeing things in his dreams he may never have won't help," Strength says. "I know what to do," Imagination says.

Imagination the only one of the gifts with direct access to the theater of the mind pushes into his brain now as he sleeps. He pulls from his memories like a bibliotic every compliment and word of praise ever told to Starke. He enhances those memories. Blows them up to maximize their effect then plays them in his dreams. Hope can feel its working. Its like him being hooked to a charger when Starke envisions his life might not be so bad. Then he is awoken.