“You wretch of a brother! If you weren’t my kin, oh the things I would have done to you.”
“I think the same thing,” I spit back.
“You will pay when I’m King.”
My long white hair falls to one side of my face. “Just remember, I had your queen first.”
Kravis disparaged. I think he is about to turn away when he blows my lower jaw with his fist. Without missing a beat, I counter it with a fast jab in his groin. Then, as though we hadn’t hit each other, we continue to stare at each other with cold eyes for our father the king has arrived. Brodmit’s lips are pursed in seething anger.
“How can I bid my Kingdom to children?” He bellows.
I turn to my father and throw a side eye to my brother. “I’m not the one acting like a toddler here.”
“You will not talk back to me!”
My chest rises and falls. Over a fortnight ago, my life had been drama free. Yet now, missiles seem to be flying at me from all angles. All thanks to Sasha. Kravis, ever the obedient one, bows his head to my father. I scowl. I refuse to be shamed for something I did not do. Nonetheless, I want to be left alone. I start to walk away.
My father continues heatedly. “You disregard your honor, your blood, for the sake of a girl who will dance on any man’s crotch just to make a name for herself?”
We all turn our gazes to Sasha. A guard has scaled the length of the effigy to save her from her isolation. Now, she clutches his hand. She looks like a child who doesn’t want to let go of her father’s coat, except that the guard is clad in heavy mail. Sasha is lifted onto my balcony, away from us; away from me. She has the grace to spare me one final glance before going indoors. At that moment, I decide I never really liked her. The excitement will have waned because, in the end, she is so similar to every other self-entitled Soleroid bimbo. I sigh at the realization.
“If you wish father, I will return myself to the embrace of Mother tree. After all, I’d rather smell the stink of honesty than divulge in the poisonous perfume of deceit,” I say.
“Is that what you really want?” he asks me.
“I have never wanted anything more.”
“You truly are your mother’s son!” He does not mean it as a compliment.
Suddenly, I feel a hot anger against my father for what he did to my mother. And I am repulsed at Kravis for acting like it never happened. He hadn’t even cried for her. I clench my fists. Yes, I would rather be with Mother tree than them.
My father rounds me up. He studies me up and down. My eyes follow him but I do not move. Kravis has fallen into the sidelines, as he always does when a confrontation is imminent. Brodmit stands in front of me. His hands are clasped behind his back.
“Do you know the ancient philosophy that the Soleroids’ have lived by?” he asks.
I stare at my father wondering what he is driving at. I know it well.
“Love is weak. It brings no gain. Gain must always come before sentimentalities,” I recite.
“Not that… the other one.”
Kravis speaks up. “You either win, or you die.”
My gaze shifts from my father to my brother, and back. I sense something is happening that I cannot quite put a finger to. Brodmit starts to pace again.
“I wanted to see if you were still a child. To judge whether you can really rule as your brother’s right hand.”
“Father?”
“Son! I personally asked Sasha to take the hand of Kravis. He would never have had the balls to do it himself. She, of course, a true Soleroid who knows gain when she sees it, accepted – not that she can refuse the King.”
I take a step away from my father. The words coming out of his mouth are like vomit. I don’t want anything to do with them. My father takes the pleasure of explaining.
“This was a test, Erien, and you failed. You are still a child, and like a child, you are blind! For over a fortnight, that damsel – what’s her name - you’ve been bedding was betrothed to your brother. It was a challenge I put you up for…”
“But I won the bride. I was going to run away with her,” I said.
“As it is, she will marry your brother on the morrow. She will be your queen by the time of tomorrows rest hour. Tell me again, Erien, how you’ve won.”
I have no answer.
Kravis places a hand on my shoulder. I flinch but do not shrug him off.
“You know the way of a true Soleroid – you either win, or die!” he says.
This time, I am not even angry. Did my brother set me up to this or was it my father’s idea? They used the law against me. Did Kravis want so much to rule on his own? Did he hate having me receive all the praise and adoration in kingdom even if he is to be king? I am puzzled. Perhaps, I admit for the first time, I had underestimated my brother.
“Alright. I concede. If I must save my sentence with Mother tree then so be it.” I decide that listening to her crazy stories is not so bad as long as I ignore the smell. Maybe I can talk more about my mother this time.
However, Brodmit shakes his head gravely. “The dead do not get to choose.”
I gasp. Is he implying that I am dead to him? Out of nowhere, my father’s council appears. They glide to the balcony and surround me in a semi-circle. Kravis tightens his grip on my shoulder. He releases his grip and walks away without sparing me a final look. My stomach tightens.
Brodmit addresses his council. In a terse voice, he orders, “Send him away.”
“Where are you sending me father?” I ask, already regretting my mistake; already regretting stupid Sasha. Sasha, was she even that good in bed? I wonder.
The silence that falls has my full attention back on Brodmit. He is staring at me long and hard, as though he will never see me again. The suspense is killing me. And then, my father kills me with his words.
“Son, I am sending you to hell!”
Chapter 7
Erien
Hell is a very dark place. The only obscure place I have ever seen is Mother tree’s lair, but the dark there is nothing compared to this pitch black. I stagger in effort to gain bearings of what part of the dark pit I have fallen into. I cannot see clearly. A furious cold wind is making my eyes water and silvery tears moisten my parched skin. The fall has made me nauseous so I drop to my knees to catch my breath. At some point during the fall, my clothes must have burnt up. I am as naked as the day I was born. Not that it bothers me except for the biting wind.
I turn my face to the skies and see little glittering lights. The heavens above are mocking me. Somewhere up there is my father, crowning my brother with the woman who would have made me one of the richest Soleroids to have ever lived. Somewhere up there, they are looking down at me, all of them; the eunuchs, the whores, the cooks, and even the royals. They are looking down at me and thinking, what a fool. What a fool to try and smite his brother as he is reaching the climax of his manhood. Only a coward does that. I know I am not a coward, though my rash actions have deemed me one. Now I am to rot in the bowels of hell because I could not control my temper. My brother wins, indefinitely this time.
“Damn you Sasha!” I say.
I can’t stand to gaze upon the glittering lights any longer. Somewhere there is the home I am banished from. I grind my teeth in anger. I cannot believe that my father sided with my brother Kravis to steal my future bride from me. It fills me with a rage I cannot contain. In fury, I punch the ground beneath me, forming a miniscule crater where my hand has impacted. I scream out loud but hell is so vast, my voice doesn’t even echo.
Exhausted from my fruitless paroxysm, I lie on my back. The bright lights glitter back at me, twinkling and mocking. I sigh deeply. I decide that I will spend my eternity lying on my back until the day those glittering lights stop shining.
“They’ll see,” I say aloud. “I will find my way back home.”
I turn my head left and right, expecting to see someone – anyone to talk to. Even an animal will do, I decide. There is no one. To compensate I take two d
istinctive voices so as to banter with myself.
“It is no matter I am in hell, I am King here. A king with no crown, indeed. Don’t talk back at me, fool. No, you are the fool who got us here in the first place. If it wasn’t for your wild streak, climbing girls like horses, we wouldn’t be here. I’m not here, you are. We both are. Idiot, we are one and the same! Sasha did us both in.” I sigh again. “Oh heaven’s above, I can’t be going insane already, am I?”
My grandmother told me when I was young, in her bedtime stories, that the bad Soleroids who go to hell instantly become insane. I scowl in worry. I do not want to go mad. She had also told me, that for those who did not go mad, they will start to see strange things that will haunt and chase them around for all eternity. To the latter, I really prefer madness.
Still in my young voice I had asked, ‘Gran, what kind of things do they see?’
My grandmother is a woman with large owlish gray eyes, a small nose and mouth, and long thin gray hair. She is always adorned in large flamboyant cotton dresses that fit her petite frame nicely though they make it difficult for her to walk from her lavish crystal encrusted western castle wing. I smile as I think of her. She is the only old, scrawny and gray woman I love in my life, the rest are not quite as pleasant to behold, in my opinion.
A low rumbling noise in the distance reminds me of what Gran had told me that day. ‘My little one, what horrible terrible eerie things are found in the bowels of hell. They are dark creatures that have legs on their bellies. Those legs turn like a spinning wheel as they rush to crush you into bloody pulp.’
‘But can the bad men not run?’ I had asked.
‘No. Because those horrible monsters have four blazing eyes of fire. They see well even in the darkness, and they too can run very fast, even fly.’
‘I do not want to go to hell,’ my younger self had declared.
‘Conquer enough kingdoms and you won’t have to…’
My brother’s voice rings in my head. “You either win, or you die.”
The rumbling noise gets alarmingly loud so fast. My thoughts disperse as panic washes over me. With swiftness, I get up. I cannot believe my eyes. A four legged monster is coming toward me at a disquieting speed. It is making an excruciating sound that signals it is either angry or very hungry. It has six eyes of fire, each a different shade, pinned upon me. Horror washes over me and belatedly, I start to run. I am too late.
The monster uncontrollably pummels my buttocks, lurches me to the side and screeches, as it turns to focus its cruel eyes where I have fallen. If I had any clothes on, I may have had the decorum to excrete myself to honor of my fear. Nonetheless, my nakedness makes me too proud. I will not shit myself, I think to reassure my scared body.
The monster from hell growls and flashes its flaming eyes to me.
“Fathers, ancestors, accept my plea for your forgiveness,” I whisper to myself.
I know this is the part my grandmother had told me about; the part where the hell monster runs its feet over even the strongest of bodies and rips out the bad man’s viscera. I gulp, only to realize my mouth is dry.
The monster closes all its eyes to shut out the horrendous evil it is about to do to me. And darkness reigns as king.
Chapter 8
Alice
Poverty is not a good thing. I am witness to how it has destroyed, a once beautiful woman, my mother. Or perhaps, loving a man is a worse thing. My mother, Kristina Poacher, was alright until the day my father left her. On that day, she married alcohol and their courtship still continues to this day. She lies on that worn out sofa in the small living room as a woman on television rattles on to her lover in a cheesy soap opera. My mother is asleep, cradling a bottle to her chest as if it is a newborn child. I feel sorry for her. This was not the way I would have liked to say goodbye. Still, I go to my room and gather my belongings; all which fit in one duffel bag.
I stumble in the darkness of my claustrophobic room, wading my way through the clothes on the floor as I take exit. This is goodbye. I refuse to live in the dingy establishments, surviving on food stamps and handouts. It does not help that I am always barreled with insults whenever my mother is drunk senseless. Or that I am the one holding her hair when she throws up the morning after, if I am not consoling her as she sobs uncontrollably when her lover for the day decides to leave before morning. Tonight, she fell asleep in wait. Her hope is that another man she’d met earlier at the bar will return her call. I highly doubt that he will.
“I am sorry, mother.” I kiss her goodbye on the cheek. I recoil at once. She reeks of a pungent mix of sweat and alcohol. I do not even know when last she bathed. I say, “I will get you help, for both of us.”
Kristina is drowsy. I thought she was asleep but I see that she is just slipping in and out of her drunken stupor. She tries to speak, but only saliva dribbles from her lips. I take the nearby table cloth and clean her soiled face.
“You will be alright,” I tell her gently.
It is as if she knows I am going for good. When I rise to leave, she grabs hold of my hand. She pleads with her eyes that I should not go. That I should stay till morning and hold her hair as she throws up in our putrid toilet that has a rotting cistern. I inhale deeply. That is the cycle of life I have known since twelve years old, when my father had found another woman to be with. Now I was twenty two years old. It is a miracle that alcohol has not yet robbed the life of the woman I have sacrificed a decade of my childhood for. Now, it is time for me to leave and live; a fact that makes it even more painful to go.
I wrench my hand free. I dare not spare a final glance lest I am tempted to throw away the plans of escape from my dreadful life. Kristina falls back asleep. On my exit, I only hear the pitiful lovelorn character on television crying out to her lover who is dumping her. I grimace. I am not my mother’s lover, I think as I close the door to that chapter of my life.
The cold air embraces me no sooner I step out. I realize that I do not have enough clothing to keep me warm at night. My nipple contract painfully from the cold, and goose pimples pinch my supple skin. In a bid to keep warm, I run to the red Chevy car parked on the side walk.
Carlos White jumps out of the vehicle. “What took you so long?” he growls.
I do not answer him. I enter into the vehicle and he takes the driver’s seat. I rub my hands together to ward off the cold. Carlos eyes me with a gaze that strip me naked even though I am fully clothed in blue denim jeans, black ankle boots, and a white tank top hidden beneath a discolored trench coat meant for rainy weather.
“You won’t be cold for long.” He jeers. “When we get far enough, we are going to make use of the back.”
I sweep my gaze over Carlos. He is tanned, slightly fat, and quite hairy. Though his body is not appealing, he has a cute baby face that he tries to mask with a well-trimmed moustache. And because his is shorter than me, he overcompensates with a bigger ego. His eyes are still taking in the back seat of the car. I am aware he intends for me and him to make love on the soda stained seat.
Even if it is dark in the car, I can see some century old crisps that have never been cleaned from the seat. Upon closer inspection, I also spy a donut that has fungus on it. I could gag but the car is cleaner than the home I share with my mother.
“Let’s just go,” I say.
“Ah, so you talk to me now,” he says. “Moody bitch.”
“Carlos!” I am offended - mostly because I don’t have a choice than by the insult. Though he is the most annoying person in my life, he is also the only one I know who can drive me out of town.
“I’m driving! I’m driving!” he says.
He turns on the ignition and the car coughs. My heart sinks in my chest. If the car does not move, all my dreams will be in vain. I cross my fingers and say a prayer in my heart; it was possibly the first prayer I have said since praying for my father’s return. That one had not been answered. I reckon it was because I retracted the prayer later on, stating that perhaps my father was bet
ter off without a drunken wife. They used to fight a lot. A hell lot.
Lost in my thoughts, I did not realize that Carlos had left the car until he returned.
“It was just water needing to be filled,” he assures me.
Before I can ask what he means, he turns on the ignition. After a long cough, the vehicle finally moves. It is with relief that I watch my now former home recede. Carlos turns on the radio. Loud rock music blasts the speakers. It is not my taste in music. Under other circumstances, I would have protested. Not so now when I have so much to think about; a big happy future to plan for.
We leave the neighborhood and take a deserted highway out of town. I snort. Who names a town ‘Shoelace’? My heart leaps with joy when we pass the billboard welcoming people to Shoelace – a small pathetic town where everyone is poor, everyone grows cabbages, and everyone gossips. Still, it is a difficult decision for me to leave my mother behind though I have arranged help for her. They will be taking her to forced rehabilitation as times without number she has threatened her own safety and been a nuisance to others with her threats to set aflame the entire neighborhood.
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