by Mike Donati
It was the beginning of a short, but intense friendship, as it always is with the newbies, till they start serving. And when walking together, they sometimes heard the comment: “the odd couple!” “Did the bullying stop because of you?” Paulus once asked. “Because of you,” Jimmy answered. “What changed you, and your radiation of serenity. The only times that you will have problems is if someone is affected from the Dark side.” Paulus laughed and made a very good impression from Star Wars, then asked; “you're joking with me now, or not?” Jimmie was not smiling as he said; “Since they touched you in the woods, you are on good terms with the world, except those who are walking the opposite side of the street, if you catch my drift! Like every battery has two poles.” Paulus stared at the pavement, then said; “So my father....” Putting an arm around him, Jimmie said; “Yeah partner, can't change it, so simply move on in life.”
The summer came and turned to fall, and simply being in the same house as his father was strange. He could feel the difference in him, as compared to his mother. She seemed neutral somehow. And regardless what his father put upon him, he did it with peacefulness and joy, which seemed to aggravate his father all the more. Attending church was simply a passing of time, with one percent nodding or ten percent singing at the appropriate moments, for he was now almost constantly in touch, and knew that his fathers God was simply a production of mankind. For the simple means of controlling peoples wills and lives, subtly, like water smoothing a stones rough edges over the course of time. Jimmie had kindly asked him not to reach out and touch his mind while Paulus was sitting in church! “I get bad vibes from there when you try to connect.” He had said. Throughout the summer and fall, Paulus had serious problems with the Bible Beater. He would be in a somewhat normal preaching mood, and suddenly start to Bible-whip the shit out of Paulus. But he took it in stride, till the day came when Paulus finally asked to use the family car for the first time. Sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast, he had asked to borrow the car, and the shocked look his mother had should have been ample warning, but it passed unacknowledged by Paulus.
He didn't even see it coming as his father swung, the book binding knocking out a few front teeth with that first swing, and as he fell to the floor, his father jumped onto him, pinning his arms down on the cold linoleum floor of the kitchen.
7.
Slowly meandering along the sidewalk, Jimmie was just enjoying the sunshine of the late afternoon. With a new winters crispness in the air, it had begun to snow ever so lightly. “Never had this stuff as a kid!” He said as he stuck out his tongue, catching a few crystalline flakes. He was not prepared for it when he reached out to Paulus to see if they would meet in town. The mental scream in his head was worse than migraines, and stumbling to his knees, he felt the pain being inflicted on his/their face. Jimmie immediately had to break the touch. Looking down with his senses swimming, his nose was bleeding onto the sidewalk. He loved Paulus also in a human sense now and he knew he had to intervene, to help Paulus get away from his dark father, regardless what the Keepers thought. Normally frowned upon by the Keepers, assisting another servant when in danger, (for it is one of many of their weird theories, that each helper should have the emotional power of love to get out of any situation by themselves) and so is contradicting to their theory of 'love conquers all'. By helping him, he would damn Paulus to an ordinary life as a human. Jimmy didn't think Paulus was far enough into it to be accepted and taken, but to wait any longer would surely be his death sentence. From his father, who Jimmie could easily see was very, very Dark inside. He stood, reached out and lightly linked himself to Paulus. He started jogging to the antique dilapidated house where Paulus lived, hoping he wouldn't feel Paulus decease along the way.
Coming to consciousness with a heavy weight on him, he was immediately aware of the situation. He pushed his fathers limp body off of him and arose slowly from the blood which was increasingly spreading onto the linoleum floor. Looking down, he seen the blank opened eyed stare of death, like in the CSI television series, and turning, seen his mother sitting at the table with her heavy potato skillet in her hand. “He was going to kill you.” She quietly said, letting the skillet fall to the floor, chipping out another piece of linoleum. “What you did was wrong Mother! I still loved him, regardless what he did to me.” Paulus said and wiped the blood from his face with his shirt. Looking up to him, she said; “I wronged to prevent wrong. Let the lord Jesus decide what to do with me.” “You leave now, from this house of hell and never come back. And if you ever decide to do your magicians floating trick again, well, maybe next time you will die because of it! Now go!” Paulus went to the garage, took the keyring off the hook and drove off in the car. The radio sang “Beat it” from a popular pop icon which made Paulus laugh saying; “You got that right, boy!” So now the car was technically his, inherited by the death of a loved one, the highest price one has to pay in life. And the only place to go was the clearing, to simply be alone.
Jimmie was winded as he approached the house, and noticed the car was not parked in the garage. Good, he thought. The dark asshole's gone! Opening the door adjoining the garage to the kitchen, (Paulus's mother had taken to him like a second son), he seen her sitting at the kitchen table with the big skillet at her feet. Walking in he stopped in shock to see the father dead with blood all over the green linoleum, he asked; “Where is Paulus?” “Gone with the car.” She answered laconically. “Mutti?” (She liked it when he used the German word for Mom.) “Did he say where he was going?” She quietly said; “hopefully gone for good is all I know.” “Okay, bye Mutti!” Jimmie said. Getting no reply, he went through the garage and started jogging to the only place Paulus ever talked about, his personal clearing in the woods up the hill.
8.
He finally got to the end of the road which stopped dead end at the bushes and brambles running up the hill. He saw the red and white family four-wheeler butted against a tree to the left of the road. Jimmie went over and pulled the drivers door open, but no Paulus. Keys still hanging in the ignition, Jimmie seen the scratches on the dashboard. Hopping in, he started to smile, for etched with the truck key stood; “Glory Bound!” “Let's hope so buddy!” Jimmie said, and started walking up the snowy hillside. He was in no real hurry, because he learned many lives ago that “Haste does make Waste!” Entering the clearing, he looked around, and not spotting Paulus, started searching the moos and wood covered ground. It hadn't taken him very long until he managed to find the burnt circle of dirt, and Jimmie's eyes filled with a mixture of joy and tears for his friend. Looking up to the cotton puffballs of clouds, he yelled; “Glory Bound Paulus! We'll be seeing each other later on in life my friend!” Later on, standing next to the family car, he thought; “let them find it and the circle! They'll understand just as little as when they searched around the circle of scorched sand for me. The snow had now started to fall in heavy moist flakes, and a lonely tranquil man slowly started to make his way along the long road back into town, always trying to catch snowflakes with his tongue. “Boy I love this stuff!”
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Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer, post a link on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Redit or Pin it, or any of the many other social media sites. Thank you! David Jensen - Author