Planet Urth Boxed Set

by Jennifer Martucci

  He had listened and stared intently through the opened window as a situation arose. A boy had unexpectedly erupted after being given instructions to sit in his seat for a midmorning snack. He had refused to comply with her instructions. He had begun to flail his arms erratically, shouting and crying simultaneously. One of the boy’s arms had even struck her in her porcelain cheek as he flapped and floundered.

  The faceless man had been frightened by the boy’s outburst and had been positive she would have to strike him for being so mean to her. To his shock, she had not struck him back. Instead, she had done something rather odd. She had squatted down beside him, opened her arms and embraced him tenderly.

  The boy had been soothed instantly. She had held him in her arms for what seemed like an eternity before holding him at arm’s length from her and using the back of her hand to brush away tears that remained on his face.

  Mollified, the boy had begun to comply with her original request that he be seated and consume the nutritious snack she had offered him.

  From the interaction he had witnessed between the little boy and the elfin angel, the faceless man had received all the proof he would need; he had known she was incapable of cruelty. To be doubly sure, though, he had decided he would wait until sunset and follow her home. After all, a person did not pretend at home. He had not wanted to risk being hurt by yet another unkind, malicious human. He had required one last piece of reassurance before he would offer himself to her.

  He had resolved to observe her one last time, in the comfort of her domestic habitat, before forging what he perceived as the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

  That night, after the children had left, tables had been sanitized and chairs had been upturned upon them, she had locked the doors and exited the building. The sun had just retreated into the horizon line in brilliant shades deep orange and salmon to darkening breadths of violet sky. The surrounding woods had been blanketed in cyan shadows. He had waited in the obscurity for her to begin her voyage home. Shockingly, she had not traveled to the adjacent parking lot rather, she began walking. Such a gesture had further supported his belief in her goodness; only a truly conscientious human being would elect to employ her natural machination as opposed to a pollution–peppering automobile to move about the planet. He had been impressed.

  He had followed her, allowed her to gain a considerable head-start before he shuffled, at an inhumanly swift pace, after her to her house only a few blocks away.

  Cloaked in shadows, he had watched her from her window, had seen that she lived alone. From such an intimate vantage point, he had been able to scrutinize her every move, her behaviors when no one was watching. She had been so peaceful, so serene, radiating light and love curled up on her couch with a book in her hands, he had contemplated stepping up to the front door and showing himself to her in that moment. But doubt had prevailed. And he skulked away unable to muster the courage to meet her.

  The world had wearied him, jaded him.

  He had left her house and scrambled to his retreat in the woods beyond Sunbeams Nursery School confident that rest would reveal the self-assurance he sought.

  After another day of watching and waiting in the misty shadows beyond the windows of her classroom, the faceless man had felt buoyed. He had not been able to fully comprehend why exactly he had felt as such; he simply knew he would meet her in the hours forthcoming.

  A fine mist of rain was falling. The air was thick and humid. He decided he would rest before their first official meeting and stepped from his bush-covered crevice of the school and dashed across the play area to his lair beyond the chain-link fence.

  Resting against a sycamore with his knees drawn to his chest, the faceless man tried to close his sparsely lidded eyes and induce sleep. As he rested, he could hear her mellifluous cadence. Thanks to his superior hearing, her voice sounded as clear and strong as it would if she were standing before him. The sound should have soothed him. But it did not. Relaxation and sleep eluded him. Instead of drowsiness, he felt a rush of anticipation. It abounded inside him crowding out any lingering feeling of doubt and despair. Suddenly restless, sleep no longer felt necessary. He needed to move, to stretch his legs while he contemplated the dawn of a new phase of his short existence. He would go to her the next day and make plain his desire for friendship. He was certain she would be kind to him, embrace him as she did her students. She would accept him as no one else ever had.

  He rose to his feet and began to walk, optimism encouraging his every step. He did not intend to go anywhere in particular he just needed to put his nervous energy to use. He would never rest if he did not exhaust the seemingly indefatigable enthusiasm within him.

  He wandered deeper and deeper into the more heavily forested territory beyond his hideout. Fog blanketed the woods, clinging to branches overhead and adhering to intertwined vines that crept with serpentine stealth from the forest floor up trunks until they extended sinuously and wrapped themselves in a helix formation around boughs. The farther he moved into the woodland, the more challenging walking became as creepers reached from underfoot in a brazen attempt to topple him and dense vapor sought to disorient him.

  The faceless man refused to be deterred by his surroundings on the eve of the most momentous day of his life. He continued, instead, through milky condensation until he arrived at a familiar location. Crossing the threshold of the woods, he stepped down on pavement. And there it was.

  Her house stood alone at the end of a narrow lane of cracked blacktop flanked by massive cedars. The limbs of the cedar trees drooped as if carrying the fog as they would the weight of wet snow. Their appearance gave the impression of majestic mustached watchmen guarding the neighborhood. They stared out sightlessly through an intimidating network of needles, as if poised to dispatch their prickly spines at the first sign of an intruder.

  The sightless sentinels ignored the faceless man as he passed, however. Nettles were never hurled at him as he proceeded toward her home.

  He was vigilant as he passed neighboring homes. He watched for people milling about but there were none, just him, and pale shapes of curdled mist that pressed to casement windows, gazing in like peeping toms, deciding whether the inhabitants were conducive to their spying.

  With a dormered roof, cedar-shingle walls, trumpet vines espaliered along the roof line and an ivy-covered porte-cochere, the cottage could have easily been replicated from a storybook and constructed to full-scale by a talented architect and construction crew. The cottage was a striking contrast to the colder, more modern homes on her block. But they lacked charm and whimsy. Her home seemed as unique and special as she was.

  As he drew closer, he saw that a cheerful light glimmered and twinkled along the beveled edges of the diamond-shaped pane of glass on her front door, as though a person of magical power resided within. He knew she was not home, that the light was a ruse for wayward intruders, and stepped onto her property.

  He walked under the plant-covered awning that preceded her front steps and briefly imagined a horse-drawn carriage would have suited the fairytale appeal of her home before he moved up the treads and, using a spare key he found beneath a ceramic frog found on his last visit, opened her front door.

  Nothing had changed since he last viewed her there. Furniture had not been moved, decorations had not been replaced. He listened intently for the sound of stirring from within the dwelling. When certain that it was, in fact, temporarily vacant, he breathed deeply, inhaling the fragrant aroma that infused the air. He detected a faint scent of lavender and vanilla. The perfume was spellbinding, inviting.

  He began searching a stack of papers spread haphazardly on a table in the entryway. Each article was addressed to Lisa Evans. He found the unearthing of her mail to be a most fortuitous and beneficial discovery as friendship would best be forged if he knew her name. Though he could neither speak her name nor share his own as he was incapable of speech and remained unnamed, knowing her name made him feel more acquainted with her,
closer to her, like a friend.

  Thrilled with his newly acquired information, the faceless man felt readied to meet Lisa Evans in moments rather than hours. He decided to wait until she arrived, refused to allow the passage of time to wither his confidence.

  He seated himself on her floral-printed sofa and eagerly anticipated her arrival.

  And as if the karmic powers of the world had conspired to right the many wrongs perpetrated against him since his creation, a sound at the front door fostered his hope and indicated that his new friend was home. He waited until she entered and hung her slicker on a hook in the foyer before he rose from the sofa and approached her.

  She didn’t see him right away, but from the slight change in her posture, she sensed a presence.

  “Hello?” she called out. “Is anybody there?”

  Unable to call out to her and alleviate her fears, the faceless man rushed toward her from the concealment of the shadows.

  As he hurried her way, he saw her eyes widen and the color drain from her complexion. He did not mean to startle her and raised his hands in a gesture of submission, of friendship. She did not understand his gesture and began to scream. The shrill, piercing sound hurt his ears. She screeched and cried out, shouting unimaginable profanities at him, words he didn’t think a schoolteacher could possibly know.

  She yelled unendingly. Her shrieks became so fevered that the faceless man began to panic. He didn’t understand her reaction, how she could respond with such negativity to him when he meant her no harm.

  He reached his hand out to her, to touch her arm. She jerked it away from him and screamed more vulgar language at him. With no other option, he lurched forward and grasped the lower half of her face firmly in his hand. He needed to silence her in order to make her understand his desire for friendship. As his hand brushed the soft skin of her lips, she reached up her elfin hands and began to claw at him. She scratched and bit and kicked at him with every ounce of might contained within her diminutive body.

  The faceless man was mystified by her behavior. She had seemed so nice before, so kind and accepting. Now, however, she was being so cruel. He pulled away his gnawed hand and replaced it with his other, only this time he pressed harder to stop the horrendous sound that resumed. Strident and high pitched, her scream sounded nothing like her honeyed singing voice or her sweet speaking voice. He continued to push harder and harder against her mouth, fearful that she’d thrash again and unwilling to hear her restart her earsplitting shrieks.

  Before long, she ceased to resist his efforts. The screaming stopped and so did her flailing. He wondered if perhaps she’d finally come around to the idea of him. He removed his hand from her face and saw that her eyes were wide, wider than usual. But her doe-eyed stare was vacant.

  He let go of her immediately and her body fell to the floor lifelessly.

  The faceless man fell to the ground as well. He curled into a ball and clutched his knees to his chest in the fetal position. It had been the worst day of his existence yet. He had been sure she would be kind to him, certain they’d be friends. But he had been wrong. She turned out to be a cruel and horrible person just like everyone else he’d encountered thus far. He pitied himself. He was a treasure, not a monster. He had been nothing but mistreated since his inception. He began to shed tears of sadness for himself and his unfortunate fate. He started to doubt once again, doubt he’d ever find a friend. But he quickly remembered that he still had one chance. He would complete his journey and travel to Harbingers Falls. He would find Melissa Martin. She would be his friend undoubtedly. After all, she had lovingly accepted Gabriel James, a fellow creation of Dr. Franklin Terzini. She would accept him as well, love him even. If goodness existed in the world, he would find it, and he suspected it resided in Harbingers Falls.

  Chapter 13

  Leaden clouds advanced determinedly, pressing their way past waning rays of gold, across the spring sky. In the distance thunder rumbled. Trees shivered and turned over their tender leaves shining an eerie, iridescent shade of jade against darkening heavens. Branches whipped and lashed about as the wind began to gust. Gabriel and Yoshi were driving directly into a storm’s path.

  The rising wind rocked the rental car as they traveled along Interstate 98, a highway canopied by American Sycamore trees that led directly to Harbingers Falls. Thunder growled again like a starved and angered beast, snarling and roaring a ferocious warning. Lightning flashed; the wind howled thrashing boughs as they surrendered new foliage to its might.

  Outside, the light had been besieged, eclipsed. Inside the rented 2012 Jeep Cherokee, however, optimism prevailed.

  Though time spent traveling did little to allay Gabriel’s worry, he couldn’t help but feel excited. Despite hours spent moving about that left him feeling powerless and incapable of defending Melissa, his frustration and restlessness abated as he moved closer to Harbingers Falls. Such feelings were a welcome reprieve from the more than fourteen hours spent flying from China to New York during which time Gabriel’s mind entertained various scenarios that would have been judged science fiction by most rational people.

  Yoshi, on the other hand, appeared to be in awe of all he had seen. While Gabriel labored testily through the chaos of the airport terminal after they had landed, his travel companion chattered incessantly about the thrill of flying, the lights, the people, the shops, and more specifically, New York. With countless places to eat and shop, John F. Kennedy Airport functioned as a city within a city and did nothing short of amaze Yoshi. He stared with mouth agape at every site proffered.

  From the passenger seat of the Cherokee, Yoshi remained enthusiastic and eager to discuss what he’d seen.

  “I can’t believe how exciting this place is!” Yoshi said, enamored of his limited American experience. “I knew there would be lights and people, but I never imagined there would be so many. And the roads, they’re paved, all of them! They’re not paved in gold but, wow! How did you sleep, ever, in such an exciting place?”

  “It’s a challenge, Yoshi,” Gabriel admitted recounting his many sleepless nights spent contemplating his growing feelings for Melissa, then agonizing over revealing his origins to her.

  “And this place we’re headed, Harbingers Falls, is it as exciting as the terminal? Does it have as many lights and people as Kennedy Airport?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Does it have the restaurant with the golden arches?”

  “Yes. Two in fact”

  “Two arches or two restaurants?”

  “Both, technically; there are two restaurants. Four arches total.”

  “Excellent!” Yoshi said enthusiastically.

  As far as Gabriel could tell, the apex of the many high points of Yoshi’s trip thus far, had been dining at McDonald’s. They stopped there to eat while in the airport. Yoshi had expressed his delight rather verbally, oohing and clucking throughout his meal.

  “There are other restaurants, too, you know,” Gabriel offered.

  “Are they as good as McDonald’s? Do they have the French fries? If so, I would like to try them all,” Yoshi declared.

  “Some do, some don’t.”

  “We will go to the ones that do, right?”

  “Um, we’ll try. We have to find Melissa first.”

  Thunder rolled once again, closer this time. Lightning struck in the distance, lit the horizon. Large droplets of rain began to fall slowly at first, then faster.

  “I can’t wait to meet Melissa. I’ve heard so much about her,” Yoshi said.

  “You’ll like her. She’s,” Gabriel began.

  “Beautiful,” Yoshi teased.

  “Yes, beautiful,” Gabriel agreed. “I just hope she still likes me.”

  “From everything you’ve told me, there is no need to worry.”

  “I’m not so sure. A lot of time has passed.”

  “It’s only been five months. That’s nothing.”

  “She may not feel the same way for me anymore. Five months to a teena
ge girl is a lifetime,” Gabriel worried aloud.

  “Not where I’m from, a man could leave his wife and go on a journey for years, and when he returned, it would be as if no time had passed.”

  “It’s different here, Yoshi.”

  “What do you mean different?” Yoshi asked puzzled.

  “I mean that people are different, there is so much going on, and they are much quicker to move on with their lives.”

  “After only five months? Not possible if she felt about you the way you said she did.”

  “Maybe, but we weren’t married, we weren’t even together very long. I probably took it a lot more seriously than she did.”

  “I doubt that,” Yoshi said

  “When I was with Melissa it was the first time I had ever experienced feelings, it’s no wonder that I haven’t been able to think of anything but her, but it certainly wasn’t like that for her”

  “Okay, but you told me that she felt the same way about you?”

  “Think about it Yoshi, we were only together for a short time, and now I have been gone for five months, I have barely even been able to contact her, anyone would have moved on.”

  “I still don’t get what being gone for a few months has to do with your relationship. Feelings are feelings. They don’t change that quickly.”

  “But they do, feelings diminish over time.”

  “I don’t believe it, not if they were real.”

  “Well if I’d been here this conversation would be far less relevant. Being on the same continent would have helped. Having unlimited Internet and phone access would have helped.”

  “But you didn’t. So?”

  “So maybe she forgot about me. I couldn’t even tell her where I was. I wasn’t reachable.”

  “You had to do what you had to do to survive. It’s not like you picked up and moved to Motuo County for fun or something, though I am partial to my home just for the record. You never would have left her if you didn’t absolutely have to.”