by A.L. Svartz
***
"Honey?" Mr. Eisen said as he entered his house. He gave his bag to the gentleman that stood next to him. "Honey?" He jogged up the spiral staircase that was in front of him. Placing his hand of the gold-colored railing as he went up, it gave him a little bit of a shock. He retracted his way, waving it in the air to try to get the pain to go away.
"Sir, where should I put your..." The man at the bottom of the staircase said before being interrupted.
"Hold on," Mr. Eisner said, not paying any attention to what he was trying to say. When he made it to the top of the staircase, he darted down the hall that followed. "Honey?"
"Hank?" A distant female voice called out. Mr. Eisen headed in the direction of her voice.
"Honey?" Mr. Eisen yelled again. "I'm coming." Passing by the different kinds of rooms that were present in his house, he reached the room hat his wife's voice was coming from. It was his youngest son's room. He busted open the door. His wife and his youngest so both looked up at him.
"Oh Hank, there you are," his wife said as she got up from her son's bed and gave her husband a hug. She kissed him on the mouth.
"What's going on?" He asked. "I got your texts saying that you've got some exciting news."
She turned to her son. "I think your son would like to tell you what it is," she said.
His son was sitting on top of his bed, with a large glass cage in his hand. He pushed up his thick glasses as he set the glass cage on his bed. Getting up off his bed, he grabbed a paper bag, that the seemed to have something moving around in it, off the side cabinet of his bed.
"Look dad," his son said, walking up to his father and handing him the paper bag.
Mr. Eisen grabbed the bag from his son. He carefully opened it up, peering inside. "Ahh!" His father screamed. Crunching up the top part of the paper bag, he slammed it on the floor. Taking his right foot, he stomped around on the bag several times, flattening it.
"Dad stop!" His son yelled, slightly pushing him. He looked up at his father who was paying no attention to him. Right now his main objective was destroying whatever his son showed him.
Mr. Eisen gave a few more good stomps on the bag before he stopped. "What the hell was that!" He yelled.
His son picked up the flattened paper bag, opening the top part, only to see guts and blood inside.
"Hank!" Mr. Eisen's wife yelled, backing away from her husband and walking over to her son. "You just killed our son's new and, very expensive, pet."
"A bug is not a pet," Mr. Eisen said.
"It wasn't a bug, dad,"' his son said. "It was the rare Yellow-Bellied Blue Scorpion, and you killed it. You killed it dad."
"That thing was a damn bug!" Mr. Eisen yelled. "And it won't be living in this house." He turned away from his son. "Why can't you get a cat or something like a normal person." He stormed out of the room.
Mr. Eisen's wife looked down at her son. He held the paper bag in his hand still, looking down at the floor. She bent down and put her hand on his back.
"Oh, don't worry sweetie," she started. "Your father didn't mean it. He's just going through a tough time right now. With the company not doing so well and all. Just give him time."
Mr. Eisen angrily made his way down the very stairs he just climbed minutes ago. The man that was holding his suitcase before was still standing near the door.
"Sir, your bag? He said, raising the suitcase a little from off the ground. The blank look on his face was one that Mr. Eisen saw regularly.
"Oh, just put it in the office, would ya," Mr. Eisen said in an annoyed voice. He waved his hand at the man.
The man that was holding the suitcase headed off towards the right, disappearing down the hall.
Mr. Eisen rested on the railing, midway down the stairs. "Why is my family so crazy!" He yelled, his voice echoing around him. He smacked the top of the railing. Turning around, he heard someone coming down the hallway that he was just in. His wife was standing at the top of the stairs.
"What is it Sharon?!" Mr. Eisen said, in an angered voice. "I'm really not in the mood right now to deal with whatever you have going on!"
She started hopping down the stairs, her blonde hair moving around freely. "What do you mean, what is it?" His wife said. "You just killed our son's new pet. A pet that he was begging for me to get for a while now. And you went and killed it. Do you even care about how our son feels?"
"Look, I don't want a damn bug living in this house," Mr. Eisen said. "This is my house, and I'll decide what stays here and what doesn't."
"Well, we keep you here, don't we," his wife snapped back. "You know Hank, that so called 'bug' that I bought for our son wasn't on the cheap end either."
"What do you mean?" Mr. Eisen said, standing up straight from the railing he was leaning over on. She now got his attention when she brought the subject of money into the conversation.
His wife continued to go down the stairs until she was on the same step as her husband. She put both her hands on her husband's shoulders. "Hank," she started. "It was a very rare, and almost extinct type of scorpion. It cost us eighty-thousand dollars."
Mr. Eisen pushed his wife's hands off of him. He backed up a little, falling off the step he was just on but catching himself on the step below. "What did you just say?" He asked his wife, making sure he heard right the amount she just told him.
"Eighty-thousand dollars," she repeated. His wife crossed her arms.
With one quick motion, Mr. Eisen struck his wife's face with the back of his right hand. "Ouch!" He yelled, rubbing the back of his hand that was red. He looked at it before looking back at Sharon.
His wife fell back on the steps behind her. She looked up at her husband, holding her cheek. "What the hell Hank?!" She yelled. Removing her hand from the painful spot, it was clear that her cheek was beginning to swell. She starting rubbing it.
Mr. Eisen went up one step, overlooking his wife. He hovered over his wife. Getting closer to her face, he said, "don't ever spend money like that again. You hear me! I don't care if you're married to a guy that can make that much in a day. I'm the provider in this family. From now on, I decide what we buy and don't buy. Don't you ever to that to me again. You hear me!" He stood up nice and tall, backing away from his wife. Mr. Eisen then turned, and continued to make his way down the stairs.
Going down the hall to the left of him, he made his way into the office. He turned and slammed the brown wooden door closed. Facing the door, he put his head down, leaving his right fist resting on it. After a few minutes of thinking, he turned to face his office desk. His suitcase was lying flat across the top his desk. The two potted planets that he had, which were located at the corners of the room behind his desk, looked as though they had been freshly watered. A closed laptop was near the right corner of his desk.
Mr. Eisen breathed heavily though his nose as he walked over to his desk, sitting on the black chair that was behind it. Spinning around his chair, he faced the dark blue curtains that covered up the window. Putting his hands into the curtains, he pulled the two away from each other, revealing the starry night.
Standing from his chair, he walked out into the little garden that was behind his office. The cool air blasted him as he walked outside. Flurries were dancing in the sky. Looking up at the stars, he wondered what it took to become one.