He’s always angry at the oddest of times.

Now, for example. I can’t imagine why.

Is he pissed ’cause I puked?

I didn’t leave a mess.

I see he’s trying to be serious as he begins to talk. Maybe that’s all it is.

I finger my mug and eyeball the pomegranate.

“You are in a bad way. What you have seen and struggled with, most do not have reason or facility to even consider. Why this evil has visited you, I cannot say. I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I have an idea that I can be of some.”

“Help. I mean.”

I take care to deposit pomegranate rubies in my mouth slowly.

I tell him I hope so and not to forget I’ll be tripping the light fantastic on my own in a few hours. Time is fleeting and I’m anxious to see and hear what he’s got. I thank him again for his hospitality and friendship. I’m feeling like I need to get the fuck out of here.

This party needs to be over.

Yet, I need to hear him out.

And I need to get out of here.

He brings the box from the counter and sets it on the table.

“A battle is brewing. Time to prepare. I wish I had more for you. I am giving you all I have that can possibly help you. Time to listen.”

He beams at me. His eyes glisten as he reaches for my hands. His are the rough of a laborer, his grasp confirms it.

“Excercise, if only to clear your head and get your wind up a little. Do not drink so much.”

Bottom left, a molar begins to ache.

I ask if there’s any avacado left.

“You are at the sixth chapter. I mean to say, read the sixth chapter.”

“War is upon you.”

“Take that volume from in front of the couch.” He fixes me with a stare, lifts a finger and says, “Seriously, fetch it now.”

I do, and return to the table. The heft impresses and it’s perfume of leather and library linger.

“Chapter six”, he says.

“Show up in places that make him nervous. Nervous enough, he’s headlong to defend them. It means of course, being the first one there and a guarantee of some confrontation. I’ve got something to help you with that.”

His hand goes to the box.

“Find the weak points and exploit them without putting your own in the wind. Divide and conquer as best you can. Every vulnerability you can discover from your adversary leaves him with more to defend. Spread him thin if you can. Unnerve him if you can.”

The molar throbs. I remember breaking a piece off a month or so ago.

“Keep your mouth shut. I cannot know what he knows or guess at what he can hear. There is no one that can help you with this save for me and thus, no reason talk about it to anyone. You would only be putting that person in jeopardy. I cannot put too fine a point on this. Talk to no one.”

“Not even your Mother.”

He sees behind my eyes as I stumble over how any of this applies or how I can possibly apply any of it.

Smiling, he says, “Do your level best to adapt to whatever circumstances shit all over you.”

I hoover another sausage, gulp on the world’s finest coffee and grab at some bread to slather fruit on.

I can’t help but smile.

Without looking, he reaches to slide the box between us. A dirty rectangle. Maybe half the size of a bathroom scale.

My ears ring, not sounding wooden as he slides it over the table. It sings a little. I look closer and see it’s copper without any edges, all rounded. Oxidized green and brown, rust brown to black.

Old.

“I saw him years back. When I first laid eyes on you, there he was at the same time. It spooked me. I’d almost forgotten, it had been so long. Perhaps a century. Maybe a little longer.”

Looking at the box until his last sentence, he locks eyes with me.

I don’t think I flinch.

What he just said makes me need to crap. My tooth begins a prison riot.

“I fashioned it for him or most anything I saw like him at the time. Back then, they were everywhere. Not so many now, but much more powerful. Smarter, you see.”

Somewhere in my periphery, my tooth rages and I need to piss. He holds my gaze and attention.

“It was the best I could do at the time. I had more influence then.”

He pulls the box to him and and opens it with both hands from either side. The inside lid gleams as though it were polished yesterday. There is no better color than gleaming copper and it smells like a sweaty handfull of pennies.

I understand it hasn’t been opened in a very long time.

Nestled in fine straw or what appears individual strands of pale burlap, is a dagger. The hilt glints like chrome but has the milkiness of silver. The blade is serrated and a bright emerald green.

Carlo pushes it toward me, I see the blade is hollow glass, filled with brilliant green liquid.

“A toxin.” He says.

“Meant for your kind of monster.”

Sheezus motherfuckin.

5 Responses to “Man in picture. Time to find a reason.”