Broken windows part 11; there’s some autumn day waiting

Disaster!

Professor Venomous’ perspective

My son and I talked awhile after our hug and things were calming down.

It was mid day and the sun was boiling hot. I felt myself sweating under the cloak and sweater and all these trappings Shadowy had made me wear. I missed my family as it wasn’t whole yet, having only son K.O. with me(which I was glad of). Boxy and the rest of my kids weren’t here. How can I blame them? I threw it all away and left them for power and greed and my hidden, monstrous desire for fear-mongering destruction. I had hoped that in Boxman’s return to fight Shadowy we could reunite—yet still, we are farther apart than ever.

“How can I go back? After everything I’ve done? All the harm… I caused?” K.O. cries, and I hold him close to my chest.

“It’s so damn hot…” I whisper to myself, wiping sweat off my brow. I wanted to say something but I couldn’t gather my thoughts. The heat was unbearable. How in God’s name did Boxman survive living in the sun so long? He must be built out of something beyond matter, though I cannot fathom it. My mind travels to that dull, gleaming reddish blade that somehow was able to suspend Shadowy’s electric violet aura. I know Boxman made that for me, to get me back. I owe him everything—especially the fact that I can now freely speak to my son.

How can I help my son understand this wasn’t his fault? That the monster growing inside of me has finally reached its magnitude of malignancy, a cancer that reached into my bloodline without more than a dark shadow of a hold—-and now, I knew I had to tell him the truth of his power.

My eyes start to crease with painful, stinging tears as I hear my son sob, holding onto me tighter.

“Don’t worry, kiddo, I’ll make it right. None of this was on you. It was my fault. My fault for thinking I could handle Shadowy. My fault for thinking my life and everyone close to me, by extension, would reap the rewards,” I shuddered, taking in a shaky breath, my muscles tensing worse than ever. A spasm hits me and I feel something like thick tar wanting to come up my throat. I swallow it, and my son looks up at me, his eyes red from crying. “I knew to some degree this might happen, I still did it. I’m the only monster here. And you,” I hold his face and his wavering stare becomes more calm. “You are a hero. The hero I could never ever become, K.O.” My son finally smiles at my words and it is a real smile. The first smile I’ve seen from him, ever. It makes me even more sad.

“I could never quite find the righteous way to live without feeling the necessity to overextend my pride and ego…” I feel my words trailing and my son looking at me in a solemn way. I stop my pretentious way of talking, I need to be on his level. On a real level. “Look, K.O, you’re my son, and you’ll always be my son. I can’t be what you need me to be. But I hope in time…. We can have something…”

I feel at a loss for words. K.O. Looks down for awhile, but then up at me.

“Dad…”

The word that I hadn’t heard once from him since our time together now said so clearly—it rang into my Hippocampus—-a very strong surge throughout my heart as it pumped fresh blood and oxygen into my veins, and I never felt more alive than hearing my first born son call me such a title. I didn’t feel I deserved to be called such a good thing. The memory of his soft expression now traveling into my very deep memory like a well; I felt it like it was always a part of my remembered soundbites.

The most important part of who I am; his face, his voice, his very being, the fact that I created him equally with his mother. It was a majestic and beautiful thing. He was the me that would be great—-and then I saw that there was something else within me aching to breathe. The “dad” that was sheltering all of his heart and love and affection and gifts and fun just for…

“There’s something waiting for all of us one day. One autumn day,” he continues, pulling his hair over his ears. “It’ll be cool, nice, soft. And we’ll all be.. together. We will have a great day. Can you see it, dad? Can you picture it?”

I smile and see his tears breaking through, and I see all the details of the foundations where the buildings we destroyed were. I see all the cracks in the windows that aren’t there anymore.

“I see it, K.O. I see us all there, son,” I say, biting my lip, trying not to cry.

“Who is there?” He says, clearly exhausted, lying next to me on the dirty floor. I see glass nearby and and move it away from him. “Who is there with us?”

“I.. don’t… I don’t know..” I sigh, slumping down further on the ground. “Must be everyone.”

“My mom. Mr. Gar. Fink. Mikayla. Raymond. Ernesto. Shannon. Jethro. Darrel,” K.O. lists off, making me smile wider at the inclusion of everyone. “And your Boxman.”

My heart leaps at his kindness. “My Boxman?”

He nods. “Just like Mr. Gar is my mom’s.”

I lean down and kiss the top of his head. “You sweet boy. Your mother raised you right.”

He sighs in a relaxed way. “It’s right to treat everyone the way you want to be treated.”

“True,” I say simply.

“There must be a way to make things righ-”

My son’s words get overblown by a much louder sound. A thrashing sound and mechanical droning nearby, mainly to intimidate us.

It’s the Boxbots.

And… holy shit.

Boxman.

I stand up and blink several times, getting in front of my son.

“Stay behind me, K.O.”

My words were definitely heard as he replies, “I can fight them! Don’t baby me!”

It worries me that T.K.O might be trying to resurface so quickly. I also feel myself breaking. It isn’t good, and seeing Boxman again so soon, my resolve is cracking.

“It’s time to lose, you freaks!” The combined Boxbots say. All of Boxman’s robot children have combined into one large fighting machine.

They believe we are still Shadowy and T.K.O.

I see my beloved, and I can’t help but grin in a lopsided way seeing him again. I love everything about him. His long blue teak hair, his expressive eye, his roundness. He notices me looking at him and looks confused, and I see stars surround his form, pink and gold and yellow. I can’t see anything or anyone but him. He smiles a tiny bit, and though he’s atop his huge robot fighting battle droid that makes up his life’s work and his lineage, he seems to be cast in the same spell as I am.

“PV?” He asks in a shocked voice, his eyes glistening with recognition, but before I realize what’s happening, I see my son has gone turbo again and is revving to execute a huge fire energy attack directly at them.

I turn from Boxy’s immediate gaze and yell, “No, son! Don’t!” I get in front of Boxman and his kids. “Don’t hurt them!”

T.K.O growls. “You’d protect them?! They aren’t even your family! You skunk! You piece of crap! I’ll get you all for taking everything from me!” His ferocity is draining me and I feel it, like the power I used to have, and I felt my anger rising up even though I kept trying to push it down. It’s then he throws a massive attack at me. I don’t move out of the way. I deserve it, I need it. Justice is good. Better than it hurting anyone I love.

Little did I know, though, was that my daughter Fink was also there, watching and waiting, and before I knew it, she was there, in front of me. In between me and my son. And she got hit.

“No! Oh, God! Fink!” I cry, going over to her and checking her vitals. She was breathing, but definitely knocked out. I kissed her cheek, and moved her hair gently to the side off her face.

Suddenly, I see Boxy. He’s right there, in front of my face.

“John!” I blurt out, and his eyes widen. It’s the first time I say his first name, and the reaction is deep. His cheeks are red and he is smiling subtly.

“PV…” he says back softly, “is she okay?”

“I think so. I hope so. Oh, God. What have I done?” I sob, and Boxman leans in close to my face.

God, I want to look into his eyes forever.

“It’ll be okay, dear. Everything will be fine. Fink will be more than fine. I promise,” he says and I nod, and he gently takes his human hand to wipe a stray tear from my cheek.

“How can you comfort me after all I’ve done is hurt you?” I say, hanging my head in shame.

“PV, it’s a little more complicated than that. You and I know that Fink was our first time out together, all three of us. On the trike I made for her… remember?”

I grin in remembrance of that most exciting time we all attacked the plaza with the souped up trike he made specially for Fink. It was important. It was perfect. This was why he was perfect. Only he would bring up such a event, some would consider small. To us, it was the beginning of something so big and beautiful.

Suddenly I hear massive thundering and explosions. Boxman and I turn from our conversation and see T.K.O fighting the Boxbots.

“Reminds ya of Darrel and Fink, huh?” Boxman says and I sigh.

“Unfortunately it does.”

I see that Boxman turns to me, and hesitates to leave.

“Is… is it finally you again, PV?” He asks softly. I nod.

“Yeah. It’s me.” I take his hand to my lips and kiss it gently, the palm and the each finger, not taking my eyes off him a moment. He makes an involuntary noise that sounds a bit like a squeak or a squawk. Either way, it’s music to my ears.

“Oh, God… I missed you…” he says in a quiet sort of agony, like a tight rope that was ready to let loose at the end but never had that last tiny seam break. I felt my stomach drop and then settle in a deep pit of nausea and yet a quiet sense of calm.

How I wished we could stay like that forever.

But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

T.K.O. suddenly slammed a whirlwind of a fire blast toward not only the Boxbots, but us.

I feel a huge slam to my body and I fall to the ground.

But I see Boxman going up, up, up.

He’s hanging onto the foot of his Boxbot mechanized group of teenage robots, colliding once again into the heaven’s above. This time, with all his kids.

I realized he pushed me out of the way just in time before I’d be tossed into space too.

I look up at that boiling sun, as he hits it again.

I begged all of creation, the sun, the broken up moon and God himself to forgive me for my most dreadful sins, as I was convinced that my loved ones were all being punished now for my crimes.

This disaster was my doing, but it still left me calling out for help, like a helpless child.