FicWad

The boy stared out the window as the telephone poles whizzed past. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. …. Eight. Seven. Ten. Nine. Odin was taking him somewhere. The boy looked over at the man with his hands on the wheel. Odin hadn’t told him where they were going. It was taking foreverrrrr. He wanted to be outside putting holes in things. He’d been putting holes in things for a long time now. Odin said he had natural talent. The boy wondered if natural talent were anything like natural clouds.
“Odin?” the boy asked. The man seemed to hold the steering wheel tighter.
“What?” he said in an angry voice.
“Are we there yet?”
“You just asked me that two minutes ago!” Odin said. It sounded like he was speaking through his teeth. The boy stared at him for a moment.
“So are we?”
“Look. When we get there I’ll tell you. Okay? Just stop asking.”
The boy looked at his feet. He kicked on foot. Then the other one. Then the first foot again. A little tune began to play in his mind. Bum bum bum…
“Magical Plushy Island, it’s a great place to be,” he sang. “And when we play together its fun for you and me!”
“What…are you…doing?” Odin asked.
“Singing.”
“Well stop.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to have to clean up your blood from the floorboards.”
The boy sighed and looked back out the window. He’d forgotten how the rest of the song went anyway. He pointed his finger at a telephone pole.
“Bam,” he whispered. Then at the other poles. “Bam. Bam. Bam.”
“You’d probably hit them all too,” Odin said. “I couldn’t do what you can until I was at least twenty. You shoot like a demon, kid.”
“What’s a demon?”
“A monster from hell.”
“What’s hell?”
“A place where bad people go.”
“Oh.” Silence. Boring. Boring. Boring. He wanted to plaaaay and put holes in things. Holes in bowls. Bowls in holes. Bowly holes.
“Odin?”
“If you’re going to ask what I think you’re going to ask you had better not ask it,” he said in a growly voice. The boy stared at him. How did he know what Odin thought he was going to ask? Oh well. Grownups were confusing. He should just ask anyway.
“Are we there yet?”
*
“Hey, kid…wake up,” a voice said. The boy opened his eyes, blinking slowly. He yawned and rubbed his eyes with his fist.
“Are we there yet?”
“Yeah. We’re here.”
“Yay!” The boy sat up and looked out the window. His heart did a little flip-flop. There were swings and slides and dungle gyms and lots and lots of kids. Some even looked older then he was. Yay! A playground! The boy began to bounce up and down in his seat. Yay! Yay! Yay!
“All right, kid. Now listen up,” Odin said. The boy gave him as much attention as he could. When Odin said things like that, it was usually important and he got mad when the boy forgot.
“Your name is John Smith.”
“Noooo,” the boy said, shaking his head. “My name started with a ‘hee’ sound.”
“Not your real name. The name you’re using in there.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so. Just shut up and listen. I want you to pretend I’m your father okay? Can you do that?”
“Okay. Can I play too?”
“Yes.”
“Okay!” The boy opened the door and started to get out of the car but the man grabbed his arm, stopping him. The boy looked back at him.
“Now, what is my name?” the man asked. The boy blinked.
“Odin.”
“What are we pretending? Remember?”
“Ohh… Umm…Daddy?”
“Riiight. Keep that in mind okay?”
The boy nodded. He wanted ouuut. Odin let go of his arm. The boy got out onto the sidewalk and ran up to the fence, watching the kids playing inside. This was going to be so fun! Maybe if he was good, Odin would let him put holes in things!
“Let’s go John,” Odin said. Wow! A spinny-twirly! He loved the spinny-twirly! Even when it made him throw up he could go right back on and go around and around and around.
“John!” Odin snapped, putting a hand on his shoulder. The boy looked up at him.
“Let’s go, John,” Odin said very slowly. The boy blinked. He didn’t know his name but he was pretty sure it wasn’t John.
“Remember?” Odin said, a smile that seemed angry at the same time on his face. Ohhh.
“Okay Daddy! Let’s go!” the boy said, grabbing Odin’s hand. Odin rolled his eyes and said something that the boy couldn’t hear. The man led the boy to a big red building. Above the black door was a big cloth with writing on it and a smiling sun on both sides of the words.
Inside the building were a bunch of pictures, like the kind the boy drew, and cartoon pictures of animals and suns on the walls. Wow. This place was fun. Odin led him up to a desk in the center of the room. Behind that desk was a smiling woman.
“Hello. Welcome to Sunnytime Daycare. Can I help you?”
“Yes, my name is Alexander Smith-”
“I’m John Smith!” the boy said, proud that he remembered the name. Odin gave him a little bit of an angry look but didn’t yell.
“Well hello John Smith,” the woman said with a smile.
“Eh heh…cute isn’t he?” Odin said with a smile that seemed actually real.
“He’s adorable, Mr. Smith.”
“I was told that John was accepted to this daycare?”
“I’ll see if you’re in the system,” the woman said. There was a bunch of clicking noises. Finally she said:
“It appears so. Will this be John’s first day?” she asked, smiling down at him.
“No. John gets nervous in strange places so we just thought we’d take a little tour first.”
“Oh. No problem. If you give me a second I’ll show you around.”
The boy bounced from foot to foot as he waited for something to happen. The woman was busy doing grownup things and Odin was just standing there. Finally the woman came around the desk and held out her hand to him.
“Well, shall we go?” she asked. The boy took her warm hand and smiled. She looked pretty. The woman led them through several rooms. The one that really caught his eye was filled with toys. Toys all over the place and no one there to play with them.
“Canni go play?” the boy asked.
“Later,” Odin said.
“But you said I could play! I wanna play!”
“Tell you what,” the woman said. “When we’re done looking around you can go play in the playground with the other kids. If your Daddy doesn’t mind.”
“I suppose we have some spare time,” Odin said. Yay! Yay, yay, yay! He was going to go on the swing first, then the slide, then the spinny-twirly, then the slide, then the spinny-twirly, then the dungle gym, then the spinny-twirly.
“This is the time out room,” the woman was saying. The boy wrinkled his nose. He didn’t like the time out room. There was nothing there but a small squishy looking pillow and a window that looked out on the playground.
“I don’t think that John will have to go in here, will he?” the woman asked, giving his hand a squeeze. The boy smiled.
“Why don’t you go look outside?” Odin said, giving him a small pat on the back. This was one order that the boy had no trouble following. The window was small and narrow and pretty high up. The boy stood on tippy-toes and pressed his face to the glass. It was sooo colorful outside. He could see the entire playground below him.
“Does someone sit in the room with them?” Odin asked.
“No sir. We believe that ignoring a tantrum is the best way to cure it.”
“How long do you usually keep a kid in here for?”
“It depends. Usually only a minute or so. For hitting or anything like that, they get a full five. We have good kids here though so I don’t think you’ll have to worry Mr. Smith.”
“Excellent. So, John, want to go to the playground now?”
“Yeaaahh!” the boy crowed.
*
Baaaaack and fooorth, baaack and fooorth. The boy squealed and kicked his feet happily as Odin continued to push him in the swing. At first, the man hadn’t wanted too, but the nice woman had talked to him. This was so fun! He didn’t even know Odin knew how to be fun! He thought all Odin knew how to do was be grumpy.
The swing suddenly jerked to a stop. The boy fell forward, oofing as the bar that kept him safely in the swing bumped into his belly. Heeey. He wasn’t done swinging yet!
“Mooore! I wanna do it mooore,” he said, kicking his feet.
“All right kid. All right. I just want to show you something. Do you see that man over by the slide?”
The boy looked. There was a big man with hair the color of snow, talking to a little girl. The man turned a little and the boy saw he had a big round nose, like a small balloon…it was even red too. The boy giggled.
“Funny man!”
“If you saw him tomorrow would you recognize him?”
“Yep!”
“Good.”
“Push me! Push meeeee!” the boy demanded. Odin sighed and let go of the swing. The boy laughed as his feet almost seemed to walk across the sky. Wheee!
*
The boy laughed as he went down the side. It was a brand new day and he was at the playground again. As he came to the end, he didn’t put his legs down and his butt hit the ground. The boy sat there blinking for a second, deciding on whether or not to cry. No grownups were looking his way. He stood and brushed off his new coat.
It was dark green and puffy. He could easily hide a whole jar of fairies inside it. What was inside it though was even more exciting. Odin had given him the gun! Only, he couldn’t use it ‘til he was supposed to. The boy glanced at the fence. No one there. He sighed. When Odin showed up, the boy was supposed to hit someone to get himself in timeout. Then…what else? The boy scrunched up his nose, trying to remember. Oh right! Once he got into timeout he was supposed to open the window and wait for Mr. Balloon-Nose to come along. Then he was supposed to put a hole in him. The boy didn’t think it was very nice to put holes in people. But Odin had said the man needed an extra hole in his head…to keep his brain cool. It made sense to the boy. Some people just needed cooler brains then others.
The boy ran around to the slide again. He hadn’t taken off his coat all day and inside it was hot. The nice woman had tried to get him to take it off but he wouldn’t. He hoped Odin came soon. He didn’t like being hot…and he wanted to shoot hoooles!
When he reached the bottom of the slide, he suddenly saw Odin. The man was standing by the fence; watching him. The boy smiled. Yay! Now he had to hit someone. He walked up to a little boy playing in the sandbox. When the boy looked up at him, he punched him in the head.
*
The boy stood on the pillow, staring out of the open window. The grownups had gotten very very mad at him. Did he do a bad thing? He’d only done what Odin had told him. Odin was a grownup. So was it bad to listen to some grownups but not others? He just didn’t understand.
He watched as the kids played outside, wishing he could join them again. He hadn’t even had a chance to go on the spinny-twirly yet! Then Mr. Balloon-Nose appeared, walking toward the slide. Yay! The boy unzipped his jacket and pulled out the gun. Then he pointed it at Mr. Balloon-Nose and pulled.
Everything was quiet then. He couldn’t hear anything but his heart. He watched as Mr. Balloon-Nose jerked, and then slowly fell to the ground red stuff spraying from his head. Then everything became fast. So fast. Everyone started screaming and screaming.
“Daddy!” the little girl cried. “Daaaaddyyyyy!!”
The boy sat down where he was, holding the gun. His hands were shaking. He sat there for a long time, staring past the wall, remembering over and over the way Mr. Balloon-Nose had fallen.
Footsteps. Footsteps were coming closer. Someone was running The boy hurriedly put the gun in his jacket and zipped it up. He would get in trouble if they knew. Something really bad would happen if they knew. That was not a good thing he had done. Odin was wrong. It was a very very bad thing. The door opened and the nice woman came in and wrapped him in a hug.
“Oh God, are you all right, John?! You must have seen the whole thing!!” She was crying. The boy tried to wriggle out of her grasp. No. He didn’t want to be hugged. He’d done a bad thing! He shouldn’t be hugged for doing a bad thing.
“I did it,” he whimpered, trying to make her let go. “I did it. I did it.”
“Ohh nooo, sweetheart,” the woman said, petting his head gently. “Nooo. You didn’t do anything. Ssh. Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. We’ll call your Daddy to come pick you up okay? Wouldn’t you like to see your Daddy?”
“Daddy’s dead,” the boy whispered.
“Oh you poor thing. It’s going to be all right, John. It’s going to be all right.”
---
The boy watched the rain splatter against the front window. The black wipers wiped the rain away, but the rain always came back. The clouds were crying. He wanted to cry too…but there wasn’t any cry in him and he didn’t know why.
“That was a good job, kid,” Odin said. “At first I didn’t think you could do it…but I’m glad you did. Saved me a lot of trouble. That’s the only place the guy went without bringing along half a dozen bodyguards. Guess he figured he was safe at a daycare.”
“Will…will he come back tomorrow?”
“No, kid. He’s dead. Dead people never come back.”
“Why is he dead?”
“You killed him. Clean shot too. Right through the temple.” Odin whistled. “Probably didn’t even see it coming until it was over.”
“Killing…isn’t bad is it?” the boy asked hopefully. Odin didn’t sound as if killing were bad. The yellow haired man chuckled.
“Yes it is. Worst thing you could possibly do to someone.”
“So am I going to hell?” He hoped not. He didn’t want to go to hell. He didn’t know where it was but with all the bad people it would be scary there.
“Most likely, kid,” Odin said, patting his knee. “But don’t worry. I’ll be there too. We’ll roast together.”
The boy said nothing more and watched the telephone poles go past. He was a bad person now. A bad, bad person. He’d made the clouds cry.