Ed West
12-21-2013, 09:29 PM
Part One
Best Of All
This is a story of rogues and outsiders. Of thieves, liars, and the worst kinds of men. It also tells of great justice and extraordinary feats of bravery. There is love, life, laughter, and the brightest of souls. There is also hatred, death, and the darkness within. This is a story of hearts, and it is also a story of stars.
“One fully knows the value of life when they are comfortable with mortality to the point that they're ready to die. They've seen enough, done enough, and are ready for eternal peace. Yet when the moment of death arrives, their heart swells and they cry out in fear, defiance, and with great desire their wish to live: "I don't want to die yet!" I do not know these people, but I pray every night that someone will grant them their wish. Not only do I see the value of my life, but theirs as well.”
-Leoric Swift
-1-
It was snowing on the evening of February 1, 20XX as an anxious Ryan Swift paced back and forth in a busy hospital corridor. It was the kind of climate-controlled place that never seemed to get the temperature right, for healthy people at least, and the smell of disinfectants gave him a sick feeling. He reached up and pushed his chestnut brown hair out of his eyes, only to have it flop back down on his brow. Marceline Swift, having seen her husband so worked up, suggested that he step outside for some air. He wasn't sure how the narrow, brightly lit hallway of a place he'd only been to when he was sick, or dying, was going to help him relax.
“Trust me, honey, we've got time,” she said, but it had already been ten minutes since he had stepped into the hallway. Ryan worried that if he actually went outside, he might miss it all. What was taking so long? Was the baby taking the bus?
A nurse poked her head out of the delivery room and asked, “Captain Swift?”
“He's here!” Ryan exclaimed with a mixture of joy and relief. He walked into the room and the entire ward heard him cry out in fear.
“Sir, please calm down. It's only your wife,” the nurse said.
“B-but...her...it...my god!” Ryan proceeded to freak out. What he had seen that day could not be unseen, as they say. Marceline then gave a shout and pushed. Ryan wasn't sure if he could take this much longer. How could childbirth be so brutal and violent?
“Marceline! What have I done to you? I'm so, so sorry!” He fell to his knees. How did it ever come to this?
Marceline did two cycles of breathing exercises and then gave her husband a smile.
“Baby...you're doing...unh...juuust...fine!” She attempted to comfort her husband.
To Ryan she looked beautiful, like a goddess of victory on the battlefield, with her damp blonde bangs clinging to her forehead and a fierce look of determination in her gray eyes. Then he looked down again.
“OH MY GOD, NO!” He lost it once again.
“Hang...unh...in there!” she encouraged her husband between pushes. Ryan had finished gearing up in a surgeon's mask, surgical gown, and latex gloves, determined to help his beloved wife and approaching child in any way possible when the doctor stood up.
“You have a boy!” the doctor announced.
Ryan looked at his son dangling upside down in the doctor’s grip. When his eyes did not open and he made no sound, Ryan quickly became worried.
“Say, Doc, shouldn't you smack his butt or something?” He slapped his own face.
The doctor did indeed plan to lay hands on the child, but as he pulled back his hand, a pair of lazy brown eyes opened and found Ryan's.
“Whoa, chill!” Ryan threw up his hands “Don't hit him! He's cool, he's all right!”
Upon seeing the hysterical look on his father's face, the baby laughed. Ryan gave a sigh of relief and smiled at his son “Leo!” He took his son to sit on the bed alongside Marceline.
She put her finger out and Leo grabbed it. “He's amazing!” she said and kissed his little hand.
-2-
Leoric grew into an energetic young boy, full of curiosity. At night his father would lift him onto his broad shoulders and take him out into the yard to see the stars. He would point out planets and constellations as he told his son stories of daring adventures, risky missions, and epic space battles. When the other kids would play war, he was always the first to join a team as a leader, support, or any of the other roles. He had an early fondness for action, tactics, and strategy, and did not care what his role was as long as he could play. During holidays his mother would help him bake snacks to bring in for the class, which earned him the favor of his peers. When rainy days came, Marceline would sing to him as he tried to accompany her by guitar.
From time to time Ryan would bring his military buddies home, and it became a tradition to challenge Swift's boy with trivia about ships and cosmic battles. To their amusement and approval, Leoric often showed himself quite knowledgeable about these subjects. As he grew older, those visiting the Swift household would bring technical publications such as manuals and magazines for the young captain in training to read. One such visitor named Zachary Method, Ryan's closest friend, shared Ryan and Marceline's pride and excitement for Leoric's potential. Despite always worrying for her son's safety, Marceline agreed to let Leoric sit in the cockpit of Zach's Personal Fighter Class Cruiser, and once he grew older, he was even allowed to fly it short distances.
Over time, Ryan began to notice that his son had a penchant towards sticking up for other kids, whether with his words or his hands. While they were proud of their son's good intentions, both parents agreed that Leoric would get himself into too much trouble someday. As a precaution, Ryan taught his son to box when he was old enough for two reasons: the first was so his son would be able to defend himself, and the second was discipline. He wished for his son to know his own strength and what he was capable of. All things considered, Leoric was very happy throughout his early childhood. However, the blessing of innocence quickly fades as ignorance recedes and reality rears its ugly head.
-3-
It was a crazy hot summer in 20XX as tensions between The Empire and The Rebel Faction reached a fever pitch. This was also the year that a squadron of rebel bombers broke through Earth's defenses. Their primary targets were military installations and government buildings, but contempt for the upper class led to the idea of punishing the decadent citizens who lived in luxury.
Leoric was walking home from school when the first bomb landed, and at first he didn't know what was going on. Construction work? Fireworks during the day? The phrase “terrorist attack” simply did not come to mind at first. Then the sirens began to wail and he knew that something must be wrong. Another bomb struck, as if to blast away any chance that this was an accident, and the growing dread in the pit of Leoric's stomach urged him to get home immediately.
He stuck to side streets and alleyways, knowing that if he tried to move down any main streets, he'd run into panicked crowds of people. During emergencies, crowds tend to take on a mob mentality, complete with pushing and shoving, and the last thing Leoric wanted was to die by being trampled. His palms were sweaty and the sound of his heartbeat thudded in his ears like a sledge hammer. The explosions were getting nearer, closing in on him, and he broke into a full sprint as a bomber plummeted into a row of houses a few streets over, the resulting impact spewing smoke and ash into the surrounding area. Leoric wasn't expecting this and inhaled a lungful of the choking death. He retched, coughed, spit, and sputtered as he turned down another alleyway to escape. Once he was clear, he stopped to breathe; his mouth dry and lungs on fire. He became aware of fire all around him. Buildings he had seen every day, towers of brick and glass that hadn't caught his eye before, now blazed insanely as if waving at him with glowing hands. The sickly sweet smell of burning wood coming from nearby houses cloyed at his nose and he put his hand over his face. The idea came to him that people were dying, maybe his mom, too. He pushed these thoughts from his mind and set off running again, but after only running down a block, he heard the sound of a voice screaming in pain. Pain, agony, and fear. This, too, he pushed from his mind. Leoric wanted nothing more than to stop and help that person, but he knew he could not. Even if it damned him to hell, he had to leave that person to their fate. He had to get home and help his mother.
After a few moments that seemed like hours, Leoric emerged from an alleyway on his block. His house was within sight and he began running towards it at full speed. Just then he heard another screaming voice. He looked to see who was screaming and cursed under his breath. Sure, it's wrong, but it's one thing to hear something and not respond. The less you know, the better you feel. However, Leoric was looking at this screaming person, a child slightly younger than himself, as he waved his hands from the second floor of a burning house. Their eyes met, and he was now calling out to Leoric for help. This he could not ignore, but everything was on fire, including the lawn beneath the window. The kid was going to have to jump, but fire obviously didn't enhance his chances of being caught by Leoric, or making a safe landing by himself. Leoric looked around the front yard, and in the driveway saw a car with a tarp on it. Close enough, he thought. He dragged the tarp off of the car and managed to throw it on the fire, smothering it without burning himself.
Leoric cupped his hands to his face and shouted, “Jump!”
“I can't!” the kid whined back.
Leoric pointed a finger up at the kid and roared, “Wrong! The correct answer is, 'okay'! Now jump or die!”
That kid must have believed him, because he summoned what courage he could and jumped. Leoric did catch him, but stumbled and fell backwards onto the tarp.
“Sh-!” Leoric hopped back up instantly and ran out into the street with the kid still in his arms. The tarp, while having successfully smothered the fire, remained very hot to the touch. He regained his composure and set the kid down.
“You okay?” Leoric said, rubbing his own backside, and hoping that he didn't burn anything important. Like his butt and junk.
The kid nodded vigorously, as if his enthusiastic head bobbing said it all. Leoric supposed that it would have to do.
“Where are your parents?” Leoric asked.
“At work,” the kid replied.
Not good. There wasn't a chance that the downtown district made it out of this unscathed. Also from the sound of approaching explosions, Leoric concluded that another bombing was about to begin.
He put his hand out and said, “Okay. Stick with me. We're gonna go get my mom and head somewhere safe.”
“Thanks!” the kid said, taking Leoric's hand.
“Don't sweat it. Now let's move and stay close to me. My house is right over there, but a bomb could hit at any second.”
These words would haunt Leoric for years to come, as if he had summoned catastrophically bad luck with his jinxing statement of coincidental misfortune.
They ran up the block, but just as they got there, the kid stopped to look up and Leoric lost grip of his hand. He turned around to shout to the kid to keep it moving, but the earsplitting boom of a bomb blast cut him off. Leoric moved to shield the kid from any debris that might come flying at them, and when it was over, he checked himself for any injuries. Miraculously, he hadn't been struck with any shrapnel or debris. The house next door to his had been completely wiped out and half of his had collapsed. At any second, the rest could come crashing down and Leoric knew that he would need to act fast.
He turned to the kid and said, “Okay. I'll be right back, so stay put. Got it?”
“Okay...” the kid answered with a sadness and reluctance that went unnoticed by Leoric as he rushed into the ruins of his once happy home.
-4-
“Mom...? Mom! Are you here? Holler if you hear me!” Leoric called out, but had to cover his face again as more smoke assailed his lungs. “God, I'm getting tired of all of this smoke,” he said in a muffled voice. As quickly and as carefully as possible, he made his way to the living room and stopped cold. He had seen the damage from the outside, but the view from the inside was horrifying. To him it looked like someone picked up his entire living room and dashed it against a wall. Furniture was overturned, the floor was littered with the glass of family pictures and fragments of various knickknacks and mementos that had once sat on the mantle. The fireplace lay in a crumpled heap by a yawning hole in the wall, and through it he could see the remains of his neighbor's house. He thought that if he looked at the rubble just a little closer, couldn't he see...? Leoric shook his head to clear away this thought. Death was all around him now and it was getting to be a bit too much for him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it exhale slowly. Just then he heard what sounded like a cough and whipped around to see where it came from. Then he saw her. His mother was pinned beneath a support beam, shards of a broken mirror scattered all around her. He wasted no time getting to her, vaulting over furniture and nearly crashing into a table along the way.
Leoric couldn't hide the fear in his voice. “Oh, Mom. Oh no, no. Mom, no!”
A thought crept into his mind that he had been too late. Far too late.
Marceline Swift's voice was faint, but Leoric heard her words as if they were the only sound in the universe. “Leo...I was going to come find you...but then I remembered how much you've grown. I knew you would come. You're just like your father.”
He stared at her smile, and how her smile formed two small dimples on her cheeks as he brushed away a few strands of hair covering her gray eyes. He stared at everything about her so he can burn the image of his mother into his mind. She was pale and trembling, but somewhere deep inside she still made Leoric feel safe. This woman had protected Leoric for so long that he couldn't believe his eyes. This is impossible, he thought. His mother was dying. Leoric's eyes began to burn and he blinked them rapidly to clear the tears that began to obscure his vision.
It had been an odd quirk that was rare for him, but when Leoric was distressed, he repeated himself. “We've gotta go, gotta go now, Mom. It's too dangerous here.”
He was so overwhelmed with grief that he found it hard to keep himself together. So overwhelmed that he began to forget about the bombing, began to forget about anything else that might be going on. He choked a sob and felt ashamed. He didn't feel like his father at all. He really just felt slow and weak. Above all, he felt stupid. What could he do now? What was he even thinking, trying to be a hero?
His palms were still sweaty as he placed his hands on the support beam and tried to lift it off her. The sneakers he wore skidded on the hardwood floor as he pulled desperately. It didn't even budge. Leoric gritted his teeth and tried again only to have his feet slide even more. Growing frustrated with his inability to help his mother, he readjusted his stance and put his full strength into his next pull. This time he did manage to lift it, but it wasn't enough and if he did try to move it, he was certain he'd only drop it back onto his mother. Just as hope had died in his heart, the beam slowly started to move. He looked around and saw the kid he'd saved, struggling and straining to pull the beam away from Leoric's mother.
Ignoring the fact that the kid was actually helping, Leoric scolded him for being reckless. “I told you to stay outside, kid! It's too dangerous!”
The kid's face screwed up into what looked like a mixture of bravery and defiance. “I'm Marvin! I'm helping!”
With Leoric lifting and Marvin pulling, they managed to drop the beam safely on the floor and free Marceline.
Leoric knelt back down by his mother's side. “Okay, Mom. I know that it's not a good idea to move you, but we need to get out of the house now!”
With the beam gone, Marceline's voice had regained its melodic quality. However it still remained dreadfully faint “Leo...I love you so much... and I always will,” she said.
“I love you, too, Mom,” Leoric said and went to change positions to lift her up, but she placed a hand on his forearm.
In a voice that sounded like the wind rustling the dead leaves of a tree, Marceline called his name. “Leo...”
Her eyes no longer could focus, and when Leo touched her hand, it was ice cold.
Fear cascaded over his mind. “Mom?” he cried out.
“Hug me,” she said , looking at her son, her pride and joy. He had his father's jawline that made his smile seem so big and happy. He had her piercing eyes, if only in size and shape, but not color, and when she looked into them, she could see his strong spirit. She smiled to herself, amused, when she realized that he could use a haircut. All in all, she loved her beautiful, wonderful boy.
Leoric did so without another word. He grabbed her by the shoulders and sat her up, wrapping his arms around her as they hugged each other for the last time.
She then whispered into his ear, “Take care of your father...”
“Mom, don't die...please don't die...” he whispered back.
“I love you...”
Leoric buried his face in her shoulder and sobbed, “I love you, too.”
Then her hands dropped and the leaves rustled no more. Now his home had begun to collapse the rest of the way. Leoric hadn't noticed when Marvin came to stand by his shoulder, but heard him when he spoke.
He hesitated, but reluctantly suggested, “Hey... we should go.”
These were complete strangers to Marvin, but this older boy had stopped to save his life when he didn't have to. He didn't want to rush him at such a sad time, but the situation was getting worse by the second.
Leoric agreed with him. However he couldn't stand to leave his mother's body behind to be crushed or burned up by the fire that now began to spread throughout the house.
Leoric turned to Marvin with tears in his eyes.
“Help me get her outside? Please?”
The two boys had a hard time moving Marceline's body through the wreckage of the living room. Marvin was smaller and struggled to keep his grip on her feet, yet they managed to make it out just before the house collapsed. They sat on the front curb for some time before a passing medevac spotted them. Marvin was sitting next to Leoric, who was sitting next to his mother's body with his tear-stained face buried in his arms. A young paramedic approached them.
“Is she still alive?” he asked them.
Marvin closed his eyes and shook his head. Leoric let out a low sob.
“What are your names?” the paramedic knelt in front of them.
“I'm Marvin McCalister IV,” Marvin said.
“Leoric Swift,” Leoric grunted.
“Thank goodness, Marvin! Your parents are safe and sound at the bomb shelter. I'll take you to them.” The paramedic turned to Leoric and did not speak at first “...And Leoric Swift,” he said. “That must mean...” A look of unease spread across his face. His gaze went from the body to the house and back to the two boys. “That's Marceline Swift. I'm so sorry. Your father contacted us when the bombing first began, but we couldn't get here in time. The entire city was under siege. I'm sorry for this, too, but—”
“Orphanage,” Leoric cut him off before he could finish.
Stories like this have a way of spreading among children with parents in the military, so it was no surprise to him where he was going to live.
“It's only until your father gets home,” the paramedic said.
Leoric and Marvin said their goodbyes when the second medevac arrived. Marvin got in the medevac that would take him to the shelter, but Leoric didn't enter his own at first. He watched solemnly as they placed his mother in a body bag and loaded her into the back. It was the last time he would see her.
-5-
Leoric kept to himself during the first week at the orphanage and spoke very little. The boys there seemed a bit rough, with an airport's share of baggage. Leoric already had his own to shoulder, so he decided to fly solo until his father came to pick him up. It had been a few hours since he arrived, and he was sitting in the lobby reading a mystery novel when his father called.
Ryan's loud and enthusiastic voice sent cheer brimming through the audio speakers “Leo! I've missed you so much!”
“I've missed you, too, Dad,” Leoric said, which was very true. Hearing his father's voice was a great relief.
Some of the cheer in Ryan's voice gave way to concern, and if there was a video display or hologram for this transmitter, then Swift knew that his father's face would be full of worry.
“How are you holding up?” Ryan asked.
Leoric really didn't feel okay. His mother was dead and only with him in memory. He was stuck in this orphanage where he felt quite miserable and alone. Still, he knew his father was on the battlefield and did not want to worry him any further. Since Leoric had never put much practice into lying, there was a subtle hollowness in his voice that Ryan's keen perception picked up on immediately. “Yup, yup! I'm fine, Dad!” he said.
That enthusiasm, that flair had surged back into his father's voice. “Well, I'm worried as all get out here! So I'm coming to bust you out of there! Asap! Even if I have to steal a ship and fly it there myself!”
“Dad...”
“Dead serious, Leo! Zach knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a ninja, ya know? I've got connections,” Ryan declared with the utmost confidence.
Leoric laughed out loud and yelled, “Dad!”
It was a relief, too, because he thought that he would never find laughter again after the bombing.
“Really? A ninja?” he asked his father incredulously.
“A flippin' ninja! Zach is on the warpath, too! Says he's gonna take down a rebel ship for each and every bomb dropped.”
Then some of the last words Leoric's mother spoke came back to him. Take care of your father.
The hollowness that had outlined his tone earlier had vanished. “I'll be okay, Dad, just get here when you can,” he said, and meant it.
His father hadn't even gotten started yet, but it was a well-known fact that sadness could not stand long against the likes of Ryan Swift.
“They're calling in a replacement for me by the end of the week. Two weeks, tops. I'll call you the second that I'm on my way,” Ryan said and paused for a moment. “I love you, son. I know how much all of this is hurting you, and I miss your mother, too. Hang in there and be strong.”
“I love you, too, Dad. I'll be strong.”
-6-
One week had passed and by the second week, Leoric was waiting by the phone every day. Some of the other boys began to tease him, but he paid them no mind. There were others like him who were being taken home every day. Soon there were less and less waiting, and eventually there was only Leoric. The caregivers had already processed him as a permanent resident by the beginning of week three, and by the end of it, he no longer sat by the phone. Something was wrong. His father wasn't the type to just forget about him or allow himself to be too busy to even call. When a box came with a professional looking letter which contained carefully chosen words, words that explained the demise of his father, he wasn't surprised. He was devastated. He calmly folded the letter up and placed it back into the envelope. There wasn't anything he could do about this. There was nothing he could do about anything anymore. His life was over, anyway. He set the box, which contained his father's personal belongings, in the bottom of the wardrobe in the corner of his room and laid down. After a few seconds, he curled into a ball and cried himself to sleep.
The following weeks would be long and empty. Leoric had withdrawn and further isolated himself from the caregivers and other orphans. Zombie was the name the other orphans gave to children who would became silent loners that only ate and slept. It was also a way of marking them, letting the other kids know not to pick on them. Even at their young age, the bullies at the orphanage knew that “zombies” were time bombs waiting to explode, and none of them wanted to be caught in the blast.
During this time, the orphanage's psychiatric counselor, Bob Hookanos, was called in for Leoric. In spite of being young and inexperienced, Bob was sure he could handle the job.
Bob settled down in the seat across from Leoric. “Hello, Leoric. How are you feeling?”
Bob briefly looked down at his clipboard to fill out some fields on a form and looked back up when Leoric did not answer. “Leoric?”
Leoric, who was fixated on a particular spot on the carpet, looked at him with barely any interest.
“How are you feeling?” Bob tried asking again, hoping for better luck this time.
“Bad,” was all Leoric said.
Looks like this wasn't going to be easy, Bob thought. He had read this kid's file and it sucked. The mother had been killed during a bombing and he had watched helplessly as she died. The father, military, had died in an attack on his transport ship before he could come home to get his son from the orphanage.
“Would you like to talk about how you feel?” Bob asked.
“No.”
“Not with me?”
“Not with anyone,” Leoric said.
Bob jotted down some notes on his clipboard and went to his next step.
“It must be a lot to deal with, having both of your parents die and leave you alone.” Bob smiled on the inside. That's what made him a good counselor. He understood his clients. He knew exactly what they were going through. He liked to think of it as his special ability. “Lots of people struggle through the sadness of losing loved ones. You're not the only one,” he said.
Leoric stared at him for a few seconds without speaking. Then he raised his eyebrows and said, “You sure know a lot. Yes, that's it. You've got it, so we're done here. This conversation is over.”
He didn't need people to sympathize with him, or feel pity. It was no secret to Leoric that people were dying during a war. Quite the opposite. However he wasn't ready for this. It was too soon to have his parents’ death shoved into his face. Leoric got out of his seat and started for the door. Bob was genuinely surprised, and wondered what had gone wrong.
“You still have an hour left,” Bob told him.
Leoric stopped, looked back over his shoulder and said, “I have a lifetime left, but this conversation is over.”
Leoric then walked out before Bob could say another word.
-7-
The orphanage had a strict dress code that every child was required to obey, and Leoric was no exception. The only problem was that due to budget mismanagement and cuts in government funding, the supply of uniforms was limited. Very limited, in fact, to the extent that Leoric was issued a uniform two sizes too small for him. The cuffs of his pants rode high above his ankles and his shirt just wouldn't tuck, instead resting its hem just below his belly button. Every time he put on his uniform he sarcastically said to himself, “It just doesn't get any better than this.” Buttoning the jacket was the deal breaker. He imagined it as a modern day torture device or inconspicuous restraint, because when he buttoned it up he found that he could barely move and his breathing became shallow. That being the case, he came down to the cafeteria for dinner one evening with the front of his jacket unbuttoned, and was stopped by a caregiver before he could even get his food.
The caregiver poked him in the chest and shouted, “You! Why is your jacket unbuttoned?”
“It doesn't fit,” Leoric said. When he spoke, it seemed as if every child in the cafeteria fell silent, their eyes on Swift and the caregiver.
It was serious business when a zombie finally broke their silence, and especially interesting if they blew up on a caregiver.
“Button up your jacket,” the caregiver ordered.
Leoric attempted to reason with the caregiver. “I can't. It doesn't fit me.”
He was beat on the spot and sent to bed without dinner. The next morning he woke up, got dressed, and slowly made his way with the other boys out of the main gate for school. More than a few laughed at him, and Leoric didn't blame them. When he walked, it looked like he was trying to wade through high water; his arms elevated from his sides and his shoulders moving with every step. Once he was away from the main gate and out of sight of the caregivers, he savagely ripped each button from his jacket and angrily threw them to the ground one by one.
-8-
On his way back from school, Leoric stopped to look in the window of a hobby shop. He recalled a happy memory when he and his father had once built model ships together. Despite the smile on his face, a sickening feeling of loss and emptiness surged down to the pit of his stomach. Just how in the hell did the universe expect him to make it through today, let alone tomorrow? Just as his thoughts began to slip down into a dark place, a voice broke the chain.
“I know of a tailor who can help if you tell him you're from the orphanage.”
Leoric's face screwed up. He didn't want anyone's help and felt like saying something nasty, “Look smart a--” but he stopped when he saw the voice belonged to a short, round-faced boy with shaggy blond hair. In his cupped hands were buttons, and Leoric also noticed that this guy's knees were dirty and his shoes scuffed.
“Those are my buttons,” Leoric said.
“Yeah,” the boy replied “They were all over the ground and under stuff.”
Leoric looked at the boy's pants and shoes again. This stranger had been searching on hands and knees for those buttons.
Leoric looked away. “I'm sorry.”
“Aw no, man. You need your buttons.”
Leoric put his hands into his pockets. “Screw'em, dude.”
The boy frowned and said in a cautioning tone, “You'll get beat again.”
Leoric looked down at the torn threads on his jacket and grit his teeth.
“I don't care.”
The boy pleaded with him. “Could you try a little? Please?”
Leoric's angry grimace melted to a small frown. Why was this guy pushing the issue so hard?
“Okay, I will, but only because you looked for my buttons and said please.”
The boy offered his hand. “Thanks, man. My name's Ollie, by the way.”
Leoric shook his hand. “My name's Swift.”
He had decided on the day his father died that he would no longer go by the name his parents gave him. It was special to him.
Awe dawned on Ollie's face and he exclaimed as if meeting a celebrity, “Leoric Swift!”
Swift huffed and looked away again.
“Oh...I'm sorry?” Ollie apologized even if he didn't exactly know what for.
“It's okay. Just call me by my last name.”
“You've got it. Your father was a hero and one heck of a pilot, if you don't mind me saying so. I never get tired of seeing his zero point strike in videos.”
Swift heard him but said nothing.
Knowing that it was still a sensitive issue, Ollie changed the subject. “How about we go get that jacket of yours fixed?”
-9-
Ollie had suffered as well from undersized clothing due to the orphanage's lack of resources. One afternoon, just when he couldn't take it a moment longer, he met a gentleman named Mr. Taylor. A kind and sympathetic man, the tailor took pity on Ollie and re-sized his clothing for free, while offering the same favor to any friend of Ollie's who might need help. When the two boys walked into the shop, the tailor was sitting in front of a particularly complex looking dress. He had a threaded needle in each hand and one in his mouth. This impressed Swift.
The tailor took the needle from his mouth and greeted the boys. “Ollie! Long time no see, young man. Are you well? And hello there! A friend of Ollie's?”
“Yes, sir. Friends since this afternoon,” Swift said.
The tailor set his sewing needles down and turned his chair to face them. “That's wonderful! Well, Ollie what brings you two here today?”
“It's his jacket, Mr. Taylor. It's in critical condition,” Ollie said gravely.
Mr. Taylor adjusted his glasses and had a look at Swift's jacket. “My, my, my,” he muttered and gave his grim diagnosis “It's pretty bad. He doesn't even appear to have buttons.”
“I ripped them off,” Swift said.
“Ah! That might have done it.” Mr. Taylor got up and knelt in front of Swift, removing a roll of measuring tape from his pocket before asking, “May I?”
“Yes, sir,” Swift said.
Mr. Taylor grasped both sides of the jacket and attempted to close it. Swift inhaled sharply and the sides just barely touched. Mr. Taylor shook his head, let go, and then measured Swift's abdomen.
“Not good,” he said. “I'll have to operate immediately.”
Ten minutes after Ollie handed the buttons over to Mr.Taylor, Swift walked out in a full uniform that fit. As a bonus, Mr. Taylor had re-sized all of his clothing, but as a setback, Swift had spent the duration sitting half naked in a dressing room.
“Magical,” Swift said, looking at his reflection in the shop window. He had thanked Mr. Taylor no less than three times before leaving.
“I know, right?” Ollie said with a big smile on his face.
Swift began to pull at his clothes excitedly. “These can't even be my clothes, though. Look at my shirt! It's like a gabillion times whiter than when I got it. I thought I had received the only beige polo they had!”
“Not even gonna lie: I thought that your polo had been soaking in rusty water before being issued to you. But nah, aside from being the only tailor in the city, he's one of the few who still uses a blend of technology and sewing by hand.”
“I guess in 20XX, people throw out their old clothes and buy new stuff,” Swift said, putting his hands into his pockets and then taking them out a couple of times. He was pleased with how well his jacket fit him now.
Ollie looked at Swift with amusement. “Not if those people are orphans in the slums. By the way, what are you doing?”
They began walking towards the subway station. “Man. When I tried putting my hands in my pockets before, I thought that if I relaxed my shoulders, I'd just tear the front open, and the whole dang thing would fall apart.”
-10-
When Swift and Ollie returned, they were stopped in the main hall by a caregiver with a sour look on his face who shouted at them with unnecessary malice. “You're late! Where were you two?”
“We were at the library studying...” Ollie said quietly, catching Swift off guard. He didn't expect someone like Ollie to tell a lie, but he kept his cool and held his poker face.
The caregiver eyed them suspiciously and asked, “Oh, the library, huh? Just what were you studying?”
Ollie didn't answer right away and Swift thought he might choke, so he said, “The core variables and characteristics of shipboard enginry.” without missing a beat.
The caregiver's face screwed up with discomfort. “Really now?”
Ollie caught the ball and ran with it. “Also a bit of thermodynamics and rocket propulsion.”
This brought about silence from the caregiver as he turned over their answers in his mind. When he spoke next, the irritation in his voice was clear. “Get that deep space nonsense out of your heads. That's what’s wrong with you brats these days! Always daydreaming about lofty fantasies! Get out of my sight and go to your rooms!”
Due to quick thinking, they both evaded punishment. Once they were out of earshot of the caregivers, they began to laugh about it.
Ollie shook his head and said “Enginry, he says.”
“Yeah, okay, Mr. Thermodynamics. Drunken magicians have pulled better rabbits from the hat than that,” Swift said and they both looked at each other and laughed.
Ollie stopped. “See you at dinner?”
Swift stood in his doorway, “Yeah, I'll be there with buttons on,” and went into his room. He looked at his uniform in the mirror on the inside of his wardrobe door and smiled. “Magical,” he said one more time before taking off his jacket and laying down for a pre-dinner nap.
-11-
Over the next few weeks, Ollie and Swift became fast friends, sharing a mutual interest in combat ships, technology, and tactics. They spent a good portion of their time building models and goofing off while discussing strategy and historical battles. Both boys were glad to have found friendship in such a miserable place where bullying was frequent and the caregivers were severely abusive. It had been a particularly fine Saturday morning, one on which Swift had planned to show Ollie the might of a full tank squadron, when Swift was told he must go down to the visitor room for a counseling session. This time Bob had taken a few precautions. A caregiver stood on either side of Swift, ready to intercept him if he tried to walk out again.
“I'm sorry we couldn't have more privacy, but I can't have you leaving early this time, Leoric,” Bob explained.
Leoric looked at one caregiver and then the other, and said, “That's fine. You're just doing your job.”
At least this kid understood, Bob thought. Hopefully he'd let him keep doing his job.
“Let's get started. Do you miss your parents?” Bob asked.
Swift's jaw dropped, and he looked up at one of the caregivers as if to ask if this guy was serious. He took a deep breath and sighed.
He held up his hands. “If you were to lose your hands, then would that erase them from existence in your memory? I doubt that. Hands are very important to us. Very near and dear. I don't suffer from phantom limb, or phantom parents in this case, but every day, the fact that they are gone makes itself obvious.”
Bob jotted down some notes on his clipboard and said, “So you do miss your parents.”
Swift slapped his hand to his face and wiped it down slowly. He intended to end this session, but not by walking out.
He took a very deep breath and said, “You, sir, are an idiot. You are much like a twisted mystery of stupidity. A paragon and legend in your own time.”
Swift held up his hands for emphasis. “Bards sing songs in the streets of your epically soft mind, and every cretin, simpleton, and imbecile looks to you with a twinkle of admiration in their eye. It is no secret, and is in fact locally, as well as nationally, known that you are a dunce.”
Swift put one hand down, and pinched the index and thumb of his other together.
“Your tiny little brain is world renowned, and tales of its shortcomings are recorded in the language of every race and culture. Prophets foretold of the day on which you had an intelligent thought, and all have been proven wrong.”
Swift put his hand down, took a breath and went on. “Google omits no less than five thousand similar results with the word ‘moron’ when your name is searched. Your ignorance is imprinted on your very soul, so that even angels and demons will know to speak slowly and use simple words when talking to you. You are a buffoon of the highest magnitude, a fool and clown, and if you go to hell, I hope that you are made to read books for all of eternity. Nincompoop. Dullard. You slack-jawed, knuckle dragging, silly minded dimwit. Choke forever on the thick miasma that is your own feeble-mindedness.”
When he was finished, Leoric was panting and both of the caregivers were howling with laughter. Bob, on the other hand, was blushing furiously.
“That's...that's enough for today,” was all he said.
-12-
Swift walked out of the visitor room with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. Maybe that was a bit of overkill, but it definitely felt good to vent, and he actually hadn't done so since he'd arrived. He took his bag off his shoulder and looked inside, breaking into a grin. Today was going to be a good day. He met Ollie in the cafeteria, which was deserted after lunch, and the two set about their epic battle. Midway through, Swift was regrouping his squadron for a final push when a group of boys, four of them, to be precise, approached them.
The tallest of the three, his blond hair parted to the side atop a rather scrawny face, asked, “Well, what do we have here, Dolly?”
To Swift he looked ghoulish, but no doubt considered himself the typical cool kid. He shot Ollie a wry grin and asked, “They call you Dolly?”
He then addressed the ghoulish cool kid. “That's so lame! Can't you give him a better nickname like 'Slash' or 'Gunner'?”
The ghoulish cool kid sneered. “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”
Swift stood up to face the ghoulish cool kid.
“Ohhh...I see what this is all about. We hurt people's feelings now. Obviously that's what we’re doing. What's your name, guy?”
The ghoulish cool kid smirked. “This one here to my left is Frankie DeSteffano. To my right is Marcus O'Keefe, and to his right, that would be George Penn. I'm Brian Maloney, but you'll call me Butch if you know what's good for you.”
Swift looked over Frankie, Marcus, and George briefly, as their lanky builds posed no threat. He directed his eyes on Maloney and nodded. “That's a kickin' rad name you've got there, Baloney. I mean, it's not like anyone dislikes eating baloney. It's practically the pauper of meats!”
Butch's smirk turned sour. “Pauper?”
Swift held his hands out, “Pauper. A bum, ya know? A grimy, homeless person who smells and--”
Butch cut him off furiously. “Shut up! I know what a bum is!”
This was pointless, however, as once Swift had started a thought, he was going to finish it or die trying.
Swift smiled foolishly. “Oh no, I don't doubt it. How could The Pauper of Meats not know what a bum is? Technically you're the authority on broke down bums, being one yourself. Bum.”
Butch growled. “Ugh, you're annoying.”
Swift exclaimed with exaggerated surprise. “Oh! He thinks he has an opinion! Ollie, Baloney thinks he's people!”
“Wow. You think you're so funny, don't you? I bet you'd get destroyed in a fight.”
Swift ignored him and sat back down. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder when he said, “What do you want, Baloney? If you're here to make friends, let me tell you-- that ship has already sailed. Into a whirlpool. Charybdis.”
“What are you talking about, nerd? Anyway, I told you to call me Butch, and Dolly knows what I want.”
Butch walked around to Ollie's side of the table. “Don't you? Now say it.”
When Ollie didn't respond, Butch sighed impatiently and said in a soft voice that was not at all gentle like the Snuggles bear. “Say it now, Dolly, or I'll get mad.”
Ollie locked his eyes on Swift. “No.”
Best Of All
This is a story of rogues and outsiders. Of thieves, liars, and the worst kinds of men. It also tells of great justice and extraordinary feats of bravery. There is love, life, laughter, and the brightest of souls. There is also hatred, death, and the darkness within. This is a story of hearts, and it is also a story of stars.
“One fully knows the value of life when they are comfortable with mortality to the point that they're ready to die. They've seen enough, done enough, and are ready for eternal peace. Yet when the moment of death arrives, their heart swells and they cry out in fear, defiance, and with great desire their wish to live: "I don't want to die yet!" I do not know these people, but I pray every night that someone will grant them their wish. Not only do I see the value of my life, but theirs as well.”
-Leoric Swift
-1-
It was snowing on the evening of February 1, 20XX as an anxious Ryan Swift paced back and forth in a busy hospital corridor. It was the kind of climate-controlled place that never seemed to get the temperature right, for healthy people at least, and the smell of disinfectants gave him a sick feeling. He reached up and pushed his chestnut brown hair out of his eyes, only to have it flop back down on his brow. Marceline Swift, having seen her husband so worked up, suggested that he step outside for some air. He wasn't sure how the narrow, brightly lit hallway of a place he'd only been to when he was sick, or dying, was going to help him relax.
“Trust me, honey, we've got time,” she said, but it had already been ten minutes since he had stepped into the hallway. Ryan worried that if he actually went outside, he might miss it all. What was taking so long? Was the baby taking the bus?
A nurse poked her head out of the delivery room and asked, “Captain Swift?”
“He's here!” Ryan exclaimed with a mixture of joy and relief. He walked into the room and the entire ward heard him cry out in fear.
“Sir, please calm down. It's only your wife,” the nurse said.
“B-but...her...it...my god!” Ryan proceeded to freak out. What he had seen that day could not be unseen, as they say. Marceline then gave a shout and pushed. Ryan wasn't sure if he could take this much longer. How could childbirth be so brutal and violent?
“Marceline! What have I done to you? I'm so, so sorry!” He fell to his knees. How did it ever come to this?
Marceline did two cycles of breathing exercises and then gave her husband a smile.
“Baby...you're doing...unh...juuust...fine!” She attempted to comfort her husband.
To Ryan she looked beautiful, like a goddess of victory on the battlefield, with her damp blonde bangs clinging to her forehead and a fierce look of determination in her gray eyes. Then he looked down again.
“OH MY GOD, NO!” He lost it once again.
“Hang...unh...in there!” she encouraged her husband between pushes. Ryan had finished gearing up in a surgeon's mask, surgical gown, and latex gloves, determined to help his beloved wife and approaching child in any way possible when the doctor stood up.
“You have a boy!” the doctor announced.
Ryan looked at his son dangling upside down in the doctor’s grip. When his eyes did not open and he made no sound, Ryan quickly became worried.
“Say, Doc, shouldn't you smack his butt or something?” He slapped his own face.
The doctor did indeed plan to lay hands on the child, but as he pulled back his hand, a pair of lazy brown eyes opened and found Ryan's.
“Whoa, chill!” Ryan threw up his hands “Don't hit him! He's cool, he's all right!”
Upon seeing the hysterical look on his father's face, the baby laughed. Ryan gave a sigh of relief and smiled at his son “Leo!” He took his son to sit on the bed alongside Marceline.
She put her finger out and Leo grabbed it. “He's amazing!” she said and kissed his little hand.
-2-
Leoric grew into an energetic young boy, full of curiosity. At night his father would lift him onto his broad shoulders and take him out into the yard to see the stars. He would point out planets and constellations as he told his son stories of daring adventures, risky missions, and epic space battles. When the other kids would play war, he was always the first to join a team as a leader, support, or any of the other roles. He had an early fondness for action, tactics, and strategy, and did not care what his role was as long as he could play. During holidays his mother would help him bake snacks to bring in for the class, which earned him the favor of his peers. When rainy days came, Marceline would sing to him as he tried to accompany her by guitar.
From time to time Ryan would bring his military buddies home, and it became a tradition to challenge Swift's boy with trivia about ships and cosmic battles. To their amusement and approval, Leoric often showed himself quite knowledgeable about these subjects. As he grew older, those visiting the Swift household would bring technical publications such as manuals and magazines for the young captain in training to read. One such visitor named Zachary Method, Ryan's closest friend, shared Ryan and Marceline's pride and excitement for Leoric's potential. Despite always worrying for her son's safety, Marceline agreed to let Leoric sit in the cockpit of Zach's Personal Fighter Class Cruiser, and once he grew older, he was even allowed to fly it short distances.
Over time, Ryan began to notice that his son had a penchant towards sticking up for other kids, whether with his words or his hands. While they were proud of their son's good intentions, both parents agreed that Leoric would get himself into too much trouble someday. As a precaution, Ryan taught his son to box when he was old enough for two reasons: the first was so his son would be able to defend himself, and the second was discipline. He wished for his son to know his own strength and what he was capable of. All things considered, Leoric was very happy throughout his early childhood. However, the blessing of innocence quickly fades as ignorance recedes and reality rears its ugly head.
-3-
It was a crazy hot summer in 20XX as tensions between The Empire and The Rebel Faction reached a fever pitch. This was also the year that a squadron of rebel bombers broke through Earth's defenses. Their primary targets were military installations and government buildings, but contempt for the upper class led to the idea of punishing the decadent citizens who lived in luxury.
Leoric was walking home from school when the first bomb landed, and at first he didn't know what was going on. Construction work? Fireworks during the day? The phrase “terrorist attack” simply did not come to mind at first. Then the sirens began to wail and he knew that something must be wrong. Another bomb struck, as if to blast away any chance that this was an accident, and the growing dread in the pit of Leoric's stomach urged him to get home immediately.
He stuck to side streets and alleyways, knowing that if he tried to move down any main streets, he'd run into panicked crowds of people. During emergencies, crowds tend to take on a mob mentality, complete with pushing and shoving, and the last thing Leoric wanted was to die by being trampled. His palms were sweaty and the sound of his heartbeat thudded in his ears like a sledge hammer. The explosions were getting nearer, closing in on him, and he broke into a full sprint as a bomber plummeted into a row of houses a few streets over, the resulting impact spewing smoke and ash into the surrounding area. Leoric wasn't expecting this and inhaled a lungful of the choking death. He retched, coughed, spit, and sputtered as he turned down another alleyway to escape. Once he was clear, he stopped to breathe; his mouth dry and lungs on fire. He became aware of fire all around him. Buildings he had seen every day, towers of brick and glass that hadn't caught his eye before, now blazed insanely as if waving at him with glowing hands. The sickly sweet smell of burning wood coming from nearby houses cloyed at his nose and he put his hand over his face. The idea came to him that people were dying, maybe his mom, too. He pushed these thoughts from his mind and set off running again, but after only running down a block, he heard the sound of a voice screaming in pain. Pain, agony, and fear. This, too, he pushed from his mind. Leoric wanted nothing more than to stop and help that person, but he knew he could not. Even if it damned him to hell, he had to leave that person to their fate. He had to get home and help his mother.
After a few moments that seemed like hours, Leoric emerged from an alleyway on his block. His house was within sight and he began running towards it at full speed. Just then he heard another screaming voice. He looked to see who was screaming and cursed under his breath. Sure, it's wrong, but it's one thing to hear something and not respond. The less you know, the better you feel. However, Leoric was looking at this screaming person, a child slightly younger than himself, as he waved his hands from the second floor of a burning house. Their eyes met, and he was now calling out to Leoric for help. This he could not ignore, but everything was on fire, including the lawn beneath the window. The kid was going to have to jump, but fire obviously didn't enhance his chances of being caught by Leoric, or making a safe landing by himself. Leoric looked around the front yard, and in the driveway saw a car with a tarp on it. Close enough, he thought. He dragged the tarp off of the car and managed to throw it on the fire, smothering it without burning himself.
Leoric cupped his hands to his face and shouted, “Jump!”
“I can't!” the kid whined back.
Leoric pointed a finger up at the kid and roared, “Wrong! The correct answer is, 'okay'! Now jump or die!”
That kid must have believed him, because he summoned what courage he could and jumped. Leoric did catch him, but stumbled and fell backwards onto the tarp.
“Sh-!” Leoric hopped back up instantly and ran out into the street with the kid still in his arms. The tarp, while having successfully smothered the fire, remained very hot to the touch. He regained his composure and set the kid down.
“You okay?” Leoric said, rubbing his own backside, and hoping that he didn't burn anything important. Like his butt and junk.
The kid nodded vigorously, as if his enthusiastic head bobbing said it all. Leoric supposed that it would have to do.
“Where are your parents?” Leoric asked.
“At work,” the kid replied.
Not good. There wasn't a chance that the downtown district made it out of this unscathed. Also from the sound of approaching explosions, Leoric concluded that another bombing was about to begin.
He put his hand out and said, “Okay. Stick with me. We're gonna go get my mom and head somewhere safe.”
“Thanks!” the kid said, taking Leoric's hand.
“Don't sweat it. Now let's move and stay close to me. My house is right over there, but a bomb could hit at any second.”
These words would haunt Leoric for years to come, as if he had summoned catastrophically bad luck with his jinxing statement of coincidental misfortune.
They ran up the block, but just as they got there, the kid stopped to look up and Leoric lost grip of his hand. He turned around to shout to the kid to keep it moving, but the earsplitting boom of a bomb blast cut him off. Leoric moved to shield the kid from any debris that might come flying at them, and when it was over, he checked himself for any injuries. Miraculously, he hadn't been struck with any shrapnel or debris. The house next door to his had been completely wiped out and half of his had collapsed. At any second, the rest could come crashing down and Leoric knew that he would need to act fast.
He turned to the kid and said, “Okay. I'll be right back, so stay put. Got it?”
“Okay...” the kid answered with a sadness and reluctance that went unnoticed by Leoric as he rushed into the ruins of his once happy home.
-4-
“Mom...? Mom! Are you here? Holler if you hear me!” Leoric called out, but had to cover his face again as more smoke assailed his lungs. “God, I'm getting tired of all of this smoke,” he said in a muffled voice. As quickly and as carefully as possible, he made his way to the living room and stopped cold. He had seen the damage from the outside, but the view from the inside was horrifying. To him it looked like someone picked up his entire living room and dashed it against a wall. Furniture was overturned, the floor was littered with the glass of family pictures and fragments of various knickknacks and mementos that had once sat on the mantle. The fireplace lay in a crumpled heap by a yawning hole in the wall, and through it he could see the remains of his neighbor's house. He thought that if he looked at the rubble just a little closer, couldn't he see...? Leoric shook his head to clear away this thought. Death was all around him now and it was getting to be a bit too much for him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it exhale slowly. Just then he heard what sounded like a cough and whipped around to see where it came from. Then he saw her. His mother was pinned beneath a support beam, shards of a broken mirror scattered all around her. He wasted no time getting to her, vaulting over furniture and nearly crashing into a table along the way.
Leoric couldn't hide the fear in his voice. “Oh, Mom. Oh no, no. Mom, no!”
A thought crept into his mind that he had been too late. Far too late.
Marceline Swift's voice was faint, but Leoric heard her words as if they were the only sound in the universe. “Leo...I was going to come find you...but then I remembered how much you've grown. I knew you would come. You're just like your father.”
He stared at her smile, and how her smile formed two small dimples on her cheeks as he brushed away a few strands of hair covering her gray eyes. He stared at everything about her so he can burn the image of his mother into his mind. She was pale and trembling, but somewhere deep inside she still made Leoric feel safe. This woman had protected Leoric for so long that he couldn't believe his eyes. This is impossible, he thought. His mother was dying. Leoric's eyes began to burn and he blinked them rapidly to clear the tears that began to obscure his vision.
It had been an odd quirk that was rare for him, but when Leoric was distressed, he repeated himself. “We've gotta go, gotta go now, Mom. It's too dangerous here.”
He was so overwhelmed with grief that he found it hard to keep himself together. So overwhelmed that he began to forget about the bombing, began to forget about anything else that might be going on. He choked a sob and felt ashamed. He didn't feel like his father at all. He really just felt slow and weak. Above all, he felt stupid. What could he do now? What was he even thinking, trying to be a hero?
His palms were still sweaty as he placed his hands on the support beam and tried to lift it off her. The sneakers he wore skidded on the hardwood floor as he pulled desperately. It didn't even budge. Leoric gritted his teeth and tried again only to have his feet slide even more. Growing frustrated with his inability to help his mother, he readjusted his stance and put his full strength into his next pull. This time he did manage to lift it, but it wasn't enough and if he did try to move it, he was certain he'd only drop it back onto his mother. Just as hope had died in his heart, the beam slowly started to move. He looked around and saw the kid he'd saved, struggling and straining to pull the beam away from Leoric's mother.
Ignoring the fact that the kid was actually helping, Leoric scolded him for being reckless. “I told you to stay outside, kid! It's too dangerous!”
The kid's face screwed up into what looked like a mixture of bravery and defiance. “I'm Marvin! I'm helping!”
With Leoric lifting and Marvin pulling, they managed to drop the beam safely on the floor and free Marceline.
Leoric knelt back down by his mother's side. “Okay, Mom. I know that it's not a good idea to move you, but we need to get out of the house now!”
With the beam gone, Marceline's voice had regained its melodic quality. However it still remained dreadfully faint “Leo...I love you so much... and I always will,” she said.
“I love you, too, Mom,” Leoric said and went to change positions to lift her up, but she placed a hand on his forearm.
In a voice that sounded like the wind rustling the dead leaves of a tree, Marceline called his name. “Leo...”
Her eyes no longer could focus, and when Leo touched her hand, it was ice cold.
Fear cascaded over his mind. “Mom?” he cried out.
“Hug me,” she said , looking at her son, her pride and joy. He had his father's jawline that made his smile seem so big and happy. He had her piercing eyes, if only in size and shape, but not color, and when she looked into them, she could see his strong spirit. She smiled to herself, amused, when she realized that he could use a haircut. All in all, she loved her beautiful, wonderful boy.
Leoric did so without another word. He grabbed her by the shoulders and sat her up, wrapping his arms around her as they hugged each other for the last time.
She then whispered into his ear, “Take care of your father...”
“Mom, don't die...please don't die...” he whispered back.
“I love you...”
Leoric buried his face in her shoulder and sobbed, “I love you, too.”
Then her hands dropped and the leaves rustled no more. Now his home had begun to collapse the rest of the way. Leoric hadn't noticed when Marvin came to stand by his shoulder, but heard him when he spoke.
He hesitated, but reluctantly suggested, “Hey... we should go.”
These were complete strangers to Marvin, but this older boy had stopped to save his life when he didn't have to. He didn't want to rush him at such a sad time, but the situation was getting worse by the second.
Leoric agreed with him. However he couldn't stand to leave his mother's body behind to be crushed or burned up by the fire that now began to spread throughout the house.
Leoric turned to Marvin with tears in his eyes.
“Help me get her outside? Please?”
The two boys had a hard time moving Marceline's body through the wreckage of the living room. Marvin was smaller and struggled to keep his grip on her feet, yet they managed to make it out just before the house collapsed. They sat on the front curb for some time before a passing medevac spotted them. Marvin was sitting next to Leoric, who was sitting next to his mother's body with his tear-stained face buried in his arms. A young paramedic approached them.
“Is she still alive?” he asked them.
Marvin closed his eyes and shook his head. Leoric let out a low sob.
“What are your names?” the paramedic knelt in front of them.
“I'm Marvin McCalister IV,” Marvin said.
“Leoric Swift,” Leoric grunted.
“Thank goodness, Marvin! Your parents are safe and sound at the bomb shelter. I'll take you to them.” The paramedic turned to Leoric and did not speak at first “...And Leoric Swift,” he said. “That must mean...” A look of unease spread across his face. His gaze went from the body to the house and back to the two boys. “That's Marceline Swift. I'm so sorry. Your father contacted us when the bombing first began, but we couldn't get here in time. The entire city was under siege. I'm sorry for this, too, but—”
“Orphanage,” Leoric cut him off before he could finish.
Stories like this have a way of spreading among children with parents in the military, so it was no surprise to him where he was going to live.
“It's only until your father gets home,” the paramedic said.
Leoric and Marvin said their goodbyes when the second medevac arrived. Marvin got in the medevac that would take him to the shelter, but Leoric didn't enter his own at first. He watched solemnly as they placed his mother in a body bag and loaded her into the back. It was the last time he would see her.
-5-
Leoric kept to himself during the first week at the orphanage and spoke very little. The boys there seemed a bit rough, with an airport's share of baggage. Leoric already had his own to shoulder, so he decided to fly solo until his father came to pick him up. It had been a few hours since he arrived, and he was sitting in the lobby reading a mystery novel when his father called.
Ryan's loud and enthusiastic voice sent cheer brimming through the audio speakers “Leo! I've missed you so much!”
“I've missed you, too, Dad,” Leoric said, which was very true. Hearing his father's voice was a great relief.
Some of the cheer in Ryan's voice gave way to concern, and if there was a video display or hologram for this transmitter, then Swift knew that his father's face would be full of worry.
“How are you holding up?” Ryan asked.
Leoric really didn't feel okay. His mother was dead and only with him in memory. He was stuck in this orphanage where he felt quite miserable and alone. Still, he knew his father was on the battlefield and did not want to worry him any further. Since Leoric had never put much practice into lying, there was a subtle hollowness in his voice that Ryan's keen perception picked up on immediately. “Yup, yup! I'm fine, Dad!” he said.
That enthusiasm, that flair had surged back into his father's voice. “Well, I'm worried as all get out here! So I'm coming to bust you out of there! Asap! Even if I have to steal a ship and fly it there myself!”
“Dad...”
“Dead serious, Leo! Zach knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a ninja, ya know? I've got connections,” Ryan declared with the utmost confidence.
Leoric laughed out loud and yelled, “Dad!”
It was a relief, too, because he thought that he would never find laughter again after the bombing.
“Really? A ninja?” he asked his father incredulously.
“A flippin' ninja! Zach is on the warpath, too! Says he's gonna take down a rebel ship for each and every bomb dropped.”
Then some of the last words Leoric's mother spoke came back to him. Take care of your father.
The hollowness that had outlined his tone earlier had vanished. “I'll be okay, Dad, just get here when you can,” he said, and meant it.
His father hadn't even gotten started yet, but it was a well-known fact that sadness could not stand long against the likes of Ryan Swift.
“They're calling in a replacement for me by the end of the week. Two weeks, tops. I'll call you the second that I'm on my way,” Ryan said and paused for a moment. “I love you, son. I know how much all of this is hurting you, and I miss your mother, too. Hang in there and be strong.”
“I love you, too, Dad. I'll be strong.”
-6-
One week had passed and by the second week, Leoric was waiting by the phone every day. Some of the other boys began to tease him, but he paid them no mind. There were others like him who were being taken home every day. Soon there were less and less waiting, and eventually there was only Leoric. The caregivers had already processed him as a permanent resident by the beginning of week three, and by the end of it, he no longer sat by the phone. Something was wrong. His father wasn't the type to just forget about him or allow himself to be too busy to even call. When a box came with a professional looking letter which contained carefully chosen words, words that explained the demise of his father, he wasn't surprised. He was devastated. He calmly folded the letter up and placed it back into the envelope. There wasn't anything he could do about this. There was nothing he could do about anything anymore. His life was over, anyway. He set the box, which contained his father's personal belongings, in the bottom of the wardrobe in the corner of his room and laid down. After a few seconds, he curled into a ball and cried himself to sleep.
The following weeks would be long and empty. Leoric had withdrawn and further isolated himself from the caregivers and other orphans. Zombie was the name the other orphans gave to children who would became silent loners that only ate and slept. It was also a way of marking them, letting the other kids know not to pick on them. Even at their young age, the bullies at the orphanage knew that “zombies” were time bombs waiting to explode, and none of them wanted to be caught in the blast.
During this time, the orphanage's psychiatric counselor, Bob Hookanos, was called in for Leoric. In spite of being young and inexperienced, Bob was sure he could handle the job.
Bob settled down in the seat across from Leoric. “Hello, Leoric. How are you feeling?”
Bob briefly looked down at his clipboard to fill out some fields on a form and looked back up when Leoric did not answer. “Leoric?”
Leoric, who was fixated on a particular spot on the carpet, looked at him with barely any interest.
“How are you feeling?” Bob tried asking again, hoping for better luck this time.
“Bad,” was all Leoric said.
Looks like this wasn't going to be easy, Bob thought. He had read this kid's file and it sucked. The mother had been killed during a bombing and he had watched helplessly as she died. The father, military, had died in an attack on his transport ship before he could come home to get his son from the orphanage.
“Would you like to talk about how you feel?” Bob asked.
“No.”
“Not with me?”
“Not with anyone,” Leoric said.
Bob jotted down some notes on his clipboard and went to his next step.
“It must be a lot to deal with, having both of your parents die and leave you alone.” Bob smiled on the inside. That's what made him a good counselor. He understood his clients. He knew exactly what they were going through. He liked to think of it as his special ability. “Lots of people struggle through the sadness of losing loved ones. You're not the only one,” he said.
Leoric stared at him for a few seconds without speaking. Then he raised his eyebrows and said, “You sure know a lot. Yes, that's it. You've got it, so we're done here. This conversation is over.”
He didn't need people to sympathize with him, or feel pity. It was no secret to Leoric that people were dying during a war. Quite the opposite. However he wasn't ready for this. It was too soon to have his parents’ death shoved into his face. Leoric got out of his seat and started for the door. Bob was genuinely surprised, and wondered what had gone wrong.
“You still have an hour left,” Bob told him.
Leoric stopped, looked back over his shoulder and said, “I have a lifetime left, but this conversation is over.”
Leoric then walked out before Bob could say another word.
-7-
The orphanage had a strict dress code that every child was required to obey, and Leoric was no exception. The only problem was that due to budget mismanagement and cuts in government funding, the supply of uniforms was limited. Very limited, in fact, to the extent that Leoric was issued a uniform two sizes too small for him. The cuffs of his pants rode high above his ankles and his shirt just wouldn't tuck, instead resting its hem just below his belly button. Every time he put on his uniform he sarcastically said to himself, “It just doesn't get any better than this.” Buttoning the jacket was the deal breaker. He imagined it as a modern day torture device or inconspicuous restraint, because when he buttoned it up he found that he could barely move and his breathing became shallow. That being the case, he came down to the cafeteria for dinner one evening with the front of his jacket unbuttoned, and was stopped by a caregiver before he could even get his food.
The caregiver poked him in the chest and shouted, “You! Why is your jacket unbuttoned?”
“It doesn't fit,” Leoric said. When he spoke, it seemed as if every child in the cafeteria fell silent, their eyes on Swift and the caregiver.
It was serious business when a zombie finally broke their silence, and especially interesting if they blew up on a caregiver.
“Button up your jacket,” the caregiver ordered.
Leoric attempted to reason with the caregiver. “I can't. It doesn't fit me.”
He was beat on the spot and sent to bed without dinner. The next morning he woke up, got dressed, and slowly made his way with the other boys out of the main gate for school. More than a few laughed at him, and Leoric didn't blame them. When he walked, it looked like he was trying to wade through high water; his arms elevated from his sides and his shoulders moving with every step. Once he was away from the main gate and out of sight of the caregivers, he savagely ripped each button from his jacket and angrily threw them to the ground one by one.
-8-
On his way back from school, Leoric stopped to look in the window of a hobby shop. He recalled a happy memory when he and his father had once built model ships together. Despite the smile on his face, a sickening feeling of loss and emptiness surged down to the pit of his stomach. Just how in the hell did the universe expect him to make it through today, let alone tomorrow? Just as his thoughts began to slip down into a dark place, a voice broke the chain.
“I know of a tailor who can help if you tell him you're from the orphanage.”
Leoric's face screwed up. He didn't want anyone's help and felt like saying something nasty, “Look smart a--” but he stopped when he saw the voice belonged to a short, round-faced boy with shaggy blond hair. In his cupped hands were buttons, and Leoric also noticed that this guy's knees were dirty and his shoes scuffed.
“Those are my buttons,” Leoric said.
“Yeah,” the boy replied “They were all over the ground and under stuff.”
Leoric looked at the boy's pants and shoes again. This stranger had been searching on hands and knees for those buttons.
Leoric looked away. “I'm sorry.”
“Aw no, man. You need your buttons.”
Leoric put his hands into his pockets. “Screw'em, dude.”
The boy frowned and said in a cautioning tone, “You'll get beat again.”
Leoric looked down at the torn threads on his jacket and grit his teeth.
“I don't care.”
The boy pleaded with him. “Could you try a little? Please?”
Leoric's angry grimace melted to a small frown. Why was this guy pushing the issue so hard?
“Okay, I will, but only because you looked for my buttons and said please.”
The boy offered his hand. “Thanks, man. My name's Ollie, by the way.”
Leoric shook his hand. “My name's Swift.”
He had decided on the day his father died that he would no longer go by the name his parents gave him. It was special to him.
Awe dawned on Ollie's face and he exclaimed as if meeting a celebrity, “Leoric Swift!”
Swift huffed and looked away again.
“Oh...I'm sorry?” Ollie apologized even if he didn't exactly know what for.
“It's okay. Just call me by my last name.”
“You've got it. Your father was a hero and one heck of a pilot, if you don't mind me saying so. I never get tired of seeing his zero point strike in videos.”
Swift heard him but said nothing.
Knowing that it was still a sensitive issue, Ollie changed the subject. “How about we go get that jacket of yours fixed?”
-9-
Ollie had suffered as well from undersized clothing due to the orphanage's lack of resources. One afternoon, just when he couldn't take it a moment longer, he met a gentleman named Mr. Taylor. A kind and sympathetic man, the tailor took pity on Ollie and re-sized his clothing for free, while offering the same favor to any friend of Ollie's who might need help. When the two boys walked into the shop, the tailor was sitting in front of a particularly complex looking dress. He had a threaded needle in each hand and one in his mouth. This impressed Swift.
The tailor took the needle from his mouth and greeted the boys. “Ollie! Long time no see, young man. Are you well? And hello there! A friend of Ollie's?”
“Yes, sir. Friends since this afternoon,” Swift said.
The tailor set his sewing needles down and turned his chair to face them. “That's wonderful! Well, Ollie what brings you two here today?”
“It's his jacket, Mr. Taylor. It's in critical condition,” Ollie said gravely.
Mr. Taylor adjusted his glasses and had a look at Swift's jacket. “My, my, my,” he muttered and gave his grim diagnosis “It's pretty bad. He doesn't even appear to have buttons.”
“I ripped them off,” Swift said.
“Ah! That might have done it.” Mr. Taylor got up and knelt in front of Swift, removing a roll of measuring tape from his pocket before asking, “May I?”
“Yes, sir,” Swift said.
Mr. Taylor grasped both sides of the jacket and attempted to close it. Swift inhaled sharply and the sides just barely touched. Mr. Taylor shook his head, let go, and then measured Swift's abdomen.
“Not good,” he said. “I'll have to operate immediately.”
Ten minutes after Ollie handed the buttons over to Mr.Taylor, Swift walked out in a full uniform that fit. As a bonus, Mr. Taylor had re-sized all of his clothing, but as a setback, Swift had spent the duration sitting half naked in a dressing room.
“Magical,” Swift said, looking at his reflection in the shop window. He had thanked Mr. Taylor no less than three times before leaving.
“I know, right?” Ollie said with a big smile on his face.
Swift began to pull at his clothes excitedly. “These can't even be my clothes, though. Look at my shirt! It's like a gabillion times whiter than when I got it. I thought I had received the only beige polo they had!”
“Not even gonna lie: I thought that your polo had been soaking in rusty water before being issued to you. But nah, aside from being the only tailor in the city, he's one of the few who still uses a blend of technology and sewing by hand.”
“I guess in 20XX, people throw out their old clothes and buy new stuff,” Swift said, putting his hands into his pockets and then taking them out a couple of times. He was pleased with how well his jacket fit him now.
Ollie looked at Swift with amusement. “Not if those people are orphans in the slums. By the way, what are you doing?”
They began walking towards the subway station. “Man. When I tried putting my hands in my pockets before, I thought that if I relaxed my shoulders, I'd just tear the front open, and the whole dang thing would fall apart.”
-10-
When Swift and Ollie returned, they were stopped in the main hall by a caregiver with a sour look on his face who shouted at them with unnecessary malice. “You're late! Where were you two?”
“We were at the library studying...” Ollie said quietly, catching Swift off guard. He didn't expect someone like Ollie to tell a lie, but he kept his cool and held his poker face.
The caregiver eyed them suspiciously and asked, “Oh, the library, huh? Just what were you studying?”
Ollie didn't answer right away and Swift thought he might choke, so he said, “The core variables and characteristics of shipboard enginry.” without missing a beat.
The caregiver's face screwed up with discomfort. “Really now?”
Ollie caught the ball and ran with it. “Also a bit of thermodynamics and rocket propulsion.”
This brought about silence from the caregiver as he turned over their answers in his mind. When he spoke next, the irritation in his voice was clear. “Get that deep space nonsense out of your heads. That's what’s wrong with you brats these days! Always daydreaming about lofty fantasies! Get out of my sight and go to your rooms!”
Due to quick thinking, they both evaded punishment. Once they were out of earshot of the caregivers, they began to laugh about it.
Ollie shook his head and said “Enginry, he says.”
“Yeah, okay, Mr. Thermodynamics. Drunken magicians have pulled better rabbits from the hat than that,” Swift said and they both looked at each other and laughed.
Ollie stopped. “See you at dinner?”
Swift stood in his doorway, “Yeah, I'll be there with buttons on,” and went into his room. He looked at his uniform in the mirror on the inside of his wardrobe door and smiled. “Magical,” he said one more time before taking off his jacket and laying down for a pre-dinner nap.
-11-
Over the next few weeks, Ollie and Swift became fast friends, sharing a mutual interest in combat ships, technology, and tactics. They spent a good portion of their time building models and goofing off while discussing strategy and historical battles. Both boys were glad to have found friendship in such a miserable place where bullying was frequent and the caregivers were severely abusive. It had been a particularly fine Saturday morning, one on which Swift had planned to show Ollie the might of a full tank squadron, when Swift was told he must go down to the visitor room for a counseling session. This time Bob had taken a few precautions. A caregiver stood on either side of Swift, ready to intercept him if he tried to walk out again.
“I'm sorry we couldn't have more privacy, but I can't have you leaving early this time, Leoric,” Bob explained.
Leoric looked at one caregiver and then the other, and said, “That's fine. You're just doing your job.”
At least this kid understood, Bob thought. Hopefully he'd let him keep doing his job.
“Let's get started. Do you miss your parents?” Bob asked.
Swift's jaw dropped, and he looked up at one of the caregivers as if to ask if this guy was serious. He took a deep breath and sighed.
He held up his hands. “If you were to lose your hands, then would that erase them from existence in your memory? I doubt that. Hands are very important to us. Very near and dear. I don't suffer from phantom limb, or phantom parents in this case, but every day, the fact that they are gone makes itself obvious.”
Bob jotted down some notes on his clipboard and said, “So you do miss your parents.”
Swift slapped his hand to his face and wiped it down slowly. He intended to end this session, but not by walking out.
He took a very deep breath and said, “You, sir, are an idiot. You are much like a twisted mystery of stupidity. A paragon and legend in your own time.”
Swift held up his hands for emphasis. “Bards sing songs in the streets of your epically soft mind, and every cretin, simpleton, and imbecile looks to you with a twinkle of admiration in their eye. It is no secret, and is in fact locally, as well as nationally, known that you are a dunce.”
Swift put one hand down, and pinched the index and thumb of his other together.
“Your tiny little brain is world renowned, and tales of its shortcomings are recorded in the language of every race and culture. Prophets foretold of the day on which you had an intelligent thought, and all have been proven wrong.”
Swift put his hand down, took a breath and went on. “Google omits no less than five thousand similar results with the word ‘moron’ when your name is searched. Your ignorance is imprinted on your very soul, so that even angels and demons will know to speak slowly and use simple words when talking to you. You are a buffoon of the highest magnitude, a fool and clown, and if you go to hell, I hope that you are made to read books for all of eternity. Nincompoop. Dullard. You slack-jawed, knuckle dragging, silly minded dimwit. Choke forever on the thick miasma that is your own feeble-mindedness.”
When he was finished, Leoric was panting and both of the caregivers were howling with laughter. Bob, on the other hand, was blushing furiously.
“That's...that's enough for today,” was all he said.
-12-
Swift walked out of the visitor room with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. Maybe that was a bit of overkill, but it definitely felt good to vent, and he actually hadn't done so since he'd arrived. He took his bag off his shoulder and looked inside, breaking into a grin. Today was going to be a good day. He met Ollie in the cafeteria, which was deserted after lunch, and the two set about their epic battle. Midway through, Swift was regrouping his squadron for a final push when a group of boys, four of them, to be precise, approached them.
The tallest of the three, his blond hair parted to the side atop a rather scrawny face, asked, “Well, what do we have here, Dolly?”
To Swift he looked ghoulish, but no doubt considered himself the typical cool kid. He shot Ollie a wry grin and asked, “They call you Dolly?”
He then addressed the ghoulish cool kid. “That's so lame! Can't you give him a better nickname like 'Slash' or 'Gunner'?”
The ghoulish cool kid sneered. “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”
Swift stood up to face the ghoulish cool kid.
“Ohhh...I see what this is all about. We hurt people's feelings now. Obviously that's what we’re doing. What's your name, guy?”
The ghoulish cool kid smirked. “This one here to my left is Frankie DeSteffano. To my right is Marcus O'Keefe, and to his right, that would be George Penn. I'm Brian Maloney, but you'll call me Butch if you know what's good for you.”
Swift looked over Frankie, Marcus, and George briefly, as their lanky builds posed no threat. He directed his eyes on Maloney and nodded. “That's a kickin' rad name you've got there, Baloney. I mean, it's not like anyone dislikes eating baloney. It's practically the pauper of meats!”
Butch's smirk turned sour. “Pauper?”
Swift held his hands out, “Pauper. A bum, ya know? A grimy, homeless person who smells and--”
Butch cut him off furiously. “Shut up! I know what a bum is!”
This was pointless, however, as once Swift had started a thought, he was going to finish it or die trying.
Swift smiled foolishly. “Oh no, I don't doubt it. How could The Pauper of Meats not know what a bum is? Technically you're the authority on broke down bums, being one yourself. Bum.”
Butch growled. “Ugh, you're annoying.”
Swift exclaimed with exaggerated surprise. “Oh! He thinks he has an opinion! Ollie, Baloney thinks he's people!”
“Wow. You think you're so funny, don't you? I bet you'd get destroyed in a fight.”
Swift ignored him and sat back down. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder when he said, “What do you want, Baloney? If you're here to make friends, let me tell you-- that ship has already sailed. Into a whirlpool. Charybdis.”
“What are you talking about, nerd? Anyway, I told you to call me Butch, and Dolly knows what I want.”
Butch walked around to Ollie's side of the table. “Don't you? Now say it.”
When Ollie didn't respond, Butch sighed impatiently and said in a soft voice that was not at all gentle like the Snuggles bear. “Say it now, Dolly, or I'll get mad.”
Ollie locked his eyes on Swift. “No.”