Padre
The days of the Goomba were gone. There were no such things as heroes and villains anymore. Just people of different shades of bad trying to get by.
The lights inside Mario Bros. Plumbing were still on, though the CLOSED sign had already been flipped. Inside, the mustached small business owner sat at a small folding table, balancing the books for the day's transactions. He wore blue overalls with shiny gold buttons, over his red, long-sleeved shirt. A red cap framed the top of his head. Rough knuckles from years of punching brick blocks tensed angrily as he typed away on his desktop computer, squinting intensely at the dimly lit screen.
A knock at the door brought him back to the world around him. At the door, a little girl stood with her hands stuffed into her pockets and only a small rectangle of her face visible beneath the tattered black hood that covered the top of her head and the collars of her winter coat that came just above her nostrils. She waited expectantly, with full confidence her little knock would rouse the owner to come forward.
In nine steps, he was there. He opened up the door just enough.
"Come on-aa in-a," he said.
The little girl smiled and squeezed through. Her eyes lit up as she took in the surroundings. Mario didn't respond, numb to the effects of the shelves of colorful merchandise lining the opposite walls of the shop. Life-size and doll-size plungers, Goomba toys, Bowser and Hammer Bros. masks, Princess Peach and Daisy wigs, and even a few go-carts. Mario Bros. Plumbing was the only toy shop in the town, and the premier toy shop in the larger area.
Mario's eyes rested briefly on the girl, before locking the front door behind him.
"We'raa closed, Pree. How many times-a got to tell ya to come when we'raa open?"
The girl turned back to Mario in her too-thin winter coat with too thin, bright yellow pants, and scuffed tennis shoes and smiled.
He shook his head and went to get his own winter coat. It was time to call it a night.
oOoOoOo
The two walked the main path through the village, the well-lighted one. Taking the pipes was always the quickest way to any point in the village, but they were closed for maintenance tonight. The All-Around All-About It Associates, former Mario Bros. Plumbing rivals, took over all things plumbing when Mario entered the toy business exclusively. AAAAA didn't have the greatest reputation for big jobs, so most people had moved on to other methods of transportation, chalking "traveling the pipes" as a Palace luxury. A weird feeling, to have personal history described as a mere game. What a difference 5 years could make.
The little girl would ask some of the same questions every time she visited the shop. Mr. Mario, why do you have the same first and last name? Mr. Mario, Goombas were really ugly, huh? Mr. Mario, what's it like to have a bushy mustache under your nose?
Mario tolerated this barrage of questions because they were easy to answer, but little Pree surprised him with an extra question this visit: Mr. Mario, where'd all of the people you used to play with go?
Almost everybody was gone. He had set Yoshi free after so many adventures together. Years of guilt. The stupidity of thinking that power equaled right. Toad, the best personal servant of the former Mushroom Kingdom, revealed a knack for capitalism. He left the kingdom with Bowser – after the Koopa King realized that overthrowing the Mushroom Kingdom was much smarter than just kidnapping the princess. He managed to convince the ever-dramatic Bowser to begin an acting career. With Toad's expertise as an agent, Bowser had risen to the status of a B-level celebrity. The more the people were reminded that he was a former villain, the more they loved him. Though Bowser was still officially king of Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser Jr. oversaw most of its day-to-day operations.
And Luigi was gone. He quit the plumbing business and somehow found success in the pick-up artist community, calling himself "Pizazz." "Let'sa gooo. . .back to my place" was his pick-up-line off choice. Pizazz would call sometimes, mostly when he was headed through the village and needed a place to crash. Other than that, it felt like Mario had been orphaned by everyone he once knew.
The only person who stayed around was Peach. Somedays he had no clue why she did. The family was exiled after the Koopa Uprising. Settling in a village a fair distance from Mushroom Kingdom, the Mario Bros. and Princess Peach began to grapple with the not-so happily ever after. After Pizazz moved on to more exciting things, only Mario was left to run the plumbing business. He soon swallowed his pride and converted the plumbing headquarters into a souvenir shop paying homage to the adventures of the Mario Bros. It kept the rent paid, but it sucked the soul from a man who all men used to envy.
"Mr. Mario?" Pree repeated.
Mario brought himself back to the present.
"We're here, Mr. Mario."
oOoOoOo
After returning Pree to her carefree parents, and giving them a stern lecture of the dangers of nighttime for small children, Mario set off for home. It was after 10:30. The shop had officially closed at 10:00 that night. An early night.
If nothing else, Peach was always understanding. Supportive of the struggle of keeping the business afloat to make ends meet. She worked equally hard to make sure the house was in order, meals were made, and she even pitched in at the shop if it got busy enough. She might be knitting in the living room now. He skipped the rest of the way, hoping to spend a little time with her before having to get some sleep.
As he pulled out his key ring and stuck the key in the door's slot, he thought he heard a door slam within the apartment. He stopped for a moment, straining his ear. Footsteps, someone running, then, nothing. He waited a moment more, then turned the lock to open the door.
The apartment opened up with the arc of the door's swing, revealing a darkened interior. The kitchen's lights were out, the bare, wooden walls unfolded, the coach in the center of the living room, empty, a single pillow leaning against the corner, the hallway to the bedroom in the far corner, softly aglow from the light inside the bathroom.
A figure knelt in front of the sofa, soft pink negligee sliding down her figure, her golden hair spilling over her shoulders, shoulders that were heaving, breaths that came ragged, sobbing he now heard. She knelt clutching something in her hands.
"Hi M-M-Mahahaahaa. . ." As she sobbed, he noticed a quick flutter of shadows from the bathroom. Then he noticed what she was holding – a cheap, convenience-store bought pregnancy test. His eyes moved from her to the light from the bathroom and back. He walked over to the sobbing figure and grabbed the test stick. Positive.
He always thought of how great it would be to finally have a kid. Pree showed him how exciting the responsibility of having a child might be. Now that the reality was hitting, it wasn't how it was supposed to be.
He looked up at the ceiling, at no point in particular, trying to find the meaning of everything. "Peach, somebody ees-a in our-a bathroom."
"Y-yes, M-M-Mario." Her sobbing picked up in intensity, her body shaking all over. By now, his eyes had acclimated to the low lighting inside the house. He finally noticed, on the floor just beside the armchair, the green hat.
He hesitated a moment. "Peach, the father, it's-a me. . . .right?"