A/N: This is an older work of mine; been rattling around on my computer for about a year now. I wasn't too sure about posting it, until I read daccu65's story "Monkeyfist's Christmas" (which I highly recommend, by the way), and realized this is pretty much the time of year to get spirtual, even on .
So. . . religious/Christian content. If that offends you, please don't read and please don't flame. Thanks. :)
There had to be something on besides the news.
Really, where were the game shows? The talk shows? The gardening channel? The channel where people sat and stared at each other and then suddenly yelled at each other about taxes?
Okay, fine, but maybe there would be something on the news besides. . . that. Didn't they cover sports, and the weather, and which celebrity he'd never heard of had broken up with some other celebrity he'd never heard of. . .
Come on.
But, nope, nothing. Nothing but the same footage over and over and over and over of giant cybertronic toys smashing skyscrapers and people running for their lives, screaming and crying.
Funny, he hadn't noticed that at the time. Actually, the whole thing was kind of fuzzy in his brain. He just knew it had seemed like such a good idea back then. . . .
And then they showed a little girl nearly getting trampled. Really little. Six years old, maybe less. She had pigtails. Why did she have to have pigtails? Why did there have be a little girl at all? Why?
He shivered. Why did they turn the air conditioning up so high in here? It wasn't as if it were the middle of July. It was only May. Or June. He hadn't changed his calendar in a while.
Not that there were any calendars to change in here.
Then the footage shifted to some guy standing there in a snazzy, sparkly suit. Shiny. His eyes were in mean little slits, and the smile on his face was. . . pure evil. Fancy-Suit Guy looked familiar, like he'd seen him somewhere before.
That can't be me.
No, it wasn't him. It was the shadow in his nightmares, the one that always came out and laughed wickedly at him and made him cower. The only time he was scared, of course. At night. In the nightmares. In the day, of course, he was completely in control.
Well, maybe. Maybe.
He drove his fork into the supposed-to-be-edible glop on his tray. It was a weird little plastic tray, like the kind in a school cafeteria. He pushed the glop around on the tray, hoping it would look like he was eating.
Someone was standing over him. A guard, hands on hips. "You know, pal, if you don''t feel like eating right now, we can't save it for later. We ain't your mother.
"I'm not hungry."
He shoved the tray away and buried his face in his arms, folded on the table. Prison food was every bit as bad as its reputation said, and it didn't go down easily.
It didn't stay down easily, either.
And not just because it was so bad. He'd been feeling weird ever since he'd gotten here - sort of weak and wobbly all over.
The guard grunted. "Suit yourself."
"Hey." It was out of his mouth - because he needed to ask someone. "Is everyone all the over the world seeing that footage?"
"Yeh." The guard sounded like he wanted to spit. "Everyone sees how evil you are. Are you happy now?"
No.
Bizarre, because that was what he had been wanting for a long, long time. And if everyone was seeing this -
Mother.
She had to know by now. Even she couldn't miss this. He squirmed in his seat. She's not going to be proud of me anymore.
"Lunchtime's over."
Oh, rats.
As awful as that was, he hated going to back to his cell. Solitary confinement, they called it. No cellmate yet, and it was far too quiet.
So quiet he'd taken to talking to himself, just so he wouldn't have to be alone with his thoughts, about his mom and his latest failed scheme and the little girl with the pigtails and the guy in the fancy suit who was him but couldn't be. When all those thoughts came and hurt his brain, he wasn't sure what to do.
Except cry. Or throw up. Or pick things up and hurl them across the room.
He'd already done the first two, and there wasn't a whole lot in the cell he could pick up and hurl across the room. Well, he hadn't tried ripping the sink off the wall, but that probably wouldn't be the best thing to do.
If only Shego was still around to bounce things off of. Even if she would snort and curl her lip and say rude things, she would at least break the silence. He could tell her about how he was such a genius until he'd convinced himself.
He'd asked the guard one day where she was. "In the women's prison," he'd replied.
There was a separate prison just for women? Why?
Actually, he'd asked the guard that, too. He'd said something about, "So she won't have to share a cell with men like your cousin."
He wasn't sure what guys who liked cars had to do with Shego getting a whole different prison. But nothing made much sense anymore.
A sudden thought ripped through the tornado in his brain. If his mother was seeing this on the news. . . would his dad, wherever he was, be seeing it too?
Would he even recognize me?
That did it. He picked up his pillow to throw it against the bars - and a piece of paper floated down.
Weird. He didn't remember putting that there. Of course, his brain was still pretty fuzzy right now. . .
He unfolded it.
What does it profit if a man gains the whole world but loses his soul?
The food he hadn't eaten scrambled toward his throat. The room seemed even smaller and darker than it had five minutes ago.
Is that from the Bible? he wondered.
It sure sounded like it - in fact, he was pretty sure he'd heard it as a kid in Sunday School. But it couldn't be, because it sounded like it was written just for him.
"What exactly would losing your soul look like?" he asked the cot and the sink.
Probably something like the guy with the fancy suit and the evil smile and the cold eyes.
The rest of the paper said,
God still loves you. It's never too late to go to Him - especially when you don't have anybody else.
We'll talk some more soon.
He felt that weird little chill again. Strange, there wasn't any air conditioning in here.
He reached his hand up into the black unknown out the window, as if a star would fall right into his palm.
Right before he pulled it back in, it almost felt like someone squeezed it.
In reassurance.
()()()())()
Well, that's it. Hope you enjoyed. I've been working on something warm-n-fuzzy, so I'll probably be back within the next couple of days.
Have a Merry Christmas or whatever you happen to celebrate.
