WHO IS LESS AFRAID

A 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' story by P. J. Dickinson

EIGHT

The gathered Pluripotents sheathed their needles and slowly began to disperse. They would not forget what had happened here today. Never before had a human actually turned down the offer of eternal happiness. They were usually scheming and plotting like demons to secure a place in the cosmos that they did not deserve.

Millennia in service to the Evermore across countless dimensions and infinite sights should have inoculated Sisposutas to feeling surprise at anything that the Universe had to offer; and he thought that it had. It was reassuring to know that it could still be an interesting place to live.

He flew over to the sugar jar to restore some energy before he returned to his work. He remembered the last time that he had felt even remotely like this. He could not recall exactly when it had happened but it must have been shortly before the youth was born.

He had been called to an event which that had omens of being very destructive. Not on a scale as malignant as that which had occurred between the Slayer and Hell earlier in the night, but terrible on a personal level, which is just as important to the Evermore.

A young man who was very much in love with his wife was about to find her in a post-coital embrace with his brother. The presages were for violence. The man had no role-models or friends who may have in their relationships educated him as to how to behave. He was young and would be unable to suppress his anger. All he had was his wife and she had betrayed him.

As the wife wept at her husband's feet the Pluripotents had swelled in number. There were few outcomes that did not end in murder so consuming was his rage. What made the event more tragic was that the woman was pregnant with their child. Neither of them knew this at the time.

As the moment arrived and the Pluripotent massed in their greatest density the most remarkable thing happened. All the pain and rage and treachery that the man felt was turned inwards. He killed himself in an instant rather than do his wife any harm.

Sisposutas had never witnessed anything as noble again until now. He wondered about the man from time to time. He wondered if he had ever managed to rekindle the love that he had once had for the woman or whether it had festered and become hate.

Maybe it had become cancerous and all consuming until he could barely stand to look at the woman he had once believed loved him back with the same ferocity he felt for her. Perhaps he was reduced to pretence, only able to display his love when she was sleep or in some other way unaware of his advances. Whatever it took to protect him from that rejection again.

Sisposutas scoffed more of the sugar as he thought. It was so tragic. The man had sacrificed so much for his woman and he had had so much potential. Did she have any idea? He wondered what had happened to them and the child. In the back of his mind he had an idea. Nobility was in its blood.

Xander popped his head round the door.

'Hey fatboy.'

Sisposutas choked on a handful of sugar. Oh bugger, not again. Caught twice in one night.

'Any chance of working that mojo on a guys dented wheels?'