He kneels there, the sweat rolls down his brow down the tip of his beak and onto the foundation. The other monsters just look at him. They know he just wants to help with the construction on the fourth iteration of Castle Avarius, but Brudo really knows nothing about how construction works. He knows how to bark orders, and he knows how to tell people where to go and what to do, but there's one thing that Brudo doesn't know how to do, and that was be an everyday man. Brudo doesn't consider himself a king anymore, no lord, no duke or even count. Brudo just wants to be Brudo now, the everyday man that is Brudo. A big, buff rhino monster carrying a massive pole on his shoulder lays it down with ease and proceeds to drill the piece into place.
Rhino: Excuse me, Lord_
Brudo: Just call me Brudo.
Rhino: Brudo, we appreciate your help, really, we do, but_
Brudo: What? Just tell me. I'm a man. Just tell me to my face what you want to say. No more of this "lord" crap.
The rhino can smell the passive aggression in Brudo's voice and after several days of putting up with it, lets him have it. The rhino had already been paid, but he has never had to deal with such an intrusive customer.
Rhino: Look man, why don't you get the heck outta here and let the pros do their jobs. You're just getting in the way and making your project take longer than it should!
The other guys just look at him like a dead man walking. Surely Brudo would just fire him on the spot, but he just looks at him in a grimace, and then that grimace curls up into a mad smile. This is something so new to Brudo. He never had someone unrelated to him just tell him off before. It feels so strange to, him but so good.
Brudo: There it is. Thank you, men. That'll be all. Proceed. It really is no rush.
The rhino and the others are utterly confused. Brudo wanders off the site, tired as a dog and covered in sweat from his hard work (he moved a few wheel barrows filled with cement and some other odds and ends that those considerably younger men could have done with ease). Brudo heads back to his father's castle, where he has started a restoration project of his own.
He's been cleaning the castle, scrubbing the walls, the floors and all of those things, on his own, without any help although he can now afford it. Brudo, for some reason, burdens himself with excess work just for the sake of feeling like a man lower than his status as lord. He gets on his hands and knees scrubs his father's castle. Why he works to maintain the house of a man that spent so long alienating him was the matter to Brudo, and him alone.
Humility is a new phase of life for him. Brudo smiles as he pushes himself every day, accumulating grit and grime, grease in the remainder of the hair he has, muscle mass beneath the limp and pathetic flabby skin, and a beard more magnificent than he could have imagined. He lets it all grow out, curling towards his center of mass like a birdly Santa Claus.
Brudo has lost a significant amount of weight, although still quite pudgy and wrinkly, he is healthier now than he'd been in years. Every day he works hard to fix his father's castle, goes and fraternize with the workers building his own castle, and comes back to his father's to make his own dinner and shower before heading to his old bedroom to sleep in his own childhood bed.
Brudo has since found one of his his father's servant's cook books and begins experimenting. Brudo doesn't know how to cook anything, but he spends an adequate amount of time grazing through the instructions and following them to a T, only to find out that the concoction he makes tastes quite fine, if a bit bland. It isn't til he comes across a particular page that he spots a passage that grabs his attention.
"Anyone can learn to cook. Any man or woman can learn to follow the instructions in a book and make a decent meal for one's self, but only a true chef can put passion into cooking. To pour one's heart and soul, and personal taste into the concoction is to make a masterpiece. Food is a form of art that like all others, truly shines when it is made with the soul".
Brudo doesn't quite understand what it means at first, but it makes him smile anyway, because it makes him feel like he can make something important just by injecting his own personal taste into it. Brudo gets to sifting through his mind for things he likes. He is a rather fussy eater as far as what he likes, but will simply consume with distaste nearly anything just to keep from being hungry. He has to actually dive pretty far back to remember what he likes.
He likes the one pasta his old turtle monster cook used to make when he was a kid. He remembers quite fondly. He likes that one 3-eyed fish he caught by mistake when he fell into the river when he was a teenager. Brudo takes the fragments of his mind and still doesn't know if he can conjure a feasible, or even palatable recipe to work with. He just sits there, thinking about how useless he is. He then gets up and brushes his greasy hair back. Brudo feels hot, so he walks to the restroom to splash his face with some cold water.
Brudo: Look at you. What are you? Who are you?
Brudo: I'm Brudo.
Brudo: Are you? You really don't even seem sure anymore. You've ditched that "lord" status, but are you still, grumpy, frumpy, perpetually angry Brudo?
Brudo: I don't know. I don't know who I am anymore.
Brudo: Brudo has a wife and kids.
Brudo: Yeah, HAD a wife and kids, and they all hate me.
Brudo: They have good reason to.
Brudo: Yeah, they do. I'm an ass.
Brudo: But I'm trying!
Brudo: Does trying really matter? After more than 20 years of an agonizing marriage, does it really matter?
Brudo: They weren't all agonizing.
Brudo: Oh really? Name one happy part.
Brudo: Well there's... um... and that time and_
Brudo: The end.
Brudo: Yeah! I mean... No, that's not what I meant!
Brudo: Yeah it is.
Brudo: No it's NOT!
Brudo:_
Brudo: This is crazy. I'm talking to myself in the mirror like a lunatic.
Brudo: You're right. This is not healthy. This is messed up.
Brudo: I'm scared, man.
Brudo: Why?
Brudo: Because, I miss my wife. I miss my kids. I never appreciated them when they were around, but now that I'm so perpetually alone, I feel like I can't breathe without them here.
Brudo: Is this a mid-life crisis?
Brudo: I don't know.
Brudo: I'm just a stupid old man.
Brudo: Aw, here it goes again. Brudo's gonna beat up on himself again. Poor old man, woe is me. Boo hoo hoo.
Brudo: I... I just don't know what to do.
Brudo: You know exactly what to do.
Brudo: Go see your wife. Beg for her forgiveness. Tell your kids you love them from the bottom of your heart, and all that mushy junk.
Brudo: It's not mushy junk.
Brudo: It's not the truth, is it?
Brudo: Is it?
Brudo: It IS. I miss my wife, and I'd tear out my own eyeballs just for the chance to look at her once again.
Brudo: That's extreme.
Brudo: Yeah you're right. Too much.
Brudo just looks at himself for several minutes in the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom. It's then, in there in that bathroom, that Brudo comes to appreciate the fact that his face is covered in feathers that hide the wrinkles, warts, bruises and blemishes on the flesh beneath. He looks at his bloodshot old eyes, the forest green of his iris, realizing how much he and several of his sons share the same eye color. He and Ludo have the exact same shade of forest green and he now does he even realize that.
Brudo stands there in thought for a moment realizing just how vividly he seems to remember the appearance of his family despite never really bonding with them. He turns off the lights and climbs into bed without showering that night. It has been so long. He thought for a while that since he'd finally ditched them, that he could forget about them and move on, but he just can't. The castle he is erecting for them is a project that is nowhere near completion. Brudo had wants to stop thinking about his family just so the sadness would go away.
He keeps trying to drown them out, day after day. He contemplates several times, outright cancelling the construction of the fourth iteration of Castle Avarius, and each day he has to talk himself out of it. He has to just deal with it, deal with the perpetual hell of being reminded of his family without being able to see them. He lays there, with his eyes closed, and he just keeps seeing them, like a slide show of loved ones but without the reciprocated love. They sit on his eyelids as he tries to sleep, as real as day. They just won't go away.
It's in the morning that Brudo decided once and for all that he's gonna do it. Brudo is going to see a therapist. Some time later, Brudo walks up to a very plain cream-colored door. He holds a card reading "Dr. Nanas, Psychiatrist". He then looks up at the entryway to the very plain looking exterior of the doctor's office before entering.
Brudo: Well, here goes nothing.
He goes inside to find an empty room with a bored secretary sitting at a desk reading a boring magazine, "Mewni Trees Monthly: The Fascinating Story of the Bluebark Birch". Brudo goes up to the middle-aged curly-haired monster woman. She's covered in warts and her lip droops like a toad with a particularly big, hairy wart just above her lips and right under her slightly larger left nostril than the right, a very unattractive woman.
Brudo: I'd like to arrange an appointment with Dr. Nanas. I'm here because I really need help and I don't know what to do with my life.
The woman responds in a droning and uninterested manner without so much as looking up from her magazine.
Secretary: Dr. Nanas is out to lunch. He'll be back in 30 minutes.
Brudo: Okay.
Brudo sit on the chair across from the sickening looking toad woman and just stares at her while she completely ignores him, fully engrossed in her tree book. The first thing to pop into his mind is that he's glad he's not married to her. He stares at her mole and, he swears it's getting bigger and bigger, and looks like it will explode and get mole stuff all over him. He really hopes that doesn't happen. Brudo sits there, bored out of his mind. He doesn't want to read whatever she's reading, so he just sits fidgets in his chair, antsy, counting the individual feathers on his arm until Dr. Nanas walks in. Dr. Nanas is not at all what Brudo had pictured at all.
Secretary: Did you enjoy your lunch, doctor?
Dr. Nanas: I sure did, Clara. Wonderful fleas and mites I picked off of the hairy 3-eyed fellow down the street. Lovely creature he is. Didn't even mind.
Dr. Nanas is a small talking Capuchin monkey, no bigger than Ludo, wearing a rather unprofessional tye dye shirt and small, round glasses as well as no pants. The fur on the back of his head is tied in a small ponytail. He fancies himself a bit of a hippie.
Secretary: This guy wants to see you.
Dr. Nanas: A patient?!
Dr. Nanas climbs up onto Brudo's lap and stares him right in the eyes with his large yellow orbs filled with excitement.
Dr. Nanas: Ah, yes Clara. This gentleman will do nicely. Good work!
Secretary: Uh huh.
Her eyes never once leave her magazine during the entire exchange.
Dr. Nanas: If you would, please follow me, um, sorry, I didn't catch your name.
Brudo: Brudo.
Dr. Nanas: Brudo? As in, Lord Brudo Avarius of Mewni?
Brudo: Yeah... but it's just Brudo now. I ain't no king.
Dr. Nanas: I see. Fascinating. Well, Brudo, this is my office. Sit or stand where you please. Hang from the monkey bars, slide down the slide. Do as your big heart desires, my friend! Mi oficina es su oficina.
Dr. Nanas' office is a most unorthodox office. There is grass everywhere, and big trees. It's like a miniature jungle within an office room. The only normal things in there are a single desk, made from the same wood as the apparent living trees in the office, and a single long psychiatrist's couch with fine purple upholstery.
Brudo: If it's all the same to you doc, I'll just take a seat on this here couch.
Dr. Nanas: Lovely! Then lets begin.
Dr. Nanas pushes his chair over to the couch, made of the same type of upholstery (apparently he got both at a yard sale as a BOGO offer). He sits on top of the chair backwards, falling into it and laying upside down with a clipboard. Brudo stares at him for several moments of awkward silence.
Dr. Nanas: Well?
Brudo: Oh! I guess I should start, right?
Dr. Nanas: This is your session, Brudo. I'm an excellent doctor, but a terrible mind reader so I'm afraid you'll have to speak in order for me to help you.
That last statement is said with 100% sincerity with not a single hint of sarcasm or rudeness whatsoever. Dr. Nanas' cheery disposition does not diminish for even a moment.
Brudo: Well, what should I start with?
Dr. Nanas: Start with whatever you want. You can start with birth, or death, or anything in between. Let your heart decide where to start.
Brudo: I guess I'll just cut to the chase then. I don't have a very good relationship with my wife... or my kids... or... really anyone for that matter. I was raised by my dad. My mom died at a very young age, and I didn't really know her all that well. My dad raised me alone, just one kid. He never remarried, and he just put all the weight of the world on my shoulders. He wanted me to be the best: to have the best training, to be the best fighter, warrior, ladies' man, you know...just the best... man, I guess.
Dr. Nanas: Did you like your father, or approve of the way he raised you?
Brudo: I don't really think I liked or hated my dad. I just did what he told me to, day after day, for years. I knew no opposition. I never really rebelled against him. He enrolled me into this elite academy where they physically pushed me beyond my limits. Believe it or not doc, I used to be ripped before I let it all go, and turn into this... mush.
Dr. Nanas: Hm, yes, I can tell from your physiology that you once possessed admirable physical strength. Your shoulders and posture, despite your age, tell quite a fascinating history.
Brudo: Yeah? Thanks, I guess. Well, I wouldn't really call myself much of a rebel until I met my wife, I mean, she wasn't my wife yet.
Dr. Nanas: I understand. Go on.
Brudo: I met her at this fancy-pants party my dad wanted me to go to. It was a bunch of stiffs and I hated it there, but I played along because my dad considered those people to be "peak society". That's where I met her, Zefira Avarius, the most beautiful girl I ever met in my life. She hung with those other cliquey girls, the ones that talk about themselves and brag too much. I could tell she was forcing laughing at their corny, stupid, unfunny jokes as much as I was. She came over and met me and we ditched that place and went somewhere much cooler.
Dr. Nanas: Was it the polar region of Mewni?
Brudo: No, but close. It was our place, high up on the Jaggy Mountains, a place with the greatest view of Mewni you've ever seen. She tried to teach me how to fly up there.
Dr. Nanas: You cannot fly, Brudo?
Brudo: No. My dad had my wings clipped a long time ago. They've grown back since, but I never learned when I was young.
Dr. Nanas: What's stopping you from learning now? Are you afraid?
Brudo: No! I mean, I guess so. It's like learning to ride a bike. When you're old, it's like ten times harder than when you learn when you're a kid you know, or learning at an old age to speak a foreign language. When you're a bird, learning to fly as an old man is also kind of embarrassing.
Brudo starts to blush in shame over his admission to not knowing how to fly. His sons and daughters all know, except for Ludo, and his wife can fly.
Brudo: It's also not easy when you're a big, fat slob like me.
Dr. Nanas: You have my sympathies, Brudo. I could not imagine having to learn such things as grasping branches or climbing trees at my age.
Brudo: But anyway. I got away from my dad and I married Lady Avarius. We had 50 kids.
Dr. Nanas: My, my, 50 children. You two love each other quite a lot.
Brudo: It started out great. The first young ones hatched and I was so attached to them. I wanted them to be great, just like my father had to me.
Dr. Nanas: Stop...
Brudo: What?
Dr. Nanas: I think I'm beginning to understand some parallels between you and your father. May I ask, Brudo, do you think that you were as strict with your children as your father was with you?
Brudo: I tried to be a good dad, and raise my kids with a sense of discipline, with the knowledge that one day they would represent the proud family Avarius of the monster union with the Butterfly family.
Dr. Nanas: How did that turn out?
Brudo: I don't know. My kids are so distant from me now that I can't even ask them.
Dr. Nanas: How do you feel that your kids felt?
Brudo: it's a real mixed bag, Doc. Some of my kids really tried to be upstanding royalty, while other ones just didn't fit the mold.
Dr. Nanas: Ones that didn't fit the mold? Any in particular come to mind?
Brudo: Well, there's my littlest one, not my youngest one, just the littlest. His name is Ludo. He's about the same size as you I guess. I was really hard on him, because he's so small. Kid grew up getting picked on by the other kids, and I egged them on to, you know, make the kid fight back. I was afraid for Ludo, that if he didn't become a fighter, that he'd never make it in this world. You see, Mewni isn't this royal paradise we all live in. It's fight for your right. So yeah, he had it rough. Only thing is, I think I overdid it.
Dr. Nanas: How so?
Brudo: My kid became a megalomaniacal monster, obsessed with power, and his own strength. He became so obsessed with the Butterfly Family wand that gets handed down from queen to successor of the throne.
Dr. Nanas: Yes, I'm familiar with the wand, as well as your son's overthrow of Mewni. Quite a farce that whole situation was.
Brudo: Tell me about it. I was never so embarrassed in all my life.
Dr. Nanas: You seem pretty upset with him.
Brudo: I was. I was angry with my son, and ashamed of him. For years I had been, and only recently, did I realize what a bad father I am.
Dr. Nanas: How do you feel about your son, Ludo?
Brudo: I love Ludo. I love all my kids, no matter how much of a failure they are. Gee, I guess I never actually showed it, did I.
Dr. Nanas: Have you ever told your son how you feel?
Brudo: Only recently.
Dr. Nanas: How recently?
Brudo: A couple months ago, I guess. That was the last time I saw him.
Dr. Nanas: What happened?
Brudo: It's a long story. My wife and I got in this really big fight. One night, she just lost it. She used to be so timid, then this one particular night, she turns into a tiger on me and tries to bite my head off.
Dr. Nanas: Good gracious! Cannibalism!
Brudo: Not literally!
Dr. Nanas: Oh. My apologies.
Brudo: I think she bottled up all this anger that I caused her, all this anger that Ludo caused her, and everything else, until it just exploded. We fought so badly that night that we wrecked our house and had it burn down in the woods, leaving all of us homeless after my son stole the Castle from us.
Dr. Nanas: So, allow me to arrange these events as I see: you drove your son into megalomaniacal behavior, he evicted you from your own Castle, forcing you to live in the woods, Castle Avarius was then destroyed in that magical explosion, and your son went missing, which I gathered from the daily newspaper I read about your missing son some year ago. Your wife was stricken with guilt and anger that eventually built into this eruption of irrational behavior, leading to conflict that resulted in the destruction of your home. Somehow, you regained contact with your son, and later he wound up back in the custody of Lady Avarius at new Castle Avarius. Is this correct?
Brudo: Dr. Nanas, you gathered all that from that limited information I provided you?
Dr. Nanas: That is correct. Also, I keep up on the royal news rather frequently. Quite a soap opera, I must say.
Brudo: Well yeah. My wife hates me, my kids hate me. I'm not welcome in my own Castle. I don't know what to do, Doc. I'm scared to see my wife. I'm scared that she won't forgive me, and that she'll never want to see me again. I'm scared that they're all much happier without me, and that I might as well just not even exist.
Dr. Nanas: You most certainly do deserve to exist, Brudo. It takes a very strong man to overcome pride and admit that he was wrong. The mere fact that you're here seeing me is proof that you have a genuine will to change for the better. Now, why do you suppose your kids hate you?
Brudo: Because all I did was yell all the time. I raised my kids pretty strict, and I wanted them to know, to get the impression that the Lady and I aren't gonna be around forever. They're gonna be the heads of the Avarius family some day. They need to represent who we are, monsters, as people. They need to be able to command respect.
Dr. Nanas: Do you suppose that perhaps you came on too strong with your message, and it gave them the impression that you didn't love them, but saw them as mere ambassadors to the monster kingdom rather than children?
Brudo: I love my kids.
Dr. Nanas: But do you tell them that?
Brudo: Verbally? No. Well, I told Ludo I loved him, but that's after I was a huge jerk to him and after I had that fight with my wife that destroyed our house. I was going through a bit of a depression after my wife had left me, and Ludo was the only one there. The other kids, they left with their mother. It felt like they all just abandoned me, like, at that point, I had failed as a father. I never told anyone this, but it broke my heart having all the kids decide right then and there to side with their mother. I felt like they didn't love me, like they never did in the first place. But not Ludo. He stayed there. I mean, it was HIS house, his little garbage pile floating in space, but he had the option, and he could have easily just left with his mom to flee that dirtball of a rock and strand me there to be alone in my grief. But he didn't, and I don't know why.
Dr. Nanas: So, from what I understand, you lived with your son for a bit before trying to reconcile with your wife. What was that like?
Brudo: At first I was angry. I wouldn't say anything. He tried so hard to cheer me up, but I just sat on that couch and stewed in my own broth. He made me dinner, tried to talk with me, play with me, anything just to get me to talk to him. I was still very angry at him for humiliating me and disgracing the family, but in hindsight, that boy was the only thing keeping me alive. He tried to feed me, kept pushing me every day to get up, to eat. I had wanted to die at that point, Doc. I didn't care what happened to me. It's an awful feeling. I hope you never experience that.
Dr. Nanas: I experience that every day, Brudo, not in my own mind, mind you, but in the minds of my patience. Patience is a cruel and scary disease, and I have spent my life studying it. To move on, however, from that rather touchy subject, I notice you used past tense terms like "was" and "had", implying that at some point you came out of your rut. If that is, in fact, the case, what was that moment that brought you out of it?
Brudo: it was after Ludo and I had a spat and he stormed off. I told him I was a king of nothing, a family of nothing on a plot of nothing land and I told him to go away. He went outside and I sat there for a bit. It was only after I got stiff and decided to get up off the couch to get the circulation going through my tired old legs. I went outside to find the boy sitting on the dirty ground, bawling his eyes out. I didn't say anything, but I wanted to listen, and hear it spoken right from his beak that I was a terrible father. But he didn't. He was beating himself up over all the things he did. He was so upset, but at himself... because he thought he was a failure.
The next day I took a peek upstairs because I was bored and I hadn't been up there yet. I spied his little room and he had trash all over the place, but he also had this little book he found and, I was sure that even if he wouldn't ever say that stuff out loud. Surely he was writing what a garbage father I was down in that little book of his. I looked inside and It was a whole bunch of chicken scratch and silly doodles, and... he just, it made my heart sink to read what he had to say. Yeah he made a few jokes about me, but even after everything I did to him, after all the abuse, all the mean things I said to him, he still wanted me to be proud of him. He still loved me... and I made him hate himself.
Brudo could barely keep himself together in the chair. He tried standing up and pacing, trying to ignore the emotions now presenting themselves before the doctor in embarrassment.
Dr. Nanas: Brudo? Are you trying to hide your despair from me?
Brudo: I'm not crying, Doc, it's just my allergies.
Dr. Nanas: Brudo, it doesn't make you a lesser man to cry. It doesn't make you weak to show those feelings. They are very real, and it's both important and healthy to show those emotions.
Brudo: Look Doc, my dad, he... for the longest time, I wasn't allowed to cry, to show emotion, to show anger or sadness, or any sort of weakness! "Weakness is failure!" This is the doctrine which I was raised by. Only be happy, proud and confident!
Dr. Nanas: Are you happy, proud and confident, Brudo?
Brudo: No, no, and no, Doc.
Dr. Nanas: True weakness is caused by the shackles we make for ourselves as men. As men, we tell ourselves that crying is an expression of weakness, but no. Denying the truth, that is weakness. To deny your true self is weakness, and an admission of guilt. The strongest man, is the man with no shackles on his life, the free man, the man unbound by the confines of society, of the rules of family, and of the rules of the self. The opposite of weakness is strength. Strength is measured by our ability to overcome things that are difficult to us.
It is difficult for you to bare your despair because you see despair as failure, but true failure comes from its denial, and refusal to learn, to grow, and to heal. Brudo, in order for you to grow, to heal, and to be strong, you must bare yourself honestly to me. I want to help you, but as a doctor, I cannot help a patient that keeps secrets from me. You must be open and honest. You must be brave. You must be true with your emotions. Do not hide your grief over having made your son feel such awful things. To do so is to deny the truth.
You feel that despair BECAUSE you love your son. But it is regretful to you to come to the realization that you've done so poorly to express that to him. You told me that you wanted the best for your children, and that, through replicating your father's methods of raising you, you felt that that was legitimately the most adequate method of raising your children. But let me ask you Brudo, do you approve of the way your father raised you?
Brudo: No! I don't! The man never once told me he loved me! Not while he was alive anyway. It took him until he laid on his death bed to say it even once, and he expressed it in some letter he was too damned ashamed to ever have me see in the first place. I can't forget the words though. He said, almost the same thing you have been saying. He told me he wants me to end the vicious cycle, that he wants me to be a better father than he ever was.
Dr. Nanas: Your father is right, Brudo. It's unfortunate that a man would only come to such a damning revelation in his final hours, but I doubt his claim of love is false. Picture your father in your very own shoes for a moment, a metaphor for sure, I realize you wear no shoes, but see yourself in your father's eyes. He reciprocated endless generations of tough love onto you, and stopped, in his time of death, to reveal to you the secret of happiness. It is now your duty, Brudo, as a father, to "end the vicious cycle".
Brudo: I don't know how to raise kids, Doc.
Dr. Nanas: Of course you do. You birthed 50 lovely children and many of them are grown, but all of them are still your children. It is not to late for them, and it is not too late for you. It is important for you to start now, and to not waste any more time. All you need to be a good father is to be there for your kids, to hear their problems and be there for them to pick them up when they fall. You must be there to provide them with your newfound wisdom, lest they repeat the same flawed parenting to their kin. Are you a grandfather yet Brudo?
Brudo: No. I mean, I don't think so. It's been a while since I seen my kids.
Dr. Nanas: Good, then you must begin now when they are still young enough to learn and pass that on.
Brudo: There's only one problem Doc, Zefira, my wife.
Dr. Nanas: Then I believe that's a perfect time to segue onto our next contentious topic, your marriage.
Brudo: Contentious is the right word for that. I think my relationship with my wife is just as broken as it is with our kids.
Dr. Nanas: The way you've previously described your wife, it truly does sound like you do love her as the woman that set you free and made you feel things you never did before.
Brudo: She is.
Dr. Nanas: Yet it appears to me that you lost that flame some while ago.
Brudo: It was some time after we had the kids, back when I had all these visions of perfection for our family.
Dr. Nanas: So it seems, that your father has had just as much of an influence on your love life as he had your parenting.
Brudo: I don't think dad really liked Zefira. He said she "brought out the wild" in me. I think I might have been torn between wanting to impress dad and live with Zefira.
Dr. Nanas: Considering the strife between you and your wife, I assume it's your father's will that won that battle.
Brudo: I wanted dad to see what a great family man I could be and what a great wife she was. That led to some difference between us. Lady Avarius used to be a much happier person.
Dr. Nanas: Then what happened?
Brudo: I took the wife that made me a free bird, and locked her in a cage. She liked to go out and party with her friends. I stopped all that. We settled down and had children. I watched the happiness disappear from her as I told her that she wasn't allowed to experience that freedom anymore. She tried many times to leave the house and go to parties with her friends, but I made sure she didn't, because she needed to be home to watch the kids.
Dr. Nanas: You couldn't let her out for a night every once in a while and watch them yourself?
Brudo: That wasn't my role, back then, to do that. My job was to make sure those kids showed us respect. She wanted to do such things as play with them and instill all these weak habits in them. She babied them.
Dr. Nanas: She babied... babies?
Brudo: Yeah!
Dr. Nanas: You do realize that in order for children to experience any sort of happiness they must be presented with not only a balanced regimen of rules but a sense of freedom as well?
Brudo: Well that was me at the time. I know I'm different now, Doc. I thought really hard about all that stuff I did and it was wrong. I'm just telling you from the perspective of who I was back then.
Dr. Nanas: Very well, proceed. I apologize.
Brudo: From the time they were born I tried to get them to be perfect little princes and princesses.
Dr. Nanas: How did that work out?
Brudo: Awful. Most of my kids wouldn't listen to me. They were too busy trying to play and be kids, but because I'm such a crappy parent, all I wanted to do was turn them into little soldiers and it backfired royally. None of them. All it resulted in was 50 flawed kids with varying degrees of proper etiquette. Some of them had no manners whatsoever, and I think a lot of it had to do with the early days of Zefira undermining my parenting, allowing the kids ample freedom when I was away. That led to some strife with Zefira and I and I had to put my foot down.
Dr. Nanas: How exactly?
Brudo: I had to constantly remind her of how to raise kids to be in any way respectable. And well, Zefira was never the confrontational one so after so many times of being told, she conceded, and we raised the kids my way.
Dr. Nanas: Do you think she was happy with that decision?
Brudo: Not at all. In hindsight, I basically took away her rights as a mother in being part of raising the kids. From that moment on, she merely reiterated my methods of raising the kids. But I knew she didn't like raising her kids like soldiers. I think it's a large part of why she blew up on me, and a large part of the reason everything is so messed up.
Dr. Nanas: When my mother and father raised me, I had a very similar situation in the sense that my father was the rule maker and my mother the outlet for fun. I assume we're close to the same age, and back then, that was the standard for parenting. But it was in watching them that I came to the realization that parenting is a team effort. It is only through that team effort that a proper childhood upbringing is achieved. I, of course, realize the strife of a single parent to fulfill both of those roles. Perhaps, it was that feeling in Zefira that she was raising the child as a single parent despite you being there, because you wanted her to fulfill your role as well, as the children's' discipline. You basically took away her role and gave her yours. Your children recalled that particular freedom she gave them when she initially raised them, and once she freed herself from your shackles, it is why they chose her, because she was the one that could fulfill both roles. My only question is, can you? Are you capable of allowing your children to have a preset series of guidelines and rules, while also presenting them with their own freedom to be individuals?
Brudo: Individuals?
Dr. Nanas: Yes Brudo, children are individuals. Different ones react to different situations in different ways. They all yearn to find their own happiness, and it's always a different happiness than the others. It is absolutely imperative that you understand the uniqueness of your children if you're ever to have a successful relationship with them, and raising them all as the same mold of princes and princesses, at best you'll breed nothing more than a series of dilettantes. I understand that 50 children is quite a lot of unique individuals, but it is true. And if your claim is true, you love each and every one of them.
Brudo: I do, and I want all of them to know that! Man, Doc, I really suck at this family stuff.
Dr. Nanas: But you are not without hope Brudo. You have done the right thing in seeking the aid of a professional in all your confusion.
Brudo: I've learned so much from you today, Doc.
Dr. Nanas: Brudo, our time is nearly up for today. We've been here for, goodness, two whole hours. It's a good thing I have no other clients at the moment.
Brudo: You've been a real help, you know, and I understand that I can't just be here forever to pick your brain, but is there anything else you want me to know before I have to go?
Dr. Nanas: Brudo. It is up to you to bring about individuality in your family, to let your wife out of her cage to be who she was meant to be, to allow your kids their right of individuality. But most of all Brudo, I think it's important for you to be who you want to be, not who your father does, but who you want to be.
Brudo: Thank you, Doc. You know, I really didn't know what to make of you when I stepped in here. I thought this would be weird, and you'd be some eccentric guy here to take advantage of the desperation of an old man, but this was a really good session.
Dr. Nanas:It's important not to judge someone by their size or appearance. It's important not to make preconceived notions about others that may appear small or insignificant. The best things may often come in the smallest packages.
Brudo lifts the tiny monkey doctor off the ground and hugs him. Dr. Nanas is taken aback for a second, but then remembers his own message and embraces Brudo back.
Dr. Nanas: Ah yes, reciprocating your newfound feelings, this is excellent. I know we just met Brudo, but I'd very much enjoy seeing you again. And please, when you reconcile with your wife, do bring her along with you. I'd love to hear from her perspective. Go on and be the father and man you were meant to be! Farewell!
Brudo: Later Doc.
Brudo pushes the door open to the office, where Clara is on the phone jibber-jabbering with a friend.
Secretary: _ So Agatha, how are the grand-babies? Oh wait, hold on, I got a guy, be right back with ya Aggie baby._ What?!
Brudo: I just wanted to say thank you and have a nice day, ma'am.
Secretary: Yeah whatever.
Brudo looks at her with a droll look and proceeds to leave the lobby. He steps out of the lobby and outside into the fresh autumn air with the leaves blowing all around him. Brudo had no idea that life could feel as good as it does now. Brudo has uncaged his family this day, and most of all, he has uncaged himself.
Brudo: Man, I'm kinda hungry. Maybe I'll try that whole "putting soul into cooking" thing.