Before the Mushroom War
Old Friends
"Well, if it isn't 'Mr. Fancy-Pants High Horse Antiquarian'! I thought you would never have the time to see little ole' me again." I exclaimed sarcastically as I approached to happily embrace an old friend. "It has been a very long while, hasn't it?" Simon grinned broadly. "Yeah, it's almost two months actually! Ever since you found that book thingie... What was it called again? The 'blah-yada-dion'? The 'Excridilion'?" I exclaimed sarcastically. He proceeded to chuckle at my admittedly bad memory. "No, no Louis... It's actually called the Enchiridion. The supposed handbook for heroes! Written by all kinds of legendary figures that I have never heard of before!" He waved his arms around in the air as he explained loudly, trying to signify how awesome it is. He always a somewhat eccentric person. "Pft... Heroes... I can't imagine someone writing an instruction manual on how to be a hero. It's probably just some ancient fairy tale book or something..." I muttered under my breath as I simply shrugged. Who knows what it could have been?
"Huh? I'm sorry, Louis, but what did you say?" He was too busy stealing a glance at my workshop to really pay attention to me. "Nothing! Oh, it was nothing..." I smiled nervously at him. I didn't want to diminish his discovery with my lame attitude... He always hated it when I make fun of his work. "Well... Anyway, how are you doing, Simon? The last time I saw you, you could barely find the words to propose to Betty." I asked, trying to change the subject entirely. "Yeah… About that…" He smiled wryly as he glanced suggestively at me. My eyes immediately lit up in disbelief and shock. He can't be bloody serious...
"Wait... Wait, don't tell me… Don't even tell me… You finally did it, didn't you? You actually did it? You finally proposed to her!" I exclaimed in excitement as I was left completely breathless. "Yes! That's right! Betty will finally make me the happiest man in the world!" Simon literally jumped and skipped around out of excitement in the middle of the room, much to my pleasant surprise. It was also kind of embarrassing to see a grown man prancing about in place though... "Well, I say it's about freaking time. You two have been practically together for years now. I still remember some colleagues of mine were actually surprised that you two weren't married yet when they met you. I told you that you should have done it a long time ago, didn't I? And when was that again?" I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his overbearing happiness.
"Yeah, I know… I know, Louis... You were right and I was wrong. There, I said it. You happy now?" He chanted as he rolled his eyes in bemusement. "Maybe." I simply answered as I smiled at him. "I'm serious though; I should have done the deed a long time ago. A beautiful and kind woman like Betty is a once in a lifetime opportunity…" He seemed a bit down just from the thought of it, a stark contrast to his happy emotion not a few minutes ago. "Hey, Simon… Congratulations…" I outstretched my hand towards him and smiled softly. "Thank you… Thank you very much, Louis." He happily shook my hand and grinned happily. I thought I could see a single tear crossing his face as we shook hands… He was always too emotional sometimes... But I saw... that he was happy… Almost the same way I was happy when I first proposed to Hannah all those years ago. It was really nice seeing Simon again after all this time. Glad to see he hasn't changed at all. Well, apart from his marital status. Heh... Welcome to the club, Simon...
"So what have you been up to after all this time, Simon? And please don't tell me you found another boring book..." I asked him curiously with a friendly smile. To be honest, I was always interested in his studies as an antiquarian and all of the random ancient artifacts he had gathered and discovered. Too bad I sometimes forget most of them, thanks to my horrible memory. I can't even remember what he found before the Enchiridion... "Well, Betty and I just got back from a recent business trip from up in Northern Scandinavia and I thought that maybe I could visit an old friend on the way back home." He explained as he started pacing around my workshop and checking out all of the useless pieces of junk lying around on the tables. It was kind of embarrassing seeing his eyes gleaning over all of the scrap metal on the tables...
"You both went to Scandinavia? You're still traveling around even in these uncertain times?" I was slightly surprised that they were both still willing enough to even leave the country. "I always love the sight of the sky as I flew past them, Louis... It gave me this kind of strange but calming feeling inside me. It felt like the entire world's problems seemed so distant and smaller in comparison for just a brief moment…" He said softly as he hypnotically gazed outside the workshop's only window. I fell silent, hearing what he just said... I'm not sure what to say but I couldn't help and understand how he feels. I, myself, always wanted to get away from all of these problems with the world; Heck, I even tried my best to fix some of them... But a large part of me always kept reminding me about the sad truth. It's only wishful thinking, Simon, and there's no way of denying that…
"Wow… This is quite different." Simon suddenly exclaimed in amazement. "What's different?" I snapped out from thinking to myself and saw Simon holding a medium-sized green box with a little screen and a few buttons on the front of it. "Hey! Be careful with that, Simon. It's very important to me." I warned him as I hurriedly approached his side. "What… What is it anyway?" He asked me as he held it up in the air, inspecting the strange little box. "It's one of my unfinished projects that I never really got around to completing." I explained. "Is it some sort of tracking device or some kind of targeting-" "No! You know I don't do any of that stuff anymore…" I quickly interrupted him. "So what exactly is it then?" He said in a soft tone; seemingly understanding why I was quick to interrupt him. "It's... uh... It's a Bio-Metrical Operation processor unit that I had been tinkering with these past few weeks." I tried to put it bluntly to him.
"So what does it do? And in English, please?" He asked seemingly perplexed at what he's holding. "Okay, to keep it simple… I upgraded the processor unit into a universal toy. It's a video game console to be exact." Simon reared back, pleasantly surprised at what I just said, "A video game console?! That's certainly quite a leap from what you used to do, Louis." "Yeah, yeah, I know... I created it especially for the baby. It's meant to be like a long-time companion or something." I then droned on trying to explain some of the systems and how it would function to Simon, keeping it as simple as possible for him. "And all you have to do is turn it on and it would immediately be your friend that you could actually play and even converse with! Since it can talk, learn about new topics of interest and create a seemingly unlimited number of simple games, I had hoped it would last for quite an amount of time for the baby." I finally finished explaining, only to see Simon awestruck at what he was holding.
"Wow! That's incredible!" Simon yelled in amazement. "Can I turn it on now?" I saw his finger was slowly inching closer to one of the buttons. "No! No! No!" I immediately leapt forward and gently grabbed the little box away from Simon's grasp, much to his disappointment. "What's wrong with it? Does it suddenly go crazy with murderous intent or something?" He joked about; waving his skinny arms around and making loud explosion sounds with his mouth. "Hardly… It would be pretty awesome if it was like that though, but I still need to find a suitable power source or else it would just shut down randomly." I placed the green box neatly on the table amongst the other junk. "The Nanite energy cells it uses can help it recharge all by itself but it's not enough to keep it turned on for more than a day. The worst thing it could do is that it could actually just shut down randomly... It's just not... perfect enough yet…" I muttered as I dusted off the little green box on the table.
"Well, I think the father should be good enough for the baby." A soft voice suddenly came from the doorway. To my pleasant surprise, I quickly turned around and saw a fair woman standing right next to the doorway. Her flowing waist-length blonde hair and her new navy blue with white polka dot maternity dress immediately enchanted me. Yeah... I'm always weak like that when I'm with her… "Hannah!" I yelped in complete surprise, smiling broadly at her.
"Why are you two locked away inside here?" She asked as she slowly entered my workshop. "We're just catching up for a while, that's all." I said in a cheery tone as I approached to embrace my wife. "Hey Hannah, do you remember who this guy is?" I asked her, pointing directly towards the four-eyed man known as Simon. He approached Hannah and gently bowed down in front of her. Oh God, what a gentleman… "It's nice to see you again, Hannah." He smiled sweetly at her. "Oh! It's you, Simon!" She exclaimed excitedly as she gasped in shock. Well, she certainly remembered him faster than me…
"How have you been doing, Simon? I haven't seen you for a long time!" "I-" "Is Betty here too? How is she anyway?" "No. She's-" "You look so different Simon... You're so scrawny now. Did you forget to eat for a week or something? Why don't you stay here for lunch instead?" Hannah repeatedly pelted Simon with questions giving him barely any time to answer. It was quite amusing at first, but I guess I need to let the poor man breathe. Glad to see I wasn't the one getting pelted from Hannah for once… "Let him at least answer one question, Hannah. We don't want you to be out of breath yet again, do we now?" Hannah stopped and glared at me as I immediately smiled in a nervous manner.
Simon slowly regained his composure before he could finally answer Hannah's questions, "I'm doing perfectly fine, Hannah. Betty's fine too. But she couldn't join me because she had to go back home to finalize on some renovations we're making to the house. She-" "Renovations? What are you going to do, Simon? Build another gallery devoted to a dusty book or something?" I interrupted him jokingly. "No… Not exactly... Betty and I are actually going to build a huge marble statue of ourselves to celebrate our awesome marriage." He replied in a sarcastic tone. "Marriage?" Hannah's eye immediately lit up with shock and amazement which is the same way I did.
"You didn't tell me Simon and Betty was already married?" She kept glaring at me and making me feel very uncomfortable. She always hated it when she's not informed on the latest news... "Uh… Not yet, Hannah... He meant…" I laughed nervously at her grumpy behaviour. I was always at a loss of words whenever I'm with Hannah... "I... uh... I meant that we're about to get married! And I came here to invite you to our wedding!" Simon quickly added as he took out a piece of card from inside his jacket and promptly handed it to Hannah. He probably just saved my life...
"Already giving out invitations, Simon? Well, that's-" Hannah elbowed me, immediately silencing me from continuing to finish one of my legendary jokes. "Thank you for the invitation, Simon. We're definitely coming! You can be sure of that." She exclaimed happily, smiling sweetly at him. "It's exciting, isn't it? The knowledge of getting married? The thought that you can finally be someone you love?" She briefly gave me a heart-meltingly smile, her bright hazel eyes were glistening with happiness. "Now you can finally start a family, Simon!" She quickly added. Oh my God, I almost choked to death just from hearing that. Is that all she can think of nowadays? Simon's cheeks immediately blushed with a bright pink color... Oh God, what is going on right now? That escalated quickly...
"Well… uh... um... How many months has it been already?" He muttered, desperately trying to change the topic, understandably... "Seven months... It has been seven months already." Hannah exclaimed proudly as she gently clasps onto her baby bump. "Have you thought about a name yet?" He inquired, still trying to recover from Hannah's abrupt question. "Well, I wanted to name the baby from a famous historical scientist like Neil or Albert or maybe Stephen if he's a boy but-" "Certainly not, Louis…" Hannah suddenly interrupted me. "We'll name the baby after my dad. If it's a boy, we would name him Finn or if it's a girl, we will name her Fionna." Hannah quickly finished for me instead. It's not the first time she did that to me and it certainly won't be the last, I bet.
"So what would you name your child, Simon?" She bluntly asked out of nowhere. This time, I actually coughed nonsensically in shock. I almost died! Oh my God! Sometimes I wonder what goes around inside my wife's head… "Well… Uhm… I guess I have to get married first. We'll see what happens after that..." Simon laughed nervously. I'm surprised he managed to keep a cool head after all that. "Okay! Who's up for lunch?" I said loudly as I clapped my hands, hopefully changing the whole subject entirely. "Yes! I just made some spaghetti." Hannah exclaimed excitedly.
"I'm sorry but I can't have lunch right now..." Simon muttered softly. "Come on, Hannah's cooking is not that bad..." I joked nervously; much to Hannah's annoyance. I should always tread carefully whenever I was joking about something related to Hannah but thankfully with Simon here, at least I know that I have a witness. "It's not that… I… I have to go back home and join Betty... This was actually supposed to be just a short visit." He said in a soft and nervous tone. Poor guy's afraid we would get offended or something. "Okay, we understand, Simon... It's not a problem at all. You don't have to be such a weenie about it." Hannah said softly, reassuring him. "Come on, we can't just let our guest leave without a proper goodbye." I exclaimed as I gestured to the doorway, directing Simon out of the workshop. Simon smiled gratefully as we accompanied him to the front door of the house.
We passed the den and our master bedroom before we finally got downstairs of our house. The colorful yellow hallways of the house are decorated with old pictures of Hannah, some old friends, my old science team and Atlas... Hey, I just realized that there weren't that many pictures of me... I never liked standing in front of a camera. Anyway, as soon as we went downstairs, the front door of the house was directly in front of the staircase. I led Simon outside and pushed the carved wooden door open, seeing the small fenced courtyard of my house with a pristine marble fountain in the middle. The garage was on the right of the courtyard and at the other end of it, was the wide automatic metal gate. A shiny brown sedan was neatly parked in front of us between the marble fountain and the doorway. I presume it was Simon's car but I guess it was pretty obvious actually considering that there's nobody else here...
I decided to accompany Simon to his car as Hannah waited behind at the doorway. We can't let her move around too much, considering her condition... "So are you going to show me what you found in Northern Scandinavia or do you want me to beg you for it?" I asked him jokingly as he unlocked the car door of the sedan. "I could tell you... Or better yet, I could show it to you! How about after dinner at my place next week when the renovations are finished? It's the least I could do to repay for your kindness…" Simon smiled cheerfully. "Don't be so modest, Simon... We didn't do anything but stand around in a dusty and old workshop." I chuckled happily. "Well, the offer still stands anyway..." He said softly. One annoying thing about Simon's house is that it's pretty far from ours, as in you have to go through like three cities to get where he lives. Every time it felt more like a road trip than a simple visit... I'm not sure whether it's my fault for living in seclusion up here in the mountains or it's his fault for choosing to live in a normal city amongst normal people... I think it's actually his fault...
"Then it's a deal, my friend. Dinner at your house..." I exclaimed as we promptly shook our hands together. Wait a second... That's kind of strange... I don't know why... But his hands were suddenly unnaturally cold for some reason... It was brief but I felt it... Oh dear, I must be going crazy from working too much. For all I know, it's because of all this cold weather recently. I don't know why it felt so strange though...
"Goodbye, Hannah! Congratulations about the baby, by the way!" Simon shouted to her before he promptly entered the driver's seat of his car. "Goodbye, Simon! It was very nice to see you again!" Hannah yelled back from the doorway as she waved goodbye at him, her voice's volume easily overpowered Simon. Yeah, that happens..."You're going to love what I found, Louis. It could be the biggest find I ever had... Maybe even bigger than the Enchiridion!" He exclaimed excitedly. "Well, I'm sure it will be a life changing experience for all of us, Simon." I said sarcastically as I jokingly waved my hands around. "Well, there's also Betty's cooking to look forward to." He added with a chuckle. "It certainly couldn't be as bad as Hannah's cooking." I whispered under my breath.
"What was that, Louis?!" Hannah yelled angrily from behind, much to my shock. I almost jumped and quickly turned around to face Hannah, putting on my best smile. "It's nothing at all, dear! I love you and your wonderful cooking! Especially your cooking!" I said nervously as I chuckled weakly. She didn't seem so impressed though... I then slowly turned back to Simon while still keeping my frightened smile. "Well, this could probably be the last time you will ever see me alive, Simon..." Simon burst out laughing at the whole scene happening before him. Yeah... Yeah… Laugh it up, Simon… Laugh it up... Sooner or later, you'll get married too…
After a short while, he finally stopped laughing and smiled gently at me, "It was really nice to see you again, Louis..." "As do you, old friend... Hey, give Betty my regards..." I put on my most friendly grin for him. Simon gently nodded at me and promptly closed the car door. For a second there, I thought I saw some kind of black box resting neatly at the back seat of the sedan. I couldn't help but wonder if that was the 'amazing' and 'life-changing' item he found in Northern Scandinavia. Simon gently waved goodbye at both of us and immediately drove towards the automatic gate as it slowly opens. It wasn't long before he was finally outside of our courtyard and was immediately gone from our sight. After what felt like such a long time, it was really comforting to see Simon again... He's the closest thing in the world that I could consider a good friend…
"Goodbye, Simon..."