To Have a Spark
Author's Foreword
To Have a Spark is rated M or PG-13 due to content containing self-harm, abuse, the concept of suicide, religious and possibly political "hot button" issues as well as the probable mention of and/or direct medical use of cannabis. I do not under any circumstances condone breaking state, province or federal law. Nor do I suggest reading this tale for younger or sensitive audiences. There will be swearing of the modern English, foreign-language, Pagan and Cybertronian varieties.
I am not a native speaker of anything except English, so if you are fluent in the languages featured, please feel free to correct me if I mistranslate. I am not an expert in either chemistry, medicine or foreign culture. I have what exposure I have, what research I have and my own imagination. I mean no offence or insult to readers who might be from the featured cultural backgrounds.
I will note here that some descriptions may be confusing to some. This is due to the fact that I, the author, am quite blind. As such, I will compare and relate to things through different methods than most might be familiar with.
I will explain anything if desired, through a Private Message.
And of course, I do not own the Transformers franchise. That is Hasbro's domain. I'm not making money off of this. I'm just writing for sheer pleasure. Again, with the warnings in place, I advise you to turn back now if you consider the above mentioned subjects inappropriate. If you have made it this far and wish to continue reading, I invite you to read on and I hope you find it enjoyable.
-BlueSteelRanger
=s=
To Have a Spark
Prologue
"And for a thousand years they went on talking,
Making such apt remarks,
A race no longer of heroes but of professors
And crooked business men and secretaries and clerks,
Who turned out dapper little elegiac verses
On the ironies of fate, the transience of all
Affections, carefully shunning an over-statement
But working the dying fall."
-Louis MacNeice
Renalt Carwyn Haakon III stood frozen in the office. Memorial High had been a blur of transition four months ago since his last transfer from Farrington High. He had missed Kakaako, the warm weather, the open, friendly people. But, with two family members in the military, staying still wasn't really an option.
Life hadn't been too hard, save for the constant moving around. He had survived the quake in San Francisco, but the family had moved six times since then. A permanent home wasn't something Renalt knew and he was all right with that. He preferred it, actually. Especially now. The dean's words washed over his head. Trembling hands took the neatly folded Braille message. He didn't remember being handed his cane and guided to a chair in the office.
"I'm sorry, Renalt, but only legal adoptions count. I must send you back to class."
The dean spoke in a detached, almost uncaring tone. The only reason he had given Renalt the message was because immediate family was close to out of the question. He turned his back on Renalt to attend to other matters. He didn't seem to mind when the distraught student slowly stood and navigated out of the office.
It was all for the better, really. He could excuse one absence to let the boy compose himself. But then, he had to keep on going, get over it and put the news behind him.
Renalt didn't go directly to history class. He walked, trailing his cane along the low trim of the wall, aimlessly as his other hand deftly read the message. It was amazing the things one's hands could do when one was born without sight. He read it again and again, until the words burned into his mind.
"...regret to inform you Leonard Rhys Iscalia rests among our fallen numbers...dengue outbreak...hemorrhagic fever...no cure..."
The bell rang. He didn't hear it. He didn't hear some of his schoolmates remark on the pallor of his face. He didn't hear the bullies call him a cripple. Renalt walked woodenly out of the school's main doors and didn't attend the rest of school that day.
s=
Months went by in a chaotic storm of monotony. Renalt had come back a week later, refusing to show his face to anyone. He wore nothing but white, covering his head and face with an occluding veil. He easily cited religious observance and backed it up with several Scriptural examples – White, in several Pagan circles, was funerary. White in Asia was funerary. Covering one's face was his own decision and each time anyone demanded him to take the veil off, he answered back with a question no one could respond to. The faculty left him alone, conceding the grief process. The student body, with few exceptions, was far less merciful. He went through his classes like a zombie, flatly reminding schoolmates of the stupid, inane things that they should have had the intellectual capacity to know by now.
No, he was not Islamic and no, not all Muslims were "terrorists".
No, most Pagans did not worship any "devil" and neither did many who called themselves witches.
No, optic nerve hypoplasia didn't have a cure and no, Leonard didn't die from gunfire. He had died of dengue fever. It wasn't incredibly rare but it wasn't incredibly common either, but Renalt supposed that it didn't matter what form it came in. It had killed Leonard. It had frozen Renalt into the misanthrope he was now after hearing one too many diatribes on the weakness of grief.
He wasn't your real brother.
How's he doing – Oh, I forgot. He's dead!
He wasn't your real brother. Get over it, already.
The winter fell into spring. The days blurred in and out with nothing to mark their passing except the rising and setting of the sun. By now, his mother had practically given up and finally told her son to "get over it". By now, he reflected, maybe he should have. It had been a year. He had dealt with all of it for a year, carrying the message on him like it was a holy relic. And for him, it was. He remembered the stories Leonard told him, the fables of friendship and brotherhood. He remembered the rock-climbing and bouldering excursions. He remembered his first introduction to music, and later, a covert martial art whose name Renalt could barely wrap his tongue around..
Leonard left for the Army just before the school had shut down. Renalt had been halfway through a long and arduous training period. He reflected now that he would likely never wear black around his waist. The Eagle Claw and Northern Black Tiger forms had been Leonard's last gift to him before Cambodia.
Renalt remembered the oath the pair had made two and a half years ago. He remembered it and realised that he was breaking that oath, spitting in the face of all that Leonard had been. As school let out, Renalt walked aimlessly to the edge of town. It was a small town with small-town people and small-town mentality. The layout was too easy to learn, so much that it hadn't even been a challenge. So he ventured to the edge of this small town and went in the direction of the slowly setting sun.
When the road turned off, he chose to keep going straight. The rolling tip of his cane never left the rough ground beneath, and soon enough, warned him of the vertical rock face he now stood before. It was impulsive. It was crazy. It was dangerous. And Renalt didn't care. He folded his cane, fastened it to his belt and began to climb, as Leonard had taught him. He crept like an unsure goat at first, but gained more confidence as he neared the summit of this thing. When he crested the top, Renalt unhitched his cane and began to memorise yet another piece of land. He liked it up here, away from people. Away from the ridicule. Away from the backwards, even primitive nonsense that the small-town people here perpetuated.
He only wished he could get away from the things within him.
Why do you cover your face?
I cannot see you. What gives you the right to see me?
Renalt felt the weight of his backpack drag on his shoulders. The Braille volumes he carried had always been and were always going to be rather heavy. It was the way it was. He finally took his backpack off after his third circuit around the top of this cliff he had managed to scale. It rested beside a curious cairn of stones far too large to have been constructed by one person. Briefly, he had wondered as he navigated, who it belonged to. Who it commemorated. He knew what a cairn was, no matter whose hands made it.
Night fell over Jasper, Nevada and Renalt stayed up here. He didn't sleep, so he sat beside the cairn and let his memories take his mind away.
However temporary, it was a kind of release.
I cannot see you. What gives you the right to see me?