Parents
“I’m sorry Nadeen, but that is just one ugly baby” He held the week old boy out at arms length from him, with his nose wrinkled from the rank stench from its dirty diaper. The mother turned from straightening the bed and was about to take offence when her eyes caught the full glory of her son’s visage and smiled resignedly.
“Babies usually are”
“But this badly? It almost makes me never want to touch you again knowing this is the kind of baby we produce!”
His face was more wrinkled than an old man’s and the left side was marred by a huge purple birthmark that slithered outward from the middle of his cheek to end in cine like creepers just reaching the right eye. His head was proportionally too small for his ten pound five ounce body that was made out of wads of skin wrapped around badly folded bulky towels. A full head of piss yellow hair graced his head to almost touch his searing green eyes. His ears were placed too low and nose too high, which was a squashed mass of cartilage with nostrils up and facing out. His mouth was long and wrapped almost halfway around the head with lips a half pumice birthmark, half peach color. But he never cried more than a whimper, yet always had a perpetual frown.
Nadeen and her husband were very happy with their child, the Monster. As he grew older, he grew quieter, but uglier. His mis-sized head caught up to his body but the birthmark seemed to grow bolder. His body stayed huge, but not with over feeding, muscle he never seemed to work for grew strong and gave the Monster’s limb’s their ugly bulkiness and He never made a sound when he walked with uncommon grace. At five years he looked eight in height and strength.
Nadeen started schooling him early when the Monster said his first word at seven months and walked in nine. He already could recite squares up to seven, and state capitals took less than a week to memorize. A child prodigy in the hands of a parent too willing to shape him, Nadeen and her husband never saw his defects. Until they had another child.
This one was beautiful, bright blue eyes, shining blond hair, a smile always giggling her face to contrast his frown. The Monster’s sister was an Angel. Two years apart they developed a rivalry early. Both were smart beyond their years, and the festering hatred was fueled by their fierce competition. They entered school, he in eight, she in sixth, yet at ages ten and eight respectively, and both thought junior high extremely boring and easy. The Monster was a loner, no friends and barely talked in class. The Angel was popular and was always surrounded by her own little clique at all times, despite age difference.
The Angel was perfect
The Monster couldn’t have cared less
Nadeen and her husband encouraged the competition between the two. Enrolling them both in extensive dance courses and skipping them grades ahead. They would encourage one child and put down the other, play favorites, punish unfairly, reward only perfection. The children were honed to a sharp mistrust of the world and each other.
But when they danced together they needed no music. Their bodies moved in perfect concert, yet their eyes sizzled hatred at each other, green meeting blue in a bond that locked them together more strongly than love ever could.
The Monster graduated from high school at sixteen, and the Angel followed two years later Both received full scholarships to the college of their choice and many others. The Monster went to Yale. The Angel in a fit of rebellion against her parents went to The University of Washington.
They didn’t see each other for years after the Angel’s high school graduation. They never talked on the phone, nor did they correspond online, yet they were forced to keep tabs on the other’s progress. Nadeen spent hours talking with each of them, babbling about how great the other was. She even called them the Monster and Angel.
The Monster studied Architecture. His buildings held a beauty that bordered on revolting, pushing accepted norms to the limit of all his mother’s high expectations. The Angel, though never admitted it, secretly adored his work, and commissioned a house from him under an assumed name. Her field of study was teaching, Math specifically. She settled into a career as an Algebra teacher in an Alaskan high school. Her house was a bruise on the colorless landscape of an Alaskan winter, all sharp angles and incarnate anger. The Angel loved it. She never saw the Monster in the building of it, instead preferring to vacation in Florida over the summer while he built her house, he never found out. Yet, the love for the house only deepened the hatred she had for her brother.
Nadeen constantly berated the Angel on her lack of giant success that the Monster was getting, She constantly whined about how the Angel was not living up to her full potential as a second rate algebra teacher in a small rural school.
The Monster’s career grew in leaps and bounds, soon catapulting him into starting his own business. He was twenty-five when he was invited to England to build a summer home for the Prime Minister.
She was twenty-three when she almost lost her job, In desperation she used her perfect body in a way she never thought she would, losing her virginity to a man double her age, the Angel kept her job, but was changed forever. The Angel invested more and more time into her body, realizing the powerful controlling weapon she had at her disposal. Soon she had the principle of the school wrapped around her finger instead of the other way around.
She started dancing again, to keep fit and work her body even more. So did the Monster, but he had never stopped. He danced once a week, solo, in a small dance studio he rented for the purpose.
Tracy, the owner of the studio, was an astute petite lady who watched him from the small window in her office door, she was a fan of his work, but had never talked to him. One day during his renting session she received a phone call from the local hospital. Her mother had been in a car accident and was close to death. Tracy rushed out of her office and out the door, only to come back in and collapse as she realized that she didn’t have her car, as she walked to work. She started babbling to the Monster as he awkwardly knelt in front of her careening form. Then he scooped her up to her squeak of protest and deposited her in his car. The Monster barely stayed within legal speed limits as he rushed to the hospital to brake squealing at the entrance. Two hours later Tracy stumbled out into the pouring rain to find the Monster still idling there. He got out of his car and held her as she just cried against his chest. The only daughter of a single mom, now alone in the world, held on to the Monster like a lost child.
The next day she cancelled all her classes and stood staring out the window at the unending rain, funeral plans purposely ignored on her desk, her phone with the Monster’s number dialed and redialed in every time the phone reset. Finally she hit send.
A year later the Angel received an invitation to the Monster’s wedding
The day came, Nadeen and her husband were completely in their element acting as both sets of parents as they planned the wedding. Although Tracy and the Monster insisted it be kept small.
The monster was alone in his hotel room after his shower, a towel wrapped around his waste, shaving when the knock at his door came THe monster opened it to find his sister. Years of separation had only made the heart grow colder. Green and blue met in again and acrimony joined them once more.
"Sister, I didn't think you'd come" He almost shut the door in her face but she put her foot in the way and pushed her way in. She was striking in a black, ripped mini skirt and form fitting blouse.
"I never thought you;d get married before me, I doubt our parents did either." The monster shrugged and continued shaving while the Angel stabbed him with her eyes. He came out of the bathroom and stared back before rolling his eyes and sitting on the bed, sighing.
"What do you want?" Footsteps came from the open door to accompany his words. The Angel glanced over her shoulder then returned her glare to the monster for a few seconds before throwing herself at him tearing at her blouse. Her mouth smashed against his as her momentum pushed him back against the bed.
A gasp echoed from the door as the Monster pushed his sister from him. Tracy stood in the doorway gaping at the scene. The Monster, his towel askew, gripping the beautiful Angel who was laughing, her blonde hair falling from her shoulders to caress her breasts barely encased in a lacy bro, her shapely legs straddling his waste, skirt pushed up.
The engagement ring bounced off her forehead, causing her to laugh even harder.
"Tracy!" The monster tried to get up but the Angel tripped him and dumped the bed sheets on him. "Tracy!" He rushed out the door trailing a floral sheet while his sister collapsed in hysterics. But Tracy was long gone. He rushed back into the room when he heard a car start and stared out the window. The monster screamed in pain as he saw his bride drive off in the get-a-way car.
He turned back to the Angel who mockingly held the ring out to him.
"You...you. MONSTER!" He screamed in impotent rage and rushed at her like the archangel. He grabbed her by the arms and spun her off the bed. The towel had fallen off and he whirled her around the room shaking her as he pried the ring out of her hand. When he achieved it he slammed her head against the wall. When her mouth opened in a gasp he rammed the ring down her throat. She pushed back and the danced a dance as macabre as death. He wrapped his hands around her throat and banged her head continuously against the wall.
Hours later saw Nadeen and the wedding party alone in the church. The Monster was in the same car he had first taken Tracy to the hospital in. The radio reported of a strange accident. A Wedding get-a-way car, wrapped around a telephone pole, the only passenger dead.
The Monster screamed, closed his eyes, and pushed the gas petal to the floor.
(note from the author: paragraph markings should be better in later stories)
