Cole went to the supermarket on Tuesdays, as had become his habit. Grocery shopping turned into one of his favorite pastimes since the Monday afternoon his mother drearily stared out the window and ordered him to the store to pick up coffee, milk, and graham crackers—the crackers a habit of hers; she slathered peanut butter all over them, claiming it helps a person sleep. Somehow, Cole, amidst the aisles of canned beets, beans, and tomatoes, found solace…or maybe it only felt peaceful because his mother did not come along to breathe down his neck with her “non buono” (“no good”) and remind him of his uselessness. He became friends with the cardboard stands, selling their wares in such a cheerful fashion, fell in love with the way the lobsters wandered hopelessly in circles about their tiny aquarium of water and bubbles, and found a strange, unnatural desire in himself to knock out the base in a symmetrical tower of sodas and watch them fall into chaos and burst open to spray fizz as they rolled about in wild disregard of the employees, who scrambled to catch both the sodas and Cole. Perhaps it was this inclination towards mayhem which caused Cole to seem evil.
Now, in this different place, amongst different people, Cole still strolled easily through the produce section, gazing wistfully at the cartons of grapes and heads of broccoli as if they were old friends. Several bodyguards trailed behind him, unnoticeable unless one were alert for them, and Cole paused at the banana display and patiently tried to deduce which was the greenest. Suddenly a hand from a passing cart reached out to grope his black jacket; he whirled to find, not the cart manhandling him, but a pudgy-faced, squinting and scowling, boy of maybe six years old. He sat in the buggy with all the regality of a spoiled prince and stared impertinently and entitled at the bananas in Cole’s hands. His tiny nose wrinkled as he spoke, in such a condescending voice that it surprised even Cole: “I don’t think you’re as evil as they say.”
This statement might have pleased Cole had it not been uttered in a tone of complaint. He observed the cross little fellow for a moment, set the bananas back on the rack, and noted the mother’s gasp when she turned to see who her child was speaking to. An unwrapped sucker, strangled in the boy’s grasp and he waved it cheerily around—as if the owner couldn’t wait to stick it in his mouth right away and revel in its sweetness. Cole snatched the candy away, immediately sending the boy’s face to the floor and, immediately after that, filled with righteous anger. Cole put a finger to his lips—the boy’s lips, not his own—and said in a low, conspiratorial voice, “No, I’m much worse.”
The worried mother gasped again—seemed that was all she was good for—and muttered a string of omens underneath her breath even as she clasped her cross-shaped necklace close to her chest and pushed her buggy and son away. Cole watched them go with a deadpan expression, then sighed internally and replaced a bunch of bananas with the sucker. He had barely had time to escape the produce section when another young voice had a head-on collision with his impetus.
“Well, I don’t think you’re evil at all.”
Another boy—what was it with boys and courage?—this one probably several years older than the last, stood with his back straight, eyes set, and mouth curving in a gentle, hesitant smile. “I think you’re cool.”
“You think I’m what?”
“Cool.” the boy paused, then said, as if his adjective wasn’t strong enough, “Nah, awesome. You’re awesome.”
Cole had had his run-ins with sycophants. Those over-zealous fans who either wanted to kiss him, sleep with him, or stare at him wistfully with fear and longing in their eyes…or all three. He hated them more than he hated the rest of the population of Kirillov, who looked down their noses at him so disdainfully and preached of how he was the antichrist in sheep’s clothing. But this boy did not have a wild glint in his eyes—in fact, if anything, his eyes were enigmatic. His posture gave away far more—the rigidity of his back meant that, if he didn’t fear Cole much, then he still possessed some level of uncertainty of himself; his gentle smile suggested a wiseness beyond his years (in fact, Cole had only seen such softness and kindness in a person’s smile in a few older gentlemen and his grandmother); and an air hung about the boy, not still and dead like many of the auras surrounding the inhabitants of Kirillov, but wild and vivacious, bright and self-sustaining. Cole had never seen anything like him.
“Are you okay, Mister?”
Cole blinked. He nodded, and some sixth sense made him uncomfortable—something was off with this picture. What was it? He glanced behind the boy; Cole’s bodyguards had managed to position themselves in a triangle about them, and one stood several yards away from the young fellow, inconspicuously reading a bag of rice. Something was missing in this picture, what w—
“Where are your parents?” Cole answered the child’s question with a question—an exceptionally annoying and unsatisfactory answer, as it required another.
The fellow shrugged. His aura of self-sufficiency brightened; his smile lengthened, as if to say, “this doesn’t matter, what matters is here and now,” which certainly did not relax Cole. “Oh, they’re just letting me run an errand. They won’t care if I take very long.”
Alarm bells started going off in Cole’s head. But…what was he supposed to do? He didn’t know what to do with a kid—he still was one, for Pete’s sake!
“Hey, do you think I could tag along with you for a bit? I’ve always been a big fan of your work. I’d love to see the inside of your castle.”
Cole didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t just leave the kid in the store, running around with no parents. Of course, what if he wasn’t lying—maybe his family were waiting at home for him—no, no, parents don’t send a child this young to the grocery store. “Uh…” Cole began; he watched the little fellow brighten considerably, “Well, what’s your name?”
“Akio.”
Cole tried to ignore the building exasperation in his spirit; so, not only did this little guy have one of the brightest, most profound airs Cole had ever seen, his name also meant “hero.” Did the universe just exist to pick on his life decision of questionable ethics?
“So, can I come with you, Mr. Overlord?”
Still, he couldn’t leave Akio to fend for himself.
“Sure…but my name is Cole.”
Word Technician 