Controlled Men, the adventure of Tom Salisbury.

CHAPTER ONE

“I don’t understand mother” the little boy’s face squeezed like a mop, he is in obvious disarray.

“More, I am growing hungry, you’ll understand later.” There a woman lying by the corner answered.

“Why not now? Mother!” the boy is getting really exasperated. The mom seems to be unperturbed.

“More? Leave mama alone, she’s carrying a baby.” She touches her bulging tummy.

“A baby?” he glowed in excitement and confusion. Those words sounds exciting seeing how his mother announced it but really, he cannot understand them. “Who is a baby?”

Relieved that at last he seems to have been distracted, she heaved a sigh. “A baby is another you. It is coming to stay with you and play with you.”

The boy’s face crumpled. ‘Another me?’ he thought. That’s bewildering and his little face showed it all which made his heavy mother chuckle. “So mom?” will he be turning to a wolf like us?”

His mother felt like this is taking a whole turn, she allowed the smile that crept to her face, an intelligent boy he is, just like his fa… and there her face fell, she does not want to remember that but the boy noticed.

“What is it mom?” The boy really is intelligent, his mother thought but also sensitive, something his father isn’t. She sighed. The boy crept closer, “Hey mom? Has anything happened to you? Or the baby?”

“No baby…” “Am I the baby?!” Morekish exclaimed cutting off his mother. “No!” his mother interjected immediately. Sure, this is a bundle of joy, but he is also a bag of problems. “You are my baby and your brother,” she points at her tummy, “ is a baby too.”

“Am a baby and my brother,” he stressed this, “is a baby too.” He cooed as he rubbed his mother’s tummy.

“Yes, is.” He allowed her to admire his brother hidden behind her tummy.

“So, mom?” His mother’s face was bright like the morning. “Why can’t I race to the mountain straights?” Her face gathered dust like the dusk.

She sat up. Finally, maybe it is time to open up to Morekish, when a child asks like this it is because he has reached the point of saturation. Reminiscing briefly, she remembered when as a kid just six years when she was out in the woods with her playmates. Her parents had always told her to steer off the path of the kids with the ‘rainbow eyes’ as she called them because of the color transformation their eyes undergo when they look at different things. Naturally, that never scared her as it’d scared the other children, she’d even found it endearing. She even inexplicably vibes better with them on a fundamental level, so, she could not understand her parent’s cat-killing red-hot tantrum whenever she mentions anything about playing with them.

Well, the end of it all was that, she abandoned the street kids the night she turned while playing with them, she’d first of all, made a meal of two of them and was halfway through the third when sky-rendering screams shook the hell out of her. She had run away with one of the boys of the ‘rainbow eye’ kids. She had fallen for him when he showed her who she is and had taught her how to turn. Long story, she got nailed and since then, the moldy street lights of northern Manhattan has been something living only in the dredges of her memory, her parents with it. She sighed.

More was excitedly waiting. His mother seems to be on a hangover. Hoping she crosses over though.

“More baby?” she called. Morekish only whispered a reply, his eyes as large as saucers waiting for the big reveal.

“The mountain straights”, she began “is the home of the mountain pack. They are…”

“Mountain pack? Who are they? Are they those red wolves that always travel in groups with three men carrying their loads?

“No, they’re not. The mountain pack has spotted coats.” His mother answered.

“Okay, thought they are the red ones, those are always angry and they rarely appear down the mountains.” Morekish sang.

“Yes, More, you are correct.”

“But mom, why…?”

“More allow me to finish my story or I won’t tell again.”

More almost passed out. “No, mom,” he exclaimed like a kid who just saw a Halloween ghost, “please, don’t stop.”

His mom was pleased.

“I was once part of the Mountain pack.”

“Mom?” More exclaimed, mouth was agape like the Great Canyon, he is ready to pour one thousand and one questions but his mother’s fierce glare was quenching them…till it could not anymore. “Why? How? How did we come here? No, how could you come from those ferocious angry beasts? No, mom! Why haven’t you told me this before? How could we have stayed here all this while and not with your people? No! By the way, where is your spotted coat? When you turn, you are green and not red and blue? So, what are you saying exactly?” all these in a thunderous stretch deafening the whole cavern.

His mom allowed the downpour to cease before allowing the sustained sigh she had heaved to drop. The room became cold, but whirly.

Silence. Moments passed. Heated but inquisitive glares were starting to melt. The mother was searching something beyond her son’s face to know if something had changed, something she hopes strongly she has not shattered. She sighs as his face started melting back into the child’s it is, that was a huge let off. Morekish was staring, staring deeply at his mother to know if he has changed something. If his outburst has accomplished more than he wanted and wrecked some things, things he does not know but solidly depends on. More specifically, his mother’s willingness to continue the story.

“More,” his mother breathed.

“Yes?” he barely whispered. His mother peered at him again.

“We will continue this story another day, we have to sleep now.”

Heartbroken. That was all Morekish is. How bad of him to have allowed that outburst to happen, but he knows his mother. When she speaks like this, there is no changing it and to his sleeping bed he went, the day is over. The moon blinked through the cavern’s door and night fell.

She drew the rock over the cave’s mouth to go care for her baby. Not the outbursting one, at least, with tears.