Theem

“Now tell me,” a voice from the darkness said. “Is flapping your hands around any help?”

Theem looked up. His senses told him the source of the sound was no less than twenty meters away. He was in the locker room of the city’s public coliseum. It was a modest-sized room arrayed with fourteen rows of five-foot steel lockers. There were no lights on except from that issuing from the refrigirator left open after his trainor took a can of beer.

“No one’s flapping his hands around in this room,” he answered.

“Ah.”

“And even if there was, I doubt you’d see it. Where are you? And who are you, for that matter?”

“So you are flapping your hands around.”

In a swift motion, Theem got up, ready for attack. “Show yourself to me and I’ll teach you why they forbid common folks to come around unbidden into locker areas of Council Trainees, and much more acuse them of fla—”

“Theem!” the voice was suddenly harsh and heavy. Only then did Theem noted the raspiness in it. The man sounded as if he hadn’t slept for days and was talking to you through the telephone. “You should know that I will not be as stupid as to venture coming here without the proper permissions. I’ve talked to the King. And I happen to know very well what you monsters can do—what you monsters have been trained to do.”

“No one can get permission from the King that easily, much more call Council Trainees, and even Members, mons—”

“And what should you be called? Heroes?”

Theem was silent, but it was more of trying to calculate in his mind the exact location of the intruder, than due to the lack of anything to say. “In more or less a year the Printing Process will restart, and it will be because of me, and the faith my trainor has in me.”

“Ah, I almost forgot. I am talking to The One. In four hours you will face your trainor in the coliseum in a battle to the death. Only after you’ve slain him shall it be an accepted fact that you are indeed what the prophecies speak of.”

Theem shut his eyes, and abruptly opened them. He was certain of the man’s location. In a movement no less effortless than a light skip, he appeared to where he had calculated the man was. He siezed the man by the throat. “Why do I sense you don’t fully believe the things you are saying? Who are you and why have you come here?”

The man smiled. He was half a foot taller than Theem was, and broader too. He had the get-up of actors-turned-politicians, complete with the pair of dark glasses. These last have fallen a bit off their proper place on the brigde of his nose so he adjusted them. “Good. So you indeed are prepared to meet your master.”

“You know very well I can end your life right now,” Theem threatened, applying more pressure on the man’s throat.

“Hhagggkkk!” came the sound out of the man’s mouth. The smile disappeared from his face, and yet there wasn’t a trace of fear as he said: “You won’t kill me. You can’t kill me. You can’t kill your own father.”

“My what?”

“Yes, Theem. I am your father, and I have come after all these years, with persmission from the King, to see you at this last moment. You have grown so powerful, my son.”

Theem loosened his grip, and finally let go. “My father? But my mother have always told me I didn’t have a father. In fact that was one of the reasons Biff Jorkensen identified I am The One.”

“Your trainor? Your master? Everyone around here knows he’s a loony. How can anyone be conceived without a father?”

“But that’s what it says in the prophecies.”

“The prophecies are yet another one of your trainor’s inventions. I won’t argue the reality of the halting of the Printing Process, but you can’t expect me to believe it will restart with the deeds of what they call The One.”

“Then why have you come only now?”

The harshness left Theem’s father’s voice. The effort to hold back the tears made him sound like a whining dog. “Because this could very well be the last time I’m going to see you.” He shed tears that, if only the voting public could see, would have guaranteed him at least 500,000 votes.

“What are you talking about, father? I am The One. I can’t die. I will slay my trainor, and eventually restart the Printing Process.”

“Don’t be a fool! Crazy as this is already, your facing your own trainor in a battle to the death, it’s even four times as foolish actually beliving the prophcies he has brought!”

“No one can prove the prophecies aren’t themselves already subtly suggested in our World-lore, much more ridicule the Battle of Thurnil—”

“And what happened to your speech pattern!”

“What?” A third voice interrupted. It was deep and powerful, reverberating on the walls and locker doors for five entire seconds. “What’s wrong with the boy’s speech pattern?”

Before Theem’s father could realize, Biff Jorkensen, Theem’s trainor, Thurnildon Council member, and one of the only two survivors of the psychiatric world of Ürth before it exploded, was striding in front of him.

He looked like a typical middle-aged man. His thinning white hair was parted to the left, revealing a severely wrinkled forehead. The facial hair he fashioned sprouted unevenly and irregularly across his face. If there indeed was power in him, it didn’t show in his pale-skinned, thin shoulders. His hands were those of a furniture repair man who did laundry right after working manually because certain power tools had not been functioning properly. He wore no vestment of a powerful warior, save for an apron-like piece of canvass tied around his waist. More movement would later betray that contained in the front pocket of that garment were crushed empty beer cans.

“Biff Jorkensen,” Theem’s father whispered in mock ashtonishment.

“Don’t fake reverence in the presence of a Thurnildon Council member,” said Biff Jorkensen. “I know very well that you think me to be a powerless, old man, and that you, without any physical combat training, can break my neck as easy as you can crush an empty beer can.”

“Whaaattt???”

Biff Jorkensen walked past Theem’s father, and passing Theem, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Do an old and forgetful man a favor. Next time I leave the refrigirator door open, be a good lad and close it up for me, will ya?”

© Jay Santos 2003.