The Wizard at Crossroads

So, I went ahead and bought a house plant. A cactus. Something that was easy to take care of. I just had to water it once every week. This was the easiest thing ever. If I could take care of this house plant, I could become the assistant to my father, the brilliant wizard of the forest. We lived in the populated part of the forest of Thistle and my father was the man that often went out and protected the village from any monsters. Since I was young, I always wanted to be a wizard like my father but whenever I touched my plants, they would just wilt and I would be left with a sad carcass in my hands. My father said that if I could not take care of my plants and master the simple task of maintain the lives of plants, then I could not be a wizard. Because how would a man who brought pain to plants possibly interact harmoniously with the world that he was surrounded in?

So there I was. When I was not watering the plants, my duties included sweeping the floor and taking care of the animals such as the big gargantuan horses that liked biting my head. Their shit was enormous and I just fizzled like a weed. But, I could not avoid it. No matter what I did to escape like hiding in the bushes or camouflaging myself on the walls, I would have to slowly mope through the shit and throw it out onto the soil but it also didn’t help that it dripped on me. So, I would dip myself in the lake and would survey who would walk by. I would be almost body deep with the exception of my eyes jutting out. The thing is nobody really came by. So, it was safe.

But, in a matter of a few days, the cactus died as I touched it. Maybe, it was something on my hands but I genuinely had no idea like always. I always washed my hands 3 or 4 times. Perhaps, I was bad luck. My hands. My feet. My face. I felt that there was no meaning in becoming a witch and I gave up. I failed to uphold my father’s legacy and thus, was kicked out. I had no use to the man who forced me to his vision of his son becoming a great wizard like him.

On a day where the bright morning sun shone brightly in the sky, the morning fog permeated the air. Nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was seated at the counter of my shop where I sold snacks and other things but in the early morning, the tunes by singers of different lands would echo throughout the shop. It was comforting as I ruffled  through the newspaper. Someone had been married. Someone had died. Someone had been elected to become a government official. Then, the kids entered the shop, took their favourite snacks, slipped me some coins and left. So, the hours kept on passing by. Each hand ticking and sliding across the frame of the clock. Then, it was 5 o’clock and it was time to go home.

My father had kicked me out of our house. Thus, now I carried my own suitcase and wore the rattiest clothes that I could piece together. A miserable existence, I led. I trudged across the rough moss coloured floor with my wet shoes as the puddles that I passed through drenched them. The houses brimmed with warm lights where you could see children being hugged by their parents. Some passing through the streets would hold each other in embraces and interlock their hands together like keys fitting in keyholes. Suddenly,  I heard a cry of desperation. I slowly turned my head to my left and there it was. A man attacking a woman. The man grasped her arms, his arms decorated with bulging veins and hair and forced his disfigured face towards this petite woman. The woman, a blonde one, attempted to knee this man but to no avail as the man threw her petite body across the floor. As he picked her up, a nasty purplish red bruise had planted itself on her face. This was something out of ordinary and so, I intervened.

With all my might, I swinged a toxic punch at the man’s face but it hardly made any dent towards the man’s eyes. The man then launched a nasty punch towards me and I felt my stomach shatter into liquid. I held on to it, grimacing in pain and then, I puked. I was hardly any hero material. Perhaps, my father was right. Useless. As useless as plants.

Something strange then happened. The man who once stood proudly before us, laughing like a hog just a second ago fell back as blackness started emerging through his skin, his skin becoming grey flakes. The skin left him, leaving a nice skeleton in its presence. The blonde woman screamed so much that she passed out. I stood there, my feelings feeling like paper towels that had once stuck to the ceiling dropping and colliding with each other. All this time, I had no idea that I could have done this. I breathed hardly, my lungs and my hands becoming as cold as the clouds above. I looked at the woman who lay on the floor. There she was sleeping, her face slowly moving into the puddle. I put my hand on her face, cupping my hand on her cheek. It seemed that no one was coming and so, I carried her to the nearest hospital.  The nurses looked at me, their eyes unwelcoming as they carried the woman into the hospital. I would never see that woman again and I hoped not to.

As I lay in my room writing the story that you have just read before your hands, I had a realisation. Perhaps, I was never meant to be the wizard that my father envisioned. Was I meant to be a hero or was I meant to be a villain? The questions still lurks in my head and what will I be hangs in the hands of fate. The clock still slides across and I can hear the clock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.