The parking lot incident ended up, just like the way it was supposed to, Emperor Charlie along with his kingdom went up in flames and those flames left Emperor Charlie's face swollen up, especially around his left eye and the end of his right lip.
I half cycled and half walked to reach my home. Well, why did I half walk?…. well it was because I was beaten up and my body ached, no surprises there. As I was thinking about the decisions I had just made which ended up in this mess. A stranger shouting something on the left side of the pavement from me disturbed my train of thoughts.
"THEY ARE REAL…I'M TELLING YA PEEPS THEY AIN'T JUST LEGENDS"
This certain gentlemen looked like he was running for the homeless society president…. He was frail and thin with long dirty blonde hair and I think the dirty part is not genetic, so in conclusion, it was an authentic dirty blonde, if you can catch my drift.Well moving on, eyes were the color of almond and he wore glasses with a half circle design, he placed them a little low and kept pushing them up like they would fall off if he didn't push them. His beard was also dirty and unkempt, to add to his portfolio, his face was deprived of any fat and it gave him the kind of sharp face hollywood people would die for. He dawned a white dress shirt and suspenders and a brown formal pant and black formal shoes - all of his clothes were dirty, otherwise, any person would assume he is a Professor or some kind of Researcher.
I heard one random aunty mouthing to herself "God Have Mercy on this man… He must be going through hell and that is why, he went insane, God give him strength to rebuild himself"
The man kept spouting non-sense amd slowly everyone who gathered there started to spread around and soon enough I was the only one there.
"Hey Kid, I see you standing there, you must be interested"
Just as he spoke this words, I looked around and found myself alone standing and everyone was going on their way, minding their own business and I thought to myself, maybe I should have done what they did while I had the time but nothing to do now.
"Well, old man, it's not like I'm interested… The thing I was late compared to others"
"You lil' punk" The man laughed
"Well, I like the fact that you are an honest one"
"It's not like that"
"Well, anyway, you did stay, so might as well listen"
"To that old man, I'm going to give my 2 mins because it's getting late and I need two reach home, otherwise, my parents will dock my pocket money"
"Wait a minute… Dock your pocket money isn't that a lil' weird…Normally, they would ground you, right?"
"I'm a weird one… so, only weird punishments work against me"
"How so?"
"I'm the kind who rarely touches grass, so grounding is not punishment, it's heaven for me, while docking my pocket money will leave me unable to buy my most anticipated video games and comics"
"Oh, I see now….well, in a weird way I was like you when I was your age minus the comics and video games"
This statement made me a little uncomfortable because I do not want to relate with a homeless person to say the least.
"Okay, old man, your time starts now"
"I don't know how to shorten it and since you have given me this massive timeline, I think I'll have to improvise on the go"
After that, he told me that all the fairy-tales and folklore stories, I may have or may have not heard, were not typically fictional, some of them are real. He told that creatures like zombie are real, just not in the sense I imagine then in, he said anyone can become a zombie if they taken over by a symbiotic fungus and the tales of sailors being eaten by mermaids were also real but the mermaids were not beautiful drop-dead looking half divas…Half divas because the other half was fish and that was real, he told me that mermaids mesmerised sailors with their vocal chords… The mermaid put the sailors in a trance state with their hypnotic symphonies and dragged them into deepest parts of the ocean to eat and satisfy their hunger and he gave some more examples like Werevolves and Vampires and so on. In the end, he finally let me go and said -
"Never think that we are alone in this earth, there are always some things stranger than what we think, we know and when you're in a pickle only knowledge will help you survive…so, go out there and educate yourself. Now off you go…it's my smoking pot time"
Well, no wonder, everyone kept avoiding him.I felt like I have wasted a significant amount of time of my life, even though, all I'm going to do after reaching home is lie down in my bed with one hand on one of my comics and another inside a bag of chips. As I was feeling happy about the dreamy state, I reached my hand with my hand and found something unusual and that's when I got the memo.
[Oh no….Oh no…Oh no]
How am I going to explain this massive bruised left eye and the black n blue right lip. Right, then and there, I stopped and placed my right hand on my forehead, head hung low and started making-up a million story plots on how and why I got beaten up and make it believable enough, so that my parents will not approach the school and the encounters with the Mason-kind stop with this one and done deal, because, I'm not a big fan of this tv series.