Metal Deep: Infinite - Damsels in Distress: Episode 1 Read Free

face was pale, and the smile was the worst mask of deception I had seen in years. The blue eyes we genetically shared were pleading, “Come on. We’ll order pizza, grab a movie from the vending machine. The works!”

    I don’t claim to be totally in control of my emotions. Okay, so my emotions swing from one extreme to the next like wrecking balls crashing through green houses, but his reaction, and I think it may have been the blatant paranoia, ignited something inside me that I could only describe as volcanic. The thing with volcanoes, they don’t blow right away. Intense pressure starts building over a period of time, and only when the pressure reaches a critical state does the volcano blow . Vesuvius was my middle name as I felt molten rock begin to churn in my gut, from years of built pressure that came from his over active imagination. Steam rose from my fiery innards and lofted heavily toward my reddening ears.

    My response was calm and demure on the outside. On the inside I was frothing, and my froth was threatening to get out, “And why the sudden interest in my evening?” I asked, “I believe you have to be up early for work in the morning. Besides I have plans.”

    “You never have plans.” Dad shot back with acute and painful accuracy. It was bad enough my social life sucked, but worse to be called out on it by my Dad.

    I leaned over and gripped the chair back across the table from him. My fingers curled into the wood, my knuckles turned a lovely shade of death. Over the years, Dad has taken an unofficial rule upon him to say as little as possible about his flights of fancy. I was daring him to break the unspoken vow, “And you have something you want to tell me?”

    “You won’t like it.”

    “I’m already there.”

    He got a little defensive, “Just because I want to hang out?”

    “Because I know you really have no interest in spending time with me, you’re trying to keep me from something.”

    The intensity flamed between us, and we both physically felt the sting over the truth of that last statement. We really didn’t spend quality time together anymore, and it was something both of us regretted. Each knew it, yet, we never did anything about it. That was true sadness.

    There is something to be said about the “dramatic pause.” Dad and I shared one such moment across a scratched kitchen table that hadn’t seen a placemat or actual place-setting in twenty years. It gives you time to consider your next verbal movement. It also becomes something of a stare down as each combatant waits for an opening salvo in an effort to be that final man standing with the infamous “last word.” Usually the first to speak loses, not always, but it was a good rule of thumb. I waited. He budged by breaking his rule to keep the quirky stories to himself, only this time, there was no joking or pretense. He seemed serious. Deadly serious.

    “There’s what I believe to be a mob-like underworld Purie conglomerate using a traveling expo at the fairgrounds as a front to forcibly enlist new slates into the dwindling Amalgam population. There is almost always unexplained tragedy to kids your age whenever they visit a new city. They choose people like you because you are at the peak physical and emotional state to handle the changes such Amalgamation would construe. These guys don’t ask to take your young. Like heartless Pied Pipers, they just take.”

    Now if I wrote that particular statement on a piece of paper and posted it for the world to see, there would be nobody who could understand what that spewed jargon actually meant.
     
    When I was young and I thought Dad’s stories were cool, I realized that if I ever wanted to tell other people what he told me, and get them to like it, I would have to simplify and explain. Dad did not spare the techno speak. So I used to stand in front of a mirror and talk to myself and imagine translating what he would say to those who would be conversationally lost.