Roaring Lion

The Denton Residence

4:43 PM

Mike Denton believed he sat alone in the ruined remains of his old house’s living room. Other than the puffy, family size white couch (Her idea) and the medium size, hard oak table (also her pick), everything in the brochure worthy, two story suburban home was thrashed, smashed, or otherwise in a state of disrepair. In a slow, machine-like gesture, Mike took his eyes off the gleaming thing on the hard oak table to look around at the devastation.

His 89-inch, flatscreen TV was knocked ajar off its place atop its expensive stand. It drunkenly leaned against the wall behind it; its reflective black mirror screen stained with a spider’s web of white cracks emanating from the long garden shovel (Her favorite) jutting from its center. On the far wall, beneath the wrecked remains of the custom-built counter holding rarely watched movies and never used games was Her mother’s family vase.

“It’s truly priceless Michael!” Anna Willis had told him on his and her daughter’s -that bitch- wedding day.

That old bitch’s “priceless” trophy now laid in a mass of shattered chunks in between broken bluray cases and discarded pieces from a torn open Monopoly box.

Seeing that one made him smile.

Why not give her momma bear something to remember you by?

“Good idea.” He said to the thought. Who knew that imploding a man’s life made him so creative?

In that same machine-like motion, Mike got up from the cushy white couch. At first, he was intending to go over to the vase, but he decided to look over his shoulder toward the kitchen. Faintly, Mike could smell a whiff of the messy surprise he left in the kitchen sink.

That too made him smile.

He then wet over to the shattered fine vase and stood over it for a moment longer.

Go on Mike. Said that creative voice from behind his eyes. Really give that old bitch something to chew on.

As he’d recently done in the upstairs bedroom, he undid his belt before unzipping his black slacks. His Johnson now exposed to -Her- houses still air, he leaned back, relaxed, and let out a slight moan as he felt his personal firehose let off one last stream.

Years ago, back when things were going steady, it was Her idea to put white carpets in the living room, guest room, and all the upstairs bedrooms. She’d insisted upon it too.

If only you’d be around to see the look on her face when she finds the yellow stain under everything?

“Yeah,” he said after his relaxed moan. “If only, if only…”

Mike must’ve been more hydrated than he thought. His last stream not only covered the pieces of the vase, but it also left broken bluray copies of Tim Burton’s Batman (the best one), Die Hard, and Avatar (that one must’ve been Her idea) sprayed with yellow droplets. Looking down, his gaze was drawn to the avatar bluray cover, where Zoe Saldana’s weirdly sexy blue cat face looked up at him with a wrinkling, mischievous smile.

“If only She could take it like you doll… Who knew?”

Zoe Saldana said nothing back. She just smiled her cheeky smile and glanced up at him with her big yellow eye.

“No snappy comeback? No bitchy remark? Shit, I think I’m in love!”

Mike Denton burst out laughing then. It was only once he stopped that a single tear fell from his right eye. He wiped it away before returning to the puffy white couch.  

He sat there for thirty more minutes; his gaze alternating between his shattered dark reflection in the TV screen and the silver revolver sitting on the table in front of him.

Come on Mike. Cooed the creative voice again.

“Okay, okay…”

He picked up the revolver and popped out its cylinder one last time. Five nickel-sized, bronze circles looked back at him; stamped on each in small letters was the phrase Cal. 45. In the single empty hole, Mike saw the top of the hard oak table; its polished top was sprinkled with a few black chips from the TV, and the brief note he wrote for his once betrothed or whoever found it.

It said, in the same signature, neat hand, “Enjoy your new house, you cheating cunt. I left you a few hidden presents. Here’s a hint: you may want to wash the bed sheets! Be thorough!”

He smiled again.

If he remembered right, the prescient little note was the voice’s idea.

“Good one.” He said. “I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of that.”

The voice said nothing.

Mike gave the cylinder one last spin, slapped it back home, and then took one long, last breath. He went to put the revolver to the side of his head when he heard the voice again.

Lean back Mike. Don’t want to stain the note.

“Ah! Right!”

He did so.

As the cold ring of the revolver’s barrel kissed his temple, Mike felt one last, hard, resounding kick from somewhere in his chest. There was real power in that kick; much more than the one that had struck him before he’d trashed his old house. It was strong enough to make his finger hesitate before landing on the trigger.

“Oh, what the fuck am I doing?” He thought. “Sure she cheated on me and got the house, but does that mean I should-

Why not? The voice said. Its tone was dripping with sweet honey. What’s the point of going on? What’s next? A shitty apartment? A condo? What will your FEMALE boss say once SHE finds out about the nasty divorce and the mess you made, hm? Besides, you’re looking at jail time now anyway. You didn’t trash your own home, not anymore; you trashed Her house remember? Technically, you’re a trespasser now. A violent, nasty one at that.

What the voice said may or may not have been true, but what Mike felt in that moment was a rage so hot and fierce that it quashed whatever feelings of guilt or sadness came with the powerful kick. All he could think about was the look on Sheela’s face when she came into her “new” home and found it torn to shit. The jewel on top would be his rotting, headless corpse staining her precious white couch. The fucking couch had been her favorite contribution to the house after all. One that he paid for of course.

Lets see her want to fuck anyone on it once she spends weeks picking your brains out of the cushions!

He envisioned all this. And as insane as it may have been, Mike Denton grinned beneath his stubbled beard.

In the last moment of his life, Mike Denton laid down on the couch; making sure to stuff his head into the welcoming fabric of the chair’s puffy, pillowy arm. It was a comfortable feeling, nice enough that he relaxed as he pressed the revolver’s barrel into the soft flesh beneath his lower jaw.

He closed his eyes and felt that sudden kick start hitting him again. Guilt. Fear. Something deeper he didn’t understand.

Think of it Mike! Think of the look on her face when she finds you! Who knows? God ain’t real. Maybe you’ll get to haunt her for the rest of her cheating, homewrecker days.

With insane hatred in his heart, Mike Denton pulled the trigger.

Beyond the veil of human perception, the force behind the “creative voice” watched as Mike Denton laid down and stuck the gun under his jaw.

There was a moment when the other presence nearby chimed in with one last pitiful effort. As such, it was forced to step in; once again scratching at the idiot mound of dust’s petulant hatred and hurt ego.

As the shot rang out, the force smiled.

Throughout its eons long existence, the timeless intelligence felt few moments of what humans may consider “happiness”. Times such as these, when it’d convinced one of “HIS” chosen to end their own lives were at the top of that very short list.

Seeing Mike Denton’s gruesome death was a feast for its senses. A bonus was feeling the sharp deflation and sudden melancholy of that other presence. Defeated, the lighter, fairer presence left its failed charge to his pitiful fate. Then, it ascended back to… that place…

But the best was yet to come.

Before the smoking gun fell to the rapidly staining carpet, a second presence stepped through the veil. This one was smaller yet somehow greater than the force itself. There was a light to it.

One that was rapidly fading.

Once that pesky light was completely gone, the force saw the being for what it was. Although it was younger and thinner looking than the ruined corpse on the couch, the identity was unmistakable.

Mike Denton’s true body stood before the colossal shadow that had guided him down this path.

“No!” he began, his voice trembling with terror and guilt. A new look of rapid understanding stretched across his face.

Yes. The force thought. That’s right you worthless fool!

It was delectable.

“No! No! Please I-

Mike’s new eyes gazed past the force, no doubt catching a glimpse of that… other place.

“Oh… it’s so beautiful…” he said; his look of terror diminishing. That ended suddenly, and then, like countless others of his worthless species, Mike Denton fell to floor, weeping, and begging.

“YOU!” he shouted at the force through his tears. “YOU’RE THE-

Before he could continue, a rift like a yawning, black mouth opened up in Mike’s living room floor. In instants too fast for human perception, the true Mike Denton was swallowed whole by that hungry mouth.

Devoured…

The force heard his horrid screams slowly fade away.

It smiled.

As Mike Denton fell burning and wailing into that infinite outer darkness, the force, once christened “prince of the air”, flew away from the Denton home. Despite its great knowledge, speed, and influence over the world and the hearts of men, its focus was still limited. Even then, as it flew above the stretch of suburban homes, it dropped dark suggestions into the minds and hearts of any residents it passed over.

In the master bedroom of 643 Stanton Dr., Josh and Dayna Boles lay naked next to each other in a heavy post-coital silence. As he stared at the ceiling and took deep, satisfied breaths, Josh Boles’ relaxed train of thought was crashed by a sudden occurrence: I wonder what Sheela’s up to tonight? This question knocked him out of his trance. He was hit by a wave of excitement and paranoia. As the prince flew past and his wife turned toward him, Josh Boles’ mind toyed with the idea of giving his old flame a call…

Three houses over, in the backyard of 639 Stanton Dr., Aubrey Spaciak’s seventh birthday party was taking place. The girl of the hour ran through the backyard, smiling and giggling with her young friends from around the neighborhood.

As the prince flew overhead, several fathers standing by the hot grill each had sudden impulses of sex, envy, rage, and blasphemy spread between them like a virus. The mothers felt the same. In the group of running children, one of the girls, Theodora “Teddie” McLain was her name, was struck by a sudden burst of jealous anger. She charged through the girls in her way and pushed Aubrey to the ground.

The prince heard the amassed cries and smiled as he moved on.  

Mere minutes afterward, with the Denton, Boles, and Spaciak residences hundreds of miles behind it, the prince discovered a promising scene.    

Sitting alone in his parked car was a young man; his angry eyes pinpoint focused on a small building only feet away. In ways no human could fathom, the prince picked upon the slow movements the young man made with his right hand.

As his left hand held white knuckle tight onto the steering wheel, his right repeatedly tapped on a blocky object hidden under a towel on the center consol. The scene was mundane enough that most people wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but the prince?

Well, who knew human nature better?

The object under the towel was a gun; such a marvelous human creation. Inside that building, a restaurant of some kind, was the idiot mound of dust’s hated superior or unrequited love and his/her chosen love or whatever it may have been.

Restaurants, bars, malls, stores; the prince found plenty of opportunities in all of them.

Easy. It thought.

With the same unimaginable speed, the prince descended from its place in the sky to consol the hurting young man.

Willaim Teach, age 21, sat alone in his (parent’s) hand-me-down 1990- whatever kia when the prince fell upon him. As the prince surmised, Teach was angry. He was in fact tapping a handgun hidden under a towel. And he was indeed planning to threaten his old boss, 43-year-old Chet Mayhew, manager of Mc-Lard-Boy’s burgers and fries, with it should he need to.

A week ago, Teach had been fired from his position for “Tardiness”. It didn’t matter to Mayhew or the rest of his idiot staff that Teach told them up and down that he was a college student or that he’d given them request after request to change his schedule to part time.

No, no…

Teach would’ve been willing to let it go. He had done so for an entire week. But, his last direct deposit didn’t come in. He’d called about it, but no one answered. He’d come in, but Mayhew wasn’t there.

Of course, as it was at times, all these issues with money came to a head when Teach had to pay his tuition among other things. He needed the money, and these asshole idiots were too busy dicking him around to give him what he earned.

“Oh, but they’ll pay…” he said.

Teach tapped his concealed pistol. He was already pissed in the moments he waited out in the car, but once the prince entered?

He became furious.

Adding onto this were the sudden words and images flooding Teach’s mind.

The words were “Fuck those pricks! What gives them the right to fuck with you like this?”

“Yeah!” Teach said in agreement.

Then, the images came.

Teach remembered all the times that Mayhew had shortchanged him or shot some smart ass remark his way. He recalled the moments when that asshole Mayhew dismissed him like some retarded child; telling him to take out the garbage or do the dishes. These moments always happened when Teach was talking (well, flirting) with one female coworker or another.

Teach realized that, along with being a thief and a prick, Chet Mayhew was a cockblocker too!

“A creepy OLD cockblocker at that!” added the prince. “What business does a man in his fifties have chatting up a woman in her twenties? EARLY twenties at that?”

This last bit made Teach stop tapping the handgun. Instead, he gripped its handle tight enough that his right hand trembled. In the rearview mirror, Teach’s eyes were wide brown saucers under the rim of his dark baseball cap; the tips of his once white ears were now red and throbbing.

The prince saw all this, and he smiled.

Just one more push! Thought the prince. Just another fine word, and this fool is mine!

Before, Teach was only going to threaten. Now? He was ready to maim, if not, kill. He was set to hop out of the car when a powerful sensation struck him. It was so strong that even the prince felt it. Moreso, it spoke.

For all his knowledge and power, the prince never could read human minds.

Even then, it too heard the words of this new voice.

“Check your phone.” It said. Calm. Serene. No judgement.

Teach stopped then.

“Check your phone.” It said again, more urgent than before.

Slowly, Teach sat back down in his driver’s side seat. To the prince’s bottomless rage, he saw that the young idiot put his gun down and reached for his pocket.

“NO!”

The prince didn’t need to see the rest. But it still watched.

Slowly, with what may have been confusion, Teach pulled his phone from his pocket. There was a five-minute stretch when the young man started looking at porn that the prince felt new hope. But that was dashed when Teach closed his favorite “app” and opened his bank account.

“Oh!” said William Teach. “Oh! That’s great!”  

In a strange moment of worldly serendipity, William Teach had received his last check (plus two years’ worth of never used vacation pay) thirty minutes ago, the moment he arrived at Mc-Lard-Boy’s. As he started the car and made for home, Teach absently thought of that strange voice he heard in those last precious moments.  

“Man,” he said. “If I hadn’t listened…” He stopped then. That night he would forget about the voice and that moment. Years later, he would remember, and he would know.

As the prince watched Teach drive off, it felt a slight hurt in whatever may have been its heart or stomach. There was regret there of course, but that was quickly silenced.

Oh well… it thought. There are always others out there to devour. Not to mention, there’s always tomorrow…

As the prince returned to the air, Mike Denton burned. And screamed.