HERMES: (2323 words.)

Lightning strikes twice where owls are concerned. I had set out to meet with Michael Hermes, (His Real Name) since I had told him about the New Game Store. I was running forty minutes late. There were two girls from Mount Carmel High School on the bus. One was still in school, apparently. She was the vapid, popular type, as much as it pains me to admit to this at the expense of what I could have learned about her had she not been so defensive. Her fellow had been out of high school for two years. She worked at a luxury soap shop at the Escondido mall off of Del Lago. She had gone so far as to do what Joe had never managed: she changed schools just because of interpersonal drama. Lo and behold! I have recently found myself leaving a lucrative but demeaning position in Oceanside for the same reasons.

Upon the bus I saw Josh. He was very happy to see me. Although I’m a bit too much for him at times, and it’s no mystery to him that his autism sets him a challenge in this regard, I remain one of his few (and thereby closest) friends. It’s quite unfortunate that closeness has a limit that I don’t encounter in most friends. But then again: I only have a few true friends myself.

Michael did not mind that I was late. Neither did Celia, his nurse. (Hermes has both Asperger’s Syndrome and Type II? Diabetes. Both he and Josh were in my Game Design class. That’s how I met Celia, as well.) Celia had enjoyed having found someone to talk to about her Latin Catholic heritage: the kindly owner of the Game Shop. I waited for Mike to finish his game and then played against him twice. The deck that I was waiting on for months failed twice, though the first time it seemed like it was working in my overwhelming failure. I suppose I ought not to construct decks based on spite. And it just goes to show how much my inspiration for the deck, the socially intolerable Marxist Aquarian writer with the suit jacket (that eerily reminded me of my own), was superficial and inflated. Still: it was a good start down a unique path.

I had to time my exit very carefully. I knew Something Would Happen Tonight, though I knew not what. Michael was overzealous in sharing his cards with me at the expense of secrecy. I made a point to take my leave of him so he retired to the Back Room to compete in the Friday Night Magic tournament. Celia was discontent, as I could tell, and I was relieved to know she was not discontent with me but rather anxious to know just how late she’d have to stay as Michael played. I did my best to assure her, in turn reassured that she did not question my intentions for being there. Earlier, I’d seen someone I recognized. At first, having seen her beside a tall, dark-haired man, I thought: “oh, great. There is that married couple again.” Thankfully, I soon realized that this woman, one of the few to grace the Game Shop, was considerably thinner and more pointed of face. Still: she loomed familiar. It dawned upon me when I saw the Scorpion tattooed upon her left arm. At about the same moment that I recognized her as a Scorpio I remembered first seeing her at Starbucks, shortly after having been hired in Oceanside, if not shortly before, and memories came back to me of my awkward attempts to introduce myself.

I overwrote those awkward memories quite well. The opportunity presented itself for me to saw “hi”, especially since the Shopkeeper, having introduced them to Warhammer, (that game that so many programmers played in my first C class) spoke to me with familiarity, most probably about the upcoming tournament. It became easy to remind her then of my identity, which she might have dimly recognized but exposed no knowledge of. She remembered me visibly after some formal reintroduction, and she was not at all unhappy to see me. I said that I should have pegged her for a gamer, really by way of relief that she was not just another girl at Starbucks. We reminisced upon our first meeting, within the confines provided by the situation, her tall attendant still standing at her side, attentively. I said that I’d mistaken the Scorpion for a Scarab Beetle, since I’d had a fleeting obsession with entomology. Then she showed me the Scarab tattooed upon her other arm, corroborating my memory of the first encounter by refining the finer details that my doubts had clouded. She all so reminded me of the Face Eater that lay on her forearm above the Scarab Beetle. I was amazed to learn that she not only was a Scorpio and had the tattoo but that she actually owned a Pet Scorpion.

I spent the remainder of that day on edge, but with excitement. Several questionable characters showed up at the Shop. One of them was a salesperson. Another was so rude and obnoxious that he could only have gotten away with it by being a regular. A third unnerved me from the moment that I heard his voice, since he was machismo incarnate, correcting his twenty-six-year-old sister on her texting and driving habits when he was himself only twenty-seven, superficially unembarrassed (but surely deeply insecure) to convey this story to the Shopkeeper.

As I walked up the street I saw Matt Rivers just outside of Pounders. I greeted him by taking off my glasses and waving them. He might have never seen me with them; I suppose that’s why I did that. We embraced and I was stoked to find that he had lost neither his charm nor his good will towards me. He’d been living in Portland for quite some time. It was his third day back in a long time; two days ago he had come back for two weeks. He was on his way to his Mother’s home. I promised to see him again before he left.

At the Café I saw another familiar ghost: Kit. My favourite comedian had all ways been one of the very few patrons of that Café that tolerated me, and I remember now that he was the first person to walk me back to it the first time that I’d left it in a rage and fearful of the bad press that Rafael Romasanta, that narcissistic imp, surely spread about me. Kit was happy to see me. He too had not seen me in over a year; I’d not been back at the Café for that long, in the wake of Fitz the Hawk. I’d all ways been one of his biggest fans, as much so as I’d loved Matt Rivers’ work from the first time I heard it, which was surely my first visit to the Café, back in 2014, four years ago.

The crowd was smaller than I’d feared. Everyone there was someone that I got along with; any one whom I could not feel comfortable speaking to I did not care for, and they only passed in and out like ghosts of a lesser dignity than Kit. It makes sense now as only writing can illuminate, I think: they lived off of the crowd. They were not Individuals in any sense. So they could handle a dead night as well as they could handle me.

Kit could handle me, and I more than handled his comedy routine. He had been living in Los Angeles for some time now; it just so happened that that night was his one night in town hosting the Open Mic. The City had not changed his style too much. He had some new observational humour about Y.G. and Coldplay. For the most part, though, the bulk of the material was too precious to provide him with recourse. He had to tell jokes about Holocaust museums and expensive suicide rates. I was in stitches in the front row, cheering wholeheartedly as I’d not done since I last saw Fair Fisher. Several people got up to leave, and he did not hesitate to take personal credit for their departure. His act was as self-deprecating, depraved, and honest as I remembered it. I was ecstatic.

Dan had gone on shortly prior to this. His new schtick for the season was a Skeleton mask that he had quickly to get rid of, shortly after having crashed into the glass behind the stage upon ascent. He had to silence me when I recited every line of the Leaf Blower Man in sync with him, for it was so timeless to me.

I did not offer Kit my contact information. I’d had my phone off since late Saturday last week. This night alone proved that I did not really need it, and when he expressed his wish that our paths would meet again, I did not have a single heartfelt doubt they would.

The guitarist who was playing Spanish guitar when I first came in finished the set by feigning trumpet as Anakin played guitar. I tried to make a makeshift gourd from a coffee holder, but it was much too soft and in the process I spilled tea upon my trousers. Kit was amused by the former but concerned about the latter. I suppose that that’s the test; they laugh with you and withhold their laughter at you. And considering that he’s an aspiring comedian who went all the way to the City of Angels in pursuit of his dream, pitching an incisive and brutal routine, his sympathy was peculiarly moving.

Celia let me use her phone to call my Father. Starbucks was open until eleven. I had four quarters left, having gathered all the change that I could find at home. Michael spotted me a dollar. The cock-eyed, worldly girl at the Starbucks spotted me fifteen cents, since the price of Blonde Roast changed. Before Father picked me up, I saw Sylvia, who works at the Sushi Restaurant next door, and I found every reason to walk in, spotting the sign that read “Dishwasher Needed”. I negotiated my terms with her in a manner I’d not seen my nervous system do before. She spoke frankly with me and on a level that enticed me. Some part of me was surely surprised that I remembered her name so easily. But then again: I’d never met a Sylvia I did not love.

As Father drove me home, I asked about his interview. I asked whether he would be teaching the introductory courses in Biology or the advanced ones. Hearing him expound upon the intricacies of education, in a commonplace tone that felt familiar to me, comforted me to see him in a new light. Only for a brief moment did I turn the radio on and begin to wander about all the things that might pop into my mind. As we pulled into Exit 23, I all most expected to see an owl again, swooping in on its Night Hunt. I told Father that I wanted to see an owl again. I all so expressed my longing for Pumpkin and my gratitude that Maria was home.

Mother was home as well, and I told her about my day. Pumpkin, of course, needed his late-night walk. The Lightning and Thunder outside was getting insane. I now remember standing at the crossroads earlier, waiting to find shelter in Starbucks, terrified for a brief moment that Lightning might strike me dead, wondering if I’d live, and picturing the game players recounting my mysterious survival, noting just how funny it was that I had been carrying so much change (owing to my bring broke) and thereby predisposing myself to electromagnetic conduction.

The neighbor whose business is walking dogs opened her ominous garage door just as Pumpkin and I stepped into the rain and he began his routine inspection of the neighbouring brush. The lurid light from that garage, reminiscent of the portly, overbearing woman within, filled me with dread that the Lightning only amplified. Still: I was not one to drag my dog through the rain in the opposite direction, and he was not one to be dragged. (Bless his Soul.) As Lightning struck decisively, within close quarters to her house, I looked up, all most looking for an excuse to evade her should she see me.

It was at that moment that I saw it. It must have flown over us moments ago, for now I saw it from behind. The wingspan was unmistakable. It was not swooping, for its motive was to maintain its steady altitude. Its wings simply wavered slightly, as though treading water. I had seen it countless time in Harry Potter movies, either captured on camera or rendered with impeccable digital accuracy. Only earlier I had been thinking about how campy those films felt by contrast to the literature, but now I feel a gratitude for them that perhaps until now only people who’d not owned the books or had the time to read them could have felt when watching them.

I was reminded to hold my course. Suki’s garage door closed, and my neighbor was nowhere to be seen. We walked up to the end of the street and I picked up Pumpkin and then brought him home. I whistled past the Nikravesh residence, selecting a tune of my own composition. I performed my usual and secret ritual in passing. I could barely wait to tell my parents the news, though I must have known, at that moment, that I had all ways had all the time in the World to do so, and there never was a reason to doubt my own Intuition, either to that end, nor as would pertain to any timeless subject.

I had friends in high places.

Dm.A.A.