Thompson’s
book is spread open, pages down on his coffee table. Channel surfing has distracted
him from his homework. There is a knock at his front door. He waits for a
moment and there is another knock. He mutes the TV and then tosses the remote
on his couch. “Coming.” He grunts getting up. Opening the door revealed Foster
waiting anxiously on the other side.
He blew
into the living room without being invited. “How did you do it? He asked.
Dropping his bag against the wall before he started to pace.
Thompson
shut the door. “Hello Foster, what’s new?” He asked sarcastically.
Foster
paced as he explained himself. “You used to be a Combat Studies major. How did
you do it?” He stopped pacing and looked to Thompson for an answer.
Thompson
walked into the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?” He asked as he
opened the fridge.
Foster flops
onto the couch. “Damn it Thompson I need your help! How did you produce your
energy signature?” He asked in frustration.
Thompson
grabbed a soda out of his fridge and shut the door slowly. “You’ve been talking
to Cynthia.” He replied.
Foster
had leaned his head back on the couch and let it flop to the side so he could
see Thompson. “She felt you were the next best place to get the help I need.”
He explained.
Thompson
opened his soda. “The only help I can give you is letting you know that you do
not want my help.” He explained before he took a drink.
“I
absolutely do want your help. It’s your way or I fail the class.” He pointed
out.
Thompson
shook his head. “That’s not true. Intro to energy had never required the
production of an actual energy field. So what’s really bugging you?” He asked.
Thompson
sat forward and put his head in his hands. “My mother thinks this is a waste of
time. If I don’t show consistent improvement all the time she’ll take me out of
school, this is the only thing I have ever wanted in my life.”
Thompson
tried to stare through his soda to the bottom of the can.
Foster
waited for a moment in the silence and then stood up. “Look I’m sorry I barged
in here, this isn’t your problem. I”
“You don’t
understand. Once you go where I have been, there is no turning back.” Thompson
warned.
Foster
sat back down on the couch. “I passed the point of no return a long time ago.”
Thomson
sighed and set his soda on the coffee table. A small flicker of the lightest
blue flame came to life on his left shoulder. It grew down his arm picking up color and
intensity as it went. Thompson held up his hand and the flames reached his
fingertips as a deep arctic blue flame. He walked it from pinky to thumb and
back again over and over. Foster is entranced. “I had the same troubles as you
in the beginning. I was the only student in the class that hadn’t produced
anything even remotely close to an energy signature and it pissed me off. Back
then the class was taught by Professor Daigo. He saw my tenacity and my failure
in meditation. So he showed me his secret.” Thompson closed his fist, snuffing
out the flame.
Foster
blinked. “Which was?”
Thompson
finished his soda and walked back into the kitchen. “A different way to produce
energy.”
Foster
rolled his eyes. “Quit avoiding the question. How did he do it?”
Thompson
retrieved another soda from the fridge. “Most of us never search themselves
long enough to find it, those that do are forever changed.”
Thompson
stood up. “Oh my god find what?” He almost shouted in frustration.
“The
desire to kill another human being.” Thompson answered before he opened his
soda. Foster sat down hard. “It’s a primal urge that goes beyond self defense.
There is a darkness in all of us, buried deeper in some than in other.
Most don’t even know it’s there. Once you find it within yourself only one
question remains. Are you in control or is it?”
The color
had fallen out of Fosters face. “Does he teach anymore?” He asked.
Thompson
swirled the contents of his can for a second. “You see, the fire
very nearly has a will of its own. Daigo was tired, had been for years. The
kind of tired no sleep can cure.” Thompson paused for a moment, fidgeted with
his soda and then started again. “Late last year he came to me, begged for my
help…he had tried to many times to count but the fire wouldn’t let him go. So I
helped him.” Thompson chugged his soda. Foster’s jaw hit the floor. Thompson
crushed the empty can and tossed it in the garbage. “After his funeral I
switched to adventure studies.”
Foster
was completely blown away. “Oh my god.”
Thompson
looked at him with weary eyes. “There are worse things in this life than disappointing
your parents Foster, Believe me.”
Foster
stood up from the couch, walked into the kitchen. Thompson passed him and
grabbed the remote off the couch and went back to channel flipping. Foster
opened the fridge grabbed a soda and silently watched Thompson fly by station
after station of programming.
