This is totally a work in progress. I was on my way somewhere else with this and somehow ended up here. Read it if you want but don’t be too mean with your comments. This is the really shitty draft before the shitty first draft. I just had to get it down so I wouldn’t forget it. This isn’t all of it…just all I’ve written so far. And, I know that the German phrasing is fucked up. If you speak German, feel free to email me about how to fix it.
Johann – A Working Title
Since it was overcast outside, the kitchen had a muted feel to it. The dingy window over the sink barely let any light in and the bare bulb over the stove was stark in its brightness.
On the stove sat a huge silver stock pot, bubbling away like all good stock pots tend to do.
Oma flitted around the kitchen, her cane dragging every so often on the peeling linoleum.
“Johann! Get down here, boy! Oma needs her medicine!”
Johann trudged down the stairs, dragging his feet across each of the worn, carpet covered stairs.
“Coming, Oma!” Johann cried as he sighed a deep sigh and made his way into the kitchen.
“Such a good boy, Johann. I can always count on you to reach me my medicine.”
Your booze, you mean. Johann thought as he moved around Oma to reach up into the top most cabinet and extract a bottle of cheap gin.
“Such a good boy…” Oma’s eyes focused on the bottle and not on Johann and Johann sighed again as he handed Oma the bottle.
Why anyone would put a bottle of gin that high in the kitchen knowing that they would need it later in the day, Johann would never know.
Oma unscrewed the cap and unceremoniously turned the bottle up and drank until the bottle gurgled.
As Oma wiped the gin from her mouth with the back of her sleeve, she must have caught a look on Johann’s face that she wasn’t too fond of.
Like a viper striking at a hapless mouse, Oma slapped Johann across the right cheek with a force that was rather surprising for a woman of 90.
“You think you have die Eier to question my medicine? Have I not cooked your breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past ten years?! Have I not kept you in clothes?! Have I not given you a roof over your head?! And yet you manage to look upon me with nothing but disdain. YOU should be dankbar that I took your miserable ass in when your parents said that you were a monstrum.”
Johann stared at the small, frail, bent, angry, insane woman for a beat and then turned on his heel and left the kitchen.
“Good night, Oma.” He said as he made his way back up the threadbare stairs and into his room.
Monster? Really? His parents had called him that?
None of the people, the doctors, who his parents had sent him to, had ever called him that.
Prone to delusions?
Sure, but who didn’t think that they heard their favorite song wherever they went? It’s your favorite song. You’re bound to hear it. It’s a popular song!
And that whole “violent tendencies” thing?
Letting someone call you a “cum guzzling, blonde prick” isn’t really something that you should let someone get away with. Even if you ARE blonde.
Johann sat down on his bed hard enough that the ancient box springs squeaked and groaned.
He leaned over his long legs and put his head in his hands.
Ten years of living with Oma was enough to drive anyone crazy…not that Johann was crazy. Johann was worried. Worried to learn that his parents still spoke to Oma. He had thought that Oma and his parents had broken ties right after Johann had come to live with Oma.
She had offered to take Johann in when his parents had no clue as to what to do with the five year old. Cats and small dogs had gone missing in the neighborhood. Mailboxes had been smashed. Small fires had been set and no one had seen Johann DO any of that. Johann was rather proud of that.
Ten years of dealing with Oma’s daily beatings with her long wooden spoon to “loswerden des Dämons” had left Johann broken. And, truth be told, a bit angry. Well, maybe a bit more than a bit angry.
Johann was a clever student who always did his homework – though he didn’t really need all of that busy work since he understood the concepts almost faster than his teachers.
At almost 6 feet tall, Johann stood shoulders above his classmates and his blonde hair, blue eyes and Nordic looks would have set him apart in just about any location.
But, it wasn’t Johann’s looks that made the other kids wary of him. There was something “other” about Johann. Something that caused the kids in the halls to give Johann a wide berth as he walked to his classes. That caused them to avert their eyes…to never really look at Johann.
Johann was more than alright with this phenomenon. In fact, it pretty much confirmed for Johann what he had always known: Johann was special and good things were planned for him.
The only thing standing between Johann and those good things was Oma.
Image|greenTleaf
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