22

The day for the pale, powerful Kid and the naïve, noble, but notably nutty Mage to have lunch together had arrived.

Marith had agreed to meet Samuel in Spectre Lake, the largest of the three towns that made up the tri-lake area. They strolled down the main street looking for an appropriate place to have lunch, which was harder than Marith had anticipated. Every other store or restaurant in town was either having a clearance sale or was out of business already, judging by the lowered rolling shutters and pieces of cardboard taped to the windows.

The homeless situation appeared equally dismal to the other two towns. Drifters were roaming and weltering down the streets, with no apparent aim in sight. They didn’t sit down, because the snow on the roads had turned into a wet, brown slush weeks ago. They didn’t communicate with each other or with the world outside their mind in general.

Their clothes were more ragged, their faces further worn. The youth had seeped out of them. Abandoned hope and prostration had coalesced into infinite emptiness.

Marith dared to look at several more closely, but none of the people she attempted eye contact with seemed to register her existence. They had a glassy shade over their eyes that told Marith they didn’t know where they came from or where they were going. The homeless were a whole different sort of victim of the Kid, dwelling in his void, unable to escape from him on their own.

Marith had occasionally dropped Lieke off at the Spectre Lake High School, but she hadn’t actually entered the town, since her return. She realized she should have skipped it today as well.

“Doesn’t a sight like this just suck the life out of you?” Samuel asked intrigued and curious.

“I believe someone else has already sucked the life out of them. That’s why they’re here.”

“What happened to these people?” He informed with fake interest. He couldn’t give a flying toss, as long as the situation served him.

Marith shrugged. “Anything really. Society has just become way to complex, I guess. People have more responsibilities than ever, more bills to pay, more taxes to bear, more books to read to understand it all, more degrees to finish to get a job, more hours to work to survive.”

She sighed and felt oddly light-headed.

“But we own less,” she continued. “That is the real problem, not the hard work in itself. Younger people aren’t being rewarded for dealing with this complexity. We are indebted for our education, we don’t own houses, we barely own our vehicles and we increasingly don’t even own our own privacy anymore. Are you surprised by this surge of homelessness?” Marith finished her short rant.

She was surprised about how sharp she was that late morning, despite the wooziness that had been plaguing her.

“I guess not,” Samuel mumbled.

This bitch is something else, he thought. He had actually known that all along, because he had been with her for a very long time, but it hadn’t really come out this strong before and that was the whole purpose of this outing. She looked like a grey mouse, a wall flower, but when she opened her mouth she spoke such harsh truths the mountains around the crater lakes would shrink back in astonishment.

“Have you seen this kind of poverty in Europe as well?” The Kid asked hopeful.

“Yes, of course,” Marith muttered grumpily. “Most people, especially young people, have student loans as well, live paycheck to paycheck, are confronted with an ever increasing cost of living and face the fears of homelessness on a monthly basis, just like the youth here. Europe is not some mystical place where the sun always shines, rainbows spontaneously appear on the horizon and where people ride their unicorns to work every morning.”

“How come?”

“How come we don’t have unicorns in Europe?”

“No,” the Kid answered curtly, but slightly amused.

“Most issues have been caused by former generations being apathetic towards the future, too selfish or too simple to care for their offspring and what’s to come of them. They have made the world harder than it has to be, especially for people just starting out in life.”

Most cities were unrecognizable, compared to several decades ago. Prostitution was legalized, resulting in endless human trafficking. Drugs were tolerated, which caused mass addiction and a strain on mental healthcare. The legalization of both were financing the underworld in insufferable legal ways and also attracted the wrong kind of tourists, the kind of people that nobody should want in their country, but those were different discussions that Marith absolutely was not in the mood to engage in.

Marith and the covert Kid were standing in the entrée of one of the very few restaurants in town that was still in business. It looked old, dark and murky, but they had no other options if they wanted to get a bite to eat.

The reddish tiling and the lace curtains remembered Marith of her grandparents’ house, before they remodelled it, when she was about ten years old. Furthermore, it had orchids in the window frames. If there was ever a plant that would indicate the presence of old people, apart from geraniums, it was orchids.

“Can I take your coat? Ma’am?”

“Oh, uh, no thanks. I’m quite cold actually. Maybe later.” Marith wove the hostess away with a thin smile.

Samuel handed his wool, beige coat, revealing a sleek black outfit that accentuated his slender figure and a distinct lack of pigment. The lapels and the snit of the coat had made him look oddly distinguished, like a young professor, Marith had thought. What he was wearing underneath was suggesting he was climbing the corporate ladder of a high-tech corporation or had just pitched an idea for a start-up to an investor.

The hostess showed them to a table for two. Since the restaurant wasn’t even half occupied there was room behind the windows.

More homeless wandered by. Marith wondered if they still experienced hunger and whether they were affected by the cold at all. They sure didn’t look like it. They seemed past earthly discomforts, only mental agony remained.

“Don’t you think these people belong in a psych ward or a place like that?” Samuel deceivingly shook his head as he peered outside.

Marith shrugged. “I would say most of them need some form of therapy and a lot of guidance to get back on their feet, but I don’t think they all have personality disorders, if that’s what you think?”

“So you don’t think these people suffer from insanity or anything like that?”

“Do they look insane to you?” Marith wondered, with a frown. “I think they look lost, but are mostly harmless. It is accepted by the general public that people with mental illness are crazy, but I think a lot of people that are considered crazy have more sense of reality than people that society considers as being sane.”

“Maybe that’s why they became crazy.” Samuel smirked ominously. That was something he could relate to.

“How so?” Marith asked, intrigued.

“They saw the truth, but nobody around them did, which drove them into insanity. Incomprehension causes pain.”

Marith nodded, with some hesitance. His way with words was interesting, to say the least.

“Maybe mental illness is basically nothing but a lack of a protective filter that the minds of healthy people still have. Maybe our perspective is right and the rest of the world will pull the short straw.”

She swallowed. She had been battling depression for the vast majority of her life, but she had never felt like she looked it, showed it. Not obvious to the untrained eye at least. Apparently his eyes weren’t untrained then.

She was now really looking forward to the burger and fries she had just found on the carte. Why was she so hungry? Her stomach was roaring, despite the oatmeal with apple and raisins she had eaten earlier that day, but later than she would ever admit to anyone.

Marith pretended to look at the menu some more, but she felt her fawning messmate eyeing her now glowing face full of expectations.

This particular human being was trying to convince her that he possessed an above average intelligence. In Marith’s experience actually smart people didn’t need to constantly point out how intelligent they were. She had had the privilege of conversing with quite a few when she was still in university and they turned out to be very reserved, humble and open-minded.

She put down the menu and loosened the scarf and unbuttoned the coat she was still wearing.

Marith couldn’t wrap her mind around Samuel. He irked her to no end and she couldn’t think straight around him. She kept forgetting what she was going to say and when he spoke she had to point all her available focus towards understanding and processing the words coming out of him. Was it just her or was he making no sense? She wished she could ask someone to verify, but their, or better yet his, topic of interest were too personal to let someone else into the conversation.

“Well that’s debatable,” Marith could bear to answer, with a tremor in one of the small muscles around her mouth.

“Do you know the expression ‘Hell is other people’?”

“Sartre,” Marith whispered with the thinnest of smiles.

An often misquoted and misunderstood phrase, Marith thought. Hell wasn’t literally other people, but Samuel seemed to understand that. As far as the Mage was concerned it meant that one could never experience radical freedom in the presence of the repressive sources of the social realm. He had taken himself out of the equation to work on his ‘project’, whatever that was, and in a way Marith had done the same, though involuntarily, when she had returned to Sweet Lake.

“Indeed. I’ve found so much pain in interacting with other people, in being judged by other people, sane people, that I decided to work on my project right here.” Samuel desperately pandered to Marith, who thought his tone of voice was sounding less pleasant with each passing sentence.

“Well, you’ve found the right place, since this is the absolute middle of nowhere.” Marith chuckled uncomfortable.

A waitress moved through the swinging doors of the kitchen, at the other end of the room, and Marith signalled they were ready to order.

It could be that she was more reserved as a European, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to discuss all this with some guy that she had no connection with, except for the fact he just rented her father’s house.

There were people she was much closer to she didn’t even confide in. What was he trying to do? Use her as a psychological sounding board? Or trying to get her to share about her own mental struggles?

Marith ordered a carafe of water and the burger and fries she could barely wait for, before she would start chewing on one of those pastel coloured orchids right next to them. Samuel ordered the same without even having glanced at the plasticized piece of paper in front of him. The waitress noted everything with a smile and took their menu’s with her.

Being used as an emotional punching back reminded her of her past relationships. What was next, after free therapy? Did he want free food, free rent, free health insurance, free sex and free holidays as well? Because she had been forced to provide all that for her exes, only for them to trade her in for another woman as soon as they felt emotionally and financially secure enough to do so.

Bye, Marith, and thanks for being a psychotherapist, rent-free bank, financial advisor, job counsellor, butler, cook, cleaning lady, landlord and sex worker all in one! (Not necessarily or specifically in that order). You’ve been an amazing stepping stone in order for me to get a “better” - more exciting - woman!

Marith had been forced to teach her exes basic life skills that their mentally absent parents should have taught them, or that they could have taught themselves with the power of the internet by their sides.

There had been times in her life she had let anyone in, to cure her loneliness, hoping they had good intentions. She had learned that they hadn’t.

These distant memories that hadn’t surfaced in a while annoyed her immensely. What also frustrated her to no end was that Samuel seemed to be stirring all these feelings up for her. What was he thinking? They barely knew each other. He was using her like her parasitic past partners had done.

She was all for helping others, but this Samuel seemed off. As if he had erased himself and was starting over in Sweet Lake. Barely having any possessions, an empty cell phone and apparently a ton of mental issues.

Only people who had criminal pasts or horrible secrets, fleeing from something, would have no personal belongings and empty smartphones. She wasn’t a big fan of television in general, but over the years she had seen enough crime shows to at least know that.

Now that the morning was officially coming to an end and lunch time surely had arrived the restaurant was slowly filling up. Marith didn’t expect it to be occupied fully during these economically trying times, but some locals were still visiting the place. Which would explain why it was still in business.

A couple, surely in their forties, with three young kids, entered the restaurant. One of the kids was sobbing when they came through the door. Marith hadn’t seen them coming in, but she slightly turned in her head, when the sounds of the kids reached her.

She quickly learned that the youngest child had dropped her stuffed bunny in the slush outside. Now it was dripping wet and stained. The parents comforted her by explaining it would go right into the washing machine at home. That shocking news resulted into more sobbing and even wailing.

Marith thought the little girl was cute and was elated to learn there were still couples able and willing to have children in the area, but the guy sitting opposite her brusquely woke her up from those contemplations.

“Can’t they just slap ‘em silent?” Samuel mumbled under his breath.

“No, I don’t think so,” Marith answered, dryly, with a slight frown. Was he joking?

“It’s called disciplining,” he defended himself.

“Hitting is also abuse,” Marith cocked her head, still unsure if he was kidding.

“Not if you do it right.” He laughed at his own remark.

Marith took a deep breath and composed herself. “There is no right way to abuse your kids,” she commented tersely.

The family had been guided to a bigger table at the other end of the restaurant. The little girl looked and behaved clearly different from her siblings. In the same way that Nate was different from Nick and Marith was different from Lieke. One wasn’t better than the other, they were just that: divergent.

“Do you know what orchid children are?” Marith tried to steer the conversation into healthier waters.

“Enlighten me,” Samuel answered with a teasing smile, not revealing whether or not he knew what she was talking about.

“Some children, about one in five, are more susceptible to environmental factors, growing up. Research shows those kids have a higher biological reactivity to stress. In psychology they are called orchid children.”

“Do the other four in five kids have a name?” Samuel wondered.

“Yes, dandelion children,” Marith immediately answered, combating his tone. “Those are the children that survive and thrive under most circumstances.”

The waitress came over with two damping plates, filled with the burgers and fries. It smelled heavenly to Marith. This definitely wasn’t a kosher meal, but she couldn’t help herself. Her hands were trembling as she took the first bite.

“Orchids,” she continued, after swallowing, gesturing at the delicate plants on the window sills, “need very specific circumstances, very supportive ones, to thrive. Orchid children show exceptional greatness if they grow up under the right, nurturing conditions. If they are raised in stressful or poor circumstances they will show a disproportionate amount of mental and physical illness from a young age on.”

“So?” Samuel leaned back in his chair and eyed this Mage, ravenous for both intellectual stimuli and food, slowly up and down, while sipping haughtily form his water.

“The outcome of your life is heavily affected by both genetics and social context. Of course this is wickedly complex, but scientists know that certain genetic differences between children can be triggered by the circumstances in which the child is brought up, shaping their lives to a huge extend,” Marith concluded, chewing on several fries, like a bunny would on a tuft of grass.

“What are you hinting at?” Samuel wondered harshly, uncontrollably blinking his eyes for a few moments.

“Small children cannot be blamed for their behaviour, the homeless cannot be faulted for their circumstances.”

You cannot be reprimanded for wanting to work alone, I cannot be held responsible for my depressed episodes.

“Why are you telling me all this?” He asked in his wise tone, daring her to give an in-depth explanation.

Marith wasn’t completely sure why she had brought it up either. To simply change the subject? To explain the behaviour of the crying girl, that had already been silenced by exposure to colouring books in the meantime? To help Samuel? Or maybe to help herself?

Hadn’t that been the point of her failed attempt at obtaining a degree in Psychology? To help herself first and then to be of service to others?

“Eh,” she started. “I just think it explains a lot.”

About your sorry bunch of Pupils, maybe, Samuel thought, unready to face the reality of his own past without falling apart at that heavy table, sobbing all over the lace tablecloth.

It all could have been so different, Marith knew. Her mother had turned her from a cheerful, outgoing child that could have blossomed into a scared, timid girl that craved solitude. Gene walked free, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t to blame for any of it.

She couldn’t bring herself to visit him daily. Some of the things she had repressed involved her being angry at Gene for allowing his wife and later ex-wife to continue abusing his daughters.

Sometimes she did blame her father for not stepping up, not protecting her and Lieke, not standing up for himself and his children.

When she saw Gene she saw inactivity, indifference and passiveness. Did he even consider what would happen to his children when his wife took off with them? Which was basically parental kidnapping. Or had he already been depressed and addicted without Marith realising it?

“It is a weird name, though, orchid children,” Marith remarked. “They refer to certain delicate qualities in the child, but in my experience those plants are indestructible. I had several, they survived all throughout high school and I barely took care of them.” She had to admit that last part rather ashamed.

They both ate in silence for a few moments. Marith’s stomach felt like a bottomless pit. She was devouring her lunch, barely tasting it, occasionally forcing the chunks of food down with the cold water from the carafe.

She shuddered and closed her coat again. She glanced around the restaurant and learned she was the only one still wearing one.

There was a thought about Samuel that kept trying to claw its way into Marith’s consciousness. It kept climbing, it kept falling back, forced to start over again.

“Well, I happen to agree that the early years are crucial for the healthy development in children,” Samuel said, smiling teasingly at Marith, who looked up from her lunch in wonder. “And because of that I think it would be better if women would stay at home again and take care of their men and children.”

The thought didn’t make it, yet again, but other thoughts did.

“Wait, what?!” Marith coughed up a cluster of bread crumbs and frowned, deeply shocked by what she’d just heard. The old creases that had once shaped her forehead were temporarily making a comeback. “No, it wouldn’t!” She shook her head bewildered.

How did they even go from mental illness to handcuffing women to the stove? Was he seriously claiming that failing orchid children were the result of working mothers? They were the result of bad, mindless parenting, for sure, but not of working parents.

“Why? Just… why?” She decided to see if he had any good arguments to back up his ridiculous statement.

“Well then they could cook and clean again and just be there. Like in the old days.”

“Be where? The household is less that a part time job with modern technology nowadays and men can do their fair s-share of the household duties,” she almost stuttered, grasping for air. “I’ve met plenty of men that liked cooking and organising and felt that women were taking something away from them if they never let them do anything at home. Such nonsense that any of that should be solely a woman’s job or worse… her duty,” she spat, squirming at the last words. In her day-to-day life she wasn’t much of a feminist, but when she was confronted with misogyny on this level she wasn’t too lax to let herself be heard.

“Also, most men like to spend time with their kids. If women make them work fulltime while sitting on their ass at home they are taking quality time away from their husbands. As if men don’t want to witness the first steps or words or any other milestones in their children’s lives… Only for a few decades have people been able to afford a woman at home, before that having a healthy adult not working was only for the very rich. Have you been living under a rock for the past two hundred years?”

No, just under a lake for the past two thousand years, Samuel thought to himself. The bitch was making good points, but it wasn’t in his nature to give in to any of that, to be sensitive to reason. He wanted to tip over her inner tranquillity, to stomp on her mental health. He was very passionate about messing with the wellbeing of weaker creatures.

“Society would not miss anything substantial if they were at home,” Samuel tried again, just for the sake of pushing and prodding and poking.

“Are you nuts?!” Marith practically blazed, not unlike a dragon. “In the Western world almost 80% of all medical specialists is female and about 90% of nurses is as well. Over 70% of all legal workers, including paralegals, lawyers and judges, is female. If we would yank all those women out of the workforce right now hospitals would close and the gears and wheels of the judicial system would come to a creaking halt. There would be no one left to put criminals away or to staff emergency rooms. People would literally die.” She let those last words resonate with him and took a deep breath, before stuffing some fries into her mouth. She was just gaining momentum, because she sure as hell wasn’t done yet.

“And I haven’t even mentioned the public school system or the scientific world yet. We are no less valuable than men in any aspect. If we would pull all the working women from the workforce right now most countries would go bankrupt by the end of the day.”

What an absolute loon. Marith understood now why he wasn’t working on a team with co-workers in a regular office, why he had come to the middle of nowhere to work on his “project”. What even was his project? Marith guessed she didn’t want to know. It probably involved some creepy activities, like spying on people through their webcams or something dark web related, she thought hatefully.

“What would happen if housewives wouldn’t do their so-called jobs for a day?”

“What?” Samuel could barely rain in his laughter. She was taking the bait and he was just reigning in his hook.

“Nothing!” Marith burst out. “Society wouldn’t even notice it. That is the whole point. People don’t seem to realise that working women do the exact same household errands and parenting activities as non-working women ON TOP of their jobs, making the job of fulltime homemaker absolute made up nonsense. It’s a joke. Their existence doesn’t affect society in any positive way.”

Marith’s mind thundered on.

Society really needed to stop treating every woman like a saint and making out every mother to be a martyr. Most women were neither and it made them lazy, privileged and entitled. When you strip a group of people of agency they can never be at fault or to blame for how they live their lives.

Being a woman isn’t hard. Being homeless is hard, being a first responder is hard, being an astronaut is hard. Literally half the population is female and most of them give birth at some point in their lives. It is not special or brave in any way.

One of the worst things about the arrangement of staying home and not working was that these privileged women often had the nerve to tell others, including their own children, what a sacrificial martyr they were.

“But does it affect society in any negative way?” Samuel kept prodding and poking and pushing, with a wicked grin behind his eyes.

“That is debatable, but, yes, I think they do. Mostly because they receive so much from society, the tax payer, and don’t give anything back. They get a free primary school and high school education, they get to use the roads, enjoy the streetlights and our parks… If they get robbed or raped the police force is there for them. If they find themselves in a burning building they get saved by fire fighters. If they ever get kids they get to enjoy a free education as well. You and I pay for that, Samuel. Not them!”

For the sake of simplicity Marith didn’t bring up the unexpectedness, or, if you will, the randomness of life. Of course there were handicapped people and people with chronic - mental or physical - illness that weren’t able to be of direct service to society, for an uncertain amount of time.

She obviously wasn’t talking about those unfortunate souls. They needed all the care and support they could get. She was talking about the perfectly healthy women that thought that giving birth to a bunch of kids, or even just simply obtaining a wedding ring, entitled them to a life of leeching and leisure.

“What about people that do charity work?”

“Well, I respect that, of course, but research shows that most charity labour is performed by working women either through their job or privately, outside office hours.”

“What if they just gave birth?”

“That’s what maternity leave is for and I am obviously not talking about mothers who work less with very young kids. I am talking about mothers with kids that go to school full time or even with adult children, who moved to the other side of the country, who still sit at home, feigning importance and relevance in other people’s lives.”

“Shouldn’t they be able to choose?”

“Fine, but I am not comfortable paying for their government funded schooling, state pensions, free medical care, welfare or social housing after their inevitable divorce or any other subsidies if they won’t financially contribute to society. If you don’t pay tax you also shouldn’t receive tax.”

Marith briefly wished she was back in the Netherlands where she had her own business and clients, where she could be someone. She was very ready to see her students again and teach them and practice with them, to prepare them for college or university or, in any case, a lifetime filled with musical marvels. She just felt useless right now. The Christmas recital was the only thing she got going for her at the moment. Maybe she should hang more ads in Sound Lake and Spectre Lake as well. And, even better, have Lieke put some up in her school or share it on one of her many, well-visited social media pages.

“Don’t their husbands pay for that?” Samuel wondered.

“No, partners of housewives don’t pay extra tax, do they? All of society has to compensate for them. It’s even worse, men can file housewives as a bloody dependent, have a lower taxable income and owe even less income tax. Meaning the husband contributes less tax compared to when he was single. Two working partners are worse off from that perspective, even though they contribute way more to society. The system discriminates against dual incomes and single parents with a career. It’s honestly ridiculous!” Marith fumed. If filing a non-working spouse as a dependent wasn’t a sign of the downfall of Western society Marith didn’t know what was.

“Everybody’s financial burden and taxes could be lower if everybody would contribute. The less people contribute the harder life gets for the few that do,” she concluded.

Also, there would be more money available to solve the housing crisis and help the homeless if every healthy adult, male or female, would work and pay income tax, Marith grumbled internally.

Samuel smirked. He wished he would have invented something so evil as taxes that are used for the wellbeing of freeloaders, instead of the needy, but unfortunately he couldn’t take credit for that. There were more dark forces at work in this world than any of them knew about. He expected them to be at the cradle of rewarding laziness and opportunism. He hated himself for not coming up with this cunning system, but he respected the creatures that had possessed the creativity and presence of mind to do contrive and implement these obligations. All the frustrations and bitterness that came from it was fuel on his fiery soul. He should thank them some time, if he would ever have the privilege and honour of meeting one.

“I just don’t think it’s relevant in a relationship if a woman works.” He gave it one last try.

Being impervious to reason or logic would tip any rational and decent human being over the edge, especially a reflective, young woman as Marith. Samuel knew exactly where to prod and poke and how to push. It was one of his specialties, so to say.

“Really?” Marith seethed with an incredulous, taunting expression. “Would you really want to sit opposite a partner that has nothing to share at the dinner table every night? Having a wife that is not capable of giving the right example to your children? Do you really want to lose half of what you’ve gained in life in case of a divorce? Having to pay partner alimony for God knows how long?”

Why would dating sites require their users to fill in their income and financial status if it wasn’t relevant to any future partner? People could barely come by on two incomes today. What made him believe one income was going to make a family stable or happy or resistant to setbacks?

“Because that’s what happened to my dad,” Marith was wrapping up her oration, with some restraint, now that it was getting personal. “The only reason you can rent the lake house is because my mom stole half of my dad’s belongings and he can’t afford to live there anymore. He is still paying alimony to her, even though she is carrying another man’s baby. All because she has no career or income of her own.”

He had her where he wanted to have her. In a state of female frustration and fuming with his inability to grapple her distinguished and well-founded points. Her energy was delicious. He could have tasted it in the air, like sweet condensed tears, if it wouldn’t have been inappropriate to stick his tongue out.

“Yeah, men are fucked when it comes to marriage,” Samuel chimed in again. Marith didn’t seem to register his defiant undertone.

No, you massive incel, she thought, clouds of steam escaping her ears, from the pressure that had been forming in the boiling brain that was too educated for her own good.

“The financially stronger one is screwed, which, in the Western world, is increasingly the woman in the relationship. Now that we can study, work and develop ourselves, by putting our relentless ambitions to good use, we are actually excelling.”

A lot of people clearly couldn’t handle the fact that women were shining on their own.

“Well, if you don’t want to risk ever having to pay alimony then don’t work, be a housewife, receive free money.” Samuel stood by his initial point.

“Or, and here is a crazy concept,” Marith managed mockingly, “both partners live up to their full potential by working, fulfil their duties by contributing to society and help their household financially by being independent and giving the right example to the next generation.”

At this point Marith had to restrain herself from throwing a plate at his face. She then realised he carried a massive plate in front of his head already without even realising it. It was a billboard sized plate that prevented him from staying in touch with the real world and nobody saw it until they had the distinct displeasure of having to converse with this particular person.

“You can easily avoid the marriage trap by signing a prenuptial agreement. That is not the issue. The government forcing workers to share their income with non-workers is the issue here.”

No, wait. It wasn’t about that at all. Was it? Didn’t it start with the children of working women? Why was she so worked up over this? It barely affected her at that moment.

Why was she so scatter-brained recently? She hadn’t been this belligerent or vindicatory since the last time she had engaged in a conversation with her own mother, which, luckily, was a long, long time ago.

Marith left it at that, which took great effort, given her new-found passion on the matter. She practically had to tear her train of thought away from the subject, but she managed.

Sometimes Marith wished she would have gone to law school, like her father. Somehow she felt she would have made a pretty decent attorney.

Marith ached for Nate, but she knew they couldn’t possibly see each other this soon again. It would draw too much attention. It would give them away to Nick and possibly the Kid. She felt that the same conversation with Nate would go over differently.

“How was your hot date with that Samuel?” Lieke asked, during dinner in the spacious kitchen of the mansion, poking at a slice of tomato on her plate.

“That,” Marith raised her fork, while emptying her mouth, “was NOT a date.”

“Do tell.” Nick invited, washing away a chunk of salmon with a gulp of wine.

“He wanted to get to know the area better and he asked me to show him around.

“And?” Lieke pushed. “Sounds honestly boring,” she added in between bites.

“He unloaded a ton of mental trauma upon me and it was all really uncomfortable.”

“Oh, that’s strange,” Nick frowned. “He seemed compos mentis to me, when I gave him a tour of the house.”

“Well, obviously he is not.” Marith sighed. “I feel for him and he obviously needs help, but I am not sure I want to be the psychological sounding board of a stranger. It felt very inappropriate.”

“Didn’t you study Crazy People for a while?” Lieke informed snidely.

“Thank you, sis.” Marith answered dryly. “I did take some Psychology courses, but I am not equipped to just counsel people.”

“Yeah, you’ll probably mess ‘em up even more,” Lieke concluded, in between stuffing her mouth, not at all bothered by Marith’s dubious glances in her direction.

“And then he started about how women are not supposed to work, but stay at home to serve their men,” Marith continued with a sigh, not taking Lieke’s bait. “He even had the nerve to assign mental illness in men and children to working mothers.”

If anything, Marith thought, intensely exasperated again, children of working mothers are more sociable, flexible and therefore more successful later in life, because they are not around their own mother all the time. They get the chance and the privilege to socialize and learn important life skills in day-care and school.

On top of that the daughters of working mothers are more assertive, resulting in finishing higher education, attaining a higher income and having more independence later in life. She should have said that and quoted all the research done on it. She had been too distracted, too unfocused to do any of that, but she couldn’t remember what had been so revulsive, apart from Samuel’s idiotic ideas about how the world should be working.

“What?!” Lieke opened her mouth in disdain and disbelief. “What an immeasurable dick-faced-douchebag.”

“Eloquent,” Marith snorted sarcastically, “but astute.”

“Who the hell does he think he even is?” Lieke was now fully committed and contributing to the conversation, to anyone’s surprise. “Did he miss the equality lessons during History class? Feminism? The suffragettes? The first female doctor of the Netherlands graduated medical school in 1878,” Lieke informed her table companions proudly. “Her name was Aletta Jacobs.”

“Yes, indeed, and the first female doctor of the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell, even beat her to it. That one was a few decades earlier, I believe.”

“And that Russian lady, who was the first female astronaut,” Lieke said, with the best of all intentions, but slightly lacking in the factual knowledge department.

“Cosmonaut,” Marith corrected her. “She was the first woman in space and her name was Valentina Tereshkova.”

“All great historical figures,” Nick made himself heard. “Truly underexposed in schools and the media.”

“And then there’s that pretty lady that was the first female pilot,” Lieke continued.

“Amelia Earhart is assumed to have died in a plane crash. Men like Samuel will always go on rants about how women shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery and that kind of nonsense. So, maybe that’s not the best example.”

“Or… she was abducted by aliens, because she was such a great woman and a profound feminist and they wanted to do research on her. She crashed in the Pacific Ocean, but they never found her body.” Lieke added that last part to invigorate her conspiratorial abduction-argument.

“Listen ladies,” Nick said, interrupting a conversation that was starting to lose itself in trifling details, “I know I am no Gene,” he paused to give Marith a meaningful glance, “so I won’t go all motivational-dad-speech on you, but I do feel the burning need to share this right now. Only weak men are intimidated by strong women. You don’t need that kind of people, male or female, in your life... ever.”

Lieke nodded wisely while chewing.

“That is such a trite and, in this case, true saying,” Marith said, suppressing a chuckle. “Thank you, Nick.” He meant well and obviously did what he could to assist them in their development during the absence of their father, which was laudable.

This world made Samuel feel weary and lonely. He couldn’t remember whether he had felt this miserable the last time around. Which was very likely the case, since that was about the time he had gone on a murder spree, but the Kid was not the kind of creature to acknowledge hard facts or universal truths, such as the world being unfair to everybody, not just to him.

This Mage had injured his gentle soul earlier that day and he simply couldn’t stomach it. He was wallowing and the only one there for him was Harold. He was there to serve him and he didn’t even have to be forced to do so.

He would never descend, never come down from the trees or any rock, except for the Kid. They had agreed to that a while ago, when he had been waiting for him on the jetty, like the devoted admirer he was.

Now, Harold laid, awkwardly hunched, in a clearing in the forest. He wasn’t really built to lay down, but it was an interesting change from clambering and flying around.

His big, black body breathed slow and rhythmically. His leathery wings, grown so big they could compete with a reasonably sized passenger plane, rested limply behind his back, stretching out into the forest. His claws almost fully disappeared into the snow.

Their surroundings had coloured aquamarine blue, after having been boysenberry purple and tangerine orange for a while, since the night had fallen. The trees around the clearing were sticking out of the snow like aggressive fencing. They appeared black and angry, keeping Samuel and Harold caged.

His soft fur flowed through Samuel’s fingers like silk. His yellow eyes, as big and round as dinner plates, eyed him patiently, often closing for a while, sometimes alert if he would sense changes in their surroundings, like the winds playing with the clouds or a foolish bird, new to the area, fluttering by to take a look at the massive predator.

Samuel had loved messing with the Dutch girl in the moment. He enjoyed nothing more than to tip mortals over the edge and drive them into the dark corners of their own soul. Their abyss was his fuel.

When he had returned to the empty lake house, however, he had felt dreadful. All he wanted was a connection, to feel the warmth of another human being. Even if it would just be holding hands watching a soothing horror movie or discussing their favourite wars and dictators during a home cooked meal.

Why couldn’t he have that? What was so fundamentally wrong about him that he failed to launch any type of social life?

This world kept reminding Samuel of what he craved, but couldn’t have. A home, a family, friendships, a significant other, a purpose that wasn’t benevolent beyond reason. He was starting to realize his distance to society, to humanity had grown too big to bridge.

So much so he was taken by surprise to notice that he longed for that forsaken void he had spent the majority of his existence in. The Empty didn’t throw provocative stimuli and different opinions at him to make him feel unwanted and despised.

The physical part of his existence he had spent serving as a puppet to his parents. To this day he wasn’t sure whether or not they had even liked him. To them he had probably just been a means to an end.

Their rules, their laws, their commands, their mannerisms had driven him into madness. After hundreds of years of struggle the frustrations and the hatred in his head had started to take macabre turns.

Finally he had collected the courage to send them on their way, to whatever the Otherside had to offer. He didn’t feel like raking up the details. This evening was sombre enough.

When he had finally put that whole ordeal behind him he became a slave to the whims of the Web, encrypted by a new Watchmaker. Soon after that he had been expatriated by those infuriating know-it-all’s that called themselves Pupils.

The Web had instantly become a better place without First Oracle and First Watchmaker in it. Everybody knew that. The words ‘imbalanced’, ‘tyranny’ and ‘dictator’ had been used by the their successors and the First Pupils to describe the consequences of his actions, but those people also wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for him. Had they ever considered that?

Their willing collaboration with Oracle and Watchmaker was not only an infuriating mystery to him, but also a thorn in his eye and a gunshot to his heart. Why couldn’t they just play with him?

Harold couldn’t speak, not like humans could, at least. They could communicate, but not through spoken words. And yet he seemed to be the only one to understand him.

He kept the Kid grounded it the dimension that had one day, a long time ago, conceived of him. If they would be close they could share thoughts or things they had seen. Their lives were hanging by the same thread after all.

The beast had dozed off again, relaxed in the presence of his comrade, his partner in misery, but suddenly fluttered with his eyelids and sighed heavily, spitting out bones and feathers when he exhaled in a raspy cough. It sounded like a chain collision on the highway.

He closed his yellow eyes again, while his master continued to caress him. The hairs in his fur shimmered like polished silverware when the golden moonlight, that escaped the cover of clouds, shone down on it.

Samuel had done the world a favour and ever since it had been trying to spit him out. The Web, in its current state, would even be succeeding in doing so if it wasn’t for Harold. Tears rolled down his cheeks, while he was continuously, almost obsessively, stroking his black fur.