Imprint

I remember him sitting in the blessed, cool relief of our concrete-floored garage in the impending doom of coming summer.

Two warped women were there, one on each arm, as he rose to meet my entrance when I arrived home, early afternoon.

How old was I?

4, 5, or 6?

Back when the bus would drop you off for walking home to unlocked doors and the lack of parental supervision.

I told him {for once, my voice openly spoken) that he did not belong there, in our home – especially with those women!

I must have screeched at him like a tiny dragon: indignant – and unexpected.

Something about his energy had alarmed me. I could sense black night around him, and his reaction to my claim proved my instincts correct.

He’d thought to mess around with my mother.

I don’t know exactly what he had intended, but he’d brought these hussies to help him teach her a lesson as part of his scheme.

He unleashed once-barely-restrained venom onto me – and I became the hapless target, as he spewed poison for her rejecting his “virility.”

He conjured evil around him – which came crackling – while attempting to frighten me conceptually by what he did not know I could somehow perceive.

He told me he had prepared a curse for my mother that would bring her to her knees, destroying her free will, and making her his servant as the lowliest worm for all of eternity.

Something in me quivered – then snapped – and I called forth the thundering Voice of Authority.

“NO! you shall NOT succeed!!!” commanded the warrior skreeling from inside of me.

“Your curse will backfire onto you, for my mother is 10x as strong as your sniveling!”

And then, as vexation consumed him, he cast the curse vindictively at me as he fled the scene with his witches.

The power of the hurt rage consuming him and the implications of what had just happened froze me solid.

I checked-out of reality, drifting around the house in a daze.

I had just taken on a pissed-off dark wizard and bluffed him, redirecting his ire onto me.

I tried to tell my mother what he had done, but she cut me off mid-sentence, determined to go after him and “tear him apart” for his ego.

She did not listen – and would not have believed me – so I let it drop, telling her that he’d already been humiliated.

If she didn’t believe in these things, how could they be part of reality?