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The cobblestone walkways were swept, but some of the trash remained. The downpour persisted, lifting up bits of food and ground dragon dung into the gutters that ran down the alley. Garfiel spotted her alone. She had nowhere to run.
“Oi! I finally found you.”
She turned slowly, her golden brows laden with recognition. It was his mother. The one who had abandoned him to find his father. Only he knew that reason was a lie.
“Garfiel. You left the Sanctuary.” Not quite a smile adorned her face, it was more akin to pity.
“Yeah I did. And now I’ve finally found you,” he said, pointing his finger.
“What do you want, Garf?” she said coldly. The rain barraged against his pale skin.
“Answers!”
“You have all the answers, if you can’t piece it together it’s time you go back to the Sanctuary and start over.”
“I’m never going back! I just want to know why. Why did you abandon us?”
She looked down and shook her head.
“You were too corny.”
“What?” said Garfiel.
“Did you remember when I used to read to you at night?”
Garfiel said nothing.
“After every story we finished, what did you do?”
Garfiel balled his hands into fists.
“Tell me!” she shouted.
“I power-scaled the heroes and villains in the story.”
“That’s right, every waking moment of the day I would hear about how Goku could go FTL or some other nonsense term you invented. I don’t even know what a Goku is.”
“So that’s it? You left because I was young and stupid? I was a kid!” he shouted, slamming his fist on the alley wall, sending debris into the pooling water. “I wanted attention and discourse surrounding the media I consumed!”
The rain masked the tears drizzling down.
“I tried to get you to stop, you just wouldn’t outgrow it, Garf. You never wanted to talk about themes, parallels, or character motivations. You just wanted to compare characters abilities and the fight scenes. Never the relationships or what the author might be alluding to in the story, never about the conflicts of interests between characters or factions, never about anything subtle! Just,” She stopped for a moment, realizing there was no point in arguing with him.
“Just leave me alone, Garfiel. I have a new family. One that doesn’t power-scale.”
She turned and walked away, leaving Garfiel one last time.
He would go on to have children, grandchildren, and a fulfilling life. But he would die with a piece of his heart missing, a piece his mother took with her the day she left him standing in the rain.