Chuy drabble.
Chuy closed his eyes and listened to the rain. It was well past nightfall and the village was dark, lamp light obscured by the heavy rain. He took a deep breath and let himself relax- not too much, but just enough to let himself feel the warmth from the hell fire burning in his soul. He let the warmth radiate from his skin. He let the warmth fill the room with a powerful supernatural heat. He then held himself at that point. A few notches below human, but miles away from demon.
He then turned to his mother who lay on the one bed in the room and hoped that the extra warmth would keep her cold from turning into a more serious illness. She always joked and said that she wasn’t built for winter, she was made only for the summer and the intense heat that it brought. He looked at her brown skin and wondered how on earth she had found herself in Europe, considering that she said she was from what had been Teotihuacan before it burned down and she had been forcibly impregnated with him. Yet here they were living in a small hut at the base of the Alps.
She coughed and he got up from where he was seated by the window to check on her. As he approached she frowned in her sleep and whispered “Leave him alone demon.” He stopped dead in his tracks and noticed the beads of sweat on her forehead. He knew that she would have to sweat out the fever. He let himself slide a few more wrungs down the ladder and in doing so he would feel the temperature in the room increase.
………………….
Two days later she was propped up in bed wrapped in all their blankets, wearing four pairs of socks and holding a cracked clay mug of tea. Chuy asks her about her fever dreams.
She takes a big sip of tea and then turns to look at him. “Do you know what the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me is?”
Chuy shakes his head. He assumes it was his conception.
“One day when you were about 7 years old I thought I had lost you.”
Chuy was surprised.
“This was back when we were living in France. I was washing clothes in the stream and when I looked up you were gone.”
She sighed into her mug.
“I didn’t even know where to start. You had just barely begun to speak, and I was worried that someone had taken advantage.”
“I don’t remember this.” Chuy said.
“Of course not. You were so small, you probably thought it was a fun game or some other trivial thing, but to me, I felt my heart stop.”
She took another sip of tea. “I ran around the stream, meadows, village and forest looking for you.” She looked down at the mug. “I couldn’t find you.”
Chuy was still.
“I broke down and called out your name, begging, pleading and praying for you to find your way back to me. Then I heard this incredible roar and felt this intense heat coming out from the ground and before I knew it, the ground cracked open in front of me and there your face was. In the crack in the ground.”
“WHAT?!?” Chuy asked, completely confused.
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “You had been pulled into hell by whichever demon fathered you.” She put the mug down on the floor next to her bed. Chuy picked the mug up and put it in the basin for the washing of dishes. He would wash the dishes later. He sat back down right next to his mother on the bed.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She then looked Chuy in the eye, “All I know is that I called your name and begged for you to come back. I said please God or the devil or whatever, please just bring my son back to me. Please Chuy come back to me, and you did.”
Chuy just blinked at his mother.
“You crawled out of hell because I called to you.”
There was silence for a while.
“We left France soon after that. Ever since that day, whenever you went missing, even for a few moments I would worry that your father had dragged you into hell with him. Then I’d remember that if you were in hell all I had to do was call your name and you’d find your way back to me. That thought would always bring me such peace.”
“Oh.” was all that Chuy could say.
His mother then reached out her hand to cup his cheek. “Chuy I want you to know something.” Chuy looked into his mothers dark brown eyes.”You are a lot more than you think you are. You are stronger than the demon blood in your veins. You are even more compassionate than your human heart. You are more than the circumstances surrounding your conception and birth. Finally and most importantly, you are more loved than you could even hope to know.” She smiled at him.
“I love you too mum.” Chuy said resting his head against his mothers palm and taking a deep breath. She gently stroked his cheek.
…………
Six months later he would try to buy a porcelain tea set, get mugged and have his sandals taken from him. When he’d get back to his mother, while he didn’t have the porcelain he wanted (or his sandals), he did have another person he was willing to love. His mother just wrapped her arms around Joe and welcomed him in for dinner (Joe would later tell him that that was the first hug he had ever recieved in his life). However, that night while his mother and Joe made dinner and he set the table, he could successfully say that in that moment, he really did feel like he was more than he had ever thought he could be.
