𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋

Chapter 19

If Josh closed his eyes he could perfectly see his little house situated in that poor district a little far from London. He perfectly remembered the old wooden door that led inside his home, dirty and ready to break. He remembered the dirty windows and that apple tree outside his bedroom window, the only lively thing in the entire neighborhood. Josh remembered that little house beside their home, less dirty but not more beautiful than his, and that little girl playing alone in the garden with her dolls.

That girl had been his only friend. Josh didn't miss anything else.

His mother had always wanted a child of her own but for many years his parents couldn't conceive. Josh's aunt always told him how much happy his sister had been when she found out she was finally pregnant.

Josh's mother died when he was born and from that day on his father never failed to remind him, especially after he became an alcoholic. Josh could still feel all the beatings, all the kicks and insults on his skin. Josh still wondered how he was still alive.

Any time his father became violent Josh always tried to run away but his father always found him and dragged him home. Sometimes Josh would hide to his neighbor.

"Again, Josh?" the little girl would always say with those big, kind eyes of hers. Josh wouldn't say a thing. "Come in" the little girl would say then as she took his hands in her and showed him inside.

"Why are you doing this for me?" Josh had asked one day. They were twelve. "I'm a bad person. I do deserve the beatings…"

"Everyone deserves to live…" the girl had said with such emotion it still brought tears to Josh's eyes. "And besides you are not a bad person! You are my best friend!" she exclaimed and smiled. Josh found himself liking that smile, a lot. "Come on, let's go eat something…" she said then taking him by the hand.

Before, Josh had thought that, in a way, his father was right. He wasn't supposed to live because he was a murderer. Josh had murdered his own mother and he still loved his father in a way, because he deserved the beating, he deserved the insults. But then the little girl came into his life, opening her home to him whenever he needed it, smiling at him, the first person to call him just 'Josh'.

"Your mother gave her life to you, so you need to live fully now, for the both of you. You deserve to live" the little girl had told him over and over again. From that time on Josh started to realize that the love he felt for his father wasn't love at all, it was fear. Fear slowly turned to hatred and from then on Josh started to finally fight back.

The beatings became more violent but Josh always shut himself in his room with a large smile on his face because now his father had his own wounds to lick.

One day when Josh was sixteen he looked himself in the mirror and found himself hating that raven hair on his head that he had inherited from his father. So, he decided to bleach them. Just like that. His father didn't like it. The fight that was born from such a small fact was the fiercer fight Josh had had and it ended with the teenager finally shoving everything he owned into a small suitcase and walking away from that dirty house once and for all.

"Without me you are nothing!" his father had shouted after him. "Remember! You'll come crawling back to me!"

Josh had smiled and had waved at him, sending him goodbye kisses just to piss him more but in reality he was looking at the little girl watching him from her bedroom window.

"I'll miss you…" Josh thought, "…Marie."

The years that followed were harsh. Josh changed job again and again, trying to collect that little money he needed to live, but not many people wanted to hire that boy with the bleached hair, with that strange smile on his face, so badly dresses and that foul mouth Josh was so proud of. Sometimes when his hirers found someone more trustworthy they fired Josh without a second thought.

"Bastards…" Josh said loudly and leaned on a wall. He took a cigarette from his pocket and looked at it as if it was the more interesting thing in the world. "Just wait till you see what I did to your precious kitchen…" and he started to laugh but soon enough the laughter turned into sobs. It was the first time Josh had cried. "Was he right after all…?" Josh stared at the sky and suddenly his silent tears were mixed with the rain, making it impossible to distinguish one from the other. Josh cursed because now he couldn't light the cigarette he had, well, borrowed from his hirer or was it because he didn't have a place to live anymore? Josh didn't know.

Josh sat down on the wet pavement and put his head in his arms. He decided then to just do the world a favor and die there. Rain poured on him but Josh stayed there, even if he was shivering with cold. No one would miss him, after all. No one…

Suddenly Josh wasn't getting wet anymore and he opened his eyes. A young woman was staring down at him while she was holding an umbrella in a way to protect both of them from the rain. Josh couldn't stop staring at the woman with admiration. She was so beautiful she looked like an angel, and for a moment Josh thought he had indeed died and that she was going to take him away to see his mother. However all those thoughts disappeared as soon as she talked:

"I finally found you, Josh…" and she smiled.

"Marie?"

So she was an angel after all…

The Coffee Place opened some years after Josh and Marie finally found each other.

"Your father is dead, Josh…" one day Marie told him and Josh just continued sweeping their shop and said:

"He will find a lot of friends in Hell…"

Josh had to admit, however, that his father's death had affected him in a way. Josh started to realize that he had no idea how the human mind works. Why did his father had hated him so much? Why those people had looked at him as if he was a freak? Why did he felt like shit even if he should be prancing around like a gay monkey? It was then that Josh decided to study psychology. He took the degree with astounding marks.

"Aaa…" Josh exclaimed. "Was that a year or so ago?" he wondered with the cigarette dangling from his lips. Oh, how much things had happened. "And they still wonder if I do things without a purpose…" Josh polished once more his dear Coffee Machine 3000. "But you trust me, don't you darling?" he asked his precious machine. "Now make me the best coffee you can!" Josh stood up and smiled.

Two seconds later a loud scream could be heard throughout London, followed soon after by a crash.

"Mother#$%!" Josh screamed. "You call that shit a coffee!"

"Who broke the windows, Josh?" Marie asked too kindly for Josh's tastes.

"Err… the sparrows?"