Stein-The Early Days

Chapter 8

There's nothing quite like a steel bat to the head to temper one's anger.

Tempering is the process that makes Damascus Steel unbreakable, the repeated layering of the metal, thinner and thinner until there are an uncountable number of layers.

The same happens to my anger inside me. The repercussion of the concussion is like the folding of metal at the forge, forcing the fibers to bend and twist into each other on the anvil. "You broke my hand, asshole!" And another whack against my skull. It's like my head is a coconut and he's no longer interested in just getting a straw in ther. Crack! Was that the sound of the bat bouncing off my skull or going through it? No, I realize, it's the Crack! bat connecting with the drill bit Crack! and driving it further Crack! into my mind.

Enough.

I ignore the chill of my own blood running down my face in streams and blast out with my presence. I don't bother focusing myself. There's no need. I sear everything around me within twenty feet. I hear him cry out as my psychic bat pounds on his very soul. The folded layers of my anger are like a spring, containing all of the energy that forced them into that shape and releasing it in an instant. It also doesn't hurt that the drill bit has just reached the memory pool of the brief - very brief - period during preschool when I was bullied. That 37 seconds of my life, horrible moments, are recalled, reshaped, and released like a psychic spear to crucify my torturer.

And that's the end of it. I can tell he has been driven mad, endlessly and without possibility of parole, locked in a perpetual fetal position. And in this I realize that he was just a small potatoes minion controlled by another. That's why I couldn't place him. I could sense the other presence but couldn't see it clearly because of the withered soul of the one who carried it. I can hear the body of my former captor foaming at the mouth, blathering in the mad language of the old ones, their tendrils already greedily squeezing his brain like a plumb grapefruit.

I need to get free. But my anger is still not satisfied. And it may never be. Or perhaps it's just that I have a drill bit crammed into one of my darkest memories. It was short a memory, for I quickly decided that I would not be bullied, but for that half-minute plus, I actually considered being weak and allowing myself to be trod upon. What a horrible feeling. And to think that there are those who live every moment in that space. It took just 37 seconds for me to figure out it wasn't for me.

I can feel the anger growing. This might not be good. I know I've got a big head, but I'm not sure what my maximum capacity is for unchecked anger. I either need to finally resolve what happened in preschool those long years or I need to get that drill bit out of my head.

It's a hard choice. I kind of like the bit where it is. Anger feels good. Maybe I don't need to completely remove it. What if I could shift it up a millimeter or two? Just get my teeth on the back of the bit and pull. Move it out of this repository anger. Oh. No chance of getting my teeth up there. So that leaves only one alternative:

I slam my head down on the table and drive the bit in further.