A Messenger from Nephelokokkygia

The Man with Blazing Eyes

Chapter 2: The Man with Blazing Eyes

"Oh come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!

For many a game I will play there with thee;

On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,

My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Erlkonig"

Morning began as it always did, at least as long as Grace could remember. Her grandmother woke her up at 7 A.M., having—in the strange style of the elderly—already been awake several hours. A bowl of scalding hot porridge sat on the dining room table. While waiting for it to cool enough that it would reasonably not melt through her tongue, the girl's attention was drawn to the shaky, inconsistent, but loud bathroom showerhead. It was always Grace's mother in there, who rushed out in a white towel and returned from her bedroom in an equally white nurse's uniform.

She would wait in the hallway then, fidgeting in a way that showed the woman had forgotten something. Then, she snapped her fingers, retreated to her bedroom, and emerged with Grace's father. He would invariably be in the middle of putting on a suit and tie, missing buttonholes because his eyes were half-closed.

While this occurred, Grace would blow on what honestly started out as lava. Why her grandmother cooked it so hot in the first place was moot. The porridge cooled eventually.

Crossing to the table where the girl already sat, her father would stub at least one toe on any of the innocent chairs, couches, tables, shelves, walls, books, trash bins, or persons that might find itself in his path. This partially did the job of waking him up.

Grace's mother watched this with amusement while peeling an orange, but paused to slide a mug of black coffee over to him once he finally sat down. This might finish the work the stubbed toe(s) started.

At the point her father started pouring sugar into his cup, Grace knew she could safely eat her porridge without catching on fire. Catching fire, she thought. Why's that sound familiar? Like most stray thoughts that come in the morning, the idea slipped away without much fuss.

"You're sure you don't want sugar with that?" This was always the first thing Grace's father said to her in the day.

"No dad, it's fine plain." And it was. Grace's taste buds reacted poorly to any flavor they happened to consider extreme, which counted a great many things. Sweet, salty, spicy, savory, or the sick, booger-taste of phlegm. The amount of sugar her father considered acceptable lay far to the extreme end.

"Eh, more for me," was his consistent response. Though he never laughed, the family knew it to be a joke. An attempt at one, at least. The whole conversation took place while sugar still poured into his coffee. It was now no longer black. Or liquid, for that matter.

"That's plain unhealthy," mentioned Grace's mother. This was not part of the expected routine. "Why doncha' try something else, for once?"

"Maybe you're right," Grace's father answered in his droll tone. "Mam, we have any cinnamon in the cabinet?"

That is what he called his mother. "Mam" instead of "Mom", "Mama", or even "Mommy", all three of which Grace used, as she was told it was rude to call her mother by her first name. The girl was not sure why they had to use different words, but the elder Mrs. Grey had come to America from across an ocean. Though she had carried little, she could at least bring her language. It proved light enough luggage.

Following from this, the old woman insisted on Grace addressing her as "Grandmam."

After riffling through the cupboard, she came back victorious with a can of cinnamon. She threw it at her son—which he nearly failed to catch—then continued milling about the home. Grandmam must have eaten at some point, but Grace was never awake to see it.