Darkling Prince

Untitled Part 3

Jude Irene was not what you would call a normal boy. 

                "Jude!"  A bellowing voice yelled, shaking the shudders of 288 Rome Street.  Neighbors nearby barely even acknowledged the hollering, and those who did merely shook their heads then went about their normal morning routines of gathering their mail while wearing tattered bathrobes or walking their overly excitable Pomeranians.  It was normal, they knew, for Mrs. Irene to become exasperated with her son in the early hours of the day.  It was, after all, understandable for a mother to be so constantly flustered with a boy that was as exceptionally odd as her son. 

                "Jude Raphael Irene!"  Mrs. Irene bellowed again, pounding on her youngest son's bedroom door.  The door shuddered on its hinges, making and awful creaking noise more raucous than the woman's voice.  Inside the room, however, Jude Irene sat on the edge of his bed, seemingly oblivious to the summons of his mother.  His position was precarious, just like everything else about him, as if his entire life was spent teetering over an edge.  Legs folded, he perched on the edge of the bed, hunched forward dangerously, with his rectangular glasses barely balanced on the tip of his nose.  His hair was disheveled, looking more like the product of hurricane force winds than bedhead, and permanent dark circles sat under his hazel eyes.  With a frantic air, he flipped through the pages of the medical textbook, his eyes running ceaselessly back and forth across the pages, taking in as much information as possible. 

                Jude had a fascination of knowledge and a penchant for picking up new obsessions from week to week.  It was not uncommon to find him studying a meticulously detailed diagram of a combustion engine one day and to come across him examining an array of insects the next.  To Jude Irene, everything was interesting and deserved his time an investigation.  Once, when he was ten, he became intrigued by Chinese culture after dining at the Golden Dragon restaurant, and he spent the following two week trying to make gong bao chicken and wonton dumplings.  His mother had not been amused with the mess he'd made of her kitchen.  Jude had explored topics from the art of paper making and the practice of wine testing (only the theory, of course), to the anatomy of frogs and the study of Egyptian clothing, but he always managed to stray back to medicine.  The text book I his hands was well-worn, with dog-eared pages that frayed along the edges from being read many times. 

                "Jude, don't make me say your name again, or I swear by the heavenly lord that I will break this door down!"  Mrs. Irene threatened.  There was no hint of a lie in her voice. 

                As if slowly awakening from a deep slumber, Jude's half lidded eyes lifted from his book and blink slowly, shaking off the trance printed words had put him in.  With elegantly nimble fingers, he soundlessly closed the medical textbook in his hands and set it aside, unfolding himself from the bed.  He paused only to stretch before padding his way lightly to the door.  The door made no noises of protest when he pulled it open.  "Good morning, madre.  Have you been standing there long?"

                Mrs. Irene's eye widened dangerously and she exhaled a disgruntled sigh of exasperation.  Jude guessed she had indeed been standing there for a while. 

                "You have five minute, and five minutes only," Mrs. Irene growled, her heavy brow drawn low over her warning eyes, "To get your scrawny backside dressed and settled in a seat in the kitchen, or so help me I'll ground you for a month and revoke your book privileges."  There was her trump card.  Any other mother would threaten her child with the loss of internet or cell phone rights.  Mrs. Irene knew, however, that reading material was infinitely more valuable to her youngest child, and that gave her the power to motivate her otherwise lackadaisical son.