Iridescent Pearls

He won nothing

So far he had won nothing at all. Every time he scraped together enough pennies, nickels, and dimes to buy one more lottery ticket, he prayed with all his might. This daily drudgery couldn't be the extent of his existence upon this planet. Surely, the gods of fortune would smile on his lowly personage and bless him with even a portion of the winning jackpot.

But, once again no. Not him. Not this time, just like it wasn't him the last time. Being a slave to the debt his ex-wife left him with was emasculating him inch by proverbial inch. His bad luck didn't stop there, oh no he was a regular whiskey and tears story.

He had a job where he ended up knee deep in paperwork, half of which he couldn't figure out. He lived with his ex-mother-in-law. She took him in since he was like a son to her, and oh yeah let us not forget that he was bound.

He was bound tight by his ex-wife. She too scared to face the potential deep within his soul, bound him late one night. She wrapped his inside soul so tight he often spent days and nights feeling suffocated. A warlock without his magic was just another sack of meat. He couldn't serve the empire in any way that was useful.

He couldn't even dare open his lips to speak with a woman of interest, because to the other females of the magick community he felt wrong. He was a shattered aura, all because of his ex-wife. Now, ha, now she's gone missing.

She left him in this perpetual state of limited existence, a shadow in a vibrant world bathing in light of all hues and tones. She left him and ran with his book. The journal where his daily discoveries helped him log a journey of self-discovery. He literally left a piece of himself in that book, bound by twine as he was bound by her. He wrote each word in symbols inked in his blood. She couldn't even read it!

So he scoured the streets on his walk home for anything resembling a coin from long ago. His job was locked down tight, one of the conditions of his mother-in-law, no...ex-mother-in-law, was that his paycheck be directly deposited into her account. She had been living without any form of eccentricity a lot longer than he had.

Sure, he wasn't starving or homeless, but still. What man wanted his wallet in the vice grip of his EX-mother-in-law.

Paused at a red light, he took stock of himself in a reflective window. He saw his worn out, second hand uniform and his old "vintage" briefcase and swore he could smell the putrid odor of defeat seeping out from his pores. It seemed like a stale cologne that wafted around his senses and confounded his chaotic thoughts even more.

He centered himself. One thing that she-demon couldn't steal from him was his center. He had fought long and hard for his center. He found the fading emerald light deep within his soul, and he tried to breathe. The oxygen feeding him would feed the embers of jade in that light.

Kale vowed to hunt her down like the prey she was. A predator may be struck into confusion, but once clarity starts to bleed back into his vision, there would be no one to hold him back.

The trashcan swallowed his brief case, full of useless dribble and memos from work. He tore the uniform polo from his torso, exposing his solid t-shirt underneath. The hunt would commence now.