The Majesty of Choice

Patrick

The basics of Frell are as simple and mindless as the basics of any other small, mostly human inhabited, town. Occasionally wonderers travel through, but in all reality, town doesn't change much from day to day, or even from year to year. Everyone knows everyone else, gossip is rampant among the town, and everyone has a schedule that changes very little over their life.

Gerard's life is fairly similar to the rest of the town's, but it's gossiped over more than many others. Obviously, the talk of the town is usually whose kids are romantically involved with who else's kids, but when gossip finds a lull, it always finds a way to come back to the strange boy who no one knows much about.

Presently however, the town is buzzing with word of the new residents. A mother and her two girls, living in that house.

It's not even noon yet and as Gerard walks through the edge of town he can already feel the eyes being drawn towards him. What's more is when he looks up at the windows of the houses, he sees curtains being hurriedly drawn so that people aren't caught in the act of staring.

Gerard doesn't enjoy it necessarily, he's just extremely amused. He would feel worse about it if he wasn't used to being the center of attention like this already. He's just grown used to, and quite fond of being different than anyone else. He wishes it were under different circumstances that he were different, but sometimes it's a blessing not to be the same model of the same person that everyone else is.

Gerard's destination is to the candle shop, but not to the actual candle shop, because he couldn't care less about candles, but to the person who lives above the candle shop and whose house always smells of melted wax. For this reason, he is very rarely ever opposed to getting the hell away from his house. Not that it smells bad, but there's only so much candle wax that someone can stand on a daily basis and it's just too much.

Patrick meets Gerard outside of the store before Gerard even makes it all the way to the door. He's only halfway down the street. Patrick was waiting for him most likely, eager to get the hell away from Mrs. Dupree asking him for the umpteenth time how his mother is and if his family is doing well. You'd think for a woman whose workplace is directly beneath Patrick's entire family, she'd have gotten the message that everyone is alright for the time being, and no, he does not want to smell your newest candle, thank you very much.

"I heard you have new company," Patrick says.

"Well yeah, you would've. I told you they were coming like three weeks ago."

"How are they?"

"Awful," Gerard replies. "Picture snottier versions of the girls in class."

"That bad, huh?"

"Worse," Gerard groans. "I'm escaping them."

"I feel special that you hate them more than you like me," Patrick replies.

"You know I wouldn't function without you."

"I do," Patrick nods. "So have you heard about the Prince?"

"I have heard about him, yes, I mean, he's kind of important. He's kind of our future king, that's how those things work, typically. So..."

"No that's not what I meant," Patrick shakes his head, stopping slightly as they walk down the road. He's not positive in which direction they're going, he's just following where Gerard's taking them, and Gerard doesn't have an ultimate destination in mind either. Away is his only goal.

"Well please enlighten me," Gerard says.

"He's coming here," Patrick says, "in a few weeks. Some political forum or whatever."