HUMAN SPIRIT

HUMAN SPIRIT; Ch. 2

The car ride home was silent. Julius felt no need to descend into the seat, and thought that if he did, Mr. Mars would think even less of him. I have to keep some dignity, Julius thought to himself. He was only so thankful when dropped off at his house. The rise of dust in the wake of the Beamer meant Mr. Mars was glad to leave him, too. Julius entered his house, greeted by a phone ringing. Again, he paused as he always had at the sound of the phone, then slowly made his way over to the device to hear any means of a message. As it went to voicemail, he heard the sound of his sister speaking, Mariana. Before she could leave any sort of message, he picked up the phone.

“Mari?” he asked.

“Julius!” she exclaimed, causing him to pull the phone away from his ear in reaction. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“Same here, sis,” he responded. She started to scold him.

“Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to speak to you?” she asked. No response from Julius. Mariana took on a softer tone. “I’ve been worried about you. How have you been?”

“Good. Still trying to finish all the paintings,” Julius explained.

“You have a long way to go,” she added discouragingly, unintentionally. 

“Yeah, I do. Anyway… I left you that message on your phone the other day. You got it, I assume?”

“Oh, yeah. I was confused about that. You got a package?”

“Right. I was just wondering if you knew where it came from, because it had no return address. I was thinking it might’ve been from you.” There was an unexpected pause over the phone, after which Mariana spoke up.

“Is that the only reason you picked up?”

“Mariana,” Julius consoled, trying to keep her from getting dramatic.

“Five months, and that’s all you wanted to know?”

“Mariana, shut up,” Julius replied. It was the only way he could reach her. “Do you know who sent the package?” Another pause; Julius imagined his sister was getting over it.

“No, I don’t know,” she responded, then sighed. “Sorry, I’ve just been… really stressed lately. I could’ve really used you a few months ago, you know.”

“Something happened?”

“Julius, Leonard died.” A third pause over the phone. Leonard was a member of the Black Sheep. Before Mariana left the house to join the Comedians, Leonard had come over once or twice to hang out. He and Julius, they had become friends. Julius couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to spit out, though he didn’t feel like it was good enough.

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” she said, trying to get over a few tears that had apparently been shed after giving the news. “But I think I’m okay now. And we’ll be heading up to Oregon in a few days, I believe, so I get to come by and see you. If you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah,” Julius answered breathily.

“Anyway… I have to go. I’ll see you then, right?”

“Right.”

“Bye.” There was a beep, and Mariana was gone. Julius loved her, and originally, he knew her so well that he felt no anxiety around her, but that had changed; literally everyone he knew became a stranger after he left for Oregon. He hung up the phone, turned his head around, and saw the urn sitting there. Light was coming in at an angle through the window, making the urn shine. It was practically staring at him, if that were ever to be possible. He then made his way over to the thing, but hesitated. Everything weird that had been happening lately, after all, had only happened in the days that the urn was a resident in his home. Grabbing the sides of the lid with both hands, he lifted it and put it to the right, then proceeded to peer inside. He shut his eyes, and breathed it in slowly. He didn’t trust dipping his hands in, at least not anymore, and went to the adjacent kitchen and pulled out an empty glass. Back in the breakfast room, Julius warily scooped out half a glass of black grit, and sat down at the end of the table.