Felixentric

Scene 11: I Don't Know Who Jesus is, but I have Decided that I am Him

Still arguing, they slowly found their way to a small park off to the side of the city. Grey buildings closed off three of its sides, but the fourth end opened up to the forest. It wasn't actually a park, just an open area of cut grass and wooden benches that spotted along its rim.

No trees. No bushes. Felix found this frustrating, but also understood that if a "park" in Jupiter had similarities to the forest, no one else would spend their time in it.

Nonetheless, Felix found this area the best part of the city, because even if it wasn't like the forest, it was the closest thing to the color green and flying birds he could find. The ocean off to the East side of Jupiter as comfortably too, except the ocean was more blue than green and the fish were often louder than the birds.

Back, he thought. He had to go back home. Why wasn't he crying yet? It's like he was in denial, but not enough in denial to even realize that he had something to deny. He just felt like it never happened... like he would still get to go home after this.

As they walked across the long lawn toward the forest end, the giddiness rose in Felix's chest. Janette knew him too well - what he needed and how to make him calm down. She even pulled out a small sketch pad and watercolor paints from her large backpack and sighed. Her cheeks rounded with a modest smile as she handed them over. "I just want you to be okay," she said as they found a spot under a tree and sat down.

Janette was smart.

She knew that there were two kinds of mourning.

There's a romanticized mourning. You miss that person or place or thing, because of the iconic moments happened with them. Felix missed his house that way, because he recalled how his family drew their culture into the woodwork with knives and his dad rearranged the furniture every few weekends to liven up the place.

But then there's a routine mourning. Like, if a person writes to their grandmother every week and then their grandmother dies of a heart attack. It comes that time of week set aside for writing and they don't know how to fill the gap. The loss of Felix's house was like that, because every morning he sat with Janette on the old furniture and painted on the walls. His life had been embedded in each room, with precise timing.

Like most humanoids, he didn't know how to fill the gap just yet. Even sitting with Janette just then was all wrong, because it was in the afternoon and there was no couch or walls around them.

But she was smart, because she'd brought the paint. She sat down in the grass in front of him as he began mixing the paints into a soft grey. In her lap, she opened her backpack to a notebook and the library books. After pulling ruffling through the pages of one, she cleared her throat. "Okay," she said. "There are very specific literary definitions for a Christ figure you'll recognize when reading. One is that the character is always away from home..."

He started sketching the tops of buildings with paint.

"Some examples might be how Superman's home is Krypton, but he's almost always on Earth or another planet." Now, Felix didn't know about Superman, but he sure understood what it felt like. "Two, a Christ figure is incredibly misunderstood."

Same here.

"Three, a Christ figure understands the truth whereas everyone else in the story is believing a fallacy. Which would conclude why they're so misunderstood and commonly punished for their ideals."

Felix stopped painting and narrowed his eyes. Which is also... like me. "Go on," he pushed.

But then someone yelled from behind them. "Hey!" and he flinched away, dropping his painting in the grass. He looked up to see Quinn with an overly joyous face. He was accompanied by a freckley, short haired girl.