Cupid

Cupid
By M.B. Hawkins

Prologue

Average; that would be the easiest and most accurate way to describe life through Mitchell Collaro’s eyes. Simple, redundant, even boring to a certain extent. Repetitive, sometimes annoyingly so. But every once in a while, something comes along that upsets the norm. Whether positive or negative, things can change in an instant, and drastically. For his entire life, Mitchell had been waiting for just such an event to happen; something to shake up the world as he knew it.

He was tired of the monotony, tired of the cycles of unremitting tedium. Everyday was just like every other day, with dull accuracy. Wanting and waiting…nobody ever told him how dangerous one jaded, sighing wish could be.

Today would be different for Mitchell though. He didn’t know it, and he never saw it coming. But for once, things would finally go his way; the winds of fate would blow in his favor…relatively.

After all, when a wish comes true, it’s a miracle, isn’t it?

* * * * *

Chapter One: A Break from the Ordinary

Buzz! The alarm clock commanded his immediate attention. One groggy, amber eye glared out from under a bundle of sheets on the bed (he never made it up in the mornings, so it was a virtual mountain of linen at this point). Seven already!? It felt like that he just closed his eyes. And it was a Monday! Mitchell loathed Mondays (much like the greater population) with a passion. It was the start of a new week, the beginning of that ever continuing sequence of boredom, with the end, being Friday, nowhere in sight.

Another earsplitting ring from the clock-radio brought the fifteen-year-old’s hand slamming down on the bedside table several times, fumbling in his search for that ever evasive ‘off button’. Moments after the noise clicked to silence, Mitchell pushed himself to a reclining position for his normal early morning ritual of yawning and stretching.

Finally pulling himself out of bed, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and shook himself awake, causing his shaggy auburn mane of hair to flail around wildly for just a moment. It was usually unruly at this time in the morning, but after a quick shower the water would mat it down and dampen it enough to effectively comb.

His morning drug on, much like every other Monday morning: bathroom, shower, kitchen, cereal, rummage through the bottomless pit known only as the ‘backpack’ for fifteen minutes searching for half-completed homework…rummage…rummage – Aha! There it is! – hustle out the door and sprint to the bus stop on the corner just in time to flag down the piss-yellow steel tank of a vehicle as it is about to pull away, but like always the aging driver would fail to notice him and rumble off into the sunrise, his passengers gaily chortling away with great fervor. And so would begin his daily trek on foot to the high school. It was early spring of his freshman year at the Midwestern school, and he was still on his first packet of bus tickets.

Mitchell did have an odd feeling about today, though, as he settled into his routine pace. A childish feeling as if eyes everywhere were following his exact movements, every slight twitch; the man on the corner, casually reading his newspaper, peeking out at him? No, it was his overactive imagination, nothing more harmless than that.

“Hey!” A casual hailing from behind the sauntering boy snapped him out of his reverie as he instantly recognized the offending voice, complete with bicycle tires screeching to a halt less than a foot from his back. “Fancy findin’ you here? I didn’t know you walked to school this way.”

It was Paul. Paul Diamond Loosli. Everyone just called him Diamond, and there was no better way to describe him than by calling him a bully; which translated out to arrogant bastard in this day and age. At sixteen years of age, he had been Mitchell’s tormenter all of the back from the second grade. During their near decade long stint as predator and prey, Mitchell had been on the receiving end of wedgies, wet-willies, and other general misconduct, and never had Loosli had to pay a price for his foul deeds.

Why are the evil ones always so damn charismatic?

“You should really stop saying the same thing everyday. You wouldn’t want people to think that you’ve become predictable now, would you?” The slightly younger, albeit much scrawnier, boy ventured, his eyebrow cocked. He knew where the line lay and just how far he could push it. He had to bare the blonde teen’s company nearly everyday on the way to school, and generally came out unscathed, although terrified and a few bucks poorer.

“What can I say: I enjoy repetition?” Paul smirked – a smug smirk of superiority…what Mitchell would give for the cajonés to wipe that smile from the jerk’s face. He held out his hand expectantly, his gray-blue eyes bore into his adversary past his casual glare.

Giving a resigned huff and rolling his eyes, Collaro dug into the pocket of his faded blue jean shorts and produced several dollars. He felt so immature, his lunch money taken by a fellow student in much the fashion best suiting an elementary school fiend shoving around those yet to develop into themselves.

Someday…that’s what he always told himself. Just like the punks in the movies. Someday…

Later at lunch, Mitchell sat with Eric Poling, a long time friend and partner in crime. Together they had endured the hardships of upper-middleclass education and the joy of countless camping trips and sleepovers. Mitch had known Eric since they were both in Kindergarten when they had struck up an immediate and ever lasting friendship.

Eric was a bit less socially awkward now than what he used to be. Back in junior high, they were a pair of social misfits, who stuck together to fulfill the need to be socially active, even when it seemed damn near impossible. His brown hair bordered on red, and freckles dotted his face. He was a little on the thin side, but filling out as he aged. He had always been the more adventurous of their small band, pushing Mitchell to his limits, while Mitchell in turn kept Eric from killing himself doing something stupid.

They’d grown almost to the point of actually needing each other to get along in life. Co-dependence could be a bitch. Some of the crazy crap that Mitchell put up with was unbelievable.

“So…Spring Formal’s coming up soon. You thinkin’ ‘bout goin’ at all?” Eric inquired through mouthfuls of cardboard-flavored, school-hamburger. It was the third of four dances throughout the school year, the others being Homecoming, the Winter Ball, and of course, Prom.

“Nah, those things blow,” Mitchell replied, almost bashfully, as he slurped down half a bottle of Pepsi, “Who’d go with me anyways?”

“Well, we could go hang out again,” Eric shrugged, “You got somethin’ better to do on a Saturday night?”
Together they had gone to Homecoming, as friends naturally, mostly to check out what a school dance was like in high school. Years before in junior high, there was one dance a year, and usually the boys and girls were sitting on opposite sides of the gymnasium afraid to talk to one another, let alone dance. Now it would be difficult to find a classmate’s face that wasn’t halfway inside another’s.

“How about killing myself? That sounds just as fun,” the teenager countered jovially. Just then the class bell rang, and the two had to shove the remainder of their low-quality school lunch down their throats and hurry to their next torture sessions with a brief ‘See you later!’

The rest of the day dragged on uneventfully. Well, the school day did at any rate. Mitchell had that peculiar feeling again as he walked home that he was being observed like some demented lab experiment where scientists would scribble down notes as an unaware rodent ran endlessly on a tiny steel wheel. He couldn’t quite place where the eerie notion was coming from, but shifted nervously, glancing over his shoulder the entire trek.

Mitchell shoved open the door to his house and hurried inside, slamming it shut behind him. Under normal circumstances he would be berated by his mother for this and receive a fifteen minute lecture on the proper way to close a door, but she would be out of town on business until the middle of next week, and had fretted for hours on end to make sure that all of the proper provisions (food, toilet paper, a steady supply laundry detergent, ect…) would be met before she left. Also expressing her clear disdain for parties, especially where liquor was involved, a grand multitude of times because she just couldn’t accept that her son wasn’t in the popular clique, thinking that he would have some wild soirée that would wreck the neighborhood in her absence.

She and Mr. Collaro had separated a couple of years prior and he lived on the west coast doing God only knows what these days. Occasionally he’d call up, usually once every month or so to show that he wasn’t the worst father on the planet and inquire as to how his favorite (and only?) son was, then secretly ask his mother for money. Ms. Wright, formally Mrs. Collaro, was some executive in an accounting firm and raked in enough cash to support a comfortable upper-middle class life for the two of them.

Mitchell dropped his book bag by the door and was about to kick off his shoes when he decided that he was feeling rebellious without any authority figure in sight and trampled into the living room, and fell into a plush recliner ready to park himself for a few hours in front of the idiot box.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to take your shoes off before you walk on the carpet?” Came a garbled voice from behind him. Mitchell let out a girlish yelp as he hopped to his feet and spun around.

There stood an older boy; about eighteen perhaps, wearing some loosely fitting, faded blue jeans, and a plain white t-shirt. His feet were bare, obviously noticeable as he rhythmically flexed his toes. He had an unkempt mop of jet-black hair, but more noticeable were his emerald eyes. The intruder seemed to be playing up a beach bum persona on appearance alone. His arms were half-crossed in front of his chest, with his right hand loosely holding a half eaten sandwich that was dripping mayonnaise and Dijon onto the floor..

“What are you doing in my living room!?” Mitchell roared at the stranger, as he cautiously backed toward the phone on the other side of the room.

“Well, I was in the kitchen, but I thought it was a bit pointless to stay there after I finished making my sandwich,” the boy replied with a shrug, theatrically waving his meal, food particles flying wildly.

“No, I mean why are you in my house? Don’t they knock where you’re from?” The young Collaro asked shaking his and flinging up his arms in exasperation. He paused on the way to reach for the phone to call the police.

Damn! That must be it! “I can’t believe my mom hired a baby-sitter!” The boy finally huffed, looking away, seemingly mildly hurt by the supposed act. After all of that talk of him finally being responsible enough to look after himself for a prolonged period of time, and that he was such an intelligent young man, his mother had broke down and hired some college kid to follow him around.

“Yeah, let’s go with that,” the other teenager mumbled barely audibly as he scratched his head and popped his neck.

“What?” Mitchell furrowed his brow in confusion, once again ready to inch toward the phone.

The young man flung the half eaten sandwich over his shoulder where it landed on the floor behind him with a plop! He smiled disarmingly and extended his hand. “We haven’t properly met. Let’s start over. Hello, my name is Cupid.”

The fifteen-year-old eye balled the hand wearily before putting his forth as well. He didn’t like the fact that his mother employed someone to watch him like a child, but there was no point on taking it out on this guy. He was probably some guy who needed to make a couple bucks to put himself through a university. It’d be a bit immature for Mitchell to make his life difficult out of spite. “Like the angel?” He asked. It was an odd name after all.

Of course, he knew that parents from the hippie era named their children all kinds of stupid crap nowadays, especially out West, where his father lived.

“You could say that I am the angel,” he chuckled with a sly wink and exaggerated shrug. Sure Mitchell was a bit small for his age, but how old did this chap think he was, to expect him to believe such an outrageous statement. Had his mother misled this weirdo about his age? Or was the young man just entertaining himself at his awkward company’s expense? He played it off as though he took it as a joke and gave a polite snicker.

“What, you don’t believe me?” ‘Cupid’ struck up a mockingly sour expression.

“Believe it or not: no, not really,” the boy rolled his eyes. This guy was a bit goofy, wonky even. He hated to admit it, but the baby-sitter was kind of funny in his own right, and he was starting to like him. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be tailed around for while as long as nobody caught wind that he was being watched like a child.

“What could I do to have you believe me?” He asked, a knowing grin plastered across his face.

Was this guy for real? He couldn’t be serious. Maybe he was just a bit crazy? Whatever the case, the freshman ran with the yarn. Not totally realizing that he was being a bit flirtatious with another boy. It came oddly natural to him. After all, he wasn’t good with girls (or even comfortable in their presence), or really anybody in a social situation, generally being the shy guy who kept to himself. “Let’s see your wings then.”

“All right, but it takes forever to fold them under a shirt to get them hidden just right so I’m only going to do this once and then you gotta’ help me shove ‘em back, ‘kay? Stand back now,” he chuckled as he ripped the baggy garment up and off the top of his head.

Mitchell’s jaw dropped so fast and far, he thought he would have to catch it before it rolled under some furniture. Standing before him, in bronze glory was the lean, tone, baby-sitter…with an eight-foot span of feathery white wings.