Moving on

Chapter 24

Six weeks after that frightful night, Julián knew that Orion was not coming back any time soon. He had left the house with Lýkos without saying where he was going or when he would return. Everything was fully paid in advance and there was even a black credit card with Julián's name written on it.

Seeing one of your wet dreams come true wasn't as exciting as Julián had believed it would be. For him, the money, the house or his studies meant nothing. Finding out from where or who Koiranos might have been in the past was meaningless now.

Knowing the truth wouldn't change his situation. He knew more than he had ever wanted to know and he hated it.

With the passing days, the hatred melted into fear and despair; he started to dream about the future and the dreams became darker and darker.

Walking every day to his lecture became a slow torture with the ever present thought that all the wonderful things he was seeing were doomed.

He couldn't bear the image of a city transformed into a wasteland. Sometimes the future showed itself like a horrid dystopia coming out of Mad Max or a headless 1984 chaos. Other times, it was a Gattaca vision turned into a Brave New World only reserved for the elite children and he wished for the Morlocks to emerge from their underground caves and gobble up all the prissy surviving humans.

The first green buttons on the sycamore trees grew one day and Julián knew it was time to go away.

There was a world out there and he wanted to see his own civilization before it ended. Without thinking it twice, Julián discarded the idea of seeing the rest of the world as he didn't know or understand it.

He only wanted to say good-bye to all what he knew.

Julián packed a few of his clothes in a handbag, bought an online cheap airline ticket to Rome and left the house, just like he had done so many years ago.

This time, the only difference was that Mrs. Potter was gracious enough as to say good-bye, promise him she would take care of the house, bit her lips annoyed that the poor boy had such an uncaring father, and wrap for him a large cold turkey sandwich for the trip.

The black credit card was left abandoned along with Orion's papers.

Julián ate the sandwich on the plane as he read his Italy's tourist guide. He booked a shared room in a hostel near Cola di Rienzo because the decadent ruin of a building it was, had taken his fancy. His funds were large enough as to pay for a room in a good place, but Julián wanted to meet as many people as he could and a hostel full of students, also embarked on their first discovery trip.

On his first night out, he went out to have burgers with some American Art-students from his hostel and ended up kissing a boy a few years younger than him against the Vatican's walls.

As the memory of Orion's words overpowered him, Julián ended the kissing abruptly and went back to his hostel, determined to keep his dealings with the humans to a nice talk and enquire about their lives and countries of origin.

He began to roam the city every day, watching the people and writing about them; describing their daily occupations or what he thought was being said. Every night, Julián would meet other people and talk to them, mostly listening to their shallow conversations or their future plans when they would be back in their lands.

People surrounded Julián, but he was more alone than ever.

A month passed and he decided to head south as the days grew warmer and warmer. As the small notes he had first written into cafés' napkins turned into several folders, Julián bought a small laptop. He began to write there and to update his old Facebook account, hoping his brother would see it and perhaps it would mend their relationship.

Julián only saw that his brother's account was full of deleted comments, especially after the birth of his baby girl, Esperanza.

There was nothing written about Paula and Julián worried. Most probably, his idiot of a brother had quarrelled with the mother of his child.

Carlos was as lonely as he; all his friends had deserted him after his marriage to a “non European” lady. Only his mother or her boyfriend wrote something nice about the baby now and then.

Those small brown sleepy eyes stormed Julián's heart the second he saw the baby's photo.

Normally, babies were red, screaming little things that never took Julian's interest, but his niece was something different. He wanted to come closer to her, but he didn't dare to ask. After all, he had behaved like a total jerk with his Carlos.

In Naples Julián bought some baby clothes, in a bigger size than the four months old his niece was in via Monteleone, and sent them with a small congratulations card to Orion's estate in Murcia. He didn't know what else to do to come closer to his brother. He feared Carlos was still sore about his words towards his now sister in law.

After giving a long thought to the matter under the sun of Capri, Julián decided to write to Orion and send the letter to the law buffet that took care of all his businesses.

Dear Orion,

I've decided to travel around Europe. I will not leave the continent, but I'll be travelling around. I still don't know where I will be headed next but I don't want to miss all what is to be seen.

I have given up all hopes to change what is to come. At least, I want to keep the memories of how it was.

Below you can find my Facebook address and my phone number if you need to contact me or if Lýkos feels like writing.

With respect and love,

Julián

He didn't know what else to write. After all, the letter could be read by the lawyers and he was officially Orion's adopted son with full access to all of his wealth. In an impulse, he added some dry orange and lemon flowers picked in the fragrant gardens of Capri.

'Probably Lýkos can write. Don't know how, but I'm sure he can.' Thought Julián when he reread the letter for the fifth time, the doubts assaulting him once more. Was it a good idea to try to mend his relationship with Orion too? After all, the man (?) behaved like a total jerk with him; a ten thousand year-old despot who thought that beating or bewitching him as the world collapsed was the noblest thing to do.

Yet he yearned for “his red haired giant”.

He began to blame himself for Orion's “explosion”; after all it was his fault he had misread the signs that indicated that his lover was losing his patience with him; he had pulled his strings too much with his constant despise, mean comments or taunts when his words -although misleading- or actions had been true.

His self-imposed loneliness -as he didn't dare or want to come closer to other people- forced him to reflect upon his new life. He became taciturn and more aloof than before as the many paths for his future unravelled in front of his eyes.

In all of them, Orion was present and Julián began to like the idea. He had loved the man when he was only an eccentric rich-man and after all what he had been through, Orion, the seer had remained unchangeable.

Orion and Lýkos had accepted him as he were, never asking questions and giving him a rare gift. 'If they would have told me what it was, I would have never accepted it.'

Julián missed the Seer and the Warrior with all his body and soul. He felt incomplete as his eyes wandered through the stained glass windows of the cathedrals and churches he visited. He saw Lýkos in the form of every black dog that crossed his way. He dreamed about Orion every night when the distinction between the realms became blurred and the living and the dead ones mixed in the future or the past.

Only silence was Julián's answer; no word came from his other two better-halfs and it drove Julián mad wit a mix of concern and longing.

Thousands of questions boiled inside his mind; Were they all right? Did they hate him? Did they finally shunned him out? Would he see them again and his dreams were nothing but a falsehood?

* * *

@CarlosStorm88 to @Juliansan91 Hello you. Thanks for clothes.

Julián blinked several times as he reread the message on his mobile phone not once but five times. After almost three months of no news form his brother, Carlos had decided to message him? That was unheard. Years ago, he would have thought that the apocalypse was just around the corner if his brother spoke to him, but saying thanks? Then Armageddon was scheduled for tomorrow at nine.

@Juliansan91 Hi. Glad they fit, he wrote testing the brotherly waters.

@Juliánsan91 How's the baby? He added a few seconds latter.

@CarlosStorm88 Very well. Growing very fast.

Julián read the SMS and pondered if Carlos was in trouble again. Hopefully nothing to do with Paula or his crazy Nazi-pals ranting over a “brown baby”.

@CarlosStorm88 You travel a lot lately. All the good places in Europe. Were you really at Aachen's Cathedral?

'What the fuck? It's not the time to discuss Charlemagne,' frowned Julián.

@Juliansan91 Yes, I saw the throne and all, but I liked more Trier and the Porta Nigra. He wrote diplomatically.

@CarlosStorm88 Are you alone? No Koiranos?

@Juliansan91 No, the boss is away. I'm travelling on my own.

@CarlosStorm88 Good. Can you come to Spain?

'What the hell? Is he nuts? Yes, he is.'

@Juliansan91 What for?

@CarlosStorm88 For Esperanza's baptism. It's in three weeks.

@Juliansan91 Where?

@CarlosStorm88 In a small church in Cádiz. I need a godfather. You.

@CarlosStorm88 If you want, that is.

Julián was shocked.

@Juliansan91 Me? Did you ask Paula? We didn't part ways on best terms.

@CarlosStorm88 She's dead.

Julián had to sit and take a deep breath at the small letters on his screen but before he could type anything, an avalanche of messages flooded the screen.

@CarlosStorm88 She had pre-eclampsia and didn't know till it was too late. She didn't want to go to the doctor. Her family supported her.

@CarlosStorm88 High blood pressure killed her and almost the baby.

@Juliansan91 I'm so sorry. Didn't know. How are you?

@CarlosStorm88 Much better. Holding up.

@CarlosStorm88 Will you be the godfather? Mom can't come.

@Juliansan91 Yes, of course. Thank you a lot.

@Juliansan91 Are you still working?

@CarlosStorm88 Your boyfriend is nuts but pays well.

@CarlosStorm88 Is he your boyfriend still?

'Wish I'd knew'.

@Juliansan91 We are taking some time off, he wrote.

@CarlosStorm88 Koiranos kicked you out?

'Not in the strict sense of the term. He left several millions, properties and a complete set of kiss-ass lawyers to look after me.

@Juliansan91 He's gone to the north of Europe on business. Don't know when he'll be back.

@CarlosStorm88 Weird.

'You have no idea how weird my life is.'

@Juliansan91 I'm in Oxford.

@CarlosStorm88 Wow. That's awesome but you were always clever.

'A compliment? What on earth did Orion do to Carlos?

@Juliansan91 Thank you. E-mail me address and I'll go to visit you.

Once more, alone in his small hotel room in Heidelberg, Julián's finger danced across the screen to reread the conversation with his brother.

He was supposed to be back in Spain in two weeks time and become his niece's godfather. It was hard to believe that Carlos had chosen him but after knowing Carlos so called friends, hating immigrants -those from Ecuador with a little less vengeance than those from Africa or Morocco- Julián was not surprised that they had turned their backs on his brother.

'God riddance.'

'Hope they rot in...' he didn't dare to finish the sentence. Julián had enough of curses with disastrous results. Orion hated when he did it and he suspected somehow Orion would know he had “returned” to his old ways.

'I hope they feel the urge to move to a third world country and help non-white people.'

“Call it poetic justice, Orion. Julián mumbled as his gaze fixed itself upon the round red plastic clock on the wall wondering if he should go by train or take a plane.

Train was better. Past night's nightmare of a plane crashing because of a pilot's brain becoming a jelly mass in the middle of the flight was still too fresh in his mind and co-pilots were never truly helpful in such a situation.

* * *

Winter was a good season to visit Cádiz. Although Carlos and Paula had been sent to an estate in Murcia, the endless fields of olive trees were too much for the young man's patience. Carlos asked if they could get a job in the luxury hotel near Cádiz he had heard belonged to Orion also.

The white beaches were beautiful and the young couple settled down very happily. Carlos, having finally found his dream job as electrician, dropped all about his political ideas and only minded about keeping up with his monthly payments to the IKEA.

He was literally touching the sky with the hands when he heard that he was going to have a daughter and couldn't understand why his friends were so against it.

'Jaundiced bunch of losers, that's what they are,' he thought -and subsequently wrote- I have a job, a beautiful wife and a baby on the way.

After that, Carlos changed his phone number as per the police department's suggestion; the police could do very little against death threats but these kind of internet-“supremacists” didn't keep for long with their harassment; it was to be expected that his “former acquitances” would react so aggressively to his new lifestyle but he shouldn't be concerned about it.

Still considering that police officers, no matter how nice and understanding they might sound, were totally nuts for believing he was one of those Nazis, Carlos obeyed them and asked his mother in law to move in with them to help Paula with the pregnancy.

For some reason he couldn't grasp, his mother in law hated him at first sight and contradicted everything he said.

If he would say, let's go to the doctor, she would say no; that the Spanish Health System was collapsed. If he would offer to pay for a private health insurance, she would say they were poor and in need of every penny for the baby.

Needless to say, Paula went to the first controls but from the sixth month onwards, she missed them all and Carlos became intimidated by what was referred as “women stuff”. He had no idea at all of how family life should be. For all what he knew, Julián had been the only baby he had seen in his life and he didn't remember much of his early years.

Alone with a five days old baby girl in his arms, Carlos was clueless. His mother in law demanded to have the baby and take her to Ecuador but Carlos refused and stayed firm on his idea of rising his daughter alone. The next day, he asked Paula's mother to leave the flat.

Half a year later, Carlos decided it was about time to return to the land of the living. He still had his job at the hotel and had found a day care centre for his daughter. The grief over his girlfriend's death gave him pause; as if he would carry the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

A week after his message exchange with his brother, Julián knocked on his door, only carrying a simple backpack with him.

“Where's the wolf?” Carlos greeted him as he held the door of his mini flat open and with the other his daughter.

“Nappies are too much for him.” Julián answered with a smirk as he noisily dropped the luggage and extended his arms to get the baby girl. “May I?”

“Are your hands clean?”

“More than yours. I wasn't changing anything.”

“No, you were running after a monster size puppy with a doggie pick-up bag.” Carlos chortled for the first time in a long time.

“Careful with the princess, she's tricky sometimes,” he advised but Julián didn't hear him, so engulfed as he was in the contemplation of his niece.

Nothing had ever felt so wonderful as that giggling baby touching his face. Her large and shinning brown eyes locked with his blue ones and Julián watched her in awe; he would have sworn she was glowing in the narrow corridor.

“Are you really serious about letting me be her godfather?” Julián asked.

“You ain't gonna get a baby on your own. Take this one.” Carlos moved away to let his brother enter in the room as he picked up the forgotten backpack.

“For once, your father had a very good idea,” Julián softly talked to Esperanza with a big smile written on his face. “Somebody has to take good care that you don't fall head down from the changing table like your papa did.” For Julián, Carlos' taunts didn't matter any more. It was nothing more than a summer storm.

“Speaking about fathers, do I get a new one too?” Carlos blurted out as he slammed the door behind him.

“No, you were not included in the package.” Julián replied distractedly as he caressed the baby's silky hair.

“Does Esperanza become his...” Carlos frowned, thinking hard about the degrees of consanguinity. “Grand-niece?”

Julián had never thought about it. “I don't know. Maybe. If I get his money, then she will get mine at some point.” he answered doubtfully. 'Not that this will ever happen.'

“Wow,” Carlos whistled softly. “Is it not weird? I mean, you're... horizontal with your... step-father? Couldn't you marry or something like this? No one cares shit nowadays.”

“I don't call him dad in bed, if that eases your fears a bit,” Julián sighed tiredly. Orion fixed his attitude but not his brain. The man can't work miracles.

“I guess Orion didn't want to split in half his fortune if we divorced,” Julián smirked. “This way, he can cut me out of his will. Roman patricians were doing something like this.”

Lord, five lies in four minutes. Mom didn't ask so much. She was happy with the money.

“That makes sense... In a twisted way.” Carlos frowned again. “Can't you... get a normal boyfriend? I've given up to the idea you get a girlfriend.”

“I came all the way from Germany to be your daughter's godfather. Do we really need to go through all this?”

“No, no.” Carlos rose his hands defensively. “At least, that explains why nobody cried at the hotel when I said I needed another monthly leave. Don't get it to your head, Julián. You might be the boss' new “son” but I'm not taking orders from you.”

“I won't waste my time trying to get you to understand a simple order.” Julián smirked.

“Loser.”

“Asshole.”

“Little prick.” Carlos chortled amused at their old exchange, this time without any ill thoughts between them.

“I really missed you all these months, old prick” Julián admitted. It was good to be back in the land of the living, if only for a short time. Orion would have never taunted him like Carlos did or even speak his language.

“Me too and don't use such language in front of her.”

The baby started to vigorously wriggle in Julián's arms and he looked at her amazed at her strength.

“It's time for her bottle,” Carlos shrugged. “You can start practising your godfathering skills by giving her one. It's easy. I'll show you.”