Titan by Joshua Debenedetto Page B

only two hours west of here!” she proclaimed with immense excitement.
    Their father slapped his fork down onto his plate.  “I will not have slang in my house, and certainly not at the breakfast table,” he declared angrily, “those who read minds are called Prometheus, those who are strong a re called Titans, and what do we call those who are quick?”
    “Sorry father, we call them Hermes.  Can we go see him?  Can we, please?” she implored.  Her dream has always been to see a Hermes in action, ever since she began running as a small child.  Among normal humans she was a cross-country star, but Hermes are in a class all their own.
    “No we most certainly cannot,” their father responded with finality, “he is not a circus animal, but an individual with a great gift.  When he graduates from the Academy and is assigned as a hero, we can watch him on the news, should he be assigned to our region.  At that point he will be a hero worthy of our admiration, but for now he is merely a young boy with a big future ahead of him.”
    Elise turned back to her food, face turning a deep, dark red from the mixture of anger and forced restraint.  Mark was certain she would bubble over one of these days, and he waited to see if the smashing of her dream would be enough to put her over the edge.  He could almost see the debate raging in her mind, but as her eyes softened and the red began to fade, Mark could see that even this would not be enough.  She finished her food in silence, then took her empty plate to the sink, rinsed it off, and left to finish preparing for school.
    Mark took a deep breath, and prepared to approach the subject of his muscle pains.  He hated to bring up new or unusual subjects with his father, because his father was never receptive to them.  Their home was run by a strict, calculated schedule, and anything that could cause that schedule to veer off from the normal trajectory is loathsome to him.  Still, the pain was not going away, so he would have to bring it up.
    “Father?” Mark began, waiting to make sure he was not interrupting a train of thought or a mental schedule review, or whatever went on inside his father’s head.
    “Yes, Mark?”  He replied , laying down his fork and placing his hands on his lap.  He believed it was rude to talk while eating, or to eat while talking.
    “I have been having some odd muscle pains the past few days,” Mark stated.  His father looked back at him, unflinching, his “listening” position in full effect.  Mark knew what this meant – his father was waiting for him to get to the point.  Despite his belief that he had already stated the important point, he continued.  “It has gotten worse each of the past few mornings, and is now pretty severe.  I was thinking, maybe, I should see a doctor.”
    “Which muscles?” his father shot out.  Mark could see that his father had transitioned from listening mode to intelligence gathering mode.  He hurried to keep up with the questions.
    “All of them.”
    “The human body cannot feel all its muscles.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    “Does your heart hurt?”
    “No, my heart feels fine.”
    “Your heart is a muscle.”
    “Alright, then most of my muscles hurt.”
    “When did it start?”
    “Sunday morning.”
    “What did you do Saturday?”
    “Nothing out of the ordinary, finished my homework, did my chores, went out with some friends…”
    “What did you do with your friends?”
    “We played cards.”
    His father paused.  Intelligence gathering had ended, and next would come the verdict.  “You do not look sick, and it is clear that you can still function.  Go to school, and if it progresses over the next two days, we will see a doctor Saturday morning.”
    Mark supposed he could push through a few more days.
     
    Mark was fairly successful in keeping the muscle fatigue out of his mind throughout the day, but he still heard the final bell ring with relief, wanting desperately