Anarchist Knight:Apprentice: November 2006

He dreaded the coming of Christmas because it marked his return to school. That was his truth. The weeks passed with several trips to the doctor and still he was not allowed to see his face or remove the bandages on his own. There seemed to be some problem with the healing process although he was told there was nothing to worry about.

It didn't seem right and he worried about it. He took long walks in the bitter cold to get his mind off things. His uncle's estate was just a few clicks north of New Rome. New Rome was a city-state in what had once been central Minnesota. It was an area with many lakes and lots of privacy. The privacy came with a big price tag. Again Tobal wondered at the source of his uncle's obvious wealth.

This time of year the lake was frozen over and he took long walks on the snow and ice. Bundling up against the bitter cold wind helped him forget his face was covered with bandages. Feeling the painful cold in his fingers helped him forget the painful lacerations on his face. With his uncle gone most of the time he was pretty much left to his own devices and he liked being outdoors.

There was something fresh and clean about being alone and outdoors that gave him comfort. The ice and snow crunched loudly under his boots and the sun glared brightly. Today there were sun dogs on either side of the sun with a rainbow arch partly visible. His breath came out in clouds and burned a bit in his lungs. He turned off the lake and headed toward the stables. He had been spending a lot of time there lately and liked working with the horses. They were better company than his old friends were and they didn’t care about how he looked.

As Tobal moved away from human contact he turned more and more to the silent companionship of animals and nature. If his uncle noticed he never said anything and neither did any of the staff.

By Christmas Eve he was fretting and fingering the bandages on his face, itching to tear them off. He’d been instructed to leave them on one final week and today was the day they came off. With trembling fingers he went into the bathroom, found surgical scissors and began cutting the layers of gauze away from his face. He was tired of looking like a mummy. The gauze wanted to stick to his skin and he felt pain as he gently tugged at it, lifting the last of it carefully off his right eye. The bright bathroom light stabbed into his eye and sharp blinding pain flashed through his head.

He closed his eyes against the pain and waited until it faded away. His fingers touched the newly healed skin and he carefully opened his eyes and looked into the mirror.

"No", he screamed in horror!

Four angry scars ran diagonally across his face. They were about an eighth of an inch wide. One reached from his right temple to cross his right eye, slashing across his nose and touching the corner of his mouth moving down along his jaw. That was the worst. That was the one that had almost taken his right eye out. There was a smaller one above that started at his forehead and swept across to the left eyebrow. There were two smaller ones across his cheek and along his jaw starting at the right cheekbone. They looked swollen, angry and discolored around the scar tissue that was forming.

Tobal stared in horror at the face he would be carrying for the rest of his life. With a curse his fist smashed into the mirror. As it shattered into pieces he screamed and clutched his bleeding fist, sobbing as blood flowed down his wrist into the sink and onto the floor.

"No! Goddess No!" he sobbed.

Blood spattered and covered shards of broken mirror erased his image as he slumped toward the floor holding his ruined face. His life would never be the same.

Tobal took it hard. He refused to go back to school and went from being an out going, fun loving kid to a loner. He didn't want to see any of his old friends or do any of the things he used to do. He continued spending time alone on the grounds of his uncle's estate either trekking across the frozen wasteland of the lake or riding his horse through the eerie quiet of the pine forest. He was numb inside and it was the harsh bitter cold that broke through his isolation and made him feel things, even if it was only physical discomfort. Somehow it felt good to feel something, even if it was just the cold. As the days passed the quiet solitude seared his soul with an agony that let him know he was still alive.

He kept to himself, even when indoors. The few friends that came to visit were turned away until even they stopped coming. There were no more cards or invitations. One day his uncle brought up the subject of his going back to school.

"I'm not going back to school", he shouted in anger at his uncle.

Uncle Henry tried pleading with him, drawing him out, doing things with him, but nothing could break through the wall that Tobal had placed around himself. He was locked in his own hell of suffering and self-pity.

His face had healed as well as it was going to. He had just come back from a consultation with his doctor. Plastic surgery might make the scar tissue smaller and less noticeable but his skin would always show the scars. Plastic surgery had been his final hope and he felt himself falling even deeper into a black hole of despair and apathy.

It was late New Year's afternoon when his uncle Harry knocked on the bedroom door asking to come in. Tobal grudgingly stood aside and let him into the room. Uncle Harry wheeled his old fashioned wheelchair slowly into the room balancing a highly polished and elegantly crafted oak box on his lap. It was the size of a small jewelry box with ornate carving on the sides and top.

With a start Tobal recognized the deeply engraved symbol on the top of the box. It was a carving of a man and woman standing side by side and holding hands. Surrounding the nude figures was a deeply engraved circle. The entire image was about three inches across and carved out of highly polished white oak.

Uncle Harry laid the box gently down on the bed and wheeled his chair back making room for Tobal. He was looking at Tobal thoughtfully. There were conflicting emotions in his eyes. Dark shadows that Tobal didn't remember seeing before showed beneath them and he felt a sudden chill. This was not the uncle that he was familiar with. This was not the uncle that he had known his entire life.

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# posted by anarchistbanjo @ 1:59 PM 0 comments

"Well, it's the bandages, that's why you can't see," his uncle continued, "there was something on her fingernails, to strengthen them or something and they peeled away some of your skin. We don't know why but it's raising hell with the healing process. The doc tried pulling the skin back together and sewing you up but there will be some scarring. It's going to be awhile before you get healed up. Don't worry about it, doc says your eye is going to be fine, but it was a close thing and he doesn't want any infection setting in. You rest now, just lay back and sleep a little more. We'll talk about it later OK?"

Tobal heard someone move near his uncle and felt something tug at his arm as the nurse injected something into the IV tube fastened to his wrist. He felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him and barely heard the creak of his uncle's wheelchair as it left the room.

He awoke to the smell of violets in the room.

"It's about time you woke up," came Fi's cheery voice from the edge of the bed.

He moved his head cautiously and opened his left eye. Fi was sitting in a chair near the hospital window. She set down the magazine she had been reading and moved closer.

"How are you doing," she asked in a concerned tone? "I've really been worried about you."

She reached out and gently touched his arm. He pulled it away. Fi was the last person he wanted to see right now.

"I don't know," he mumbled. "I just woke up."

He looked around the room for the first time. There were flowers and get well cards. The room felt hot and made his skin itch.

"Is my uncle here?" He asked in a more friendly tone and tried to smile but winced instead.

"Oh," her hand involuntarily leapt to her mouth. "Are you alright?" She rose out of the chair and came toward the bed with her arms out to enfold him in a hug.

He roughly pushed her away, feeling a pang in his chest and a burning in his eyes.

"I'm fine," he said bitterly. "I just want to be left alone, ok?"

There was a hurt and wounded look in her eyes and the beginning of tears.

"Can I come back later then?" She pleaded. "I'm really sorry about what happened. I came yesterday but you were in surgery and then sleeping. Maybe I can come over to your Uncle's and we can talk." She smiled bravely.

"Uncle Harry doesn't like visitors." He lied weakly. "Maybe we can get together back at school after Christmas break. How does that sound?"

"Sure, back at school," she said softly and reached for her purse. Tobal didn't see the tears in her eyes or hear the break in her voice as she turned away. "Take care of yourself Tobal."

He watched as she left the room. All he knew was that he wanted to be left alone. It never occurred to him how rude he was being until much later and then it was too late. He never saw Fiona again. He never even said goodbye.

A few hours later Uncle Harry came and took him home to the estate. In the weeks that followed he got cards, letters and emails from his friends and schoolmates, invitations to parties and dances. He threw them all away without bothering to even look at them. It was vain and shallow but he had always depended on his looks. Now he felt afraid and unsure of himself. He didn't know how his friends would react when they saw him. He hadn't seen his own face yet and he was not sure that he wanted to.

Thanksgiving came and went. There was no real celebration in the Kane household unless it was a private celebration held by the staff. His uncle was an embittered cripple and widower confined to a wheelchair. It was only Tobal's injury and depression that prompted his uncle's apparent interest now.

Tobal knew that it would not last. Uncle Harry was his only living relative. His parents were dead and he had no brothers or sisters. There was a time he had felt much closer to his uncle but that was long ago. It seemed Uncle Harry was as preoccupied as Tobal was.

"I don't understand what the Federation wants with a cripple," he snarled at dinner.

Lt. Col. Harry Kane was being re-activated and he was not happy about it. "I need to go away for a few days and see what they want. Can you handle things around here by yourself? Maybe you could have some friends over. How bout that girl friend of yours?"

Tobal squirmed uncomfortably and felt his face flush with heat. "We, ah, broke up," he said lamely.

His uncle snorted in disgust. "Well suit yourself." He turned and wheeled himself out of the room. "I've got to get ready."

Three days later his uncle returned and Tobal hardly recognized him. Overnight his uncle looked ten years older. His shoulders were more stooped and bags had formed under his eyes giving him a haunted look. It didn't take long to realize his uncle was avoiding him. The tension in the house was unbearable.

Other times Tobal tried to deliberately avoid his uncle. As the days passed he never knew if his uncle was in the house or called away on some important military business and he hardly cared. They had never been that close. His only curiosity over the years had been how a simple Federation Officer had managed the nearly impossible feat of enrolling him in Tavistock Educational.

One day he asked his uncle at dinner about it. "It was what your parents would have wanted," was all uncle Harry would say. Tobal never knew if his parents had moved in such high circles or if it was his uncle. It never seemed important before. He didn't know why it seemed so important now. All he knew was he didn't want to go back.