Hemek - One year ago.

I was at the top of my game. Everything is what I dreamed of. A famous actor with movie deals from left to right. No more struggling to get acting gigs. I was doing it big. Made people envious of me. I was the example of what everyone wanted. Good-looking, tall, blonde and handsome. My wife was proud of me being seen on the red carpet. I was the; it-man. Jason Bruce, one of the best and youngest actors to get the World Globe award. That was me. 

But just when I was flying on cloud nine, a jet crashed into me and I fell back down to earth. No, lower than earth. Death. I was granted death. Stage four liver cancer that spread. And within that same month, I was in a wheelchair. My wife left me for another man because she told me I was going to die anyway, no need to stay around when her future husband was out there waiting for her. I was left with my mansion, that I will no longer have after life, adding to my broken dream. 

Anger filled my lungs with hatred. I couldn't let things finish this way, so I turned to dark magic. I met a witch who lived in a small shack outside the city in the deeper part of the woods near a freshwater swamp. She wanted one thing in return: my soul. It changed me when I gave it up. My hair is purple and my skin is paler. I didn’t care because God chose this fate for me. So I took over my life and chose differently. I gave myself a new name. Hemek, what my mother had outside her beach house where she used to read to me. The only person I respect because she bore me in her womb and gave me an implemented life. 

I want more. I want everything and I will get everything. 

“It’s not enough.” I sat down in- Opals chair, crossing my legs. The one who saved me from that irritating wench. 

“I, I, I. Is that all you think of, are you?” 

“Yes, because no one else is more important than me.” 

“Not even me?” Opal turned her nose at me. 

“Women. I gave you my soul. What more do you wish for?” 

“You are arrogant, self centered‌.” She rolled her eyes, sitting at her table with collected animal body parts and jars of some sort of chemicals. 

“Will you help me or not?” I got up with a scuff from her unwanted emotions. This world insists on bringing me down. I can’t stand it. I can’t bear it. Death. It’s a sick joke. To live, to die. Just sick.

“You are a troubled man.” Opal says, lighting flowery pale purple candles. She picks up two jars and mixes pink and yellow liquid together in a clear beaker that is forming a smooth orange smoke from the bottle. She swirls it as she stares at me with a seductive, sinister smile. 

“If I give you what you want, will you give me what I want?” Opal takes the liquid and pours it into a three-ounce bottle. Some of it wastes on her long, shiny black fingernails and sucks it off. “Fruity,” she kissed out a whisper. 

“Is that for me?” I say in subtle desperation. 

“It can be. But at what cost?” 

“I gave you my soul? What more do you want?” 

“Your everlasting afterlife. It is what all humans have to be reborn.” She smiles. 

“That’s too big of a cost.” I walked back and forth on the wood creaking floor, rubbing down my face, thinking. Life after life for rebirth. Another chance to do right, but if you don’t, then you are reborn until you get it right to enter the gates of peace. She wants my- forever. 

“You want power. And I want company, a slave.” Opal spoke honestly. 

One thing about her is she never hides the truth. She doesn’t trick or play mind games. The reason is so when you make the final decision, there are no holes in the agreement for the contract to be breached. It’s a disease with no cure. The cost is to live forever on earth but to be her slave. It doesn't matter when the payment is to live my dream forever. The end game is to live my dream that was taken from me. 

I look at her as she plays with a roman knife of centuries ago. No one knows how long she lived. What a lonely space she’s in. I watch as her hair turns a pale green. Her hair constantly changes color like a mood ring. This means either pleasant or amused. In this case she is amused, playing drums on my emotions. She knows what I want and what I am willing to do. A snake in the grass prying through my ambitions. 

“Decisions, decisions. What will Jason Bruce the famous actor do?”

“I’m not that person anymore until I get what I want.” I veer from her, gazing at the potions that are shelf holders on her bookshelf. I rub across a ruby red one that says passion on the label and a book next to it that says desire. She lived for many years. I wouldn't put it past her setting up the scenery for me to make the last choice. 

“If you continue to use the wand you will have to wait a decade for it to gather energy once more.” She explains

“I know,” I walk away from the bookshelf to a corner to think harder. 

“You only have enough to close the gate.” 

“I know,” I walk to a globe in the middle of the room as I watch the water smoothly pour over it. 

“Your dream is at the tip of your finger.” 

“I know!” I shouted, shuddering the glass around the room and then I looked at myself in a full body french antique mirror. I’ve already changed so much. The person I see in the mirror isn't Jason Bruce. What's the point if I don’t look like me? 

“Only you will see the change, others will see Jason Bruce.” Her voice soothes my ears. She may tell the truth but she does play on the emotions of desires. What people want the most in life. That is how she preys on others. A luring snake. I face her and her hair is yellow.

“Thinking twice about doing your evil deeds on me?” I asked with a smirk. 

“Please.” Opal rolled her eyes. “I simply can’t decide what I want to eat.” she gets up, grabbing the tiny bottle from her desk, walking my way. Her hands smoothly caress from one side of my shoulder to the other and rest her head on my chest playing with the string from my hood. 

“You’re just one yes away from your yearning desires. Why hold back, I’m not that bad to work for.” She innocently blinked at me. Her eyes remind me of my mothers. I snatched from slithering clutches, stunning her as I watched her hair turn amber. Then I pulled her near to make myself perfectly clear.

“You’re playing dirty,” I whispered in her purple lips as I admired her fall into my touch, but I broke away standing in front of a large casement window thinking about you. My mother that I caught that night. And saw something no son should ever see. It was your words before I witnessed horror and from then on I knew what I was supposed to do. 

***

“Jason what are you doing?” My mother strolled to me cleaning her hands on a kitchen towel. She must have just finished the dishes. Even though my family was poor she made sure she kept the small spaces clean. I swung my little toddler legs in the chair holding out my hand with sugar water balancing in my palm. It was a cool spring as I watched the loud red cardinal flowers bloom outside my neighbors trailer home. And beautiful small hummingbirds drinking nectar from it. 

“Mr. Boston said if I keep my hand out they will fly to me and drink the sugar water. But it’s been an hour already.” 

“Is that so?” my mother said, kneeling aside of me and gently pausing my legs. “That's good advice from Mr. Boston, but he forgot to tell you to sit very still and stay very quiet.” my mom smiled. She positioned my arm on the arm of the chair so it won't get tired and stood up slowly backing away from me putting her finger up to her lips. 

I sat very quietly and didn’t move an inch. Until I got a very bad itch at the bridge of my nose but I wanted at least one hummingbird to come to me so I fought it off. It was hard, so hard my flushed out heat and brought a tear in my eye not wanting to give in. I almost gave up. But then I noticed one of the hummingbirds saw me. And it’s like the itch vanishes and I watch it fly my way controlling the inner excitement. And it landed its little naily claws right on the edge of my palm drinking from it. I breathed and it flew off. But I didn’t care. I turned quickly to my mom. 

“Did you see it?” I ran to her with open arms. 

“See, those who work toward their goals with patience, your wishes may come true.” She smiled and laid her warm arms on my shoulder smelling the perfume she was wearing last night while we went inside. 

I knew where those words were coming from. She’s a contemporary dancer and has been declined twenty six times but keeps going. Her goal is to open a studio to teach children. And she did what had to do but I’ll never see her the same. That hot summer night and paying men all wanting to see her. 

Dad works overnight and while he’s gone mom picked up a second job he didn’t know about. She was a waitress but she wasn’t getting the tips she wanted. A woman in desperate need. I hear dad's voice outside my mom’s old school maroon Ford Fiesta with old tires that look close to spare tires and chipping away paint on the hood. I rubbed my eyes awakened by my dad fussing with the bouncer. 

He paid the guy some money and went inside. Dad? I got out of the car walking across the lot as I noticed the bouncer turn his back to yell at other dudes drinking in front of a building with a picture of a lady holding on to a pole. 

I hurried and snuck past the bouncer so he wouldn't see.