I saw a beast coming up out of the sea,
having ten horns and seven heads,
and on his horns were ten diadems,
and on his heads were blasphemous names.

The Book of Revelation 13:1

Dinner turns out to be a pretty poor affair, in my humble opinion. Lately, my mother is on this strange healthy organic anti-GMO kick. So long gone are the Salami-Mac-n-Cheese easy peasy dinners of my childhood of yore. Instead, we are forced to feast on a lovely tossed green salad with a light vinaigrette dressing, a skinny skinless chicken breast, and some super cute baby corn cobs. 

To be honest, this so-called "good for you food", only makes me crave for the greasy goodness of taco trucks. Preferably in a very dangerous barrio in the city, where they really know their stuff. Maybe I will shadow walk out a little later and go get some Muerto's Death Taco's before they close for the night? In this life, my secret foodie addiction is hands down spicey Mexican street food. Like if they had Muetros Tacos back in the Alamo, there probably would have been no need for that particular fight with the French.

My mother fills up the dinner conversation by killing off time asking all about our respective days. My sister has a couple of harrowing tales from her afternoon misspent at the community pool with the sycophantic socialite idiots that pass as her poor excuse for her friends. I think primarily my sister likes to go to the pool to compare and contrast the various boys who hang there trying to be cool.

My turn? So I totally saved a suicide chick from killing herself off the top of the football bleachers of some school I've never been to before. And not even a thank you for my kindly efforts? I mean seriously I just gave her, her whole life back...and nothing?

"Samo samo." I shrug. "Did some stuff around the garage trying to clean out the last of deadbeats junk." Dumping my deadbeat dads' detritus, so none of us have to deal with that particularly poor excuse for a person for a while.

I see my mother's eyes blanch back at me. Yet another reminder of the failed marriage, that has left her bereft with brats. Regulated to be a hard-working single mother of two surly spawns, who keep eating her out of the house and home. Who keep saying stupid stuff like "Yeah what?" When what she really needs to hear is "Yes Mommy, we love you. And we appreciate all the things you have to do for us...even though we don't deserve any of it. When it would just be way easier to smoke a joint and go back to not giving a shit. But instead, you buck up and muster thru every day to show us the right way. Because you lead by example and are not the proverbial "do what I say, not what I do" parent like the rest of the losers we know."  Sad to say, but in the current crowd of kids, that ringing endorsement will probably be a long time coming. 

"So on that note, I have some news I need to share with you both." She folds the napkin just so, a sure sign that we need to pay some modicum of attention to what is coming next. "Now that I finally finished my nursing residency at St. Mary's, I am eligible to apply for better-paying jobs."

"Awesomesauce mommy, way to go girl." My sister drones halfheartedly, barely looking up from her cell phone and constant companion. 

"Actually it is awesome, Ame." My mother smiles almost sadly, and it's that almost sadly shift that alerts me to the next foot falling. 

"But there's an issue that I need to talk to you two about." She settles into her firm but fair mom face. "Some of the better paying jobs might mean that we may have to move? Maybe even all the way upstate?"

"Say what now?" Now she has my sisters full and undivided attention. Moving away would mean separating the Antichrist from her embedded sororal social circle of sycophants, that constantly follow her around kissing her ass. Not to mention her recent interest in some of the local losers, who pass for boys her age.

"For instance, there is an open position I've already applied for in up Winchester Heights. It pays almost twice what I make now, for about two thirds the hours. So I can be home more at night with you two." She brightens noticeably up at the thought of spending even more time with us. 

Before my sinister sister can say something seriously selfish, about how this is totally going to screw up her so-called life, I cut in to remind her what really matters most here.

"You don't have to worry about us mom, we know the score. So just do whatever it is you think you think is best, and well adjust to the rest. Just like we always do." I reassure her that relocating is not going to be an issue.

Because if it was an issue for me, I can always use the Chronos to trance her into forgetting about it and going a different direction. Like the time a couple of years ago, when times were tight and she was going to move us all to her sister's house in Connecticut. So seeing that I can't really leave my assigned realm for longer than a fortnight without direct orders from above? Yeah, that was gonna be a big problem for me. So we had a little late night talking time, and a few magic words to her sleeping soul later, and Connecticut was discarded back to nothing but a passing fancy. 

"Thank you both for understanding me on this. I know these last couple of years haven't been easy on either of you ...or any of us." She blows her home cut bangs out of her eyes, or to dry her eyes. "I just want us to get to a good place going forward. Hopefully, where a check from your father doesn't mean the difference in when which bills get paid? Or what kind of food we can afford to put on the table? Then whatever money he does decide to send, we can use to start putting aside for your college funds."

"Or a new car?" My sister counters evenly.

"A good education will take you a whole lot further than a car can, Amethyst." My mother sighs sadly.

Yeah, say whatever you want about the benefits of higher education, but Barbie needs that new dream car dammit! ...or freaking else!

"I was talking about a new car for you, not for me, mommy." My normally selfish sister uncharacteristically counters. "Cause our current piece of crap car is not going to make to the other side of the city, let alone across the state."

"Oh, right. Sorry Ame, I took that wrong." My mother sighs. "And please don't call the car, or anything else a piece of crap."

"No worries." Amethyst rises up and takes her dish to the sink for someone else to do. Then suddenly in a surprisingly very un-Amethyst move, she gives me mother an almost heartfelt hug from behind. Going even so far as to whisper something in her ear that almost sounds encouraging.

"Just do what you need to do to be cool, we'll be okay with whatever is clever." Then her catty eyes flack towards me and narrow into mean slits. "But if we do have to move? Then I'll be chill, just so long as I don't have to share a bathroom with that piece of crap, who keeps insisting he's my brother." And the real Amethyst is back on the attack.

With that death threat delivered my sister is gone, but not forgotten. Probably back to her overly girlie getaway she calls a room. To do whatever the hell it is she does, when she is not doing her best to make my life a living nightmare.

"Well, that certainly went over a lot better than I thought it would." My mother forces a wan smile over at me.

"We're not ten anymore, we know the score." I shrug picking up her plate and mine. "After a couple of seriously crappy Christmases, no thanks to you know who. We get it now."

"Yeah, nothing says hate the holidays quite like the traditional Denny's family under five dollars feast with the deadbeat we used to call dad." I snort in retort. "On the upside, at least no one in this house will ever say screw you and your stupid rules crazy lady! I am going to live with abusive asshole drunk druggie daddy, ride ponies and eat ice cream whenever I want. Well, in between beatings and benders anyways."

"Dammit, Todd! What did I tell you about saying that kind of stuff where Ame can hear?" She snaps back in a weird whisper that can be heard half a mile away.

"What? The language thing again?" I shake her off topic. "Or we're we gonna go with the old 'he's still your father, so show some respect' thing? Cause there for a second I thought we were still on that whole the truth is the truth trip. So let's be real with reality?"

She eyes me cold, and I can see that she wants to say some parenting stuff that will sound right, but will be wrong. Thing is, we've been thru too much to get to where we are, without losing a bit of the old child-parent authority dynamic. Not that I actually missed the younger more smotherly version of her at all. But truth be told, the no-nonsense very realistic version is a lot easier to talk to lately. Even if there aren't any fresh baked chocolate chip cookies after school anymore.  

"Sorry, mom." I back away from the unnecessary pain I am causing her. "I guess what I should have said instead was, I love you and thank you for everything you're doing for us? And no sacrifice you might ask of us, in this difficult transition time, will be too much for us to bear. Like Ame said, just do what you need to do we'll be cool."

"Sadly, I think I liked the first version better. At least the first thing you said had a ring of truth to it." She gives me a sad smile and then recants.  "Oh screw it, the truth is the truth. And yes, sorry to say, but we did have a couple of really crappy Christmases. But so help me, we can and will be better."

"Can't hardly disagree with that thought." I nod along with her wishful thinking. "But like I said, we're not ten anymore. There's a lot more to life than the toys that you collect along the way. And Amethyst going to a good school is clearly crucial to that college thing you seem to think so highly off. So if we have to leave our ancestral hovel for a better tomorrow? I say we go out big and with our best cloven foot forward." 

"Remind me again, when did you grow up and get so wise?" She side eyes me slyly.

Oh, right around the time I took my first life on the battlements of Heaven's Gate fighting off Lord Lucifer's Legions and the Hordes of Hell. You know some of that old dawn of time stuff, I have rocking around in my head, like bad PSTD flashbacks to Nam, or Falluja? Pretty sure I was in both of those places during my last past couple of lives. Although, those desert dreams could also be left over from Troy? Holy Hell, what a heroic time to war in. Troy was really something to see, before the Greeks burned it to the ground.

"What can I say? Must be this new healthy anti-GMO no fast food diet you have us on now?" I muse for her amusement. "I guess it really was all those chemicals that were making us crazy after all. Huh, who knew?"

"Dinner wasn't that bad." She sighs.

"No, but it wasn't pizza either?" I smirk back. "What can I say pizza is like the fifth food group? And I am a growing teenage boy in desperate need of some good grease from my growing bone joints or something."

"Maybe we can pizza party on Sunday, when the weekly coupons come?" She rolls her eyes.

"Okay, well good talk, but it's almost time for you to go to work now. And time for me to take up my forlorn nightly watch over She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"She's not that bad." Even as she says this, my mother knows that this is not a true statement by any means. "Ame is just having a tough time being a teenage girl right now. She'll snap out of it eventually, you'll see."

Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Rosemary. But none the less, I'll watch the baby. That sarcastic spawn of Satan that is my so-called sister.

"You're right, she has been a lot better lately." I snort in derision "Which raises the issue of why? What does she want? What is she planning? I mean other than to take over the world and behead all brothers and others?"

"Well maybe...and just here me out here?" My mother the eternal optimist starts lying through her teeth. "Maybe if you were a little nicer to her, she might let you live thru the Amazonian revolution? Who knows, she might even keep you as a pet in her new throne room? I know it might sound crazy, but give it a try. Smile a little more, maybe even throw a compliment or two her direction. You never know what kind of karma awaits your fate?"

"Oh, trust me, I know exactly where my head will roll, after she marches me off to the girl power gallows." I snort in retort. "Yeah, nothing says 'if I was queen for a day', quite like a big bright bloody pink Hello Kitty guillotine." 

"Viva la revolution." She waves a faux fist in support of the upcoming Amazonian overthrow. 

"Viva la revolution." I grudgingly agree. Trust me, I lived thru Lord Lucifers revolution, and these things never turn out well for the little people.

One of the things I have always liked about my mother is that she is an eternal optimist, who sometimes has a wicked sharp sense of humor. That and we both share a deep love of classic 80's teen movies. Of course, she has no idea I grew up with them at the same time, in my second to last life. Before I died that time, I really did enjoy the crap out of the crazy 80's. Growing up in the late seventies not so much, seeing I was a young child at the time.

Now three lives ago in the turbulent 60's was actually pretty awesome, if you ask me. However, I do remember thinking the moon landing was not a good omen for some strange reason? Something about breaking the celestial barrier and the whole mundo harmonics getting out of whack? But that's way above my current pay grade, so someone else's problem, and not mine. No, my immediate problem is dealing with the super special psycho teenage girl thing that I currently am forced to share a bathroom with. 

Word Count: 8773