Routine (part 3)

Maximilian Culbern is still the same quirky, idiosyncratic individual he was when the story ended last. Let's see what he does with this shaking, sobbing girl....



“Where are your parents?” Maximilian tried, hoping, without too much assurance, that perhaps the distraction of the biscotti would be enough to let her little mind focus on the true problem. She was where she didn’t belong, his house, away from where she did belong, with her parents.
That and, if he didn’t get her out soon, he was bound to end up misinterpreted on the news as one of those perverted men that kidnapped little girls, all for trying to do something nice. Not that Maximilian watched the news. It was a terrible program full of cynicism and despair, and, while usually true, he didn’t need any more of that in his life. He could never be sure what order the stories would come in, and sometimes the sections got all mixed up depending on the available stories. No, it was too unpredictable. But other people watched the news, and he didn’t want his neighbors getting any other ideas. They already judged him; he could practically feel their stares through the walls. They were nothing, of course, but their whispers could get around to the postal worker, or the grocery man. He needed them and would not be compromised by the whimpering of one little girl.
No answer rescued him from his plight.
“Where did you run from?” he tried. Silence.
“Are you hurt?” This elicited a series of short quick shakes of the head, flinging several tears haphazardly around the room, but no more. The little girl returned her gaze, steadily, to the bear in the corner.
Maximilian knew what he had to do. It was a conclusion that he had reached a long time ago but had been trying to avoid. Apparently unsuccessfully.
Bending in close, his face with wrinkles slowly working themselves into his yet malleable skin coming close to hers, he asked one more question. “What your name?”
She mumbled something, but it was as unintelligible to him as his decision to proceed.
“What?”
“Sarah.”
“Okay, Sarah. Well, I’m Maximilian, but I think there’s someone you’d rather be acquainted with, isn’t there?” Her questioning face stared at his, but she didn’t know to nod or refuse.
Once more, Maximilian removed himself from her height to the air he usually inhabited. He crouched, grabbed something in his hands, then turned back to her. With extended hands, but a mind still hoping Sarah would dash out of the door, he presented the big black stuffed bear to her, its arms stiffly reaching forward.
Immediately the biscotti was forgotten, and the plate might have broken in its fall had not the bulbous stomach of the bear slowed its descent and had Sarah’s hands not been so close to the ground already. As it was, it slid down the black fur and clattered to the ground, all three pieces of biscotti following it. Their rectangular surfaces splayed out on the tile, connecting parted corners and making yet another mess for Maximilian to clean.
Sarah, meanwhile, had dissolved into an oblivion of both sorrow and ecstasy mixed into one confusing mess so that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was hard to cry when a giant teddy bear engulfed you in a hug you didn’t even have to pretend to be there, but she still dampened his fur with previous tears. The bear cleaned both them and the drips of her nose from her face better than her hand ever had.
Maximilian couldn’t decide between emotions either. He knew he ought to be having conniptions at anyone touching the bear, let alone the mess of a girl that Sarah sought to imitate. Her soggy scent would take hours of cleaning to get out of the thick black fur, and even then, he might have to get rid of the bear. Either way, it would be irrevocably damaged. Yet he had welcomed such a fate; that meant he couldn’t be mad at her, didn’t it? And she had stopped sobbing, which was a good thing, a good thing that he had caused.
But he wasn’t about to scare her back into crying, so he remained caught between opposite sides, one begging him to toss her outside the house, bear and all – such collateral damage would have to be born – and the other side demanding that he keep silent and let the little girl have her fill of the bear. Perhaps the bear liked it better that way too; Maximilian hadn’t pressed into its squishy surface for a long while, as such an action was liable to ruin the bear’s integrity, whether it gained cognizance of its plight or not.
Suddenly, with the alacrity of a falcon catching its prey and refusing to relinquish until one of the two contestants lay dead, a hand darted away from the fuzzy back of the bear and snatched up one of Maximilian’s. The girl had a vicegrip entirely unexpected and irreconcilable with her image. Maximilian felt his fingers pushed together until the index and ring fingers came to meet each other, old friends, below the jealous middle finger. The pinky tagged along as a third wheel.
He returned her grip, if only to relieve the pressure on his own hand, which was slowly making the pass from tan coloration to white. When she led him back to the door, Maximilian’s breath caught in his own hope-filled lungs.
Maximilian readily obliged when they reached the knob that was too tall for her. Unfortunately, she hung onto the hand closest to the door, forcing him to employ gymnastics, for use of the other hand, that he had been previously unaware of possessing. He finally got the door open, with a fair degree of grunting and stretching, throwing it wide and not even caring what foreign, invasive scents entered. Sarah had already carried in a whole host, and he was well stocked with Febreze air freshener in all twelve scents.
Having prepared her exit for her though, the girl refused to leave. Her feet seemed as if they had suddenly found quick sand amongst his otherwise immaculate house, save for the stain seeping into the carpet and the discarded biscotti on his floor. Hadn’t he already done enough?



Has Maximilian done enough? What more will be asked, and why has Sarah yet to leave? Why did she come in the first place? Read on, ye good and faithful, read on.