Routine (part 2)

To recap: We left Maximilian Culbern, a strange man who believes himself to be normal and everyone else strange for thinking himself otherwise, in the middle of a crisis. Having just spilled his tea on account of an unscheduled knock on his door, he must decide his next course of action.


Snatching the door open, Maximilian Culbern found himself staring in the face of a little girl, wet tears kissing her cheeks and snot from her nose threatening to do the same. She gasped at the sudden change of scenery, the plain front of the door having been replaced with the none too smiley face of Maximilian. Hair in pigtails flopped off of her head, though one bundle leaned off the usual symmetrical position that would place both on opposing sides of the head. Her pink dress, sporting an obtrusively large daisy on the front, had splotches of dirt pressed into it that would never come out, not even with scrubbing. The dirt had worked itself inbetween the threads and would stubbornly remain there, not to be persuaded out of its new abode.
“Yes?” Maximilian said.
“My mama and dada…” She tried again. “My mama and dadaaaaa,” a cry once more pushed itself from her lips, bringing the company of more tears with it. A shaking hand raised to wipe away the damp stains on her face, but ended up merely smearing around the moisture so that no space remained free.
Maximilian sighed. This child had gotten lost, separated from her parents, at her own fault no doubt, and somehow that made her his responsibility. If parents could keep a closer eye upon their children, people who didn’t want children and made every attempt to avoid contact with them wouldn’t be so plagued. Maximilian was entirely in support of the leashes and harnesses that could be clipped onto children.
Still, the black haired girl cried upon his doorstep, and she wouldn’t be any help in getting herself un-lost until she had calmed down. It just figured. Children, when they were most in need, were most unable to help themselves.
Stepping aside and opening the door slightly wide enough to allow the child to pass, he ventured, “Do you want to come in?” all the while praying that she would say no, shake her head, or somehow deny his entreaty.
She wasn’t so kind.
At the slightest opening, the slightest hope that it might be meant for her, the girl darted in, almost before Maximilian had ceased speaking. Her mouth immediately opened in wondered, her mind momentarily distracted from her worries by the plethora of stuffed animals surrounding her.
Everywhere, every corner and every space that would have been open in another house, there were stuffed animals. With thousands of eyes and black and pink noses searching out this newcomer, it was as if the house took one collective sniff, the air shifting around the little, quivering, scared girl. Frozen, she stared right back at the eyes staring at her while she rooted into the ground and made it impossible for Maximilian to close the door.
Another sigh passed through his lips. He would have to coax her into motion and peace, and clearly the stuffed animals weren’t helping. Not that they were for that. He kept a careful watch on her hands – her dirty, wet, snot-covered hands – that they didn’t stray to his collection. No, the best thing he could figure to help her, or distract her, was sweet, sugary food. All kids liked that, didn’t they?
Trouble was, the best supplement he had for that sort of thing was his biscotti. She would have to have three, otherwise there wouldn’t be the requisite three left in the box at the last rotation and he would have to open another box even sooner, throwing off the cycles for that box. There was a reason there were thirty-nine in the box, and that was because it divided into three, nice and neat. She’d eat three, and he’d just have to open his next box one day earlier, which meant he would have to call in for replacement groceries sooner than usual.
The girl couldn’t know what distress she was already causing, but why couldn’t she have picked another house to knock on? It was true that there weren’t many around – one of the chief reasons Maximilian had liked it – but she could have made an effort to walk a little farther or find her parents on her own. Maximilian didn’t see why he had to be involved. She was nothing to him and he was nothing to her. They were just strangers brought together by circumstance, strangers that would ignore one another in any other context, strangers doing hardly better than that as it was.
She wouldn’t get any of his tea, that was sure. She had already made him spill it, and the rest in the cup was long past the ideal temperature at which to be drunk. It was as good as ruined. Getting a plate, Maximilian arranged the proper number of biscotti and shoved the plate before the girl. “Here,” he said. “Take it.”
She obeyed, clutching at the plate as if it were life itself. But she kept her eyes focused on one big bear he had in the corner, a bear bigger than she was. He didn’t like the way she looked at it.
“Eat,” he commanded. What was wrong with this kid?
Obediently, she began gnawing on one piece, dropping to the floor as she did so. Her feet tucked underneath her body, cushioning her fall and her seat, and she rested the plate in between them. Then she held the staff of biscotti with hands that seemed to have forgotten they contained opposable thumbs, merely squeezing the fingers together and bending them around the treat like paws. Her steady munching barely snatched pieces of the biscotti; rather she seemed more prone to rubbing her teeth against the hard surface.
Maximilian willed her an appetite. If she didn’t eat all three, he was going to have to throw the others out, and that was just wasteful. He couldn’t touch them though, not after they had come so close to her. He could smell her bad breath, so rancid it practically emanated from her very pores, no matter where he was in relation to her.
“So,” he started, then thought better of it when those wavering glowing eyes found his. Quiet was better, much better he decided.
He maintained the silence that the little girl seemed bent on keeping, mimicking her cues. Her eyes were red and puffy, as was her nose and the skin around her lips. Plenteous sobbing could do a lot to ruin any image one entertained one’s self as having, especially the cute appeal of a tiny girl that might convince her grandparents to grant any request with a smile and a flutter of her immature eyelashes, provided they weren’t laced with tears.
The biscotti wasn’t performing its job well. Sobs eased themselves over, around, and any other way they could force themselves to pass the biscotti trying to barricade them in. Ragged breathing, from both parties, was the only sound.


You and I both will have to read/write on to find out what happens next......