Please Rescue Me

4

4

Present

Dimor

Unlike my well-known uncle, I came from normal stock in the family. I was a normal human for a time. Normal parents and normal siblings. A normal humdrum life as a high schooler who worried about my SATs and chances to land the universities of my dreams.

Then I got sick. Horribly and violently sick that made me bedridden. My whole family didn’t know what to do, except for one. My mother knew who to call, and who to ask for help. He came almost immediately from one phone call, but my perception of time at that moment was s**t.

I was sick. So sick I couldn’t see my own hand in front of me, because of the tears. It was painful, breathing was a pain. No doctor or meds helped.

“Changeling sickness” that’s the first thing he said to me.

This blurry tall man. Who looked like Death peering down at me as if he was here to harvest my soul. “Mer…cy” I rasped.

“I’m not a merciful god.” He said it so cruelly and it made me laugh. Before this, I was so nervous to come out to my parents. They have always wondered why I didn’t bring anyone home. I dated, but it felt wrong to bring anyone home without telling my parents who I was. everything was casual, but now, here I am, dying.

I laughed while writhing in pain. I was both sweating and freezing. At some point, I cried blood and sweat acid. No one in my family could touch me with bare hands. “f**k…you” I shouted with as much my body could allow me.

“Dimor” Mom’s hands were bare and cold against my face. She’s the only one who didn’t care about the burning. I always felt her tears before I even knew she was in the same room. “Please, help him” She begged to death.

Then there was silence, except for my mother’s sobbing and misery. Second, felt like days before he said anything else.

“I’ll save you.”

“Dimor”

I rose up from my bed. Sure enough, my silver-haired mother was by the door with the same smile she always had. It’s been decades, but time wasn’t easy on anyone who loved me. “Morning Mom”

She smiled. “Let's go eat.”

“you could have just called. You don’t need to walk to my room.” I stretched my limbs before I shook the sleep off my hair and stood beside her. My arm instinctively wraps around her waist to ease her knees. “I think your handsome boy makes you forget how old you really are.”

She laughed. No matter how long it has been her laugh remains the same. The same tone and brevity to it, hearing it was like the nectar of the gods. All exhaustion and anxiety just fading. “I think that’s a good thing.”

I shrugged. “Sometimes. But I would rather you and Dad just sit around and enjoy old age.”

“don’t worry. We’re still young.” She smiled. Beamed at me.

But I look at her, and it's not only her face in front of me, but her whole genetic makeup also flittered between us. I see her birth and her death. Her whole being is in her DNA. I occasionally check, and though I have the power to intervene in nature, she wouldn’t let me.

“Come on,” She patted my lean stomach. “I cooked all your favorites.”

Dad was already setting the table. His loud steps could be heard from outside, but I know that’s just me. He beamed at the sight of me too, opening his arms with his jolly smile so early in the morning. “My boy! Good morning!”

I made sure my mom had her bearings on her own feet before I let her go and hugged my tall and imposing father. He’s healthy enough that his back hasn’t bowed like Mom’s had. “Morning Papa”

His hard pats on my back would have displaced my lungs out of my body if I were human. The loud thumps of my ribs made my father laugh harder and squeezed me. “Morning, morning, morning”

I laughed. “I’m not leaving Papa”

“Well, I wanna have enough in the bank.” He kissed the side of my cheek before letting me go. True to his Greek heritage, he is loud and a sun of his own. “Eat eat”

We all convened around the breakfast table. Some of the chairs were still in the dining room as last night, my aged siblings and their families came for a visit. My identity is known to my siblings, but some of the humans they married are… conservative. Let’s just say creationism is still their go-to belief, and the idea of another being other than human would have made their lives complicated. It’s a problem that we didn’t mind just kept it a secret to some. So far, they know I’m a distant relative or my parent’s dead son’s only son.

Who knows after a handful of decades, my family of 5 would turn into 24. How funny how humans multiply. A thought that made me depressed for a while. The kind of depression that my Uncle didn’t know how to handle, but he carried me back home for my parents to fix.

We’re human, but we don’t regret the time we have. We led happy lives, and it is sad that our son would have to go through so many goodbyes to endure. But we’ll see each other again. Papa said at the time. Then Mama held my face between her hands.

I will live long enough to make our goodbyes less painful, She promised. Gods bless her, but that woman could hold my soul in her naivete, and I won’t regret it, despite knowing she won’t be able to keep her promise. I believed her, and I pretended.

“Rebecca is coming over later” Mama grinned with white well-aligned and complete teeth.

My sister bought her veneers and Papa's dentures. She’s doing well in her dentistry business and swore to me that our parents won’t have any problems in that regard. It didn’t stop my Dad from slipping money under their door and throwing the money back whenever Rebecca’s husband returned it.

At this point, the money parcel feud has turned serious. Currently, my Dad connivingly gave the money to Rebecca’s son. College fund, he said to the kid. And Rebecca and her husband don’t have the heart to take the money from the kid, and they know if they used their own money to pay Papa back, he’ll just sneak it back into the kid’s hands.

Every one of my siblings lives near them. In their old age, they want to be close when my parents need them. The four others are just a stone's throw away.

I smiled as I dug in through the mountain of food in front of me. I don’t really need to eat, but it’s a habit that I don’t want to take for granted even as a hunter. “For what?”

“To spend time with the three of us.” Papa said before leaning conspiringly to my ear as if couldn’t hear him breathe from my own room. “But I feel she and her husband are having problems” he whispered as he sang the last word.

“Heny!” Mama playfully hit his hand with her spoon. “Stop gossiping about our kids.”

“Ow! Woman! It is the truth. Her boy, Ezekiel, said so.”

Mama glared at Papa which made him deflate and drop the subject. But he still lovingly took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Don’t pretend you don’t gossip, you hypocrite.”

Normal people would be insulted, but these are my parents we’re talking about. They have the most unorthodox sense of humor. She threw her head back and laughed.

Five decades of marriage. They boast that they don’t have much, but they do have laugh lines on their faces and pride in their children.

“You sleep with your ear to the ground you sleazy old bastard” She quipped back

No matter how old I am, or where I’ve been, home is always different.

I smiled at the sight of them.

A few minutes later Mama’s face lights up. “Right, I cleaned your Uncle earlier.”

I groaned. “Mama, stop cleaning him. let him be. he’s a big pain in the ass to clean every day.”

“Shut up” She huffed. “That man saved my boy; he deserves to be clean every day without bird poop on him.”

“s**t” Papa said.

“What?”

“Bird s**t. We’re all adults.”

Mama glared at him. “You’re the child here.”

I groaned. “Maaaaa” I whined.

“There are two children on this table” she sighed.