The King of Expectation

7/31/2019 The King of Expectation

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The king of expectation

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The King of Expectation

Atlas Ray

[email protected]

Sammy

You could never see it just by looking at him, how deep the

scars really went.

Like a man under water desperate for air, he had fled after

the death of his father. Deep into the meanders where sights and

sounds do not reach. Deep into the valley where one man cometh but

seldom leave. Once though, Sam Hayden was a part of something.

Something he could fathom, yet believe in. Growing up in a small

family as an only child, Sammy found soothing comfort and strength

in the sole existence of the mundane traits that made up his

everyday life. School treated him knowledge, interpretation gave

him wisdom. Life was framed by subtlety in tender and slow moving

motions. Sammy was one of those children that, even though he did

not lack friends and company, had a really built and fervent

imagination to boost his senses. He felt and was everything in his

mind and he saw anything anywhere that he wished. Sammy used to

imagine that growing up in the realms around the facts of his life

was a bit structured like a tree. His parents were like the roots

and stem, but the branches and all the colors of the leaves, they

were all him. This combined with the universally suggested life he

was offered growing up in a small Arcadian town in the dull midst

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of anywhere anytime made his youth surroundings a beautiful sort

of marriage between him and the world just outside his frame of

mind.

His mother was an image, a bird perched in a tree, very

subtle in her love to Sammy but the gestures were there however

delicate and Sammy understood how to grasp them from an early age.

Never one to holler, never one to kneel, she wore her presence

like a silhouette shaded by the secret fashions of her mind. But

for Sammy, his father was the real hero to end all heroes. He used

to boast about him even, of how he took precious time to sit up

with him half the nights on in reading through his manuscripts for

him with great passion as if his audience were there seeing and

feeling him trough the wide hunger in little Sammy's blue eyes.

Oh, he was a genius, Sammy always chanted like a true believer,

how he managed to capture all the emotions using all of those

little tricks of the trade he had picked up from working with

different actors and directors all of his professional life. I

guess a therapist would easily consider Sammys love for his

father an act of persuasion towards the ever-changing present. One

could say that his fathers presence was as much imagined as it

was real as Sammy seldom saw his father more than once or twice a

week.

Sammys mother was a homemaker not needed to work thanks to

his father who spent most of his time either in Los Angeles or on

Broadway, leaving Sammy to fill in the blanks of his character. I

mean, he was not a bad father as one may assume, he was still

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caring towards his family, it was just that success had come in

the way.

Just snippets of time here and there were called upon to

craft magic in the eyes of Sammy, creating a formula of essence

and hollowness just keeping his sanity budding towards wonderment

and imagination. Soon in the days of his youth he had a mind of

sound faculty, truly the spawn of great influence and expectation.

His relationship to his mother was that of a small craft to

the earth it belongs.

Always by and near in dependence, but with both eyes and

ears in constant analogue with the broader horizon far off and

away. He always found her charming with great convenience since

her subtlety gave way to few conflicts and arguments.

In fact, there were never any conflicts too fierce to

mention between Sammy and his mother. It was as if she was one of

those hosts on TV coming in and out of ones life leaving few

chances of emotion whilst catering to those lonely needs making

themselves heard on a shallow everyday level. Distance and

attachment, bound and prevented, never shall they meet. It is like

there is a hidden principle of just fitting into the social

patterns to such an extent that the real ways of communication

that remains is so universal that anyone could join in at any one

time. I guess it is like using mathematics instead of philosophy.

Numbers instead of emotions.

Sammys relation to his father then, was very different in

this sense. It was in all absolutes unique and powerful, like a

true sender and receiver relationship should be, and Sammy based

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his whole adolescence and life on the traits and ideas that he

gained from those rare moments with his father. No one was really

close to Sammy as in the way he had built his enchanted little

world fit enough for him and his father. In there, they were truly

two of one kind.

The funeral

Samuel Sam Hayden said the minister in a gentle proud

voice and looked to Sammy whose eyes where inside him carefully

upright in the front row to the left at his fathers funeral. Eyes

black as night in November and not even with a whisper over his

lips he slightly attempted to get up, but nobody noticed. His

shoes shone dark of polished leather, he was no more a little boy

seeing caring faces all around him, he had been brutally turned

into something else. The small chapel was packed to the brim with

acquaintances and adornment, all whom his father in some capacity

worked with over the years. Adulation cut through the atmosphere

like a knife, leaving a still sea carried by a martyr. There were

even some reporters there covering the event, people with big

black cameras with giant lenses eyeing the famed parts of the

audience like hawks and lions. None of this mattered to Sammy

however, as he was as alone as a man ever could be in that moment.

The murmur around him kept him in like walls, his emotions faded

for each living minute. The ministers second calling of his name

out loud barely acted out as a faint echo in Sammys veiled mind.

Do you wish to say something, something you would share

with all of us present, asked the minister now standing just in

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front of Sammy, so close even that one could see the pale blue

inscriptions on the sleeve of her ceremonial robe. We would love

to hear your voice, she said, and Sammy locked eyes with her in a

manner a grown man looks into the eyes of child. Without a word he

then rose from his seat on the pew and almost marched up to the

stand so he could face everyone and really see who all those

people were around him, who up and till now had the bare

characteristics of a sounded blur. He must have taken at least a

minute or so because the silence of his study felt really

prolonged until he started speaking.

There is so many of you here that I have never seen before,

he said in a worthy and propitious voice, I guess you all were in

some fashion apart of my fathers life.

After that he suddenly sort of changed his agenda, as his

posture sunk and his eyes steered away past folk and the fairies

of the chapels cipher. You will have to excuse me now, but this is

my funeral too he said with words said in haste and without any

real desire behind them other than those wishes desolate of

functioning thought. Kind of frowned he stared into the vapors of

the saddened aura which by now made up the whole mental state of

the little chapel. Moving on from there his words had forsaken him

as emptiness took over his resolve. Imagination and thought turned

into speech was a process long gone forgotten. Sammy stepped down

from the stand not relieved but with eyes still of some conviction

as he walked past the minister, walked down the isle and out past

the gates of the little chapel as something new, long before the

funeral were really over. The clouds just past under the sun

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meeting his face with a fresh wind of change as the small

virescent alleyway sunk into his mind frame as he walked down the

centre of it seeing his whole life coming towards him, painted

from destiny itself. Pebbles and stones put sound to every step he

took. He never turned his head again, and he was never to forget

his father.

Coming back

An indigo spring morning was an old and well used

expression in town and it was certainly one of those that day. The

preparations for a summer festival in honor of the splendor and

beauty of the Indigo bush made the town's inner parts literally

glow upon the opening of their flowers early morning to the coming

of the first late April sun. Sammy turned the corner again into

heart of town for the first time in nine years since the funeral,

now a man not only by force but in numbers as well.

He had inherited almost all of his fathers money, so the

word in town around his unexpected exodus was that he probably

chose to spend his mindless fortunes in Europe somewhere carefree

and fancy. No one had really worried for him, such poise and

permeability in the society had his fathers name given him. This

added to the simple fact that nobody had ever been close to him

like his father had been, left everyone only speculating upon

where Sammy may have gone so abruptly on that black day at the

chapel. There he was no less, handsome as crafted by a master in

the arts of masculinity, his roughed and tender shapes gave

promise to an alliance that had beauty as its foreword.

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Fitted into a slim lined dark brown Armani suit his

carefully cut hair just reached and matched his chocolaty colored

beard as to once and for all establish his manhood.

At thirty now, Sammy looked like he could be the

mysterious leading man in an old Fellini film as he elegantly

strolled across the city square towards the real estate agents

office in town. Sammy quickly reached the wide and big old

building with built in wooden sidewalk taking up the whole north

side of the city's main square.

There must have been about ten different shops and services

available next door to each other, and Sammy soon noticed as if

reminded from deep memory that most of the establishments there

were old ones, still there as they had been in his childhood.

Everyone from the barber to the old Jewish butcher. Sammy stood

upon the sidewalk for a while, reminded of the signs and who and

what stood behind them, before he saw the door he was looking for

right there at the corner and entered as the first client of the

new day.

No one was around, no one was watching. His fathers

influence had made him notice these things, to see no one, to not

see anyone. There is a difference there and well; I think it has

to do with that imagination of his again. As Sammy walked in the

door to the small office a huge desk practically by itself

prompted him to instantly sit down in front of it as a great big

man of rotund proportions met him with an eager welcome by shiny

smile and sturdy handshake. The real estate agent was a powerful

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figure, a piece of south western motif in color and running motion

rambling enthused of how much he had enjoyed helping Sammy finding

a home back in town. Eyes green as grass; he looked straight into

Sammy when he spoke as if curiosity could not keep him any longer.

Sammy was a bit surprised by the force in the real estate agents

gestures so early in the morning but soon learned to just see it

as some sort of flattery catering to his trivial side. I mean

after all, Sammy was only there to pick up the keys to his new

house; all the papers had already been signed and done with.

Apparently the well to do man was an old friend of Sammys

father since high school, who now obviously felt it to be more or

less his duty to introduce Sammy back to the intricacies of the

local society once more. From traveling word to faith in rumor,

Sammy's absent years had apparently given him the regard and

luster of an old time Gatsby-esque socialite in the eyes of the

townspeople. He was a shining silver dollar who the great big man

had his eyes on collecting.

A series of dusty miles followed, boring anecdotes of a

static town and the people turning those corners and walking those

extra miles for survival. Or something, Sammy was not really

working the honest ears he usually used until the big man hunched

across his massive oak desk and in a broad gesticulation stood up

so he could formally invite Sammy to a welcoming get together that

evening at his house upon fancy West lane, in the very same

neighborhood where Sammys new house were. He promised a lovely

dinner, some friendly folk and the chance to meet his own family,

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whom he felt were the most important thing in his life. Sammy did

not mind the invitation there and then; in fact, he was

surprisingly enough somewhat excited by the thought of being

offered a free home cooked festive meal on the very first day of

the rest of his new life back in town. Bemused and at last awoken,

another handshake past the introduction into friendliness took

Sammy on his way out unto the pavements of old feet and new

textures. Your going to love it, shouted the great big man

confidently from his office door, its got air conditioning!

Sammy met up with a morning just turning into a clear blue

day coming out of the great big mans office, and people had

actually begun showing themselves on the streets walking swiftly

back and forth as a new working day progressed. There were not

really any cabs in town as the people had never really showed any

interest for them for some reason, so Sammy without a driver's

license decided to take the fresh journey to his new dwelling

solely by foot. The twenty minute walk through the ample riches of

growing grass and budding flowers made him a favor though, because

the first thing he did in his new house was inaugurating his

specially imported custom-made Spanish black marble Jacuzzi which

he had gotten placed on strict orders right in the centre of the

grand patio that made up the eclipse of the house adjacent to the

garden, which in turn had been filled with red and white

rosebushes. The roses formed a pattern, a gorgeous smile, like a

triumphant winning of new land and desires. Sammy wanted to keep

the walls inside the house clean and had on the whole, with the

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exception of the Jacuzzi, not spent one cent on seemingly

unnecessary superficial objects. He saw them as distractions to

such an extent that he had even made up an exact blueprint over

the placement of each carefully selected and preordered item or

furniture. No more than three items in every room was the

principle giving view to a setup consisting of, for example a big

cushy sofa, a coffee table and a tall floor lamp shaped like a

tree trunk.

He saw beauty and tranquility in the shapes of simplicity

and the key to these concepts was his disbelief in polarities.

Opposites and relations. People see, he thought, a man to a woman

as the heavens to the earth, dependent back to back to keep from

falling. Sammy did not want to fall, so he always made sure to cut

off the relation by making every situation count on its own terms.

He was to take baths in his Jacuzzi, rest in his recliner and

listen to music in a specially equipped room where he would sit

down, close his eyes and listen to nothing other than the

brilliance of his favorite composer, Bach. These were the things

he wanted to do and enjoy, and nothing more, causing different

versions to appear in the wake of the one dimension in use. Sammy

had thusly cherished his fathers imaginative ways to the very

extent that he did not even need no other source of pleasure whom

which ideas were sprung. Bach was his only illumination. His own

mind worked like a template fairytale, a mystery and the facts of

life arranged just like he saw them, sitting on the ocean floor.

Oh, and the mirrors. Sammy would not keep as much as a pocket

mirror around him since the death of his father. He wanted just

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the truth in reality, having seen the reality in truth.

Maybe when your view has been changed so radically by death

and leaving, your eyes change perception? From seeing the story

come alive to carefully organizing ones thoughts is a change best

described in the necessity of attention.

We see only what we want to see, until we figure out what

we really need to see. After that there is only void, a void for

no one other to become intimate with or even acknowledge because

that void is what we give to people. Or take. Sometimes we are

also forced upon this void.

The Dinner Party

An old country song, perhaps Hank Williams, played in the

background as Sammy turned to the foreground as the centerpiece of

the delicately orchestrated affair.

A dinner with the great big man and his family and friends

had turned out to be an outright festival of local corporate names

and high end personas. Delicious foods and beverages fluent as the

dialogue spoken. Perfect lighting, full moon and that warm moving

light coming from the bottom of the heart shaped pool on the

patio, giving it a sense of difference about the whole party.

Everyone wanted to see the long-awaited return of the boy who

never was. His fathers name hovered like a halo over Sammy, so by

no fear and suspicion everyone saw it as their prime duty to try

to welcome him home the best they could. To Sammy though, his

fathers name sat upon his head like a laurel wreath. Eyes seeing

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past self and accomplishment, eyes seeing elsewhere and others had

put it there. Though their curious smiles made him follow, he knew

he was just a mirror in their eyes. A window to pass, seeing into

great lengths unto far off places. To them, Sammy was a living

statue of his father. A risen arch of his fathers vast influence,

a figurine without apparent flaw. They expected to highly to speak

to him in person and they expected to fondly to ever compromise

their wishes. So all of them took their distance, floating gently

around and around, as if Sammy bare scent were enough. All but

one. Suddenly a small elderly man with grey hair and red bowed

glasses introduced himself as the head of the city council, with a

perplexed kind of expression on his face. His eyes wore a withered

green tone of respect for Sammy and the sound of his voice had the

echoes of a man speaking from the debts of his soul. The loss of

such a citizen, he said, was a great one indeed, and no less would

all these people agree with me. The elderly man was sure enough a

stranger, but with his well mannered ways and habit to sympathize,

he could soon enough acquaint himself with anyone. He wanted to

assemble a memorial service devoted to Sammys father in the small

chapel once more, come next Sunday after the sermon. He wanted a

change of wind, a setting of a new unspoken direction in town once

again. We all saw your father as a, well, savior I guess, and lord

knows he did wonders for the spirit and the people of this little

town, he said as the concrete hope that was Sammy gathered in his

eyes before him.

And now you are here, and we are so proud that you have

decided to return to our community where you can continue on in a

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happy manner, he said with temper in his lit green eyes. Sammy did

not say much in response to the elderly man, and the truth was

that the elderly man did not seem all that interested in actually

hearing him speak at all. He just wanted to make sure that Sammy

had heard him, so with no further courtesy the elderly man left

him with a promise in hand that he would be there as a guest of

honor for the memorial. Sammy stood around for a while seeing

those underwater lights float across the green leaved bushes in

the yard, thinking of his father and a time when he was fifteen

and had just met and fallen for his first ever girlfriend. As

painted from the cellars of his mind, his sudden moment of

loneliness awakened a memory perhaps lost to him in broad

daylight. Sammy was an innocent, and a rare one at that, and

unbelievably enough he had managed to find a sweet young girl who

shared his situation. This particular late summer night had Sammy

for the first time invited his girlfriend over to watch a rented

film and his mother had saintly left them in solitude as his

father was in New York supervising the rehearsals of one of his

plays. Sammy had rented E.T and made a bowl of popcorn and the

breeze of the soft summer wind gave the evening just that hint of

romance that the young couple had hoped for. But as the moon

entered the darkened skyline and glossed the young pairs milky

white complexions and seething red lips, a car suddenly drove up

in front of the house. It was an airport cab, Sammy remembered

because he just barely saw it leaving as he bewildered got up to

look. Soon someone had entered the front door, just the short

hallway down from the room in which Sammy and his girlfriend were.

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It was his father, but to Sammy it could have been anyone that

night as the moon in his fathers eyes had made him look like

nobody he had ever seen before in his life. He had been drinking,

but Sammy did not understand it at the time. He was too much in

wonder. Sammy took to the hallway real quick with his girlfriend

left behind, but as his father entered the moonlit hallway he did

not really seem to find enough interest in the fact that it was

his only son who stood there waiting with a curious and surprised

look on his face. His jacket was kind of slanted and the four top

buttons on his white shirt were undone as he just passed Sammy

with a big silent look in his back walking up the stairs to the

second floor. Sammy felt strange as he restlessly stood around for

a second or two not knowing what to do or feel before he

remembered his girlfriend waiting in the next room, who had seen

what had taken place from her view on the couch. I should leave,

we can do this tomorrow instead, she said to Sammy in an

understanding tone of voice as he sat down beside her.

Sammy had no choice but to see her walking up the stairs to

get her purse that she had left in his room. No less confused,

Sammy remembered quite vividly what happened next, the fright that

was in her eyes as she threw herself violently down the stairs,

out the door and that split second that he saw her big brown eyes

in a silent shout as she turned back her head whilst running away

in horror. Nobody believed her story. Sammys father was larger

than life itself to him. Sammy stopped feeling.

The Memorial

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Anyone carrying a secret always shows hints of it whether

they like it or not. It is a living thing, an animal fighting to

come out into the open at any cost. Sammy was at his usual numb

state of mind as he patted off the fresh yellow color of

dandelions off of his brown leather shoes. He had taken a shortcut

across the lawn in front of the chapel. He wore a full-length

black coat carefully custom stitched and designed to make him look

like a member of some exclusive and illusive club. Dark Bono-esque

shades worn right until he had reached his place on the pew added

to his stature as a man apart from men, a shadow amongst the

mortals. But no matter the shape and form he gave, the portrayal

of the prodigal son returned was unavoidable in the eyes of the

townspeople. It was as close to biblical prophesy come true one

could come in a small secular town destitute of anything other

than the chapel itself binding it to a common higher denominator.

Sermon on Sundays was strictly a social thing, even for the

elders, a chance to meet those not seen during the week perhaps

and catch up on local news and the gossip surrounding it. Sammy

sat down front to the left as the minister silently greeted him

with still eyes as to welcome him to the parish, the community.

The clear triangular windows in the ceiling allowed the sun to

make its grand presence felt, and to the now full chapel it was

seen reflected on Sammys godlike apparition who took the suns

gentle rays with great tenderness and gratitude. Sammy had a song

on his mind when the minister started talking. It was Bluebells

song, a pet name that his mother had before he was born. It was

the call sign of innocence, he thought, the manner in which to

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describe those yet acquainted by the deliverer of faith and

belief. Sammy thought of it because he had just seen Bluebell

across the aisle on the other side, for the first time in nine

long years. She had Sammy when she was just sixteen so her face

was still fresh and strong towards the expressions she tried to

hold back upon noticing him in that instant.

Her hair followed closely the features on her face, leaving

her eyes, nose and mouth fine, framed like a Degas painting by her

unusually shaped elliptical black earrings. Sammy looked at her

but he could not find her eyes, it was if they were long gone into

a mind best undisturbed. Sammy froze for a long second, took his

eyes to a softer place straight ahead and still felt nothing. The

minister spoke for a while, but soon did he let over his place to

Sammy in a heartfelt greeting along with vows of glad tidings from

the returned son of the late great man which had been his father.

But as Sammy rose to walk up to the microphone right in front of

the packed chapel, some other mindset carried his conviction. His

blue eyes were like those in some melancholic renaissance

portrait, two cold stones in water mirroring nothing.

No one could ever have been ready for what he was to say

when he opened his mouth to speak.

I want to tell you a story, he said with great dignity in

his voice, in fact, I want to tell you the very same story that my

mother told me on the day my father died.

The small chapel went so silent upon those words spoken one

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could easily have heard each soft breath Sammy took inside each

word and sentence. It was a story about a man trapped between two

worlds. One held with chains of responsibility and the principles

of being an adult and the other permitted by the freewheeling

nature of those inner most desires. And this other world, where

lust ruled decisions, was the one that also ruled over him. Only

his own body's imagination towards reality could make him act any

differently than his urges suggested. And those urges were

plentiful in the land of lonely, and so when he was about thirty

years of age, he met a young girl in a bar in town. She was

fifteen years old, but looked twenty-five, so by the time he had

seen her properly across the old wooden counter he had already

made up his mind about her. She had gotten in for the first time,

wearing black high heeled shoes and a tight pink dress that had no

intentions of hiding her budding femininity from showing. She was

stunning and beautiful and her golden curled hair made her look

like Marilyn Monroe. Sammy's mother looked at him with eyes

speaking both of defeat and curiosity as he quickly in the corner

of his left eye saw into hers and thought and felt nothing more

than the notion of going on with his story.

The man, he said, was handsome and charming as any man, but

most importantly he had that aura that a mass of apparent virtues

gave which only people carrying real success in the world had. He

was like a magnet, a force loaded by norms of fortune and glory.

His sand dune tanned, chiseled face went to her teenage milky

complexion like chocolate to vanilla. His blue eyes deeply to her

innocent bare shoulders, though slowly on did she realize that her

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teenage wisdom were not what had drawn him to her, no, those

powers at work were far more primitive. Sammy paused suddenly and

as he took some deep breaths that almost echoed on the chapel

walls, he gazed out as to look everyone present straight in the

eyes. You see, he said with his index finger in the air, the

reason we don't really need salvation is that we can not act on

the past, a savior would just be a guide to new mistakes. We can

not change who we have become, we can only change who we aspire to

be. That night my mothers voice were kept in vain, her body taken

and her identity shaped for all times to come.

Shame and pride prevented her from abortion; I was a small

prize to pay for the upkeep of his pleasures. But now I stand

here. And he lay there. And nothing could ever change that no

matter the person he shaped me to be, feeding me images of the

outside world of wonder and hope, of faith and disappointment. The

silent echo turned slightly faint in to a collective murmur all

across the pews. Still, nobody did or said anything loudly.

Sammys mother looked up as if realizing that her shame was

unjustified and this time Sammy's eyes were there waiting for her

and for the first time in his whole life he actually saw someone

in her eyes. A person absolved by the reality of truth and the

words carrying it into the present onward unto past.

Sammy pushed for tears unknowingly, but he was incapable of

giving them their freedom as he realized that he had actually had

a mother all along. That family shattered on that day was still

enough a family, how lonely one mind thoughts ever may have been.

Sammy had to clear his throat as compose himself and the attention

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of the crowd, and so he continued his speech seemingly unaffected

by the emotions unlocked inside of him.

On that same night as my mother had told me this story, he

said, my father came home early into the hallway looking sharper

and healthier than ever before.

He was Hollywood by then, virtually timeless in appearance

by the radiance of glamour and myth. He wore a brand new suit,

sand beige Armani with a slim black necktie arrogantly tied around

the milky white shirt, and his face was smooth and tanned to go

with his short brown cropped hairstyle. He could have served as a

poster model for the American dream looking the way he did. But in

my eyes I saw an intruder, a perfect heretic, like a mirage

standing in the hallway carrying new rules and principles. He

asked me something but I did not answer, he called for me but I

did not respond. He was dead on arrival, as sent by his own free

will. Mothers story had stirred my views to such extremes that my

fathers very presence inside what was our special place no longer,

did not make me feel anything at all. It was if I had been burnt

by the truth for the first time leaving my senses numb and cold to

any impression. Sammy took strength to each new word out of his

mouth as his deepest; long-awaited truth began to find its place

in the open sphere. Initially he had been nervous but found ways

to hide it, by now, he spoke from his hearth.

A clear toned voice cut trough the stunned atmospheric

silence in the small chapel as he said; and then I became him

Truth shall liberate you I thought, said Sammy cautiously, maybe

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if I confront him I can see it with my own eyes. But I just froze

as he came out of the bathroom in his blue robe after a long

soothing shower. I wanted to ask him, was it true, look deep into

his blue eyes about what my mother had told me, but I could not do

it. This man was the man who had been my role model, my guide to

my future self. He looked me silently in the eyes as he past me in

the hallway on the second floor outside my old room as if he knew

I wanted to tell him something he did not want to hear. And, said

Sammy with a surge of emotion to his words, my eyes must have

spoken of a million thoughts because as he reached the stairs he

suddenly stopped as if to remember something with his head lowered

seeking thought in the deepest of memories. He just stood there in

the yellowish-red light from the setting sun, thinking god knows

what, with me just a few feet away. It was poetry, he was so

beautiful. He was my father. Twenty seconds later he was dead

pushed down the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.

Though there is no right or wrong, nor black or white one

must ultimately choose between truth and salvation.

I chose truth. After my fathers funeral nine years ago which many

of you attended, they were kind enough to keep my whole litigation

under subtle wings as they took me to a small prison in California

right after I left the chapel on that day. I guess my fathers good

name through and through has hidden me for all kinds of reasons

over the years amongst people like you, but now I'm telling you

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the truth. I will hide no more. The crowd was no longer stunned in

their silence; they were simply listening to what he was saying to

them, taking in every word and thinking about what they really

meant. Is there a thing such as true salvation, he posed a

retorical question. No, I have seen no such occasion in my

lifetime. Salvation will always try to lead you somewhere whilst

truth is happy with where you are at the moment. It is here now

and never lost tomorrow. Sammy looked quietly to his empty seat

and noticed the fine wood in the pew. The intricate lines in the

fibers underneath, which formed the foundation of the smooth, oak

brown exterior. He felt like he was under water as applause and

voices drummed across his field of senses like if they were coming

from somewhere totally different.

It was never to turn into a travesty; his confession had been too

honest, as if everyone refused to shut their eyes to the truth.

The eyes are the windows to the soul, thought Sammy as he shut his

eyes to see inwards as everyone else opened theirs to finally see

him, the real him. Sammy saw, but he did not realize what he was

seeing. He felt, but his emotions were so deeply buried down

within that he could not comprehend them. He actually felt again,

as time struck his body like a hard punch in the gut, he shivered

but he realized for the first time the actual meaning of the words

he had been saying. He had not become his father at all, no; the

person he had become was someone far more important. Someone a

person struggles long years to become. He had become himself. This

time after his speech was over he did not leave directly, he did

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not have to. The organist began playing his final hymn for the day

as Sammy sat down on his seat like anyone would on a sermon on

Sunday.

The end.

Thank you.

The King of Expectation

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Transcript of The King of Expectation