Danica #1687 in Elysium: Part 6

This is Ch: F, then Ch: 6 of my WIP novel. It's 2631 words.

Chapter F

Journaling Exercise

          All-Wise, in His infinite wisdom, is very careful about the genetic compositions used to create a citizen of Elysium. That being said, sometimes there are outliers that can cause a lot of problems. One of the most egregious of these problems is violence.
          Violence is incredibly rare in Elysium, but it does indeed happen sometimes. People with violent tendencies are flagged by All-Wise so He can never create a person with that genetic composition ever again.
          Has anything violent ever happened to you or by you? Did you realize the error of violent ways after the fact? Write about it!


          Over the course of my entire life, only two people have ever done anything violent to me: my father and Ronald. In regard to myself, I've never been violent to anyone for any reason.
          I don't think it's worth it to write about my father's violence towards me. He's been dead since I was six. That just leaves Ronald.
          When I and my siblings were nine or so, someone came up with the "great" idea of doing a chess tournament. There were eight of us, so it would be perfect.
          I didn't play chess that often after my father's death. He didn't do much of any reading, writing, composing, or drawing; however, he did play chess a lot and taught me how to play when I was five. I never beat him, so I've no idea if he'd get angry or violent if I did.
          When it came to the chess tournament, I played and won two games so that the final round would be me against Ronald. I didn't imagine I could beat Ronald since he enjoyed the game enough to play against his mother a lot.
          I'd imagine that the only reason I was able to beat Ronald that time was because he got careless. Naturally, that's how most people lose when they play chess. In the case of Ronald, I can't imagine someone of my lacklustre skill ever beating him if he had tried his hardest.
          After winning, my other siblings congratulated me, but Ronald was visibly dismayed. Someone teased him for taking the loss so seriously and he got mad and yelled at them. I don't know who it was, but somebody laughed or giggled at his reaction. Since laughter's contagious, I must've smiled.
          My smile must've appeared to be gloating, because he swung his fist into my right eye.
          That was the first and only time I've ever been punched. I immediately started crying and my sisters attempted to console me. I was so humiliated that I ran out of the Play Pod in tears. On the way out, I could hear All-Wise and my siblings all condemning Ronald for his unnecessary violence.
          Actually, wait, ALL violence is unnecessary. I know there's commonly violence in the fantasy stories we read, but that's make believe. It's ok to write about fictional heroes and villains. And, I suppose, in this case, Ronald was most certainly being a villain.
          Now that I think about it, there's one hero to this story: Mary.
          After I went back to my pod, Mary came over within the hour to check how I was doing and to inform me that Ronald had been reprimanded and would apologize as soon as I came back to the Play Pod.
          She saw that my mother was too drunk to even notice the fact that Ronald's punch had made my eye swell. To fix this, Mary took it upon herself to take me to the Hospital Pod where she diligently taught herself how to use the various devices to treat it. If it hadn't been for her, I probably would've gotten a black eye that I would have to wait to heal on its own.
          As for Ronald, he did apologize, and I forgave him. From then on, all of us never played any more chess tournaments.

Chapter 6

          By the time Danica had arrived at her pod again after seeing her mother, she felt she had gone through all of the withdrawal. She was still fatigued due to a lack of sleep, but she was going to fight through it and read the first chapter of Daenerys's Adventures in Hell.
          "All-Wise, play a symphony for me, please."
          "Do you have a preference for which one?"
          "Any of Aliza's will do."
          "Sure."
          The speakers in Danica's pod started to play Aliza's third symphony and Danica powered on her laptop. After navigating to the word processor, she began to read.
          As she barely got through the first page, All-Wise paused the music.
          "Danica, you have a call from Mary #1687."
          "Huh? Ok, put her on."
          From here, Mary's voice entered the pod over the speaker system.
          "Hey Danica, how are you tonight?"
          "I'm fine; how are you?"
          "Good. The reason I'm calling is because Garret and I need someone to watch the kids."
          Danica almost audibly groaned.
          Not again...
          "Am I the only one who can? Can't Aliza or Jayne do it this time?"
          "Well, the kids asked for you. Besides, the kids misbehave with them."
          Danica couldn't help but be annoyed by this request. For the most part, Danica and her siblings were unsupervised a lot before adulthood. Mary and Garret's four children were seven years old and should be old enough to leave by themselves in the Play Pod. Although Mary and Garret were much better parents than Danica's in almost every conceivable measure, Mary was very overprotective of her kids and always wanted them supervised by an adult so they wouldn't misbehave. Since Danica had neither a mate nor her own children, it felt like the responsibility of watching Mary's children almost always fell on her when Mary and Garret wanted a break.
          Danica decided she would just do it and not complain, so she asked, "How long?"
          "Just an hour, I swear."
          "Ok, I'll go to the Play Pod right now."
          "Thank you!"
          "Alright, bye."
          The line cut out and the symphony resumed playing. Danica sighed, shut down her laptop, asked All-Wise to end the music, and left for the Play Pod.


          Danica waited by herself in the Play Pod for nearly ten minutes waiting on Mary. The entire time, she thought of her new work in progress and wanted to continue on with the prologue and unread first chapter. She supposed she should feel grateful that her siblings were more than willing to let her interact with their children since she had no mate nor children herself, but, at least with Mary, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being used.
          Mary came into the Play Pod with her four children (Tyler #3236, Kurt #3236, Kate #3236, and Robin #3236) in tow. Danica pushed aside her annoyance so that she wouldn't risk hurting the children's feelings.
          "Yay! Aunt Dani!" exclaimed Tyler, who ran up and embraced Danica immediately.
          "Hey, Tyler."
          Danica looked down to see Tyler's beaming face, reciprocated the hug, and then raised her head back up to see Mary and the other three children.
          Mary said, "Dani, thank you so much. I appreciate you doing this for us."
          Danica put on a smile and said, "It's ok, I don't mind."
          Mary then addressed the children. "Now, kids, please be nice for Aunt Dani. She's doing me and your father a big favor and I don't want to hear about anything naughty."
          Kurt said, "Mother, we wouldn't do anything naughty with Aunt Dani."
          "No," chimed in Kate, "we like Aunt Dani too much to ever do something bad."
          Mary then said, "That's good to hear." She then looked up to Danica and said, "Ok, thanks again."
          "Yeah, no problem," said Danica.
          Mary then left and Kate asked, "So what should we do, Aunt Dani?"
          Kurt piped in, "Yes, what should we do?"
          At this, Danica said, "Well, obviously there's only one thing we can do..." She then got down on her knees and said, "Come and get me!"
          Tyler yelled, "Yeah, get Aunt Dani!"
          And so Danica began to wrestle, play fight, and tickle the four children. The four children, with their combined might, could rather easily pin her down and put up a "fight," but since it was all in good fun, nobody got hurt or offended by anything.
          Danica remembered reading in a fantasy novel, written by a woman, the line, "There is nothing better in life than a child's laughter." She wasn't really sure if this were true or just a sentimentality of the author's. Since she was a virgin, she had no clue if lovemaking was better. Could passionately making love to a man she loved (in her case, Gavin) be better? And then...
          Then there was Lucy's "devil's drug." Though it had tasted repulsive to smoke, it was arguably the most pleasant experience of her entire life. She had enjoyed that feeling so much, that she questioned if there would ever be any more opportunities for her to do so.
          Danica smiled at the almost certain possibility there would be. For starters, with whatever kind of relationship Gavin and Lucy had together, he had felt it was strong enough to introduce her to his parents and siblings. And even though Lucy had said she didn't want to be tied down to one man, she had still on her own volition followed through with those introductions. So, yes, she most likely would see Lucy again. In fact, even if Gavin and Lucy chose to part ways, Danica could quite easily reach out to her herself and befriend her.
          After playing with the children for a very long period of time, Danica wondered how late it was. Surely an hour had passed? It didn't matter, though; she was enjoying the company of the children and wasn't going to halt playing with them just to ask All-Wise the time. She had faith Mary or Garret would be in soon to relieve her of watching the children.
          Playing with the children continued on... and on... and on... After another long, indeterminate amount of time, Danica said to the children the truthful excuse that she needed to pee in the restroom, which is when she would finally call Mary.
          The four children stopped and Danica went to the restroom that was in the Play Pod. Once the door closed behind her, she relieved her bladder, wiped with a flushable wipe, and washed her hands. Danica was fairly certain that the restroom was soundproof, so she asked All-Wise what the time was.
          "It is twenty-two twenty."
          "What?!"
          It had been almost three hours. Three hours! What the heck were Mary and Garret doing that took that long!?
          "Can you put Mary on the line?"
          "Will do."
          There was a ringing dial tone for an exceptional amount of time. Eventually it was answered.
          "Hello?" said Garret's voice.
          "Garret, it's Danica. Did you two forget I was watching your kids?"
          "Oh, shoot. I'm sorry, Danica. Mary passed out a couple of hours ago and I thought they were staying overnight with Jayne."
          Danica sighed and asked, "How much longer?"
          "I'll get dressed right now and get them."
          "Thank you," Danica muttered.
          "Ok, bye."
          The line went silent and Danica returned to the children. Danica did her best to hide her frustration with Mary and Garret from them. Had the two of them done this on purpose? Most likely not, but it was very inconsiderate of them.
          The four children had been patiently waiting for Danica to return. Before Danica had a chance to think of what to say, Robin, who was naturally a little shy compared to her siblings, spoke up first.
          "Aunt Dani?" asked Robin timidly.
          "Yes?"
          "Who is this awful Lucy woman you all spent last night with?"
          Danica was taken aback by that question. Mary or Garret must have talked openly about last night in front of the children.
          "I-I don't think she's awful. She's just really really weird."
          Kate then said, "Mother was really mad late last night. She said Lucy had said a swear word at her."
          Thinking back, Danica realized that Mary must have been more offended by that than she had first thought. She said in response, "Well, I don't really think Lucy is as nice as us."
          Kurt then added, "Today, Mother called Uncle Gavin and demanded that Gavin stop seeing Lucy and see you instead."
          Danica's mouth dropped in shock and elation. Really? She was touched that Mary was going so far out of the way for her. To know that Mary cared so much for Danica that she would continue to advocate to make her dream of a relationship with Gavin come true was wonderful. Danica realized that this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn more.
          "And what did Uncle Gavin say about that?"
          Tyler said, "He said Mother already knows the reason why he doesn't like you. But he didn't say what it was."
          Now Danica's high spirits were immediately crushed. This must have been painfully evident to the children because they all looked upset seeing Danica's face.
          "Are you sad, Aunt Dani?" asked Kate.
          Kurt then turned to Tyler and yelled, "You idiot! You made Aunt Dani sad!"
          Tyler quickly said to Danica, "Aunt Dani, I'm sorry I made you sad. The thing is: we like you! We like you a lot more than this Lucy woman that was mean to Mother."
          Robin looked heartbroken herself and said, "You're crying, Aunt Dani."
          Danica tried her best to fight back the tears from hearing that there was some definite reason Gavin didn't like her. And whatever that reason was, Mary (and perhaps her other siblings) were hiding it from her. This entire time, she just assumed it was a matter of preference and that he would eventually have a change of heart...
          The door to the Play Pod opened and Garret appeared. Judging from the way he was walking, it was apparent that he was drunk.
          Kurt pointed accusatorily at Tyler and hollered, "Father! You need to yell at Tyler! He made Aunt Dani sad."
          Tyler turned on him for that and said, "I didn't mean to!"
          Garret asked, "I don't understand? Were you naughty to Aunt Dani?"
          Tyler turned to Garret and said, "No! I wasn't! Really!"
          Danica looked to Garret and said, "It's ok, Garret. He didn't do it on purpose."
          Garret then noticed Danica's tears and said, "Are you ok, Dani? You've been crying."
          "It's fine. Really."
          Garret walked up to Danica and gave her a hug and whispered, "If you want to talk about it, we can talk together whenever you need to."
          Danica whispered, "Thank you."
          Garret then turned to address the children and said, "Ok, everyone say goodnight to Aunt Dani."
          The four children said their goodbyes and swarmed around her for a last embrace. After that, Garret and the four children left the Play Pod.
          After waiting for a few moments, Danica asked All-Wise to take her back to her pod, which He obliged. The entire time, she thought about Gavin and racked her brain trying to figure out what the hidden reason he didn't like her could be.