Winsome

Words 300 Winsome “Paola, Paola, breakfast! Get up,” yells Mom, mopine in hand, apron draped. Kicking off the covers, he swings to the floor then micturating, dreads the coming day. Sawyer’d be up his ass, the Christie program’s not finished. When asked he’d have to say, it’d be a month. God its gon’a be hell. Schleping down to the kitchen, bussing his mother, sitting down, opening his tablet for the news, and sipping at the mug his mother provides. Tousling his thick hair in passing, admiring as always the prominent nose and thick set chin giving him to her eye a regal bearing, her adoration… total. “Mr. Sawyer called, he wants you in his office first thing,” serenity describes her visage. She is without guile. “Holy Mother, he’s chasing me before I wake up,” says the young software developer morphed from the loving son of the previous moment. “Please don’t use such language, the Mother of God is not for your disrespect,” with gentility bathed in kindness. “I believe he’s quite anxious, very concerned, to my ear he needs your help. Why not show him that you’re loyal to him not just responding to fear of him?” Looking up at her glumly, he says, “Mom you don’t understand how things work, it’s not like that.” He returns to his breakfast without appetite for now his focus is on the savagery to be faced. The mother, without rancor or spite, holds her son’s chin lightly in her left hand saying softly, “Remember when you were a boy and I advised you about bullies, about sports, about girls. When was I wrong, when did I lead you astray, when were my suggestions off?” Dragging his mind back from the meeting to be, he considers her words, and concedes, truthfully, “Never.” The End