Volcano Boy’s Hope is always Here. You just have to keep looking for it.
By Terry Wilkerson, Jr.
Edited by Raptor Lit.
Destination: Louisville, Kentucky. Month: October, Year: 2015
Terry started to walk up to his grandmother’s house. Earlier that day she had informed him that she needed help to move their personal belongings due to them getting an eviction notice two days ago. He looked at the house. The lower part of the house was now repainted into a new clean ocean blue that when the sun hit the right angle, it sparkled like a diamond and a new chimney that stood as long as a funnel of a steam engine. The upper bricks for the rest of the house whereas white as snow.
The new colors were indeed beautiful as if they jumped out from nature itself but he preferred the original look that his family was most familiar with. He sighed as his heart started to beat slowly. He couldn’t stand seeing or thinking about his grandparents being evicted. It wasn’t fair. He lives with them but for the time being, he stayed with his aunt so he could spend more time with her.
He stopped at the left side of the house. Something else was bothering him. Humanity that year had turned their backs against superheroes due to all of the damage that was dealt from their battles that left many people in bad positions. He felt like humanity no longer needed him. Like he was a God that became powerless because what is a God or Gods to non-believers? He remembered that some of the supervillains he battled mentioned that despite everything you have done for them, they will eventually hate you. What people love more than a hero is to see them fail and even see them die trying, regardless if one has powers or not.
Being wise himself, Terry never ignored any signs of wisdom. Not even if it was relayed from a foe. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was nothing. He was no longer Volcano Boy Wolf Prime. He felt like he was a broken toy with no one in the world having a care to repair him and make him brand new again as if had just came off the assembly line. He turned the corner to meet his loving grandmother.
“Hey, granny. Are you and grandad okay?” Terry asked as he approached his grandmother to hug her while taking notice of all of the boxes that laid on the grass and concrete.
His grandmother nodded as she returned her grandson’s warm hug. “They gave us a week to pack up our things but I decided the hell with it and thought it would be best if I started packing now,” she replied.
“Where is grandad?” he asked as his cat, Buttercup, came out of the house to greet him. “Hey, what’s up, sis! I missed you. You didn’t think I would forget about you did yea, my cute little baby.” he laughed as he picked her up gently and rubbed his chocolate nose against her cute little cold coal button nose as she started to lick him and purr loudly.
“He went somewhere downtown to get fresh air. He didn’t respond well to that of course.” Terry’s grandmother replied. “And your aunt said she is looking for a house for us. One that doesn’t require a landlord.”
He sighed as his heart started to beat slowly again. He couldn’t stand seeing or thinking about his grandparents being evicted. It just wasn’t fair for them.
“I thought that lottery ticket you won two weeks ago had the house payments covered?” Terry asked as his voice became even softer as he kept rubbing Buttercup’s head.
“It did. But people can be cruel in this world if not all. You know that better than anyone with you saving the world all the time,” she sighed.
Terry’s golden eyes started to tear up. He thought about giving them more money from his superhero adventures so they wouldn’t have to leave but he knew that they were too proud to do that. Even if they did take it, they would only find some way to return it to him.
“Well, at least you guys still have tons of money to help you guys get settled.”
She smiled. Thinking of the new possibilities of having a new home. One of many of her dreams.
“You shouldn’t be lifting those by yourself, granny. Regardless we’re werewolves.” He said as he took the boxes from here and placed them with the others. More tears started to fall from his eyes like meteors falling from space into the Earth’s atmosphere.
“We’re okay, Terry. Don’t worry about us. Plus, I have our neighbor’s eleven-year-old son, Stuart Jones, also helping me move all of this.” she mentioned as her voice cracked as she hugged him.
“I thought I smelled him here while I was in Washington thinking about you guys,” he replied. “Even though I have been around before time itself and so on he is a year older than me. And I do nothing but worry. After all of the people I have saved on this planet and beyond, you, Buttercup, Lisa, grandad, and the rest of my family I care for the most. The very ones I love in life.”
Terry became silent. His grandmother didn’t know that he took away his powers for the year to be more like humans.
“The thing though that people and heroes must realize about life is that life is as strong and dense as glass but just as fragile to break.” He paused. “Now, I feel like not being here with you guys makes me feel like I am glass.” He attempted to laugh,
His grandmother continued to listen. She has never heard him sound remotely sad.
“I have been a fool, granny. I protect those who cannot defend themselves and they treat others like they are a lifeless piece of trash. I try my best to take care of you and grandad and things always get in the way. Why do I protect life, specifically human life when the lot of them care nothing for what others do for them?” Terry pouted as he kicked a hole into the ground. “I will never understand when you do good people always want greater things. Always wanting to take no matter what you give.”
“While this is true about some people you, my grandson, do these things because you are a kind and loving boy. You see that there is a light in every single person even if they choose to look the other way. Even your villains. You show them that hope never fades away like a feather in the wind. That there is someone who cares when others turn their backs.”
Terry had a little smile come across his face for that mention. He looked up to the sky and closed his eyes to daydream. The wind flew into his hair, it flowing like a flag in the wind, his hair just being one of the colors of the wind. He returned his gaze with his grandmothers’ caramel eyes.
“This also ties in with our situation, granny. It is not fair that we have to be evicted. In the times of the world needing people more than ever, you would think compassion would be common sense.”
“Heroes, like other people, unfortunately, don’t always have the perfect lives that they seek, Terry. It’s what makes them human and connect to what it means to be human. To be a sentient being. And besides, your grandfather and I are being evicted. Not you.”
Terry’s heart skipped a beat as he raised his eyebrow. He was wondering what she meant by that. He hoped it wasn’t what he was thinking it was.
“Granny,” he said as his voice cracked and his finger on his lip, “They aren’t evicting you and grandad because you two are old and I am not, are they?” He asked as he held onto his chest and his yellow eyes began to glow brighter. He could feel his heartbeat racing hoping that the answer was not yes.
“The landlord is indeed evicting us because of that very thing. He said that elderly people are a burden.”
Terry feared the worst. His face combined with anger and sadness as he kept himself from breaking something. What in the world is wrong with people? Have they learned nothing about what history has taught and repeated? He thought to himself. It felt like a boomerang. They make mistakes and then troubleshoot them, learning from past mistakes, and then it comes back and repeats from the previous mistake or a new one arises.
“I have succumbed to my heart, granny. It has been broken into a million pieces. A shattered vase just as much as yours.”
Buttercup looked up at Terry and tried to lick him knowing that he was sad and frustrated. Terry placed her onto a box that was already stationed and continued to help his grandmother pack the rest of her items such as lamps, couches, and even parts of a bed. He looked at all of the things that she was packing up and this made him think even more negatively of humans.
“Humans do nothing more than kill, hate, discriminate. They will not even concede with all the history that has been forged. Barely learning from the lessons from the past. Hating and killing each another because of the color of their skin, the language they speak in that they were born with, prejudice someone’s sexuality and gender and this is one of many problems of what is happening to you and grandad this instance.”
He paused as he started to pace, “I wish I could have been here to prevent this from happening to you guys.” He said as Buttercup jumped down and started to rub her body against his leg with him almost not taking notice.
“This isn’t your fault, Terry. This is not something that is in your control. There was nothing you could have done. Most things when I think about are not any of our control. That is how you have always capitalized on that.” His grandmother mentioned as she put red China plates into a box.
The wind now became cool and quiet. His grandmother’s face had turned confidence to sadness. She didn’t want to see her grandson like this and this was the first time she has ever even seen him sound and act like someone he is not. Buttercup kept turning her head each time Terry or his grandmother would talk.
“I give my love and they throw it back. I throw my heart they go on attack. All I want for this world is peace, even if it is just for a day. Normally I would not take heed to negativity but this time this is different. I ponder if this is how other people feel all the time when people bring them down. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Do I dare think differently about that?”
He continued to stare at the ground. His grandmother never once taking her eyes off him, never closing her ears off.
“I’m not a symbol of hope. I never was. I can’t even take care of you and grandad. Why do I, a ten-year-old kid, have to care for these people only for it to seem like a burden to me. For me to be a crutch to help them stand when they no longer have the ability to walk and mobilize. Why do I do it?” He cried harder as he buried his face into his grandmother’s arms.
She patted him on his back.
Before she could utter another word, Stuart came out with some more boxes. He noticed Terry and remembered that not only that this was one of his best friends but that he wrote stories for Volcano Boy. He went and tugged onto Terry’s sunflower colored hoodie.
“You write stories about Volcano Boy, right?” Stuart asked curiously but happily.
“I used to,” Terry replied.
“Where is he?”
Terry paused. He didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t Volcano Boy Wolf Prime anymore.
“He quit.” He uttered the first words that came to his mind.
“Why?” Stuart asked with a puzzled face as he accidentally dropped one of the boxes hard to the ground.
“He felt like he wasn’t needed anymore.”
“He will be back, right?
Terry shrugged his shoulders and let his silence be sound. His body tensing within every second.
“He is my hero. He makes me believe that anything is possible. If you could, could you ask him to please come back? I miss him and so do a whole lot of other people.” Stuart mentioned as he walked back into the house to get another box while having a tear come across his face.
Terry was left shocked. His face almost not being phased.
“Stuart knows a hero when he sees one, Terry.” His grandmother mentioned as she grabbed a chair and a towel to wipe off the sweat from her face and the tears off her grandson as Buttercup jumped into her lap. “And so, do others. God knows that kids like Stuart and other people need a hero. And, you, my grandson, are that very thing. I couldn’t be prouder. To name a few, you are compassionate, wise, courageous, selfless, kind, and gentle. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People will do anything for them.”
Terry took a moment to take everything in. All of this was hitting him hard.
“Heroes give people hope. They teach and tell people to hold on to hope. It doesn’t matter if something is true or what wrong they have done to you, the real thing that matters is the story that people tell about you when you are gone. You did all of that for them, Terry. They need you. They will always need you.”
A slow smile came across Terry’s face as he continued to cry. His tail started to wag very fast as he started to brighten up some more. Stuart returned and he gently tapped him on his shoulder.
“You know, Stuart,” Terry said as his smile grew as big as the sun above. “I do believe that Volcano Boy will return soon. You can bet on it.”
“Really?” said Stuart as his face started to boom with joy. Terry nodded.
“However, for that to come to fruition you must promise me something.”
“What is that?”
“You must promise me that you will never lose hope in anything. A friend of mine once said, “Hang on to your dreams. The future is built on dreams. Hang on.” And from me, “You must dare to keep all of your dreams alive. Because somewhere out there, there is a place where dreams do survive.”
Stuart’s face lit up like a Christmas tree as he stuck out his pinkie to do a pinkie swear with his friend. Terry picked him up and hugged him.
“I have just regained something that I lost that shall never again disperse. I must never lose sight that where there is hope, there is life and neither should anyone else. “Look up to the sky, Stuart. Think of the sky as the beginning of our dreams to come true.”
Terry left after helping them finish up their work and load them in the car when grandad arrived. He kissed his grandmother and Buttercup goodbye and thanked her and fist-bumped with Stuart. He was now someone new. He realized now that no matter how dire something may look, there is and always will be a little light that shines in the darkness. That you cannot let what others say get to you. Turn that negativity into the light that lives inside of you, that lives in all of us. We all are one and we all can be heroes. I know we can be. We just need the courage to try.
Never lose sight of hope when you think it is extinguished like a lit candle in the wind. There will be days when we lose faith and you feel that you have failed in life. Days it feels like people have turned against us and that you feel like you are all alone. Remember: No matter what comes your way, no matter how buried and lost you and your soul feels, hope is always alive. It’s just waiting for you. Believe in it. Keep kindness and compassion alive. Who knows who you might be healing? Throw those bad days away and let them burn. Throw them into a fire. Be the light. It is never too late to dream of a better world that still has yet to come. Heaven is within you and Heaven is here. Hear the whispers of love call you home and live like you are free. Reach out to that little light that outshines the darkness. Once you found it cherish it and embrace it and know that beautiful and magical little light you find, is nothing other than you.
