Topic: Charm School for a Cad

Haven Bruce

Date: 2007-04-11 17:06 EST
Haven absently scratched the stubble at his jaw. He hadn't bothered to shave. The days worth of shadow just added to his mystique. His shoulders raised and fell as he laughed at the descriptive. Is that what he was calling himself these days" Why not Robin Hood" It was just as ridiculous. No he'd have to do better than that.

Still grinning, the hint of a dimple at his left cheek, he ran a hand through his shaggy hair. He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against the crudely sketched map in his journal. He weighed the pros and cons of individual routes, the cost, the gain " they always wound up nearly the same. One destination more expensive but visibly lucrative, while the other was more cost efficient without noticeable gain. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other " and either way he'd wind up in both (eventually). Put simply, it was his mental gymnasium and he was currently in the middle of a work out.

He wondered briefly, when it was that he'd decided not to return home. It could've been during the first once-over of the terse letter from his loving sister. Even silently, the emphasis on "loving" was laden with sarcasm. They'd never been close. Hell they hardly even knew one another. Their rearing years had been spent in segregated, gender specific boarding schools. She was nearly a stranger. The only difference being, that he knew her well enough to know that she was horrid. The woman redefined snobbery and judgment and for some ungodly reason she'd placed herself on a pedestal, to look down upon all the lesser peoples of the world, including her very charming and embarrassingly modest brother.

Haven thought the entire image hilarious and envisioned her shock, upon the realization that her white tower consisted solely of toothpicks and twine. And there in that one statement, held all the reason and all the ammunition his sister needed, to both scorn and abhor him.

He was caustic and witty, brandishing both like well honed foils. Some, who lacked the appropriate imagination and/or intelligence to appreciate the subtle nuisances of his skill, chose instead, to perch upon lofty heights, tossing down their ignorance like rubber lightening bolts. And the real rub' Haven simply didn't care.

He wasn't enjoying his life any less in their absence. Their simple and unimaginative volleys fell limply at his feet, with him no worse the wear. It really was an almost ideal circumstance. He came and went as he chose. He wasn't unkind or uncaring, though he did have the tendency to inch casually toward selfishness. He lived a hummingbird existence: flitting from here to there and never taking bringing very much to, or from, the table yet always, providing a dazzling display of color and distraction.

He snapped the journal closed and slipped his pencil behind his ear. He'd only just arrived in this place, no need to rush off. Especially considering it was the first place he'd stumbled upon that didn't reside in any cartography journals or publications that he'd ever seen.