Saule & Harper o1

"The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years--the last 50 years really--has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering." 
-- J. Michael Straczynski 

A mother’s intent at giving her son a creative name ended up bestowing him with middle school years of misery. 

Surely, you would think he was exaggerating, but that wouldn't be the case at all. The name he was given was in the vein of naming a child Uranium or Rainbow: laughable, asking for torment, and snide comments about whether the parents were arrogant geniuses or on some sort of illegal drug. In reality, no, his parents were rather normal people living normal struggling middle class lives. The mother an accountant, the father a businessman for some company that no one had even heard of but was crucial to the functioning of society. It might have been even related to computers somehow, he wasn't really sure. 

He was sure, however, that his brother was given a name that didn't seem all that unfortunate in elementary school--no one picked up on the unusual spelling or it's relation to mythology. In fact, it could be said with absolute certainty that not even the parents know of the mythology relation. 

The boy with the name? He might of. 

In fact, it could be said that without a doubt, this boy knew what his name truly meant. 

His name was Saule. 

But pronounced like the name Saul. 

His mother said that the name looked unnatural without another vowel at the end, so there it was: an e slapped on to make it look more refined. To somehow make it all make more sense. 

If you add on the e, however, the proper pronunciation quickly changed to Saw-you-lay. 

"Saw-you-lay," his homeroom teacher in sixth grade school had a passion for mythologies, especially those that no one else had any interest in. It gave her room to extrapolate  “Saw-you-lay Meath?” 

He wasn’t there for this event, but he was sure that all the versions that were spread around were fairly accurate. His brother, Saule, raised his hand in response and quietly corrected the aging teacher of the proper pronunciation of his name, or the pronunciation that was to be used. 

“Well that’s just foolish,” the teacher responded, probably with pursed lips. “Why pronounce this name incorrectly when you’re named after a goddess?” 

“What?” 

Pre-teen boys, the majority of them, have trouble keeping their mouths shut. 

“Oh, yes,” and the teacher was oblivious as a young child about the existence of Santa Claus. “Saw-you-lay, after the Latvian-Lithuanian goddess of the sun. She was the bringer of life to her people, kept them healthy, especially a woman’s reproductive organs.” 

An unfortunate name indeed.

Pre-teen boys, also the majority of them, had an astonishing lack of maturity. 

Thus the moniker ‘Sun Goddess’ was the nickname that Saule was soon known by. You would hope that his tormenters could come up with better nicknames, but they couldn’t, and mostly resorted to snickers and snide comments about pregnancy and feminine hygiene  to torment him. 

His older brother, three years older and yet only a grade above, wasn’t much help at all. He was too busy trying to keep up his reputation as one of the cool kids to defend his younger brother.

The so called genius. The girl boy. The lesbian. 

Words like those stung. Words like those stayed under the surface for years, boiling, turning themselves over and over in a furnace of frustration, hatred and desperation. It was going to blow at any time, anyone with common sense could see that, but not a single person at Brown Middle School seemed to have common sense. 

So it all blew at his eighth grade graduation. Valedictorian. He made his way up to the stage, and small for his age, stepped on a stool placed conveniently for him and grabbed the microphone out of his placeholder. 

Parents and brother in the front row, the parents sitting proudly while the brother in disinterest. Their son had such a bright future ahead of him, where he would be going to a private high school on full scholarship, with a guaranteed admittance to college. He was going to be a lawyer or doctor of some sort trained by the best in the world. 

It was the perfect plan. It didn’t matter if the older brother, the delinquent, was barely passing his freshman year of high school and spent his math classes hiding in the bathroom that was well known as the smoker’s area. 

He smelled of cigarette smoke, but the parents were never able to find a single cigarette or lighter on him.  

“I’m here today to speak about the future ahead of us in high school,” Saule spoke, glancing out over his parents heads to everyone else in the crowd. “You’re all expecting me to speak some sort of inspiring, heartwarming speech where the parents are going to be sure that their children are special and going to have the best future. The students are not going to pay attention, of course, and yet pretend they’re going to listen--” he glanced towards his classmates sitting in their seats off to the side of stage. “So I do think it would be okay for me to tell you the truth, since it wouldn’t traumatize them, because they aren’t listening, as said earlier. 

He gripped the podium with one hand, some kind of fire alight in his eye as he continued speaking. “Due to the magnificent funding the district provides towards health education, one in five girls of my graduating class will be pregnant by senior year. Half of those will have been pregnant twice. Also contributing towards that magnificent health education, it’s predicted that one third of our class will have had some sort of Sexually Transmitted Infection before graduation. One seventh of this class will have dropped out of high school, and only one tenth of our class will be going onto some sort of higher education.” 

There was a smirk on his face, but only those in the first two rows could see it.

“So you may think your child is something special, but I will argue and say that I am the one that’s something special. And that scared most of your children,” he continued. “But thankfully, I won’t have to scare them anymore. I’m never going to have to be put down to their level intellectually again.

“To education!” Saule raised his hand gripping the podium like a salute to the American flag in the back of the auditorium. “Whatever our country decided that to be pitifully be.” 

Quietly, with the fire in his eye now gone and his voice having grown weak, he hooked the microphone back onto the podium and went back to his seat. 

No one clapped, besides the older brother, who hadn’t been paying attention until he heard the words Sexually Transmitted Infection.

It was about time that his little brother learned how to stand up for himself. 

The parents remained deathly grave through the car ride home. Both brothers even thought that Saule got away with it all, until they pulled into the driveway and began to get out of the car. 

“Saule,” their father was tall and thin, with permanently tired gray eyes framed by square glasses. He wore his best business suit to Saule’s graduation, which even then, wasn’t saying that much. “I need to talk to you before you go inside.” 

The brother, who’s name was Harper Lee Meath, after the acclaimed writer, tried to watch the discussion between his younger brother and father through the living room window, but his mother pulled him away with the promises of fresh lemonade to quench his thirst on that unbearably humid May day. 

This, of course, could be considered background information. Insignificant to the total story. 

But to understand how Harper Lee Meath failed to protect his brother as he should have protected him, one needs to understand just the type of trouble a character like Saule Meath could stir together. 

Though he didn’t always mean it. 

That summer, Harper dreamt often of a girl in a chariot drawn by two white horses. She was dressed entirely in gold fabric, a shade darker than her golden hair. Her hand was extended towards him, a reassuring smile promising that it was okay to take it. 

But he was never able to take it. He’d wake up from his sleep right when he was about to touch her hand. 

He most certainly wasn’t in love with her, he knew that much. But there was some about her that was comforting, and that feeling haunted him while he laid in bed, staring at the shapes made by the textured ceiling. After staring for what felt like hours, he’d force himself out of bed and head to the bathroom to wash off his face. 

One night, however, Saule was there doing what he intended to do. 

“Can’t sleep either?” Harper asked him, leaning against the doorframe. Saule’s shoulders tensed slightly and he glanced towards him, shrugged, and continued wiping down his face with the dripping washcloth. “It’s alright if you can’t.” 

“I haven’t slept properly in weeks,” Saule admitted, holding the washcloth out to him with two fingers to you. “On and off, yeah, but never constantly like I need to.”

“Ah.” It was the only response that could come out of Harper’s mouth. 

“Which is horrible, really,” Saule continued. “I can’t have my sleeping schedule deviate too far from the norm, it’s going to put my entire productivity off once school comes around--” 

“You’re thinking about it too hard. There’s three things a high school student normally does: school, social life, and sleep. A high school student only has time for three.” 

A mumble. “It’s obvious which ones you picked.” 

“I picked the ones that preserve my sanity, Saule,” Harper shrugged. 

“I’m going to pick the ones that are going to assure I’m sane later.” 

“Heh,” Harper applied the washcloth to his face, only mildly shocked by how cold it was, but mostly relieved by it’s cool touch. “Suit yourself.”

“You’re thinking negatively of me,” Saule accused. 

“I’m not,” Harper pulled away the washcloth, blinking. “It’s good that you care so much about school. According to Mom and Dad, anyways.” 

Saule punched him in the arm with surprising force for him, though it was still relatively weak. 

“Not going to punch you back, don’t want you to be completely covered in bruises and in crutches on your first day of freshman year,” Harper said nonchalantly, throwing the washcloth into the sink. “That’d get you all sort of new nicknames.” 

“None of which I need.” 

“None of which you need, yeah--hey, what’s that?” 

Harper picked up a newspaper that had been left on the counter. “The business section? Really?” 

“I’ve only been really following it ‘cause of like…I don’t know,” Saule sighed, picking up the washcloth and wringing it out. “You know Crowley Industries, right?” 

A pause. “Sure.” 

“They’re an energy company, mostly focusing on oil,” Saule explained, taking the newspaper back from him. “Lately they’ve been investing all this money into top secret research projects and people that are just like…I don’t know. Basically unknown. This professor of ancient history in the Ukraine, someone in Greenland who doesn’t even exist allegedly…it’s strange. It doesn’t really make any sense.” 

“Huh. Maybe he has some weird hobbies.” 

“Austin Crowley isn’t really one for weird hobbies, though,” Saule countered, then noticed a look on his brother’s face. “That’s the head of the company. I had to do a project on him for school.” 

“Huh.” 

“Whatever, I’m going back to bed,” Saule said, rolling up the newspaper. “Night.” 

“Are you going to explain to me why are you so interested in this dude? Is he like, your idol?”

“He’s a horrible person,” was the only response to come out of Saule’s mouth. 

“That doesn’t really answer my question.” 

“No, I don’t see him as my idol,” Saule told him after taking a deep breath. “But there’s something going on here, and no one else seems to be that interested in following it, it’s just being treated as these random thrown around facts.” 

“Because that’s what they probably are.” 

“Of course you’d think that,” Saule said to him with that sense of finality as if he was suggesting something sinister, pushing past Harper to make it back to his bedroom. “Night.” 

Kid brothers. They were so stupid trying to prove themselves, even if they were geniuses.