Ikarus - Part III (fiction)

This is not the beginning of this, as you should be able to tell by now by the 'III' in the title. I'll let you figure out the rest, okay?

Eric woke with a cold slice of pizza on his head, which was rather strange, since he didn’t remember putting it there. He opened his mouth – mostly to get rid of the ghastly taste that dominated its inside – and munched on the stale crust. Pepperoni, not his favorite, by far. In fact, the old Eric would have avoided anything with pepperoni on it as a rule, since it gave him gas, which in turn didn’t let him sleep, which in turn meant he’d be late for his –
And with that thought, he jumped up off the couch, as if he’d been pinched by a cheeky old man on the subway, and dropped the pizza on the floor.
‘Finally, I was wondering when you’d get up.’
Eric blinked, his heart slowing back to normal as he realized he didn’t actually have to go to his job. He looked up to see a very elegant man with perfectly white hair, in a satin blue suit. He was sat on a bar stool, which Eric didn’t remember seeing the night before, and smoking an excruciatingly long pipe that filled the room with the unbearable stench of… raspberries.
So it was that his first words to the man were not I’m sorry, Good morning or Who the hell are you, but
‘What are you smoking?’ he asked, sniffing menacingly at the elegant man.
‘Oh, oh dear,’ the man said, jumping up off the stool and covering his mouth. ‘I didn’t realize. It’s raspberry, would you like to try some?’ he asked, speaking deliberately slow, like people do when they think you’re a wee bit daft.
‘No, uhm, I don’t know. I’ve never thought of that. Realize what?’
‘Your condition there,’ the man said, cheering up a little.
‘What condition?’
‘You’re one of those, God it’s just awful, one of those smell-blind people, aren’t you?’
Eric’s eyes narrowed considerably. ‘That’s color blind.’
‘Oh dear, you’re color-blind as well? Then maybe you shouldn’t have some,’ he said, shielding his pipe. ‘Then again, how could it be worse?’
‘Listen here, I’m not color blind or smell-blind or anything like that. There is no “smell-blind”, by the way.’
‘No? Then why didn’t you recognize the smell? What are you, stupid?’

_{Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash}

But before Eric couldn’t answer this most flattering inquiry, there came a high-pitched squeal from the other room, where a little girl, all of ten years old, had tripped over a loose snake that had been sleeping peacefully on the floor, though it certainly wasn’t doing that anymore, because someone had thought it would be a fun idea to ride her mono-cycle in the snake room. Again. Or so it seemed, judging by the sounds, at least.
Of course, the snake room was one in the loosest sense of the terms, in that it did house various snakes the lord of the house had collected on his travels, but it didn’t contain any actual snake-housing apparel, such as cages and all those other things that are supposed to make snakes safe and neat to look at.
And of course, Eric jumped a little at the sound and at least made an attempt of wobbling towards the door, which would’ve seemed Christian behavior for the white-haired gentleman also, except he had not moved a muscle and was now mumbling something into his pipe.

‘What was that?’
‘What? Nothing, nothing, raspberries always make me a bit woozy.’
‘They are real raspberries aren’t they? I mean, it’s not a street name for pot or something like that, is it?’
‘What? No, of course not. What would I want with a thing like that? Here, you want to try some, now we’ve established you’re not blind in any respect?’
There was a brief pause, in which a low hissing could be heard from next door. But then, Eric said ‘yeah, okay’, and the hissing just seemed to fade away.

It was during this rather passionate and most certainly erratic conversation, that Eric learned that the white haired gentleman with the pipe and the wild eyes was none other than Lionel Wilty, the father of Ikarus and the little girl engaged in a grueling snake fight in the other room.
‘Wow, I mean, I would’ve expected something more… god-like. I mean, like Daedalus or something.’
‘What, what?’
‘Daedalus.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘You know, Icarus’ father. In the story.’
‘Oh,’ the white-haired man said, knowingly. ‘I wouldn’t listen to any story that boy tells you, he’d got a right mind that one.’
‘But he said we’re weird. I mean, you’re weird, that’s what he said. You know, eccentric.’
‘And we are, yes,’ Lionel Wilty agreed, and it seemed, by all accounts, that the conversation was over.

The man didn’t seem in the least bit concerned with why Eric was here and it was only because his guest so insisted that he actually sat and listened to the whole story.
‘Jolly good,’ he nodded, once he’d heard the whole thing.
Nor did he seem to remember about the party he’d thrown last night and it was only with great coaxing and insistence on Eric’s part that he remembered there had been a party at all.
‘Oh yes, we grew bored after a bit and decided to take off,’ he explained, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
It seemed there was a great lot in insisting going on and Eric began to understand just what Ikarus had meant when he’d said his family was a lot of work.
‘Speaking of work,’ Lionel Wilty cut in.
‘What?’
‘I said speaking or work. You said something about work. And I said, speaking about work, it’s all good and fine being here, but we’ve somewhere to be later, so I highly suggest you at least wash the cheese off your face.’
‘Uhm, right,’ Eric said, sobering up instantly. This was more like it, work was something he knew. And knew well. ‘Well, where exactly are we going?’
The white-haired man shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll see when we get there.’

_{Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash}

On the other side of town, Ikarus was not spending his first day inside the immense office building. But it was his first day behind an actual desk and not, you know, lurking behind the plant in the hallway. He was doing marvelously well, in that he hadn’t the first clue about what he was supposed to be doing behind said desk, but he did it with great joy and that seemed to make up for it considerably. That, and the fact everyone was so used to ignoring Eric’s desk that they hadn’t even noticed the wild-eyed young man sitting there now.

And that was a shame because he had a tie on and everything. Looked like a proper business man. He’d raided Eric’s closet in the early morning, dumping a great big pile of clothes on the floor and then jumping in it, which had prompted the downstairs neighbor to come up and yell at him a little. It had been great.

Then, there had been the unfortunate incident with the lunch hour when most of the office had cleared and, well, let’s just say Ikarus forgot to pack himself a sandwich. It just never occurred to him, because so far in his life, food had never seemed like an important part, so he’d kinda assumed he’d find food, somehow. He hadn’t and now he was positively ravenous.
And it almost made him feel bad about what had happened at lunch. Almost. Out of boredom, seeing how no one was getting back and how it was considerably less enjoyable to tap away a his computer when there was no one around, he’d decided to redecorate a little. Nothing special, he’d just thought, wouldn’t it be fun to switch everyone’s desks around? He’d taken great care, because the key was in placing them exactly where the previous desk had been.

So now, the woman with the curls had the desk of the fat, black guy with the thick glasses, who in turn had the desk of the young man in the over-sized business suit, who in turn had… well, he’d lost track after a while, but he did know everyone’s desk had been switched. Why, Ikarus himself now sat at the desk of a blonde woman with bright red toenails and an obnoxious blue suit. He didn’t even know where Eric’s desk was anymore and the best part yet was that no one had noticed a thing. They were so used to lugging themselves around from desk to food and from desk to home and so on that they hardly ever saw what was before their very eyes.
He was having a blast. Tomorrow, he would paint the pot plants, perhaps. In his head, he was building himself a plan. And it was good to have a plan, it seemed to him normal people have plans. And for now, his plan included painted pot flowers. And glitter. And hell, maybe even googly eyes.

to be continued

Today's prompt was 'stale pepperoni pizza' and thank you @mariannewest for that.

And thanks for reading,