Little John and the Ashes. A Horror, Drama, Love story. (standard:adventure, 2936 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jul 19 2020	Views/Reads: 1428/996	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A lonely man plodded slowly down route #2, across the plains of Iowa. His name was John, and he was thin and short, only four-foot-eight in height. John was one of the most dangerous men in the United States.

A lonely man plodded slowly down route #2, across the plains of Iowa. 
His name was John, and he was thin and short, only four-foot-eight in 
height.  Dressed in tattered jeans and a plaid shirt, he carried a 
faded red backpack. Worn down from the open road, he slumped forward as 
he walked.  Small and seemingly ineffectual, John was one of the most 
dangerous men in the United States. 

When he heard one of few autos coming up behind him, John would turn to
watch.  If not a police car, he'd tentatively put out a thumb, trying 
for a ride.  Drivers might slow down -- or not -- to look him over, 
then speed on by.  Most didn't want to get their car seats dirty, or 
simply didn't like his looks. 

John was on his way to California, only one thing on his simple mind. 
That was to sprinkle his friend's ashes over San Francisco bay, a task 
entrusted to him by another friend, named Alfred.  Alfred couldn't 
help, since he was currently in jail in Detroit. 

How Little John came to be walking by himself was a long story and a sad
one.... 

*** 

"Why, Peter?  Why us?  You, a renowned scientist and chemist.  Me an
accomplished model, and we have the dumbest and ugliest child in town.  
What the hell could have scrambled his genes?  Did you get too close to 
experimental machinery in your lab?"  Ellen Grant simpered, shaking her 
head while watching the toddler at play in their back yard. 

When John was five-years-old, they had, against the advice of the
principal, enrolled him in kindergarten at the local school.  He 
reminded the teacher of a young cow, as the kids picked on John 
constantly.  One morning, a teacher came in to find John naked and with 
his entire body finger-painted, the other children laughing at her 
reaction.  Shocked and saddened, she insisted he be taken out of school 
as a disrupting influence to the class. 

John, himself, had even liked the painting, thinking he was pleasing the
other kids.  His eviction was only one more setback in a lifelong 
struggle for self-confidence and acceptance. 

The boy, bent over almost double, was seen trying to get into a shed his
parents used for garden supplies.  He'd bang his head, scratch it, and 
backup.  Then, he'd run forward, again missing an open doorway, to bang 
into the door-frame once more.  Over and over, nonstop.  His father had 
instructed the child to mow the lawn.  "I would have made it.  I know I 
would.  I know I would," the child stated when his father stopped his 
efforts. 

"How would you like to work with me?" his Daddy asked twelve-year-old
John.  "You could live at the lab and have plenty of friends." 

Little John liked the idea, as did his mother.  John was crimping his
mother's style by being around her and her friends.  She felt much 
better knowing he was out of her hair and in a safe atmosphere. 

He was employed as an assistant to the assistant janitor and given a
room to himself next to the furnace-room.  At first, John was humored 
and included in life among scientists and assistants. Eventually, as he 
became older and they were used to his ways, he became the butt of many 
jokes, such as sent looking for left-handed Bunsen burners.  During 
that period, his parents pretty much disowned him, even his father 
avoiding him at work. His mother had nothing to do with him, not even 
inviting her son to Christmas parties with the rest of his family.  
Indeed, since he was never talked about at home, a younger sister 
didn't even know John existed. 

Conditions remained so until a new scientist was hired, one considered
flaky though brilliant. 

"So you're Little John, uh?"  Alfred Corning stopped John one day while
the young man was emptying wastebaskets into a larger container, so 
that he could wheel it to the furnace. 

John was, as usual, screwing things up.  Even though having done the


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