Demons

The Start

ids, teenagers, are expected to be lost. They are expected to be searching for "their place" in the world. Adults are supposed to know. James Kneeblood was an adult...had been for years and years. But he didn't know his place in the world. He wondered why he was there, why his station in life was what it was, why he married the women he married. He was getting old, but he wasn't getting any wiser. His lack of understanding terrified him. He didn't want to try to talk about it, either, because he thought everyone else around him had long since figured it all out. James behaved as an adult, but he didn't feel like one. He felt like he had been stuck, 40 or 50 years ago, in a state that kept him young, at least in thought.

His bones hurt, his ankles swelled, his hands puffed up and he found it hard to make a fist. It was, he assumed, arthritis or the dozens of pills he took to keep his heart beating. He felt like a 90 year old man, trapped with the mind of a teenager...a teenager who could, at any moment, swell with tears or curse his parents; someone who could fly into a blind fit of rage aimed at someone he loved, in one minute, yet feel unutterable love for that same person with his next breath. He was a hard man to understand. He was a hard man to love. But she loved him anyway. At least she did for a long, long time.

Her feelings may have changed over time, having had to deal with an enraged psycho so many times, a psycho who couldn't control those demons that attacked everyone he loved. She never wanted him dead, but when he mentioned it to her, she didn't object.