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MORE HUMAN[break]THAN HUMAN

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[attr="class","Navypog3-subtitle"]
THE DESIRE TO DESTROY[BREAK]
TO DISRUPT, TO LOSE CONTROL[BREAK]
TO REBUILD, AND THEN[BREAK]
TO TEAR IT DOWN AGAIN.

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Seldom does a man wake up on a terrible day knowing it will, in fact, be terrible. It begins in optimism. Today is payday. Summer is almost at an end. Autumn carries a promise: this year will be different. He’ll pull his grades together. He’ll get the girl. Everything will be okay.[break][break]
This summer has taught him that sometimes, everything works out alright. Giddy with excitement, he sees that his father has already left for the day. Today is the last day young Michael Navidson needs to work. One more day of flipping burgers. One more day of being yelled at by a boss he hates.[break][break]
He suffers in silence and grace. Every blow, he takes in stride. After a lifetime under a monster’s roof, he’s learned to weather blows.[break][break]
At the end of the day, he holds the last check in his hand. It’s enough. More than enough. Enough to buy the prize he’s had his eye on all summer long. While other fifteen year old boys have lazed on Slateport Beach, he has put his determination toward this task.[break][break]
Hanging up his uniform for the last time, he grins at his boss.[break][break]
“Yo, Joe?” His manager looks at him. Michael doesn’t have to be some great detective to tell the man’s annoyed. Joe is moments away from telling Michael he needs him for more shifts.[break][break]
“Get bent!” Accompanying the words is a monomyth of insults: a raised middle finger. A symbol of defiance, freedom, and bullheaded hope.[break][break]
He’s never working here again.[break][break]
Next is a blur. A wonderful blur. A blur that ends with him sitting in the back of a guitar shop. In his hands, he holds a masterpiece. This is a thing of beauty, although some would call it junk. Although it doesn’t look like much, a cheap secondhand rig, it’s everything to him.[break][break]
This guitar is the holy grail to him. Chilling out close by, the store’s clerk grins at him.[break][break]
“Give it a spin, kid.”[break][break]
And he does. He’s terrible. To see him play, he thinks he’s playing before a sold out arena. It feels good in his hands. It feels right. It feels like everything he’s been through to hold the guitar by the neck has been worth the effort.[break][break]
“Well, you’re no Page, but keep at it.” The man smiles. “Practice every day.”[break][break]
“I will. Promise.” To this man, he flashes a peace sign. Two fingers raised high.[break][break]
The afternoon passes in bliss. Strumming his guitar, his fingers start to ache. They’re starting to tear. He loves this pain, for it is his own.[break][break]
Like every daydream, this one must end. It ends with the sound of a door opening.[break][break]
Joshua Navidson has been drinking. Like so many other men on the bottom of society’s totem pole, he hates his lot in life. He hates how his bosses yell at him. His gray eyes are bloodshot.[break][break]
“Michael.” His father’s eyes find him. “The hell are you doing?”[break][break]
“Just, just, uh, playing my guitar, dad.” All the confidence he’s built up bursts. His shoulders deflate. Reflexes spur him to take half a step away.[break][break]
“When did you get a guitar?” Simple words carry Articuno’s own chill. “Did you steal it?”[break][break]
“No,” he says in a high voice, “no!” The echo of the word carries more confidence.[break][break]
“I got a job, dad! Worked every day while you were out!”[break][break]
Joshua Navidson crosses the gulf between them. Michael flinches. Joshua’s hands already adjusted, expecting the flinch. He seizes the guitar, pulls it free. Inspects the instrument.[break][break]
“You got a job?” The monster scoffs. “You ain’t ever gonna work an honest day in your life, Michael. Your mom’s always crying over your grades.”[break][break]
“I did, dad!” His voice grows manic. “I did! Go down to the Burger Kingler. They’ll tell you Navy’s been working there.”[break][break]
“Navy?” His father scoffs. “That something your rat boyfriends call you?” It was his brother who dubbed him that – the brother who, blessedly, is out with their mother.[break][break]
“Stealing isn’t what a man does, Michael.” His father turns, walks away. “Men don’t lie. Men don’t play the guitar.”[break][break]
His father’s hands are excellent liars. Beneath the scars from hooks, they look gentle. Soft for a man’s. They grip the neck of the guitar with monstrous strength.[break][break]
It slams against the bedroom wall.[break][break]
Again, and again.[break][break]
Until it shatters.[break][break]
“I don’t work hard out there so you can fuck it all up!”[break][break]
His father hasn’t touched him. That is a rare thing. He wishes the man had. Pain would be preferable to this. Michael looks at the broken guitar with empty eyes. His shoulders slump.[break][break]
He walks past his father. Joshua doesn’t try to stop him.[break][break]
Michael sits on the high roof of a building. Below him is empty air. It would be so easy to slip off. He could fall into oblivion. Fall until he hits the ground. His curtain call. Only now, when he is alone and considering the view from halfway down, does he cry.[break][break]
A bird scrapes against concrete nearby. Michael turns to see a Skarmory return to roost. Its golden eyes do not judge.[break][break]
“Sorry…I didn’t mean to, to, take your turf.” He inhales hard. “I just, just wanted to be alone.”[break][break]
Skarmory doesn’t leave. Neither does he blink. He sits quietlyl.[break][break]
“I just wanna go. Somewhere that’s not here. Maybe up to where Kyle lives. His parents would take me in…” He’s harbored that fantasy before, running off to stay with kyle lopez and his new family.[break][break]
“But they wouldn’t take Gabe. Three mouths are a lot. No one…no one cares ‘bout him. Not really.” In his brother, he draws strength. He drinks from that well, deep enough to make this cage bearable. “The day he was born…everyone left as soon as they rolled him out. If I leave…dad’ll just hurt him, next. Or mom.”[break][break]
Skarmory flies closer. Nesting down, he is careful to avoid pressing anything sharp into Michael. He can’t offer much comfort. All he can do is rub his head against a lost, lonely young man.[break][break]
Even terrible days must end.

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