"Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up."
-James Baldwin
Secret crawled out of the ruins that had been created from the Great Storm what seemed to be a thousand years ago. Several littler storms had leveled any remaining fixture in J�s universe, but the majority of it had been destroyed in the one Great Storm, the storm that had almost killed them all. Secret had been swept away in a hurricane of anger far, far away from the others. Secret wondered if Hope had indeed perished in the Storm. She moved aside some debris, finally fully emerging to the visible world. She had kept herself hidden, terrified of what my later ensue after the Storm. After a few days of calm, Secret had cautiously emerged. She saw Prominence not too far away, almost fully operational. She managed the stressful demands of the outside world not with ease, but instead with frenzy. �Oh Secret! Thank God!� the still beautiful [even though they had all experienced a catastrophic Storm] Prominence bounded up to her with a hug. Secret almost recoiled at the sugary sweetness.
�I thought you had died!� she exclaimed.
�Thought? Or hoped?� Secret asked, skeptical.
�Oh, don�t be such a cynic. Besides, Hope is missing, have you seen her?�
�No,� Secret shook her head, �I haven�t seen anyone since the Storm.�
�Ah,� Prominence only said, clicking her tongue.
�I don�t� even know if its worth searching for Hope,� Secret looked away into the rubble that was the remains of J�s world.
�Maybe or maybe not, but J needs Hope to survive, so we have to go find her,� Prominence said almost fiercely.
�I suppose,� Secret responded finally returning her gaze back to Prominence. She seemed to almost have a small sparkle in her eye that Secret might have once mistaken for sincerity. She was about to ask about it but the ground suddenly began to shake.
�Oh no,� Secret looked around frantically for something to steady herself against.
�What is she getting us into now?� Prominence cried.
J didn�t even feel a bit of anger as the father-being demanded an apology for the War that happened so long ago. As a matter of fact, J felt relieved that her father-being was still upset. It almost made her feel a small sense of victory knowing that she had cut the cord with her father-being and that he was still holding on, angry that she had almost won. The thought of such pettiness made her feel sick, but at the same time made her gloat. The contradiction sent ripples of emotion throughout her.
The demon still reigned as the current Queen of the Universe, but Princess J knew that someday a revolution would cause the dethronement of the Demon�the end of a tyrannical regime. Patience had been Princess J�s virtue for almost two decades, but she was willing to give up her crown and never see the father-being again. She was willing to let go of him so that he could continue his almost incestuous relationship with the Demon. They deserve each other, she thought. She was willing to let go of him permanently to the Demon at the expense of her kingdom. She could take the kingdom elsewhere and rule in peace. Hope was lost to J and she knew that her father-being would never become her father ever again.
�Goodbye Daddy,� she said, her voice slightly twinged with sadness as she hung up the phone.
The father-being had simply become �being� to her. Maybe someday Hope will come back.
J
