Waiting for Hope

Carry On Wayward Son

Carry On Wayward Son - kansas

There was a pounding on Ethan's door. Repeated. Louder. Then a voice to accompany the pounding.

"Ethan Thompson, open this door right now, or I swear to all that is holy I will break it down."

Whoops. She was pissed. And when his mom was pissed, you stayed out of her way. How was he going to stay out of her way AND open the door? He never should have ignored her call...again.

He hadn't really learned his lesson after the first time a week ago. After all, she had just sent Josh who came to find him at the frat house, sitting on that questionable couch which was probably dragged in from some ally after who knows how many cats had called it home. Josh had given him a hard time, for about a minute. But then the two of them had found a furnished apartment to rent and Ethan had upgraded to a better couch, certainly not having been a home for alley cats.

So really, all Josh had done was change Ethan's geography. His denial or depression, or his guilt, whatever he was dealing with, had not relented. And now there were no parties with shy girls to get his mind off of things for a while.

Classes hadn't started yet and he still didn't have a job, so it was back to sleeping as much as he could. Well until his mom started banging on his door. She had called him the night before and he had been too stubborn to answer.

He knew what she would say, get off your ass and start living. He didn't want to hear it. He was also pretty sure she wouldn't want to hear his response, which would have been laced with sarcasm and rebuttals. As the summer had stretched on, anger had been added to the long list of emotional melt downs he was having. And, yeah, he was angry. Pissed. Livid.

Who was the anger directed at? Well, who was standing in front of him at the moment. That was pretty much who would get a snide remark or scowl from Ethan. The pizza guy, telemarketers, the girl working the drive through at Taco Bell. Even Josh was learning to just stay away from him as much as possible. No one was safe.

Ethan had no real outlet for his anger other than his few run-ins with the outside world, so it mostly simmered as he watched tv or slept. And now his mom was banging on the door, about to take on the storm that had been brewing in his distraught mind.

Ethan got up from the couch and sauntered to the door. "Hang on, I'm coming!"

Not the best choice of words, or tone.

"Watch it, Ethan! I've pretty much had it with you at this point!" His mom wasn't happy with him, quite obviously.

He opened the door to find her eyeing him with sheer frustration written all over her face. Suddenly, and without any warning whatsoever, her hand flew to his cheek, slapping the snot out of him.

"What the...! What was that for?" Ethan questioned incredulously while massaging his stinging cheek.

"Oh, did you feel that?" His mom replied, "good, that means you're alive. Now start acting like it!" She pushed past him, walking into the living room and taking a seat on HIS couch.

Ethan's mouth was open, prepared to respond to her little speech, but he found that he had nothing to say. So rather than get into a war of words with the champion herself, he resigned himself to his fate and went to sit on the couch next to her.

"Okay, let me have it," he said in surrender. Hadn't he been thinking a week ago that he wished she would just get pissed at him? Yeah, be careful what you wish for...

"Son, you have got to do something about all these feelings you're having. Keeping them bottled up and trying to ignore them is just dragging you down. So, talk to me. Tell me what's been going through that mind of yours."