The Pissant
by Saka
saka@belvedia.net

He thought he was so tough. And he was. It took guts to hang out with three knuckleheads who didn’t know jack about anything.

“We’re a team! If we work together, we can accomplish anything!” Virginia would say. Jet found Virginia quite hilarious. He could imagine her prancing around the wastelands, humming to herself about how there’s no “I” in team, and that the word “impossible” can be written as “I’m possible” and all that propaganda they feed you in kindergarten.

“You’re the leader; I’ll comply with whatever your answer may be,” Clive would say to Virginia. Jet found Clive to be… SOMETHING. It’s hard to associate a word with Clive. For lack of a better phrase, Clive… well, lacks a personality. Jet figured that if Clive had ANY kind of personality, he would never blindly follow through with some green drifter girl and her romantic ambitions of wandering the world in search of justice and love.

And GALLOWS! Well! Looking at him made Jet think only one thing: Gallows is the gayest Indian to ever frolic the wastelands. Possible the dumbest. Gallows is definitely a little wet behind the ears. Jet wanted very badly to point out to him that white lipstick is not exactly the style for men these days. He wondered if he tripped on that man-skirt a lot.

He though he was so tough.

And he was.

“WHAT.”

Virginia was giving me a death glare again. I think it was a death glare. She has a lot of glares; it’s hard to differentiate them. So I repeated

“WHAT.”

She huffed, in frustration I presume, and rested her chin against her hand. “You think you’re sooooo much better off alone, don’t you?”

I’ve already explained this, I said. I don’t need some half-witted morons holding me back. I can take care of myself, by myself. I said.

Virginia rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, but it’s really hard to listen to you when you’re sipping chocolate milk through a bendy straw.”

Slurp.

Chocolate milk’s good though.

“Jeez.” Gallows gave me a look of his own, which I immediately recognized as dumbfounded. “You speak big and carry a small stick.”

My ARM could wipe the floor off you, skirt boy. “Yeah, whatever.” Slurp.

Clive shook his head and sighed. No input from him, as usual. He just went on a continued onto what they were all talking about before. I paid enough attention to hear out the major details on this new mission, which had something to do with suspicious activity in a neighboring cave. Whatever, I just want some reward and I’m outta here.

I’m a tough guy.

Slurp.

FLOWERS. Flowers EVERYWHERE.

“Wow, so pretty!” Virginia gazed around a garden we had stumbled across. Looking for clues on this cave had somehow led us to… a garden. Great. Stop and take a piss on the roses.

I saw Virginia kneel down to the level of a little girl who looked like the caretaker of the garden. Little children are scary. They make me nervous. They’re kind of evil in an innocent sort of way. Or is it the other way around?

“Howdy, there!” Virginia greeted, keeping her gaze on the flowers. “Did you plant these flowers yourself?”

The girl remained quiet.

Gallows waved. “Hi there, little girl! Can you talk?”

The girl remained quiet. We all looked at each other.

I pulled out my ARM. “Maybe if I shoot her…”

I dropped my gun. That’s what tends to happen when two guys tackle you at high velocity. Clive is heavy.

“Don’t mind Jet; you’ll never get anything nice from him, but he’s a good guy.” Virginia didn’t have to explain. Plus, I’m not a good guy. I’m tough, I’m not good nor bad. I just wanna get out of this circus and go back to whatever I was doing before. Which wasn’t much, but I sure liked it better than this. We were a herd of animals, four animals of all different species, and we just didn’t mesh together.

Recovering from their attack on me, Clive and Gallows knelt by the little girl, who still remained deafeningly silent. “She a mute…?” Gallows thinks out loud a lot.

“Silence is golden, Gallows,” I spat out. “Besides, not everybody blurts out whatever comes to their minds like you do.”

More head shaking from Clive. Dammit, these guys don’t give me a chance. Clive went on trying to talk to the girl, buttering her up by saying he had a daughter who looked about her age, but no avail. Give a mute girl a chance, but not me. What did I do to deserve this? Besides be a jerk all the time, I mean. Nah, I’m not a jerk, I’m compassionately-challenged.

We all decided to leave the place, and Virginia said to the little girl that we’d come back to visit sometime soon. Eh, boring. I trailed behind the group, and the little girl started following me just the same.

“Hey...!” I stared at her confusingly, thinking she may be plotting some kind of demise for me since I kind of threatened to shoot her. “You want something?”

She looked the other way, like she was too shy to ask what she wanted. I grew impatient.

“C’mon, spit it out! You want some candy? You want a pony? A box of crayons? Well, too bad!” I sneered at her, and started walking back to the group. Before I took two steps, I had already met up with Virginia. But she was really heading towards me. Really fast.

She gave me a flying kick to the face.

I didn’t know she had it in her!

“So much for silence being golden, huh, Jet?!” She scolded me like a child as I rubbed my injured face. Crap, it’s not cool to be caught in your hypocrisy. Insert pout here.

“Um…” The little girl is talking! Miracles do come true! I had started to run the other way but Virginia grabbed me by my scarf. I don’t wanna be a part of this. This little girl frightens me. Silent little girls obviously only mean one thing: CERTAIN DEATH!

But fortunately, all she wanted was us to clear up some problems with her garden. We all agreed, and headed out towards the cave the girl politely told us to investigate. But for some reason, she still wasn’t done.

“Why are you such a pissant?”

Whoa.

I could see my own face. If it said something, it would’ve been, “What in the blue FUCK just happened?”.

The little girl stomped up to me and glared, like the glare Virginia gave me, but only a lot more… sinister. Little children scare me. “Hello? You deaf?”

I stammered out a pathetic “Uhh”, taking a peek behind me to see if Virginia or the others where near. They were gone. I’m left behind. With this scary little girl who wasn’t what she seemed.

“HEY!” I angrily yelled at her, coming to realize something somewhat important. “I don’t have to answer to you, you little brat!” This only made the girl creep closer and closer. “Get away! Stay away!”

I made a small yelp as she reached up and pulled me down by the collar. “Listen, whatever your problem is you need to get over it!” She let go of me by shoving me back, and I caught my balance. “It’s people like you that make this world such a crappy place to live in!”

Sneeeeeeaking the other way now.

More like high speed dashing the other way now.

I could still hear her calling to me, “You hear that, Jet?! I know where you sleep!!” I gazed back to see her chasing after me like a maniac. “I know where you live! I know your dog’s name!! I’M WATCHING YOU!!”

Imagine me running towards a group of Drifters screeching “aiiiiiiiye” and informing them of the horror I had just witnessed. Imagine them shaking their heads, not believing a word I had said.

We had come back to that girl after our assignment was done, and she was just the most perfect angel you’d ever come across.

Little children scare me.

She’s watching him, she said.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk,” Jet spitted to his Drifter friends. “I’ve… had some problems… kinda hard to deal with…”

Understatement.

He’s a tough boy.

Slurp.