The Unresponsive Rock

Since it was already confirmed that two of the most mysterious individuals I had encountered in my life were related to each other, all that was left for me to do was to… plead for help.

First and foremost, I needed strength, and the first step that I needed to take to begin my journey on the path to power was 'awakening'. Full of motivation and optimism, I believed at the time that Uncle Albert could help ask the Mayor to awaken me. I, therefore, started pestering him throughout the day, day after day.

There weren't going to be any customers in his abandoned little pawnshop anyway, so I was free to try any tactics that I could think of without any fear of shame or embarrassment. Chloe was also there to help me, and she could be very very annoying when she wanted to.

I didn't have it in me to stand beside his chair and drag the word "Uncle" out in a cutesy manner until it irked him, nor could I spray him with perfume or sit on his table, but Chloe could, and she always completed her job perfectly.

This time though, the 'rock' wasn't willing to show signs of life. Even after trying all day, we had to leave in disappointment. When Chloe stood on his table, he held her by her shoulder and put her down carefully, like a glass utensil. When she tried to irritate him by saying "uncle", he put some cotton in his ears and continued reading. It wasn't as if any of us were tall or fast enough to remove it from his ears.

On our way back home, we kept thinking of new ways to gather his interest. Chloe was, as usual, a great help, making great suggestions.

The next day we went to his shop again in the afternoon and tried the tricks that we had talked about but Uncle Albert also kept using the most minimalistic ways to lay waste of our carefully crafted schemes.

Gradually, it became our routine, where we would discuss new tips and tricks in the night and would see them getting absolutely smashed to smithereens casually by Uncle Albert the next day.

I still kept the words of the other Sullivan in my mind and didn't lose hope. One month passed like that and even though my will was still strong, Chloe's interest had waned.

It was like singing songs to a rock every day and expecting applause. I knew that it was bound to happen sooner or later, and as a result, didn't bother Chloe about it.

Then, it was just me, waking up, having lunch, staring at Uncle Albert dead in the eyes for 6-10 hours, then coming back, having dinner, and sleeping every day.

After all, I wasn't as creative or ingenious in pestering people as Chloe or Sister Hin and didn't have the thick skin to pull their clothes or shout in their faces for hours. Therefore, I used the simplest method of staring him dead in the eyes until his calm and stale demeanor fell apart, but… it was as if he really became an emotionless piece of metal, or perhaps, he treated me like one because nothing worked for me.

This continued for another couple of months.

By then, the blazing heat that was scathing our skins for months was replaced by a humid, itchy heat that only went away occasionally when it rained.

My routine remained the same, though my spiritedness fueled by my hope was wearing out now. Perhaps, it meant that my hope was whittling away too, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The guilt and regret that I had promised myself to leave behind was beginning to reappear. It was fueled by my constant failures and inability to save Sister Hin.

Each night, I slept with the realization that the world spent another day without my close friend, and I wasn't able to do anything to change it.

I had even kowtowed and cried in front of Uncle Albert countless times but he wasn't willing to do anything else other than bringing out a couple of tissues and placing them in front of me.

That day, I woke up and counted the days it had been since the incident and realized that it was going to be 4 months soon, and I had wasted all of it bemoaning my fate.

I wondered if unnerving Uncle Albert was the right choice at all. After all, who could be sure to say the two of them were brothers. Perhaps, he really was some other Sullivan, or perhaps the Mayor had been unjust and cruel to his brother, which was why he had to spend his days in a shop like that.

I had thought of possibilities like that a hundred times already. Naturally, the latter possibility was highly likely but considering the nature of Uncle Albert, the shop and its location definitely suited him.

Even if the conspiracy theories that I was making in my head were all true, it still wasn't going to affect me in any way, at least not until I managed to elicit a response out of him.