Ice & Cream

Mr. O'Creams

The building stretched out behind the trees, tall as tall could be. A curved rectangle, Jack could see the slides going to the neighboring buildings. Even in the middle of the day, it was possible to discern the veins of lights coursing across its faces. Was only two blocks away from that park bench where he was sitting.

His parents were part of a joint team of researchers essentially working on milkshake spells and formulas. It was a sweet drink that used ingredients native to both Ice Cream City and Slurpee City. Jack was staring at the building where they worked.

The proximity of the whole thing didn’t help his conscience a whole lot. It was harder to ignore something when it was right in front of one’s face, and so big, too.

Jack looked around, seeing mostly couples of his age walking around the park. The park was artificial, its plants made of carved ice adorned and propped into place by cables of lights which were ever pulsing. As if alive. Those lights reflected off the crystalline faces of the ice structures.

The other visage that Jack could of done without involved the romantic couples. In that city, the people dressed much like in Ice Cream City, though perhaps a bit less colorful. More monotonic. The bottoms generally matched the tops, for instance, but they were still similar enough to ache his heart.

On the one hand, Jack felt guilty about just leaving without telling his parents anything. On the other, he yet wanted to experience romantic moments like those. And he wanted to do that with Jane. After the way his grandmother and Sprinkle had reacted to his ice cream, he couldn’t help but feel he really had done a great job with it.

I am certain it will make my feelings clear to her.

Jack knew it was likely very that others would laugh at his feelings. Call him a kid and belittle them. But not his grandmother. She treated them respectfully, and that meant more than anything. While his parents loved him very much, that wasn’t something they would do, really. Their own feelings would take priority. Their love would manifest in… imprisonment, to use an exaggerated term.

I am positive that they will stop me from going. I do not see any alternative other than to hide it from them, but then again, to just leave like this? It feels truly terrible.

The sun descended while Jack waited for two hours to go by. He kept telling himself he had to do it, but he couldn’t find it in him to stand up and commit to it.

To either of the options.

And then, a thought came to his mind. Wait, I am looking at this all wrong. I am not going to ask them to let me go! I am going to tell them I am going, and ask for their understanding.

Jack smiled, pleased with that thought, and stood up. The adventure he was embarking on was not something a kid would ever be able to do, and so, starting from that moment, he could not approach decisions as a kid would. He would meet with his parents as their son, yes, but not as their child.

Feeling that difference very keenly, Jack marched off towards the building he had been staring at for the past few hours.

Jack went into the research facility through its third-floor access, told the receptionist he was there to see his parents, and then waited about thirty minutes until his father came. The waiting was much tenser than the walk, and he wished that he hadn’t to endure it. There was nothing to distract him from his doubts when he was waiting.

“Jack?”

His father was dressed in white robes with silver patterns, which made his particular role and position in the organization identifiable. His golden hair was frail and weakening, his hair-line receding, but his cheeks were round, and colored rose with friendliness. He had a large tummy and, all around, was always a sight Jack was glad to see.

“Dad!” They hugged.

“What are you doing here, son? Has something happened to mother?”

“No, no,” Jack said, pulling away. “Something has happened to Jane. Grandmother made me an offer, and I could not refuse it, and I need you to understand.”

His father opened his right eye wide in perplexing doubt, hardly taking what Jack was saying seriously. However, his gaze eventually drifted down to Jack’s sword.

“That sword…” he looked back at him a little more seriously, “alright. Tell me what happened.”

Jack told him everything. About Jane and what had happened to her. He told him about the ice cream, about Sprinkle, and all that his grandmother had told him.

At the end of it all, Mr. O'Creams could only hum. He scratched his hairless chin, processing the story, and looked up at a loss. “Well, Jack, to be blunt, will you respect mine and mother’s wishes on this subject?”

“I will try,” Jack said with a small shrug, “but I am not sure how I will feel if it comes to pass that I never see Jane again.”

Jack stopped to give his father a turn but then felt the need to further clarify his words. “How I will feel towards you, I mean. I am fairly certain how I will feel about it myself. I feel it already.”

“We are not your friends, Jack, we are your parents. Accepting your contempt of us is part of the course, sooner or later.”

Jack winced. “I promise, father, I promise I will not be a part of the war. I only wish to find Jane and give her the ice cream that I made for her.”

“And I respect that, son, I respect that…” Mr. O’Creams adjusted his pants, which always gave his waist a bit too much breathing room. “As I respect mother’s judgment.”

He mumbled to himself, looking around in thought. After a long moment, Mr. O’Creams sighed and sat down on the chair Jack had been waiting on, and Jack, unsure of himself, took the seat next to it. The chairs were made out of solidified white foam, much like what Ice Cream City itself used. It was comfy, though at times, it felt like it was drenched in wet paint.

“It is difficult to give you my blessing. This would be simpler if you had just run away,” he said with a comical hint of irony that was not lost on Jack.

“I-I felt that would be the wrong thing to do, father.”

“Yes, of course, it would,” his father said, and gave Jack a one-arm hug around the shoulders. “But definitely the easiest. You did the right thing, though, and… I’m grateful. It was a very grown-up thing to do.”

“Yes, I intended as much,” Jack said. “I am leaving, with or without your blessing. But I would really like for you to understand and say that… Well. That it is okay.”

His father looked sad, and a bit hurt, but was still taking it all too well considering the circumstances. Mr. O’Creams gave Jack a sad nod and brought his hugging hand up to stroke his head.

“One day, you are my boy, the other, you are a man. A man takes responsibility for his choices, and what others say are but opinions to consider. That… counts us. Your mother and I, we will not give you our blessing. This is, and I am sorry to use these harsh words, a fool’s errand, son. It is beyond gullible and optimistic, but mostly, it is extremely perilous. You are throwing your life into the war just so you can give your friend an ice cream. As your parents, we must be against it.”

Jack looked away, his heart tightened. He feared to lose his breath, but within seconds, he found the calm determined thoughts that had been with him when he left his home.

Jack faced his father, however timidly. “I… I-I disagree. It would be foolish if… Agh, I simply disagree,” he said at last, failing to find the right words to explain. “I respect you, father, you know I do. But in this? I cannot go back and tuck myself into the safety of our homes while knowing that Jane is in peril. Knowing that I may never see her again and that she. And that she has missed my farewell gift.”

Mr. O’Creams stood up.

“Well. I cannot give you my blessing, but what I can do is tell your mother.” Gulping, he glanced aside. “And bear her wrath. I suggest you leave the city as soon as possible,” he said with a wince.

“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I will talk to her too.”

His father suddenly hugged him and hugged him close. Mr. O’Creams always became too emotional too quickly. His heart was by far the lightest of the Creams family.

“How a father can both hate the decisions of his son and, at the same time, feel the highest of prides… It is beyond me,” he said, amid hiccups and light tears. “But by all the sweets in the world, it is exactly how I feel!”

“Owww, daaaad,” Jack complained, squished against his father’s flamboyant belly. But he felt warm despite it all.

So warm.

“I will talk to your mother,” Mr. O'Creams repeated, pushing j******f his embrace. “And in return, you will stay alive. You will come back to us safe and sound. Or I swear I will visit your grave and make fun of you and your silly quest, and pontificate at you about how I was right! Until the very last of my breaths,” His father promised, nodding once.

“Well, that is the motivation I needed, father,” Jack said, laughing.

They laughed together, and they hugged again, and they shed some tears. They shared with each other something in-between joy, pride, and gratitude.

And when they were done, they bid their final goodbyes, and Jack walked away to leave the building.

His father had the warmest heart of the family, but Jacks’ was not far behind, or so he had always been told. He had certainly shown it by so quickly falling into tears and hugs. Jack was his father’s son, and both of them were thankful and proud of that, but he was also his mother’s son, and because of that, he would brave the many lands awash in war, his resolve unshaken and his determination ever unyielding.

He had to, now more than ever.

Thinking of his mother, Jack recalled how unshackled she was by the timid nature that he had inherited from his father.

“Oh scoop. Now that I think about it… Yes, I should leave as soon as possible.”

Jack marched, at a quick pace, and left the building through a slide that would take him to the first floor of another building, where he could catch an elevator to ride a higher slide out of that street block.

Reaching old Thomas’s home as fast as he could, Jack jumbled words of gratitude and apology, grabbed Sprinkle, what supplies had already been packed for him, and left without having dinner.

They would leave Slurpee City as soon as possible.