Chapter 1

          Samuel Kinkaid Ickison was a man, a young man, a boy really; in terms of features and stature, intellect and age. From the day of his unfortunate birth he was young, and every year he seemed to be just too young. At the age of three, still too young, he was adopted by his stepmother and stepfather, who were in fact, his real parents. They didn’t like him much though, and so they decided that life would be easier if he believed they were not his real parents. If they were not his real parents, they would not need to feel badly about not caring for him, and he in turn would be less likely to care about them. This seemed to Mr. and Mrs. Ickison, like the best plan of action. They told young Samuel Kinkaid that his real parents had been wonderful people, until they had him and went insane. They died tragically one night as they were trying to escape, to run away from the awful burden that he was; that or that they had moved to the jungles of the Amazon, somewhere in Africa. 

          Samuel Kinkaid was a talented but peculiar boy. He loved to sculpt! His medium? Food. He loved to sculpt and shape his food into different masterpieces of different styles and persuasions. This usually resulted however in is intolerably cruel not-stepmother walking behind him and shoving his head down into his newly finished work of culinary masterpiece. So he didn’t do it very often. He also liked to do his chores, actually, he didn’t, but he was a positive-unfortunate-too-young, young boy. He had a powerful mind, and since there was no way of getting out of his chores, he pretended to enjoy them, which infuriated his not-stepparents. His favorite chore that he didn’t like was tending to the garden. His not-stepparents had entrusted him with the care of their singularly magnificent garden, watering it, tending it, cutting off all of the unfortunate “flowers”. Mr. and Mrs. Ickison did not like flowers, they attracted bees, and they did not like bees. They had great pride in their garden, it was not a garden though, in the classic sense, and they actually held no pride in it at all, they just enjoyed making Samuel tend the noxious weeds that grew rampantly in the backyard. In truth, they had several potential award-winning specimens in their not-garden, giant thistles taller than an average man and anyone shorter than him, dandelions that looked more like sunflowers, and enough clover to house an entire country’s worth of leprechauns.

          His not-stepfather was an attractive man, if you were attracted to that kind of man, He was average in every possible way; height, weight, stature, hair color, hair length, shoe size, ring size, hat size, hairline, tolerance levels, intellect, talent, sense of style, and sense of humor. Actually, he was perhaps a little below average on his sense of humor, as it should really be referred to as his “scents of humor” which were generally much more than average, but gave him such pleasure, and caused him to laugh so hard. He didn’t have many friends.

          Samuel Kinkaid’s mother was an unreasonable woman, by all accounts. Her favorite thing was the smell of bleach. In fact, that was about the only thing she liked, in fact it was the only thing that she liked. She had many levels of things she did not like though; there was a wide variety of things that she did not like, most to be honest, there were many things that she hated, several things that she despised, a few things that she loathed, and a couple that she absolutely abhorred!!! One of those was toe-jam, which is why she NEVER wore socks. Then, there were the things she feared. Her husband generally fell in between the categories “don’t like” and “hate” usually managing to remain in the former. She needed him though, because although there were extremely few things she feared, the dark was number one!! She needed him to keep her fear at a reasonable distance, usually just beyond his greasy thinning hair. Since she was afraid of the dark, naturally she was also afraid of flies, dark little bits of night that were normally found flying around dead things or else sticky messes! That, by the way, was another one of the things that she abhorred! Sticky . . . may as well just cut off her fingers!

          The Ickisons lived in a relatively rundown, spindly home that could have been mistaken for a lighthouse if it had been anywhere near water, or if it had a light on top, or if in fact it had ever had a quality that would have invited anyone to come closer, their house did not though, and was therefore never mistaken for one. Geographically, they lived in the exact center of the United States; Lebanon, Kansas. From their house on the corner of Grove Ave. and Walnut St. it was only a six minute drive to the monument that marked the location. Samuel had never seen it. His not-stepparents were less than interested in such things. In fact their only forms of recreation that they enjoyed were 1) Watching illegal dog fights. 2) Watching Samuel work in the not-garden. and C) Shooting cats with an air gun that they kept under the front seat of their old Ford Pickup. They typically tried not to leave their house, but when they did, though infrequently, it was a BIG occasion, for them, not for Samuel. His not-stepparents would pretend like it was the going to be the most wonderful event, just to try and make him jealous, then they would both dress in their “finest” clothes and be off. They weren’t fine, and they weren’t clothes. Ok, they were clothes, but they were tacky. This particular day they were going out, and their lives would continue on afterwards as it had before, as it always had, as it always would. At least, as it always would have . . .