Golem
"Kendra!"
"....."
"KENDRA!"
"What?!"
"Come up here! NOW!"
After a few moments of loud footsteps and painful huffing, Kendra had lumbered up the stairs and entered the bedroom.
"What?" she said trying to hide how out of breath she was.
"Look!"
Kurt held up a rather large phone book split open down the middle. His skinny brown finger was trembling underneath a rather long foreign name.
"Sandyahgo?" Kendra said craning her neck and squinting her eyes.
"Santiago Gonzalo!" Kurt exclaimed, his eyes nearly watering in excitement.
Kendra could not for the life of her remember who that was, but she was too good of a girlfriend to admit this.
"Ohhh, yea Santiago..." she muttered.
Kurt was much too excited to realize that Kendra shared none of his enthusiasm. So he rattled on in nearly a manic state,
"I had no clue he lived so close to us. Last I heard he had disappeared. No one has seen him in at least ten years."
"Wonder why," Kendra said as she collapsed onto the bed beside him. “How do you know that's even him?
“Well I mean there can only be so many Santiago Diego Jose Francisco Gonzalo’s,” Kurt said rattling off the famous artist’s name from memory.
“Okay well if he’s been missing what’re the odds you’d just find him in a phone book?”
“Well no one has seen him, but he’s not missing. I mean the guy is legendary for being a recluse, almost like Banksy. He would release a masterpiece, or well, someone would release it for him. He’s very secretive,” Kurt said.
“So why would he want his name in a phone book?”
“Well, er I guess that's a good point. It must’ve been a mistake. That makes this even crazier,” Kurt said his excitement nearly bubbling over.
“Hm weird,” Kendra said.
Kurt could not hear anything Kendra was saying. His giddy enthusiasm was now filling his ears.
"The greatest sculptor of all time lives thirty minutes away,” Kurt mumbled to himself.
He hadn't felt true giddiness like this since he was a boy, at least fifteen years ago. This was around the same time that he discovered the joy of sculpting for himself.
"I wish I could bump into him somewhere. Imagine bumping into your idol at a Starbucks. That's like if you bumped into Beyonce or something."
"Beyonce is not my idol," Kendra said rolling her eyes.
"You know what I mean. This is crazy! There’s no way it’s actually him," Kurt said as he stood up with the phone book still in hand.
"Well are you going to call him and find out?" Kendra finally asked.
"I can't just call him! He’s a legend."
"If you don't call him I will," Kendra said as she took the phone book.
Again proving to Kurt that he made the right decision falling in love with this woman. Kendra knew how to push him in all the right ways, the way a partner should.
“Would you really?” Kurt said in that same sheepish way he did when he wanted Kendra to clean up their dog’s sick.
“Gimme the phone,” Kendra said in the same exasperated way she did when she finally agreed to clean up their dog’s sick.
-----
After what Kendra would describe as a friendly phone call and what Kurt would call divine intervention, they had actually scheduled a meeting with Santiago. Kendra had gotten through to who she assumed to be Santiago’s assistant. Apparently, the aging Spanish man was more than happy to speak with an aspiring young artist. The assistant claimed that it had been years since he’d had fresh eyes on his work.
“Eyes that know how to see,” is how the woman put it. “He would love to use him.”
Less than a week later a trembling Kurt and an amused Kendra were driving to the eccentric millionaire's secluded home. The old man lived alone in a small modern home, built standing over a beach surrounded by a thick forest. The house was built protruding from an enormous rock, the other end balancing on what essentially were stilts. It was odd seeing such an expensive home tucked away from society. His glass walls allowed the crashing of the waves to be seen through most of the house. The beautifully crafted home seemed to be a good fit for the legendary artist. So much so that Kurt had a hard time keeping himself from drooling as he and Kendra walked toward the front door. There they found the smiling sculptor, waiting with the door ajar…
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