the window glanced off his paws and bathed his head and snout in the warm evening sunlight. Hoagie used to be fond of keeping his head out of the window, and letting his tongue hang out during car rides, but now that he was getting on in years he seemed to like being chauffeured about more than anything. The Treasure on the Hill was still about twenty miles out yet, and Hoagie would be sitting out the search, but was happy to have tagged along for a ride.
Peter had developed a comfortable habit of driving with his left hand instead of his right hand, which allowed him to eat, drink, or otherwise fiddle around during his drives. He still held his statement in his free hand, and glanced at the principal remaining, and the payment due the following week, a great portion of which is usually paid for by Gramma’s weekly busywork in the yard.
Under normal circumstances, Peter would feel frustrated at the knowledge that half the money he made each month would barely cover the interest payments. He usually felt foolish and indignant that, in his anticipation for a fulfilling career and a lavish lifestyle, he signed over to some strangers at a bank a great portion of his earnings. Peter had succeeded, every month since his graduation, in accumulating a great store of money, earned over hundreds of hours of menial labor, and he has been infuriated with every passing hour that it would all go straight back to the bank.
Now, however, Peter was playing the card up his sleeve, and scoffed inwardly at the payment due. He mused at the fact that he had made an enemy out of a deal that he himself had first initiated years ago; such emotional antics, he believed, are to be reserved for those who can not deal with the consequences of their own decisions. He just could not help slipping into a slight giggle, imagining some cubicle jockey peeing his pants in surprise, in a high-rise office building hundreds of miles away, reading the full payment, and issuing a $0.00 balance for next month’s statement!
In all reality, Peter acknowledged, the process was most likely digital every step of the way. He supposed that mortgages, being a morally indistinct agent of western orthodoxy, troubled the conscience less when their maintenance and enforcement could be delegated to automation. Still though, it helped the daily struggle to feel like he was waging a righteous war against an impotent doofus.
Hoagie began cleaning his eyes. He used his front paws to scratch out his leaky ducts. This hygienic procedure could keep him entertained for hours in his old age, but in his younger years he was much more active. The family used to cram into the minivan, with the stowaway Hoagie, and head out to Uncle Tim’s farm, where Hoagie would exhibit seemingly endless amounts of energy in chasing around rabbits, birds, drinking out of streams, and harassing livestock. Truly, the whole family got a charge out of Hoagie when he was unleashed.
Dad’s family is scattered across several states, so the vast majority of picnics, holidays, celebrations and family functions otherwise revolved around Mom’s side. Mom has three siblings: two sisters and one brother. Sherry is the eldest of the four by a great many years, and she lives in the suburbs about seventy miles from Peter’s house. She married young and had two children, but they are much older than Peter and Trini, and had moved away to establish careers and families of their own before he was out of diapers. Aunt Sherry, however, is still around for most functions, and visits occasionally. She fits customers for classy clothing at a tux store.
Uncle Tim is the second eldest sibling. He lives on and runs a farm about twenty miles from Peter. After his term of service in the Marine Corps, the young man went on to develop his own plot of land. Gramma and Grandpa, recognizing his innate abilities for leadership and limitless sense of duty, had offered to transfer the estate deed over to their son; however, Uncle Tim had different plans in mind. Reluctant to relinquish the home in which they raised their family, Gramma and Grandpa decided to keep the land and rent it out to farmers seasonally. The land Uncle Tim opted for over the family acreage was on a bed of limestone and in a valley, and so was, and still is, quite fertile.
Tim served in the armed forces in the 1980s, and duty called him to the jungles of some South American territories. While he was never loathe to discuss his service, he was always reluctant to indulge his audience with details. After a few years in the Corps, he returned to his home. He is married and has one child: Brody.
Brody is six years older than Peter, and due to their proximity to one another growing up, they ended up having developed a very brotherly bond. Growing up, Brody’s ambitions and grades were much higher than those of his peers, and his grades and accomplishments set him apart from the crowd for years. He was always highly intellectual and utilitarian, which are two characteristics that led him to a few clashes within their family of predominantly sentimental and passionate folk. Currently, he worked with a foresting outfit in a nearby town, providing assessments regarding the ecological consequences of logging, paving, clearing or otherwise assimilating plots of land.
Mom is the second youngest child. She and Dad had met soon after she had graduated from high school, and was working at a floral arrangement shop. Their relationship escalated quickly, as both of them had the same idea in mind of buying a home and starting a family. Dad’s job kept him away from home for weeks at a time, but this was never put too much of a strain on their relationship, as their hearts were truly committed to one another, and neither of them suffered wandering eyes.
The fourth and youngest of the four siblings was Aunt Marjorie, who is now dead. Though her brother and sisters before her were achieving, ambitious students, Marjorie’s school-related achievements eclipsed the standards that were set for her. She regularly, and seemingly effortlessly, outperformed both her peers and siblings at every juncture.
Young Marjorie’s talents had known no bounds, and she enthusiastically participated in nearly every opportunity that was shown to her. She took a great interest in music and the arts while still in primary school, playing multiple instruments for the school musical groups, and singing choir in the church – the first and only of their children to do so, making Gramma and Grandpa quite proud. The young child was also accustomed to athletic exhibitions, and pestered her parents to sign her up for at least one team sport or lesson for every season. She was always driven, and stayed quite busy.
As such, Gramma and Grandpa became quite involved with the all the goings-on of their youngest child. With Sherry having moved out, and the other siblings older and, though still under the same roof, all but self-sufficient, they found quite a bit of time on their hands and devoted it to cultivating and mentoring their youngest and most prodigious child.
Having taken a liking to reading and word puzzles at a young age, her conversational vocabulary was years ahead of her grade level, and more expansive than those of most adults before she entered high school. She often engaged in lecture and conversation under the guise of initiating meaningful conversation with her friends and family, and a few of her acquaintances began to notice that she procured immense self-satisfaction in such discussions. Her subconscious was involved in a positive feedback loop: the blissful high generated by intellectual superiority begot the subsequent thirst for greater quantities and more refined forms of knowledge and concepts, which further enabled her to dominate any opposition in debate.
Marjorie graduated with highest honors, and despite her haughtiness, was Gramma’s pride and joy. As the young lady was able to impress her parents and surpass the expectations of her teachers, her limitless potential and sky-scraping academics were the subject of much envy among her peers.
Aunt Marjorie’s obvious and most debilitating character deficiency was her blatant arrogance and seething pride. A glaring fault that could never be redeemed by even the most impressive set of skills and accomplishments, but not altogether unsurprising given her stratospheric level of achievements. Even at a young age, Marjorie was prone to be a braggart in the classroom, a star on the field, and a commotion at the dinner table.
Particularly devastating, a trend that began budding in her adolescence was her obsession with debate and proof; though judging by her zeal, it may as well have been intellectual warfare. Whereas most people educated in the twentieth century may be able to name a few historical or classical works in philosophy or politics, Marjorie had read and understood a stack of books on the subjects of political philosophy, various economic policies and theories, and even metaphysics before she was driving. The valedictorian spared no opportunity to correct another person in dialogue, quote historical