The Silhouette (Alan Quinn and the Second Lifes)

by Thomas William Shaw

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I walked into Victor’s hoping to find my Dad in a corner reading a novella or drinking a cup of coffee from the complimentary coffee stand that occupied the front of the store, but instead everything had turned into complete pandemonium.

  An odd number of bookshelves had been knocked to the ground. The associates were losing their minds attempting to get everything back together. Dad was standing in the middle of the store, waving his arms back and forth like he was conducting an orchaestra.

  None of the people in the store noticed him. The owner, with his long shaggy beard, was assuring all of the customers that they must have filled all of the shelves with too many books. Every once in awhile he would look back at my father like he was out of his mind, but never once did it appear that he thought my Dad was responsible.

  I grabbed Dad’s arm. I said, “Uh, Dad?”

  He tried to resist my grip by continuing to sway his arms left and right to his own internal rhythm. He said, “Yes, son?”

  On each movement, a few more books would fly up and hit one of the bookstore associates in the head, knocking them into the fallen bookshelves. I had a feeling they weren’t going to ask us back anytime soon whether they thought Dad had anything to do with it or not.

  Dad smirked, “Oh, is this an issue? I am just looking for a good book. It is tough to find good customer service these days, Alan.”

  A few harsh screams of disgust pour from a group of customers on their way out of the store. An older woman said, “This is the worst experience I’ve ever had at Victor’s.”

  My Dad retorted, “You are telling me? This is my first time here. Imagine how that makes me feel.”

  He dropped his hands by his sides and went up to one of the mound of books to pick up a novel that was the size of an encyclopedia. It had a worn binding, but that had no effect on its bright blue cover. I was just far enough not to be able to make out the title. Dad’s eyes widened as he flipped through the pages. He slowly scanned each page, but when he got to a certain point of the book he turned back to me and grinned.

  “What?” I said.

  “Want to see how fast I can read this book. It is nothing short of remarkable, I assure you,” he said as he flipped through the entire book in seconds flat. I shook my head, trying to act uninterested in Dad’s new ability. It did, however, make me curious if he was actually internalizing any of it.

  He got to the very last page and slammed it closed. “Well, that was a waste of time,” he said as he tossed it into the air in my general direction. I caught it before it could sail over my head. He scoffed, “See what you can make of it.”

  It was a copy of one of the books Darius and he had worked on together. It was called Draio Do You Love me? and it had a emblem in the middle of the book with a giant pencil covered in different smaller emblems. The comedy/drama masks I knew from studying some theatre was at the bottom of the totem pole, but the masks were designed to resemble wolves. A smaller pencil was the next image up with a lightning strike through its middle. The next image was a big fist that reminded me of the Incredible Hulk, but the image at the very top was a pallet of paints with images of skulls in place of the paints.

  It covered every major elective from school: Drama, Creative Writing, Art, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the giant fist. If anything, I would have put the skulls on the fist. It still would have made little sense, but it could have made it look cooler. On the other hand, my experience with kids like Vick made me associate violence with idiots.

  I opened the book. Upon skimming over a few lines, I realized what this actually was: a full account of what it is like for a Silhouette to live on Draio. How could a book like this just be available to buy all of this time without everyone talking about such a magical story?

  The pages I read were the preface. The first few lines went as this:

  Ever imagine yourself drifting off to another world when you close your eyes to sleep? Who does not? What if you were told that there was only one world that you drift to when you dream? You, of course, would tell me that I had gone bonkers. You would defend your imagination with all of your might! Draio is that world, dear child. It can appear any way you choose it too…

  At the bottom of the page was my Dad’s signature. He had signed it. All of this time and I had no idea that he had helped write any published books? I could have spent all of the time I had spent whining about him not being around reading, preparing.

  I flipped to the table of contents. It was set up into four major sections: Awduron, Actoria, Arlun, and Diffo. They were all silly names but they each had those same symbols from the front of the book next to them. They sounded like factions and clubs.

  The next page had a biography of the author, Darius. It read:

  Darius(1786-1867) was born in Boston, Massachusetts and spent the better part of his natural life obsessed with imagination and the effects it has on dreaming. Not allowed to attend schools due to the racial prejudices of his time, he chose to educate himself. When questioned about the origins of all of the radical thoughts that sprung from his tongue with certainty, he told his oppressors that it all grew from the garden that was his mind. He joined the Union forces for Ulysses S. Grant in 1864 with a promise that if he served his countrymen, he would be allowed to write this book and get it published for all to read. At the end of the war, he spent two years completing the manuscript only to have vanished days before its release. Assuming his death, he was given a burial service on October 31, 1867. His family members believe they have provided their husband and father with an honorable…

  Reading it made me giggle to myself. It said in plain writing that Darius had died years and years ago, but people still showed up for his book signings. It made me wonder if Darius had found Draio when he disappeared. When did he come back? This book, I guessed, was a little less known but now he had crazed fans who couldn’t wait to get a chance to meet him. It pained me to know they would never get another chance.

  The manager of the store came up to me. I noticed from a closer distance that the suit he had on was a little worn. His shoes were puke green. His nametag read “Hi! My name is Brian. He said, “Alan, is it? I saw you at the Darius signing.”

  “Yes.”

  He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the whole situation. He said, “Is your Dad ok?”

  I didn’t know what to say. “My Dad has been kidnapped by dream chasers” doesn’t necessarily flow off of the tongue. I instead said, “He’s never been better.”

  I tried to look around for Dad who remained to be seen. Curiosity overcame me with wondering what he had finally done to make the manager think he was involved in the growing mess in the store. In the center pile of books and surrounded by associates, Dad’s head popped out.

  “I am swimming in a pool of knowledge, Alan,” he exclaimed as he pretended to be doing the backstroke.

  Lathon had warned me, but he noticeably left out the details that my dad was going to be slowly changing into a child with too many powers. I quickly walked over to Dad to pull him out of the pile.

  I said, “Come on, Dad. They are staring.”

  He tried to resist, “They clearly know talent when they see it, Alan.”

  He glanced around at the furious workers. For a brief moment he appeared a touch apologetic. He picked up a stack of books and climbed out of the pile, letting other books and torn pages fall off of his person. He took the stack to a particularly nervous associate as he said, “Here you go. This should get you started.”

  The associate, freckle faced and pasty skinned, nervously laughed but couldn’t keep his eyes off of my Dad. He was afraid.

  Dad looked back at me for confirmation of the situation, but I didn’t know what to say. He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the associate, “You might want to begin.”

  Dad brushed past me on the way to the coffee shop, muttering to himself, “You just can not find good help
these days.”

  If the situation were not so serious, I would have had a hard time keeping myself from finding the humor in it. Seeing that my Dad was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, I had very few moments set aside for laughter.

  The manager met him at the café and poured a mug full of coffee. I heard him say, “I apologize for your experience, sir. I assure you this is not how Victor’s does business.”

  Dad graciously accepted his coffee and sat down at one of the open tables setup in the café lobby. I watched the associates as they put all of their might into picking up the first few bookcases. I heard one of the boys say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if it was ghosts that did this?,” and I thought that if he only knew what he was witnessing, he would have run as far away from this place as he possibly could.

  Afraid they might recruit me to help with cleaning efforts, I walked over to the front registers to check out the comic collection they had set out. Before I could pick up the first one, the associate behind the register beat me to it.

  “You are that kid that met Darius, right?” he asked. He couldn’t have been much older than me but he was big enough to fill four of me. His nametag read: Camrick.

  “Well, did you?”

  I tried to ignore him. I picked up an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man and barely got the cover open before he interrupted me again, “They say he never made it out of Ashton. I was just wondering if you knew what happened to him.”

  His tone was almost accusatory. He pulled the glasses that sat on his large face and whispered in my ear, “Strange things are happening in Ashton. Do you not think it is coincidental that your Dad is back? Do not think this goes unnoticed around town. I may be the only one who talks about it, but I think Darius was murdered. Give it a few days before it is on the news.”

  I gave him a non-committal look in an attempt to get him off my back. I sat the comic book back on the rack and walked away, saying, “My family doesn’t have a television.”

  “Oh, I was just joking anyways.”

  I hardly got much attention when Dad was missing. The last thing I need is for the crazies to bother me. I looked back at Camrick, wondering if he knew more than—usual. Lathon did mention that there were a lot of Silhouettes out in the world. How many of them were children? Camrick gave me a nod almost like he knew what I was thinking. Maybe I had found an ally. I shook the silly idea out of my head and went over to check on my father.

  He was stuck in thought, holding his coffee up to his lips I could only assume to inhale the roasted aromas. His joyous eyes had faded into fury.

  “The Silhouettes will rise. The King must fall,” he said.

  It was the same phrase I heard before I met Lathon in the woods. Dumbstruck, I begged him to repeat it.

  His eyes sprang into enthusiasm, “Victor’s was cool and all, but I am going to need something a little more exciting to justify the outrageous amount of coffee I am about to consume.”

  With that he turned the mug upside down over his mouth. He swallowed every last drop and didn’t once acknowledge how that might have been the single most painful experience of all time. My insides felt like they were burning as I watched him.

  “Dad?”

  He leapt out of his chair and on top of the table. Pretending to give his speech to a thousand on lookers, he shouted, “Ladies and Gentlemen, when—,” he turned back to the manager who was still hovering in the coffee shop probably trying to figure out what crazy things my dad was going to do next, “What is your name again?”

  “Brian, sir.”

  Dad said, “Clever,” and turned back to the associates who were growing impatient. “When Brianna gave me this free complimentary coffee, it came off as a cheap gesture for what I can say is one of the worst experiences I have ever had in a bookstore. But, now that I have had it in its entirety, it was all kind of worth it in the end.”

  He bowed for everyone left in the store, which at that point did not include any customers. My face burning scarlet, I reached my hand up to help him down.

  “Dad, I think we should leave,” I said.

  He accepted my hand, “Astute suggestion, my dear boy. Although, I feel if things get any worse I may get another free cup of coffee and it could make this trip to Victor’s even better.”

  I looked at how miserable everyone was and pushed him out of the building until he walked out on his own. As we left, Brian went behind us and locked the doors and hung up a handmade sign that stated they were closed for the rest of the day due to repairs.

  I was already thinking babysitting Dad was going to be way worse than imagined. Now, I was thinking the fate of the whole planet was resting on the balance.

 

  A few cars drove by as we neared the street, but Dad wasn’t concerned. He continued his goofy wave he was doing prior to when we went into the store, but this time he promptly followed it by walking directly in front of the moving traffic. I called after him, “Dad! Please stop,” but he kept moving completely oblivious to any danger he may have been in.

  He surprised me when he got half way across. He switched into an extremely fast glide none too different than what I had seen Lathon or Darius do. “What was Dad when he lived on Draio? What was he now?” I thought to myself.

  I remembered my duty as dad watcher and ran after him, but I had to start and stop in coordination with the passing vehicles of death. They were at least friendly to me as they sped past with smiles and waves.

  I made it to the other side safe and sound as Dad walked in to the Red Heart’s Café. I kept my distance so not to set him off into crazy mode. Wrapping my head around how he was changing so quickly was next to impossible. It was almost like he was part Silhouette.

  I watched him from one of the windows. He was shaking hands with a few of the hungry guests and seeing them to their tables.

  A jingling bell signaled the door to the restaurant had opened up, but I didn’t see anyone come out. A bodiless hand patted me on the head.

  “Lathon?”

  “You are doing a grand job. He has only called more attention to himself than the gods themselves.”

  I knocked his hand away from my head. “You told me he would be a little different,” I said. “You didn’t tell me he would be—”

  “More like me?”

  “Precisely.”

  He remained silent as he allowed all of the answers to my questions hang over my head.

  “Dad was a Silhouette? Is he wearing a man suit like LeCarre?”

  Silence.

  “Mom was one too, I bet. That would make me—”

  I watched his vapor form move in the air. He said, “Far from it. There are more important things in this life than knowing the origins of something. What is with you humans and having to know where it all began? How does that help us with what is happening now?”

  The slight irritation in his voice reminded me that Lathon had never mentioned parental figures in his life. I wasn’t sure if Silhouettes had them. Everything had to have a creator, didn’t they?

  He continued, “In due time, if there is due time, we can talk about your parents’ life on Draio. It may even be a precursor to the experience you will have.”

  Caught off guard, I said, “I am going to be on Draio? Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “Hard to be dangerous when there is nothing there, is it not?”

  I nodded my head. To think I could possibly be a part of the movement to restore the dream world was too fantastic for words, but something so marvelous could be nice.

  The sight of LeCarre sitting down by my father interrupted my small daydream. Neither of the men were pleased to see each other, but they were carrying a deep conversation.

  “What is LeCarre trying to do?” I said.

  After a brief silence, Lathon responded, “This is one of those times I will not be able to effectively communicate the plan to you. There is a problem of interests to consider.”


  I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I wanted to bust into the café and break up their conversation. I hardly cared what that could bring on because I wasn’t going to let them kill him. I made my way towards the door, but Lathon pulled me back.

  “Careful, boy. We would not want to set him off.”

  I struggled with all of my power, but his grip was too tight. “Can you not do this without hurting him?”

  “We are trying our best. Understand that you are not the only one with emotional stakes in this. He was our friend, too.”

  I watched as LeCarre waved his hand over my Dad’s face, freezing him in his place. No one inside paid any attention to the action, but my eyes were glued open. This was the second time that the last chance to save him had come up. Before my eyes, he could die or worse—become a monster.