Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

  Two steps into the hall and he realized what had happened. He went back and pulled a large crumpled paper from the trash. As he slowly unraveled it, knowing what he had found, his last drawing of the day before came into view. It had not only been torn from the sketch pad and crumpled, it had been x-ed out. Jeffrey! Lewis pictured himself in his head. He and Jeffrey looked the same in every physical detail, so why didn’t he destroy Jeffrey’s possessions?

  Lewis crumpled the paper back up and threw it hard into the bottom of the trash. He wanted to hit Jeffrey, but knew that for some reason Jeffrey always won fights. How was it, he thought, that they could be identical twins and Jeffrey always win when they fought? Why couldn’t he just lose once? Lewis puffed his lip out, but no one was around to see it. He pawed at the corner of his eye when a tear came, but that was the end of it, a single tear. He was more angry than upset, but as he thought about what had happened, how Jeffrey must have felt as he x-ed out the drawing, he became sad.

  Downstairs, his mother had a bowl of cereal set out for him. She stood next to the kitchen sink looking out the window. “Eat your cereal before you go out.”

  Lewis sat down at the table, picked up a spoon and began to eat. His mother turned around. “What is it now, Lewis?”

  “Jeffrey ruined my picture.”

  “Oh, you two.” She touched the back of his neck. “I thought twins were supposed to be close.”

  “It wasn’t his picture.”

  “I know, honey. Try not to think about it. He was probably just angry about something.”

  “He’s always angry.”

  “Now, you know that’s not true.”

  “I know, but it makes me mad.” Lewis ate his cereal quickly, expending his anger on eating.

  “Getting mad never helps. Why don’t you just stay away from him today? Find something else to do.”

  Lewis finished, then picked up his bowl to take it to the sink. “Maybe I will.”

  “Here, let me have that.” His mother took the bowl and spoon and placed it in the sink.

  “I’m not going to go out where they play ball, and when everyone asks why, I’m going to tell them that Jeffrey ruined my picture. They’ll hate him.”

  Lewis’ mother laughed. “I don’t think they’ll just instantly hate your brother because you two had a squabble, but they may find you both amusing.”

  Lewis paid no attention. He was already near the stairs. He ran up them two at a time, ran down the hall to his room and snatched up his sketch pad and pencil. Back downstairs he yelled, “Bye, Mom,” as he slammed the front screen and ran towards the old tractor road.

  He quickly made it to the stone fence, but stopped a few yards into the woods and watched the others play for a few minutes. Then he decided to go around the field. He stayed just inside the woods, following the stone fence around the field. Each step he took, the ground cracked and snapped with the sounds of crunching leaves or snapping twigs. All around him trees bent down and saplings stretched. Brush, which rose from the crevices in the hard gray stone, fluttered into the summer breeze. The air filled with bugs, but they congregated outside the cooled woods, rising in the sun like a hazy army looking for an enemy.

  Lewis watched the bugs fly and wondered why they just hung in the air and did not go anywhere. He reached a hand out to try to touch them and they moved only a few inches away, then hung there. He didn’t want to be a bug, all confused, going in circles, yet he realized the similarities between the gnats and the rest of the children playing ball. Both groups ran in circles, chattered or buzzed and seemed confused, and lingered in the same general area under the hot summer sun the entire day.

  On the far side of the field, Lewis walked deeper into the woods. Still hurt by Jeffrey’s obvious show of jealousy, Lewis wished to be far away from the excited screams of the others. When their sounds finally died out in the distance and became faint memories rather than intrusions, Lewis heard other sounds, at first mistaking them for talking. As he listened closely and walked further, the noise increased. It was water. A short distance away he saw the water, a thin, gurgling run down through the woods. All around the run stood tall pines; a pine-needle floor covered the ground, soft under his feet. Very little sunlight made it through the many thick branches only to splatter patches of light which moved left and right with the wind. A few rocks protruded from the ground, almost like furniture strategically placed in the cleared forest room. The water ran quickly as though it were going down a steep hill, yet the ground was level. Lewis rushed over to it and noticed how the ripples deflected off the rocks that protruded from the ground. He watched drops of water fly into the air. In an area near the edge of the run, a shallow, quiet patch of water held thousands of minnows. He bent and touched the water. Minnows scattered and were gone to regroup in another area only inches away, tucked closely together, almost touching like the gnats had done. He backed up and grabbed a loose twig from the ground and reached with it into the center where the water ran gurgling and gulping on its way. The stick was quickly torn from his hand and jumped further downstream before it got lodged between some stones where it made another place for the water to catapult loose drops acrobatically into the air.

  Lewis placed his sketch pad on the shore, near a large rock, then sat and watched the water. He breathed slowly. It relaxed him to sit there amid patches of sunlight, watching the water move smoothly over the rocks, occasionally spitting a drop into the air, only to land further down stream and continue on with thousands of other drops.

  Lewis sensed a kinship with this run which was, like him, calm on the outside, to the eye, and in a rage underneath. He was in a rage much of the time, but not outwardly like Jeffrey. They were twins, they had similar emotions. It was just that Lewis was locked inside while Jeffrey, somehow, had been locked outside. As he sat quietly watching the stream, he slipped once again into common thought. My night-after-night intrusions had loosened him, opened him up to accept what was already within him to accept. He almost fell into a trance, sitting on the soft pine blanket in the cool woods, watching water bounce and play and then run smoothly over rounded rocks and gravel bed.

  Lewis bent to common thought and common thought held him close. Then animals, sensing no danger, began to come out. Squirrels chattered and played over a nursing tree lying near the edge of the run. Five saplings were growing from it. The squirrels pawed and preened, then ran one behind the other, stopping only to chatter, their fat tails puffed up and shaking. Birds flew into the clearing and perched on low branches, landing on the pine needle bed and hopping around, searching for food.

  Lewis listened to the sounds of the running water, the wind, and the squirrels. He saw a black snake crawl from further upstream over the stones bordering the run and into a small rock pile. The wind started at the tops of the pines and worked its way down through to the bottom branches and then over the ground near where Lewis sat, throwing needles into tiny piles, baring the forest floor in brown spots. Lewis picked up a handful of needles and let them go, let them float away in the wind. A few needles stuck in his hand and he pulled them out and let them float also.

  He rubbed his hands together to relieve the slight itching caused by the pine pricks and noticed that when he moved, the animals didn’t instantly run away. He wondered about the animals, as I forced my thoughts, through common thought, into him. He relaxed and accepted it along with the animal’s fearlessness, even though there was a hint of needing to fully understand what was happening. When a raccoon stumbled down from a nearby tree, I almost lost Lewis, but somehow it was within him to accept that the raccoon would be so close and unafraid. Maybe it was the fact that all the other animals accepted him into their realm which allowed Lewis to so easily let the raccoon be a part of the menagerie. Or possibly it was the enchantment of the place itself that pulled Lewis into common thought and held him there.

  He reached out a hand. I could feel all the animals questioning his intrusion and, along with the rest of the grove, a
ttempted to ease their fear. Animal common thought is slightly askew from the rest of nature, but is much easier to reach and influence than humans. The playing squirrels stopped and stared at the trees. They sensed concern. The raccoon dropped from a low branch and waddled towards the stream. Lewis pushed his hand out further and made a quiet kissing noise with his lips. He seemed to know what to do. The raccoon let him know what sounds were soothing. Lewis kissed again, with more air in the noise, almost silent. Slowly, the raccoon waddled towards him, closer and closer. I tried to use common thought to keep Lewis safe, knowing it was almost impossible to have any control. I didn’t want the raccoon to suddenly bite him. When the animal got close enough to touch, one squirrel chattered a warning. I pushed a feeling of calm into common thought hoping to reach the squirrel, and it quieted. The raccoon waited. Lewis turned his hand slowly, palm down. He tried to pet the raccoon which quickly jerked back, “Not the ears!” And Lewis heard it, I know he did. His eyes widened, logic dumped into his head as he thought he imagined the words. Again, slowly, he ran his hand along the raccoon’s side. It felt smooth and soft. I was feeling what Lewis felt. The fur pulled back as Lewis’ hand went over it, as though the raccoon were being tickled. Lewis touched him lightly once or twice more, then suddenly felt fear. I felt his fear, too. I don’t know how it got in, or why, but the fear grabbed him around the throat so suddenly that the raccoon jumped back, then Lewis jumped back. Before long, the birds fluttered off and the squirrels scurried up a tree into the high branches to reach the sun. The raccoon, surprisingly, sat back for a moment and looked at Lewis, its pale belly and black feet facing him. Both Lewis and the raccoon cocked their heads. I had lost contact with both of them during the rustling noises of the other animals leaving the area. Yet, Lewis and the raccoon were still together. They had connected, excluding all else. What was going on between them? What was passed from one mind to the other? I pushed forward using common thought, tried to unlatch the door they’d shut, but nothing happened. It was too late. I was locked out.

  Lewis reached out towards the raccoon. I waited. Please don’t let it bite him, I prayed. That would destroy all the progress I’d made. Lewis could be lost to common thought forever.

  The raccoon chattered quietly and leaned forward onto all fours. It shook its fur and took steps towards Lewis whose hand and arm was stretched to its limits. The raccoon came close and sniffed at the boy’s hand.

  Don’t bite! Don’t bite!

  In a moment, a small pink tongue licked at a finger. Lewis stared, but didn’t move. The tongue licked again, then the raccoon’s head pulled back, it turned, and loped to the tree it had dropped from. Once into the branches, Lewis’ arm dropped and his mind opened so wide Lewis felt as though he was in free fall. I felt it, too. He closed his eyes for a moment and placed both hands on the ground, one on either side, to hold himself steady. The ground brought security, the solidity of earth, the permanence. Lewis’ mind let common thought engulf him and all the trees in the grove toppled in, the bushes, too, and mushrooms and grass. Lewis looked up, this time with the knowledge of the grove. He sensed the wind roll from branch to branch. In Lewis’ mind he could almost feel the wind currents, the rubbing of branch-to-branch, needle-to-needle, the comfort of roots and trunks. He felt me, my many years, thick limbs, rough bark. Nothing was strange to him that grew. What the grove felt, Lewis felt. All the strangeness of nature, plant life, that was not known to him became available in an instant.

  I don’t know what tool the raccoon used to open Lewis’ mind so completely, what trick of concept, but I imagined it to be a link in a long chain from human to animal to plant. I could never have reached him so well without the raccoon, could never have been so fully a part of him. I tried to sense what he sensed and became dizzy. He was dizzy. It was like a revelation, hearing God, seeing an angel, a wood nymph. The forest had become an enchanted place for Lewis. His eyes literally saw differently, like a psychic sees auras and knows when something is right or wrong with a person through that knowledge. Not that Lewis could see auras, but he could sense his connection to common thought. He could see each tree as an individual. He would, from that point forward, know the raccoon he first made contact with, and connect to me like no human ever has.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE SUMMER SUN GREW HOT while the rains brought refreshment to common thought territory. To say that the woods remain the same from day to day because it looks the same, filled with the same plants, is a foolish thing. Not only does the forest floor of leaves and needles shift its patterns through wind and animal interruptions, there’s the continual newness of branches and buds, leaves, new sprouts and blossoms. There is the tragedy of branches broken by the weight of rain and grip of wind, the death of trees and bushes, trampled or eaten mushrooms, old deer dying off and fawns being born. Birds are quick to come and go, even humans have beginnings and endings. An old man in a far farm house died on July 27th.

  The forest and field shaped itself around a dozen or more children that summer. Paths were cleared, grass and weeds worn away from base lines, trees cut into, saying Joe and Sheryl, Eddie and Sue, with crooked hearts and straight arrows through the hearts. When a ball game ended, or lulled in the high-noon heat, the cool woods became shelter and a place to tell stories about the dead rabbit found near third base, the big snapping turtle the children rolled out of the playing field using sticks. Robert Hershon’s black eye. The one he got while trying to stop a line drive to center.

  Lewis, from the day Jeffrey had thrown away his drawing, had kept separate from the other children most of the time. His interest in them grew and subsided like breathing in and out. He went through cycles of emotion, often linked to the amount of life and death in the forest, though he never realized the source. He never told anyone about that needle-laden clearing near the brook where he had first made contact, through the raccoon, to the rest of common thought; the place he began thinking of as the enchanted forest. Lewis visited there often during that first summer and never told any of the other children. That summer, while Lewis became more of an introvert and Jeffrey separated himself from nature, shutting it out, I pushed further into Lewis’ being and began to feel what he felt, hear what he heard, smell and see whatever he smelled and saw, often to the exclusion of my own senses. This total involvement warped my thoughts to see things through the eyes of a nine year old. But I did not have access to everything, pieces were left out, or altered because of Lewis’ interpretation. At times when Lewis was away, such as church or shopping with his mother, I would probe upon his return and get only what he remembered. What’s worse is that my understanding may also alter the facts. And, in cases where pieces are missing, I have no choice but to skip them altogether or create the situation based on the emotions passed through common thought.

  It is during the school year that Lewis and I were first separated for long hours. His memories of the day were cluttered with Geography or Math lessons. He disliked History, all the dates and names of famous people to remember, people whom he hardly saw reasons for remembering. While one led a battle, another invented a machine no longer in use. Even Alexander Graham Bell. “So he invented a telephone. Do we need to know this?” Lewis asked Jeffrey one night.

  “You do if you want to get out of school some day.”

  “Are we going to have to memorize all the inventors of the world?”

  “Not quite.” Jeffrey lay across his bed, Lewis across his.

  “Do you like this stuff?” Lewis asked.

  “It’s okay. I like the Civil War stuff. Generals and battles. Pow, Pow!”

  “What about the rest of it?” Lewis rolled onto his back, his History book held above him.

  “I just memorize it. No big deal.”

  “So, do you know who invented everything?”

  “Whatever’s in that book.”

  “Who invented the car?”

  “Ford.”

  “The washer and dryer?”

  Jeffrey just thre
w a weird glance at Lewis and made a face.

  “The television? The computer? The telephone pole? Without the telephone pole how would they string lines? That’s an important invention. So is the highway. Who invented that? Swimming pools? Great for summer.

  “You’re goofy, Lewis.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “You are too, everybody says so.”

  “No they don’t.”

  “They can’t figure you out. You’re too weird.”

  “Nuh, ha.” Lewis threw down his book.

  “What are you two doing up there?” their mother yelled.

  “I dropped my book,” Lewis yelled back.

  “You’d better finish your homework or there won’t be any television tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  Jeffrey stuck out his tongue.

  Lewis picked up the History book and put it on the desk. “I’m done reading.”

  “You’ll fail the quiz on Friday.”

  “So, who cares?”

  “What are you going to do, draw yourself into the future?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You can’t major in art in college if you never get into high school.”

  “I’ll finish.”

  “Not if you don’t study.”

  “I’ll study enough.”

  “Suit yourself, space boy.” Jeffrey went back to reading. Lewis picked up his pencil and sketch pad. He had already begun to draw as well as some of the high school students, but he seldom felt satisfied with what he turned out. Periodically, and from memory, he’d go back to the field, remembering that first perfectly timed day when the sun was at the right angle and he and Jeffrey had first come onto the field. He’d draw, sometimes illustrating a weed head during its explosion just after being smacked by Jeffrey’s hand, trying to catch the sparks which emitted from the weed. The golden glow of the field could never be done well in pencil, but Lewis tried, building in him a frustration, a knowledge of the inadequacy of humans to recreate nature. Lewis also produced drawing after drawing of the enchanted forest, the brook, the snake, even the raccoon. Although Jeffrey let him alone with his art most of the time, he still scoffed at Lewis and put him down for his constant attention to it.