Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

  “Back to the drawing board,” Jeffrey would say with a snide tone in his voice.

  “I’m trying to show the personality of the trees, not just a generic tree, like generic corn or beans Mom buys at the store.”

  “Oh, so trees have personalities?”

  “If you get to know them.”

  “You’re goofy as shit.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why, you gonna tell Mom?”

  “No, just don’t.”

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” Jeffrey said into Lewis’ face.

  Lewis gripped his pencil and broke the point on the sketch pad.

  “Gettin’ pissed?”

  Lewis’ lips drew tight. “No.”

  “Yes you are,” Jeffrey said. “You’re always pissed. You just never do anything about it.”

  “So.”

  “That’s ‘cause I’ll cream you.”

  Lewis put down the pad and leaned over it to erase the mark he’d made by breaking the pencil point.

  Jeffrey pushed Lewis’ elbow and Lewis’ arm jumped. “Stop it!”

  “No,” Jeffrey said. “Make me.” He did it again.

  “Jeffrey!”

  Jeffrey poked at Lewis’ ribs, then cuffed the back of his head with the flat of his hand.

  “Ass hole,” Lewis said.

  “Woooo, you are getting pissed.”

  “Just stop it.”

  “Or what?”

  Lewis dropped his pad and pencil, got up from the desk and swung at Jeffrey, but Jeffrey stepped back and pushed Lewis aside. He tripped on the throw rug and went down against the bed frame. His head cracked loudly. Lewis blacked out.

  I tried desperately to see through Jeffrey’s eyes, but got little more than foggy images from him, so I attempted to get closer using a maple which stood outside their bedroom window. Either way, through Jeffrey or common thought, it was difficult, no link seemed close enough to Lewis for me to fully understand what had happened. I had become used to seeing through Lewis himself, these substitutes were relatively ineffectual. Lewis’ blackout was deep and dreamless. Through Jeffrey’s jumpy, foggy mind and Mrs. Marshal’s, once she arrived on the scene, I found out that Lewis had cracked his skull badly.

  Before long the loud ringing of an ambulance siren filled the air spaces between all the trees. It was a frightening, constant sound that packed into the woods like the insulation that had been blown into the Marshal’s house walls, pushing obnoxiously deeper as it grew closer to the awaiting household, who were ringing their hands while standing on the front porch.

  When the sound stopped, I pushed towards Jeffrey. He had calmed and I could see blood in his memory. Although I couldn’t really feel his emotions, the fact that his mind balanced between clear and foggy indicated nervousness. His memory was recent and the blood ran along the floor below Lewis’ bed. When they finally brought Lewis from the house I let go of Jeffrey and focused on Lewis through common thought. His sandy hair was matted, with dark blood, to his fragile head. Blood also stained the stretcher. The two men hurried him into the ambulance and in moments were off. Jeffrey and Mrs. Marshal followed in their own car. Mr. Marshal hadn’t returned home from work yet. The smell of their supper drifted onto the air, dissipating into the smell of a warm autumn night. There was no way to reach Lewis now.

  Jeffrey moped around while Lewis was on his mind, then totally rejoiced in his own plans and thoughts between those times of guilt, which became fewer and fewer as the days went by. He adapted quickly to Lewis’ absence, moving his things off the desktop and onto the floor beside the bed. Jeffrey also folded down Lewis’ school photos. The sketch pad, the latest one, had already been removed. Lewis had asked for it almost as soon as he awoke from his initial blackout. “He didn’t seem to care where he was,” his mother had said.

  Those days were difficult for me. The woods and field weren’t the same with Lewis gone. The leaves made different sounds, animals played less, even the brook flowed quieter, as though waiting for his return. Then, one day, I felt a sadness rise from the enchanted forest and searched it out. The pines stretched, reaching for the morning sun, accepting the weak rays from the cloudy sky. I focused on the squirrel population hoping to sense the problem, but even they seemed a little confused. Some ferns and moss emitted a short, quiet sorrow, and, searching closely, I found it. The raccoon. It lay near the trunk of that first tree it had climbed from on the day of Lewis’ connection. But it lay still. Dew had accumulated on its fur. A shiver rustled over its back, and a weak cry came from its dry mouth. For some reason, I knew it had waited for me. When I probed, it shook once, then calmed, as though even common thought was painful. The raccoon was old, something I hadn’t noticed, hadn’t cared about, that day in summer. While trying not to die, its mind pulled and stretched to the physical world, holding on with claws of faith. Once with him, I let go and opened. The connection was strong and I could feel pain like never before. I thought my roots were being stripped from the ground, pulled from my trunk in violent jolts.

  The raccoon placed Lewis’ image into me and tried to make me understand how special their connection had been, but I knew, I felt it, too. It let me know how dangerous and difficult it would be to try to hold too tightly to Lewis, how life for humans is filled with many more emotions, pains difficult to accept or understand, and to try to ease up contact, let go of Lewis. The raccoon was warning me about the frustration of not being able to help, how dangerous the need to help could be to my own well being. Before he died, before that last struggle with the physical world, the final shrug of the shoulder, sniff at the air, I told him I understood. Then he was gone, a short life being the payment for mobility. I had, though, already decided that I would accept all the pain, all the frustration necessary, just to experience Lewis.

  Upon Lewis’ return home, Mr. and Mrs. Marshal had a small party. Children came from school. Many of them were the same children who had grouped together all summer in the heat and itch of the ball field, even though Lewis seldom played with them. A few others were new to me, new friends from school. Although Lewis had to take things slowly, the noise rose and the cake and ice cream, just like a birthday, plopped onto plates and was engulfed by the always-hungry mouths of children.

  “What happened that you had to go to the hospital?” Brittany Sholes asked.

  Lewis looked over at Jeffrey who stood in the corner of the room talking with his friend Larry. It was like looking at himself, only a healthier, stronger self. The person he couldn’t disconnect from. The person who had pushed him down was always pushing him down. He felt an urge to throw something at Jeffrey, a bottle or plate, knock him over the head, but instead he answered Brittany. “I fell and hit my head real hard.”

  “Oh, did they have to stitch it up? My brother had his hand stitched up when he accidentally cut it on an arrow point.”

  “Did he?” Lewis said politely.

  “Yeah, how about you? Did they stitch it?” Brittany leaned towards Lewis and reached to touch his head.

  He turned so she could see the bristly spot where his hair had been shaved and was just coming back in. He let her touch it and could feel her soft fingertips probe around his wound.

  Brittany smiled and exclaimed, “Your hair feels funny.”

  “Funny?”

  “Good funny.”

  Lewis had never had the attention of a girl before, except for Lorrie Watkins at the ball field, but only when he hung around, which hadn’t been often towards the end of summer. But this was different, even for a nine year old. Brittany’s closeness carried with it a sense of intrigue, interest, which didn’t come through while hitting a ball and running bases. Lewis suddenly found words more difficult to mold in his mouth and fumble-tongued a question about how school had progressed without him, which came out, “How’d ya do, okay, in the last months?”

  “Huh?” she said.

  “School, I mean,” he mumbled.

  “School?”

 
But before he could regain control of his own tongue, Mrs. Marshal clapped her hands for attention and announced the arrivals of the first parents. All excitement and talk hesitated, then changed course as children found their coats and got ready to leave. Most said something about being glad that Lewis would soon be back at school, a few just said “Bye” and “Thanks,” before rushing out the door. Jeffrey glared at his twin, who was getting all the attention, and slowly built yet another wall of brick between them, one on each side of the personality fence, opposites as much as twins are expected to be identical. Neither seemed to want to recognize the other in himself.

  Lewis milked his sickness to its fullest. It was the best way to keep Jeffrey in check. By feigning a feeble slowness, or intense pain, Lewis easily spent long hours in peace. He did begin school again, though, and had to put in extra study time just to catch up. That fall, he’d slip out for walks to the field, and often spend time sitting at my base, leaning against my trunk, just thinking, or sketching. His thoughts typically wavered around Brittany, and I could tell that his bringing up her image let it slide deeper into the ruts of his brain, making it important where it otherwise may not have been.

  It was here, under my bared branches, that together, we experienced the first snow of that winter. Lewis had brought a blanket with him and sat on part of it, the rest he pulled partly up under his arms and around his front. The warmth of the blanket, added to the thickness of his shirt, sweatshirt and coat, felt secure. Most of the early winter wind was blocked by my trunk. Only occasional swishes of wind made it all the way around enough to flip pages in his sketch pad.

  Lewis was the type of person who decided his life goal early, and had the drive to continue regardless of obstacles. His art went with him everywhere, much more than could be seen by a mere sketch pad and pencil. When Lewis looked at anything, there began a dissection of the object into distinct shapes and colors. Where others would see green grass with white highlights and interpret them, logically, with green highlights, Lewis would see and interpret, properly, the white. This occurred over and over in his mind, so much so that, at points, there seemed to be nothing to what he saw but a contorted mess of shape and color. But just as in great paintings where distance brings the true picture together, so it was with Lewis. But this phenomenon went further than truth, or is it further than reality, and deeply into truth? For Lewis, and I can only imagine from seeing other works through Lewis’ eyes, there was color and shape even in emotion. Later Lewis would drag emotion in by altering reality. That is what he did: alter reality to uncover truth. And I felt it in him, felt much more. I sensed what nothing physical could show. The tension, love and hate, understanding and confusion, sight and blindness, even in the thin, developing mind of the now ten-year-old boy.

  One evening in early winter, Lewis drew emotion onto his sketch pad. It seemed guided, to him, by thoughts of Brittany Sholes. He had been digging that trench into his memory, focusing on her featureless young face and the feel of her fingers on his wound, when the bright haze overhead, caused by snow-filled clouds, burst into flakes. Lewis had his head skyward at the time. His hands were lying across the sketch pad resting on his lap. In the soft glow of that early winter evening, in the added security and snugness of a warm blanket over his clothes, and mingled with the flowery thoughts of Brittany Sholes, Lewis watched as those first flakes of winter fell. He watched them come down like slow parachutes, from the second they came into view, to the time they closed in around him, dotting his blanket and pad with quickly melting, moist hexagonal shapes. Because it was a dry snow and the flakes were not bunched into globs, each pattern exploded into clear sight just before melting. As they reached the leaves around him, the crystalline shape lasted longer before falling from grace, into a mere wet dot.

  After a few minutes of pure amazement, Lewis hunched over his sketch pad and began to put his feelings onto the paper. And to him, unfortunately not seeing that the talent was his alone, Brittany had a great part in it. But it would be years of frustration before he could let her know that she had helped.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE YEARS, LIKE DAYS, moved by quickly. I watched as Lewis and Jeffrey became only slightly more civil as they entered high school. One became so much the opposite of the other that if it were not for their physical appearance, a stranger would not accept that they even belonged to the same family. Yet, even living at arms length as they did, the two were bonded with a closeness which grew once they passed the sibling rivalry stage which had plagued their childhood. As teenagers they were in competition, but with the added tension of a deep-felt love for one another, which occasionally caused violent disagreements, and un-called-for ruthlessness.

  Lewis had remained true to his interest in Brittany Sholes. Jeffrey, on the other hand, played the field. The twins had grown into handsome young men of average height, sandy blonde hair and gray eyes, Lewis’ appearing much deeper. Lewis would stare, unnervingly, at people as they talked, often causing them discomfort, while Jeffrey used his eyes to coax and tease, winking, looking away. His eyes sparkled as they darted around. He moved quicker, thought faster, and was more deliberate and practical. Lewis pondered, stared, operated as though he were always confused, not sure what he should do, or what he wanted, besides painting and to eventually marry Brittany.

  “Brittany?” Jeffrey laughed after saying her name. “You can’t be serious.”

  Lewis had broken down, could not keep Brittany a secret any longer, but with Jeffrey’s initial response wished he’d kept quiet, or told someone else. “Why can’t I be serious?”

  “She’s not your type.”

  They walked along the well-worn tractor road. It was September, their final year of high school, Senior parties and graduation ahead of them. Jeffrey tried to help in his own brotherly way, but Lewis wasn’t listening.

  “You don’t think anyone’s my type, so why should I listen to you?”

  “She’s too flighty and free. You need someone quiet, serious. Brittany’s more my type than yours. Ha! I’d say we should think of swapping. Marsha is the quiet type. I think she’s annoyed with me anyway.”

  “Great, I get your leftovers.”

  “No, Lewis, don’t be this way. I just mean that we’re two different people.”

  “Wouldn’t know it by looking at us.” Lewis turned his face to Jeffrey and smiled to show he was joking, then turned back to walking with his head down thoughtfully, his ever present sketch pad under his arm.

  “Maybe not, but it’s true and you know it. You need a quiet girl and I need a gad fly. Let’s face it, we’re going after what’s bad for us.”

  “Maybe for you.”

  “And for you. Marsha will slow me down, bring me down. I’m not used to thinking about things like she does. She worries too much about the ozone layer, whales, rain forests.”

  “They’re important,” Lewis said.

  “See. You two are alike.”

  “Maybe, but Brittany might help me open up. I know I seem spacy all the time. I know I focus too much on art, but I have to, it’s what I am. Maybe she’ll drag me out of myself sometimes.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t know. You’re always telling me to open up.”

  “I don’t mean it.” Jeffrey stopped and put his hand on Lewis’ shoulder. “You’re not me. Sometimes I’m actually jealous that you know where you’re going, what you want.”

  “You know what you want.”

  “Yeah, I want to make money. Lewis, it’s not the same. You’ve known about your art since you were a little kid. When I tell you to open up, I’m saying it out of jealousy. If you opened up too much, you’d probably be unhappy.”

  “But, I’m in love with Brittany.”

  “God, Lewis, you don’t even know her. She’ll destroy you.”

  “We talk all the time.”

  “It’s not the same. A relationship with her is an emotional battlefield for someone like you. Trust me.”

>   As they headed towards the field, Lewis listened but never changed his mind. He wanted Brittany Sholes, needed her to continue painting. If the school year ended and he didn’t have her, Lewis knew he’d never paint or draw again. So, right there, while going along that familiar path, Lewis began to plan. He had the school year, September to June, early June, to gain Brittany’s affections or end his career at eighteen.

  “Look,” Lewis pointed to the sky along the Western treetops. The trees were on fire with the evening sky blazing against golden autumn leaves. The twins had made the trip often between the ages of nine and seventeen and every time they saw it, the sunset amazed them. Jeffrey followed his brother to the field, sensing that something there belonged only to Lewis. I could feel, at times, Jeffrey’s awe of Lewis’ confused, yet directed, drive toward a single goal. That awe, stretched thin as a rubber band ready to snap, was never inside him without a glint of jealousy and rivalry, yet it was there often. I felt it that day, even though common thought didn’t penetrate Jeffrey so well as to know its origins.

  The two of them rushed like chickens into a feed yard, towards the field. Lewis wanted to catch the golden glow of sun kissing weeds. He felt urged to sit in that sunlight, conjure, like an old magician, Brittany’s smooth face, as the wind leaned gently against the weeds and tall grass, nudging them. What Lewis wanted most was to dive into common thought. He didn’t know it exactly, but he knew the feeling, could shout when it and he were one, when everything changed, as though he were in a trance. He’d draw emotion out of the weeds, the trees, the sun. He’d falsely use Brittany’s image to guide him, momentarily forgetting the enchanted forest and his meeting with the raccoon.