Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

  They were driving to the park near Brittany’s home. “What are you looking at, there?”

  “The field. Your sketch of it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why do you do so many? And most of them without the baseball diamond?”

  “I’m trying to get it right.”

  “They look fine to me.”

  “Yes, but they don’t feel fine. Something’s missing.”

  “And the ones of me?”

  “What about them?

  Do they feel right?”

  Lewis reached over and put his hand on her knee. She quickly grabbed his hand and leaned into his arm. “They feel just great,” he said.

  It was a fresh smelling spring day and a lot of people were at the park just to be outside for one of the first really warm days since winter. Lewis took Brittany’s hand as they walked. She had left the sketch pad on the car seat. Both her hands were touching him, the one not clutched by his hand was wrapped around his biceps. She leaned into him and he felt a continual drag from her weight half-resting on his arm. It always seemed peculiar to him that she actually, as the word implied, hung on him. At first he enjoyed her attention, but lately her blather and hanging made him wonder about her true affections, which seemed almost desperate, an odd thing to even suggest for such a pretty girl, but truly how he felt. He dismissed his thoughts with a shrug. “So,” he said, leading the conversation into talking about college.

  “Here we go again,” she said.

  “You don’t like to talk about it, do you?”

  “I’m just not sure what I want to do. I don’t even know if college is right for me. You know? I’ve always wanted to be a wife and mother, stay home.”

  “You’re seventeen.”

  “Eighteen. My mom was married when she was eighteen.”

  “But your dad was twenty three and had a full-time job. I’m going to be a Freshman in college.”

  “I’m not saying that we should get married.”

  “It sounded it.”

  “Well, what is going to happen in September when you go away? We just break up?”

  “I hope not.” Brittany was really pulling on his arm, so Lewis shook loose and placed it around her waist. His shoulder had begun to hurt. He felt frustrated, unsure of what he wanted from himself or Brittany.

  “We could live together.”

  “Where? In the dorms?”

  “No, in one of those little artist’s lofts like on TV. You could do a whole series of me.”

  “How could we afford it?”

  “Who cares? We’d do something.”

  Lewis couldn’t figure what. He surely couldn’t ask his parents to help him with an apartment so he and Brittany could live together. “Why don’t you go to college at the University of Pennsylvania? We could see each other all the time then.”

  “I don’t know. What would I take?”

  “Take Economics or History, something you’re interested in.”

  “But I thought I was done with school this year. I need a break. I need time to figure things out.”

  “There isn’t much time.”

  Brittany kissed him on the lips. “For us there is.”

  They kissed again. The people passing by seemed to ignore them.

  Lewis could see out the corner of his eyes the bright colors of spring. If the colors were not natural: greens, yellows, whites, they were synthetic: blue, orange, and red clothing. When he and Brittany hugged, Lewis looked down the long sidewalk which led over a small knoll and down to a lake. The sidewalk was mottled light and dark gray. The dark gray shadows, cast down by the overhanging trees, moved with the wind. Dandelions speckled the large grassy areas around the sidewalk and between the trees in clusters like small galaxies lifting from a universe of grass. The people, on the sidewalk in front of him as well as the sidewalk’s tributaries entering from left and right, walked leisurely. Many were middle-aged with children following behind, some were of college or high school age. All of them, though, seemed to know their own lives, joys and sorrows, and accepted them. None seemed as confused as Lewis felt he was.

  On one hand, Lewis loved Brittany. He had loved her from age ten. She was the impetus behind his creativity no matter how distant they had been in the past weeks. Her being with him now materialized his need for her. His spiritual need. Yet, the way she hung on him, her lack of enthusiasm about her future, and the constant blather about her girlfriends, clothes, shopping, her need to express herself in such an animated way that it almost became animation and not reality, all this bothered him. Yet, he kept it hidden inside, pushed it deeper every time it came up for air. Regardless of these bothersome personality quirks, I can assure you, Lewis was in-love with Brittany. He maneuvered his way around her hanging, her blather, and her animation, almost as though it wasn’t there at all. The most he felt was that slight sadness he had always felt when with her, which he attributed more to himself than to her.

  Holding hands, walking towards the lake, Lewis loved Brittany. She protested going to college, still thought they could make-it living together. She was unrealistically smitten by young love’s ability to overcome the harshness of the world, uncompromisingly optimistic. Furthermore, and most importantly, she had decided not to go to college at all. Her innocent outlook made her even more beautiful to Lewis. It brought out an inner light in her eyes and her hair, like the many suns of the dandelions as they were moved by the wind, which hypnotized Lewis into believing she may be right. Sitting at the side of the lake, they forgot, or pushed aside, all conversation centered on what they’d do after high school. There was a summer ahead of them, plenty of time for such decisions.

  Although I received all this information second hand, it came through as though I were actually there with them, as though I was the tree they leaned against when they kissed just before going out to sit near the lake shore. So you can understand how intruded upon I felt when the following episode happened.

  I recognized, inside Lewis, the presence of common thought, but rather than from my territorial range, it came from the park. It was like the rushing of air into a vacuum, and although I knew I could always hold a place inside him, this rush of common thought pushed into him with a vengeance, wishing to hold onto him and keep him. The park was aggressive in its probing, and I felt violated because of Lewis’ own memories of me and the field and the enchanted forest. I knew that Lewis accepted common thought. That’s what made him different, but this was the first time I was faced with another common thought becoming intimate with him. It was like lightning burning loose one of my branches, like squirrels hollowing out my trunk until the sap wouldn’t run, like a woodpecker pounding, pounding, pounding into my side. There was no reason for me to feel the way that I did, but the feeling was there, standing alone inside me. It was not Lewis’ fault for loosening himself, for opening the door, it was mine for feeling betrayed. After all, it was me who edged that door open, who picked the lock in the first place. Regardless of what I felt, Lewis gained immensely from his experience that day.

  Sitting by the lake, holding Brittany, and letting go internally, Lewis opened his eyes and heart, to both human love, and common thought love in a way which advanced his work tremendously. Lewis, in his normal manner, mentally painted the lake, the trees surrounding it, the grassy edges at the borders, the sun shining across its flat surface, the reflections in the top, the small ripples caused by fish breaking the water’s surface tension to eat bugs. Then there were the smells and sounds, from which he made his own shapes and colors. He included taste, added common thought, and love, and even more aggressive common thought, or, if I may, a different common thought personality. All this happened inside his mind, like the flash of a camera, a thousand dandelion heads blooming into super novas at once, the painting, almost like a revelation, burst into view.

  “Where’s my sketch pad?” he said, breaking the silence.

  “In the car. I left it on the seat.”

  “I need it.”<
br />
  “Now?”

  “Yes.” He got up. “I’ll be right back.” Before Brittany could say anything, Lewis ran to retrieve his sketch pad. When he returned moments later, he was out of breath.

  “God you’re impulsive. I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “Something’s happening to me,” he said. It was the short, confused episode from the side of the road near the creek bridge. It was the experience of personality through something he wasn’t sure he even possessed. It was love, beautiful love, but love the way it always arrives, with the razor’s edge of confusion, sadness, and pain just under the surface.

  While Lewis sketched the lake which had suddenly come upon him, as he tried to get the nuances of all those things he felt into it so that he could paint it later, Brittany sat quietly, her head on his shoulder, her knees bent and her legs tucked under her. Lewis worked quickly. By placing a line here or a curve or check there, he would remember what it meant and be able to translate it later. He had created, long ago, his own shorthand, used to transfer exact images from sketch pad to canvas. Color and emotion went down on paper, including the taste and sound and feel of common thought, all of it incorporated in a certain structure, a certain style. When he was through, he lay down the pad and pencil and sighed deeply.

  Brittany, who had been quiet the whole time he worked, sighed also. “That was wonderful.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “To watch you create that quickly, right in front of me. I feel such a part of it. Like I did it myself.”

  Lewis felt embarrassed and slightly violated. She had entered his world. She could watch, but not comment, not be part of it except as he wished it. That was a strange feeling for him to have after years of attributing much of what he’d produced to her, as though she had already been a part of it. But she hadn’t been a part, not really. She had only been a necessary utensil, just as the pencil or pad. She wasn’t allowed to take credit.

  “It’s not done,” he told her.

  “It looked it.”

  “You wouldn’t know. There are pieces that aren’t right.” He was quick with her, blunt. “Besides it has to be painted. This one has to be.” He pulled back from her.

  “Don’t be so mean.” She pushed his shoulder with her hand. “Don’t you want me to be part of it.”

  Yes and no, he wanted to say. She was a part, emotionally. He just didn’t want to spoil a work which came from the depths of him with the arrogance of reality, with the intrusion of speech. The sketch, and eventual painting came from silence, it should remain there. “I’ll do you,” he said. He wanted the sketch to escape from her, slip away and be left alone, for him to deal with it later. He flipped to the next page in the pad, distancing her from the lake piece.

  She conceded, “Where do you want me?” She loved being sketched, and Lewis, in his blind love for her, loved to sketch her, if only to make her happy.

  “That tree over there,” he told her, “sit next to it.”

  She got up and bent down to kiss his forehead. She ran to the tree and he followed.

  “Now sit down and look over there, to that side of the lake. Watch that crow perched atop that tree near the edge of the water.”

  She turned her head and stared. She quieted. Just what Lewis had wanted.

  “Now, stay still,” he said. Don’t even talk, he thought.

  And again he opened up to common thought and let it flow through him. Or he may have been pushed into it. I felt a pressure. But whichever happened, he drew Brittany, adding his shorthand notes into the piece. This would become the first painting of her he would do. It would have elements of love and aggression, hate and reserve. But for now, it would quiet her and it would calm him.

  Neither wanted that day to end. As evening crawled across the western sky, they found themselves alone in the park, in one another’s arms, watching the sun’s final departure slip away in the splendor of the day, stretching its orange and pink arms across the horizon.

  They kissed gently, then more forcefully. Their breathing became heavy. Lewis felt Brittany’s hands slide over his back and shoulders, one hand tracing a line to the back of his neck, around to his cheek. His hands, too, roamed the softness of her body, trying to pull her closer to him, inside him. They breathed into one another’s mouths and nose; their teeth met, their lips slipped like soap in a bathtub, almost no friction, only nerve endings. Lewis held her face while they looked into each other’s eyes. As their lips pressed together again, his arms were caught between their bodies, his hands still on her face. She held him tightly, kissing him, then loosened enough that he could pull his hands down. When his hands reached her breasts, she pushed into him again and moaned. She shifted and twisted her body slightly so that his hands moved over her. Lewis squeezed, then pushed when Brittany made a tiny sound with her throat. They pulled back for air, but Lewis’ hands stayed against her. She reached up and unbuttoned two buttons on her blouse. One of his hands easily slipped behind the cloth and cupped her bra as though his hand were another layer of material. His other hand moved around to her back. She twisted in his arms. They kissed lightly and his hand pushed against her, his thumb brushing the bare skin of her breast being pushed out the top of the bra. In an instinctual moment, his hand was completely over her bare breast, the nipple pushing hard into his inexperienced palm. They breathed and kissed as he rubbed and pushed. Their mouths were long tunnels, their tongues trains rushing to reach the other side. Each flick of the tongue pushed deeper into Lewis a sense of need. Every time he moved, or Brittany moved, the movement seemed to affect his groin. Even as his hand rotated on her breast, his groin felt the pressure.

  As the sun sent up its last spark in the sky, some people further up on the hill talked. Their voices were low, and couldn’t be understood, but the sound penetrated the privacy that Lewis and Brittany had placed around themselves.

  Lewis jumped, his hand pulling from her breast as though it were a hot stovetop. They both turned to face the sun. Brittany, nonchalantly pulled her blouse together at the top and rebuttoned it. Together, they looked out over the sky where the sun had just disappeared. No more voices came from the hill. Lewis turned his head to look. “They must have been walking past on their way out.”

  Brittany looked into his face when he turned back around. What did she see? An artist? A man? Or just someone different? Was she really in love with him? It seemed so. She searched his eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, with her eyes. Then she burst out laughing.

  “What?” Lewis said, his mouth turning up into a wide smile to match hers.

  “You look so serious.”

  “Well, they scared me.”

  “They sure did.”

  “You, too.”

  “I know. That’s what’s so funny.”

  He laughed. “That was funny. I wonder if they saw what we were doing?”

  “How could they in this little light? Maybe they saw us kissing, but what more?”

  “Probably.”

  They kissed slowly, Lewis leaned into Brittany, again feeling his groin as much as his lips. He opened his eyes and saw that Brittany’s were closed. As he pulled her close, her hand fell to his thigh and an explosion occurred inside him. They pulled apart. “We should go,” she said.

  “We’ll park the car somewhere.”

  “Okay.”

  Lewis had a difficult time walking back to the car. His nerve endings were all at the surface of his skin. Every step seemed almost painful. Brittany held his hand with both hers and leaned on it until it ached, but Lewis couldn’t get himself to pull it away. He wanted to be very delicate with her. The situation demanded that things go smoothly between them, no wrong moves, even though he didn’t quite know why he felt that way. Instinct took over. Even humans had it.

  When they had the car parked off the road and into some underbrush, Lewis cracked the window open. The night air had cooled considerably. The smell of the forest lifted up and squeezed into the car. Brittany sat opposite
him, against the passenger door. One leg lay provocatively across the seat. Lewis bent over the console between the seats and reached for her. She leaned and kissed him. His hands went straight for the buttons on her blouse. She helped. In a moment two white mounds with pink, hard nipples stared back at Lewis. He reached up and caught them in his hands. Brittany closed her eyes, sighed deeply. She propped one foot on the seat and let Lewis’ upper torso slip between her thin legs. He could feel her thigh against his side as his lips kissed her hard nipples, as his hands traced her shoulder blades and neck.

  “We should get in back,” she whispered.

  Lewis was hoarse and almost speechless. His actions spoke for him as he pulled away and let her crawl over the console to the back seat. He could smell the scent of her clothes as she passed. A cool wind shook the car. The sound of leaves rubbing together in the trees and of Brittany’s movement across the seat mixed together in Lewis’ head. Bright patches of blue car seat and white skin, jeans slipping down the long thin legs of Brittany.

  Lewis fumbled and shook. He helped her off with her underwear all the while wondering how he would, in his condition, undress himself. He noticed a sparkle of light reflect off the moisture at her crotch, the soft, blonde hair, slightly matted, the musty odor. His wallet fell onto the floor, then he reached for it and for a moment Brittany helped him retrieve it and pull out the foil wrapped condom. Lewis noticed her cool smile, the pinks of her nipples, how they stood out, pointing at him, the wetness between her legs, the new shape her body took when her legs were bent slightly and open.

  CHAPTER 7

  BRITTANY DID NOT FOLLOW Lewis to Philadelphia where he went to school, but, on two occasions, she did drive down to visit him. But most often, he drove the six hours to visit her. I remember him coming home during the cool, early-autumn days. He’d first come into the woods, up the old tractor road, and sit next to my trunk, or climb onto the branch he fell from, and just sit or sketch. Even before Brittany got to see him, often before his parents or Jeffrey, if Jeffrey were home from business school at the same time, Lewis ran straight into the woods. That’s where he would recharge, by opening his mind, the door to his true self, where he would slip into common thought and let the wildness inside him flow like a raging river. In those days, Brittany was almost never out of his thoughts. He focused on her face often enough to keep her with him always, but neither she, nor anyone else, could rejuvenate him like common thought. Each time he walked through the woods to the field or the enchanted forest, the whole area took on new life for him. Subconsciously, he knew that it was the source of his deep understanding of nature, if not life itself. Lewis lived for this contact, and although there was common thought everywhere he traveled, there was none like his home, like me, the field, the enchanted forest. He would never forget the raccoon or the glow of gold spread over the field the first time he and Jeffrey went to find it. Before he went to see Brittany, he always came to us. This one time, something bothered him, which made it more imperative that he come into the woods and open up.