Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

  “You’re not crazy, dear. I’ll call, though.”

  “Great.” Jeff ran down the stairs and out the door, leaping over the porch steps. He ran all the way back into the woods where the cottage stood in the foggy morning light. When he arrived, he slowed his pace and looked around all sides of the frame, behind equipment, near the stone fence where Lewis sat to watch as the cottage was being built. The contractor hadn’t shown up yet, but just as Jeffrey was about to leave, he heard the loud hum of the truck, and the loud creaking of its shocks and splashes of water as it bumped through rain-filled holes in the makeshift road.

  Breathing heavily from his run and frantic search, Jeffrey ran to the truck as it approached. “Have you seen my brother this morning? He’s missing.”

  Jack, the contractor, leaned forward to look across his two sons at Jeffrey. His face was serious, as though, instantly, he could sympathize with Jeffrey’s predicament. He had salt and pepper hair, cut short, and a rough-honed face. “We ain’t seen ‘im yet this mornin’, but we’ll watch for ‘im. If you want, we’ll help search the area.”

  Both sons bobbed their heads in agreement with the father.

  Jeff tapped the truck roof and thought for a moment. “Not yet. I’ll keep looking. In an hour or so if I can’t find him.”

  “Fine with us. You’ll let us know, then.”

  “I will.”

  “Good luck,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, good luck,” the other two spoke up.

  Jeff was off, leaping over the stone fence to make a quick run around the field. He stopped and looked in one direction, then the other. I knew he was torn between going to the enchanted forest or to me and down the tractor road. I tried to project an image into Jeffrey’s mind, of the road with Lewis lying in it, but couldn’t tell if it worked. Regardless, that’s where he went. In a full run, Jeff leaped over the stone fence again and didn’t slow down to a jog until he neared me. His eyes shot in each direction in perfect sync with his moving legs. When he started down the road toward his house, Jeffrey slowed because of the briars that attached themselves to his sweatshirt. About half way home, he saw Lewis on his back in the mud and ran over and kneeled next to him. “Lew!” He picked up Lew’s head and shook his shoulders. He placed his hand over Lew’s forehead, then took off his sweatshirt and wrapped it loosely around his brother’s shoulders and chest and arms.

  I tried, as I had all night, to get inside Lew’s head, but only received small amounts of acceptance. Throughout the night, Lew had gone from a complete blackout to a semiconscious state which led to horrifying images of giant flowers talking in low, indecipherable voices, and flying wood hitting his head and arms, then to images of Brittany screaming at the tops of her lungs, and after a few moments of that, another blackout.

  Jeffrey’s chest and arms quickly got prickly from the chill air, even though he had been running and had sweat across his worried brow. He hesitated for a moment, shook Lew again, then patted him on the chest and ran back to get help.

  In very little time Mr. Marshal drove up the path in his car. Miraculously, he didn’t get stuck. He and Jeffrey lifted Lewis into the car, while Mrs. Marshal sat in the back seat with a blanket to put over him. The two men sat in the front and Lew lay across the back seat, his head on his mother’s lap, her fingers in his hair. He began to come to again. He moaned and tried to talk.

  “Shhh,” his mother said.

  “Hold on, Lew. Take it easy,” Mr. Marshal said while backing out of the road.

  Soon, they were off to the hospital. I followed as far as I could, then, like falling off to sleep, faded from Lew’s mind, and they were gone.

  Back to the solitude of my life. By solitude, I mean without Lewis. There was still Jack and his boys to watch. I could listen to them, or delve into common thought for sensations from other parts of the forest, but sensations in common thought weren’t as exciting as the mental activity in Lewis. Nothing since I was a sapling was like the complexities I found in the combination of Lewis’ mind and motion.

  Lewis had hardly moved since his fall, once just to roll onto his back. When Jeffrey found him, his legs were still in the same awkward position as when he first rolled, one partially bent up, the other straight out. Slight movements of the head only irritated his nightmares, his odd hallucinations. I began to doubt the existence of the spirit he had seen earlier, since it had only appeared inside Lewis and nowhere else. Had it been an early signature of things to come, of his eventual collapse? Those warning signs often appeared in nature, why not in humans?

  To curtail my concern for his health, I dropped into common thought to meditate and let myself wander wherever I seemed to be pulled, just as Lewis had done the night before. New animals were born, old ones died, trees died from insect infestation, moss grew, weeds grew and pushed their beautiful flowers, their healthy bulbs of sun-loving membrane, into the open air. I was a favorite tree for the birds in my common thought territory, and different types, red-wing blackbirds, wrens, even robins came to place their delicate clawed feet over my thin branches.

  It may seem that I sometimes go on about my world, but I am fond of it and all its intricacies. And this, after all, is where Lewis takes what he needs to express much of his genius. To understand it is to better understand Lewis. He has learned to accept death, as well as rejoice in new life, born screaming as though their souls had been torn from them. Life here is balanced by death. Take the rain which Lewis walked through before his collapse. It felled several trees within common thought reach, some were not fully dead, only partially rotted. The lightning brought down the tops of two trees, the largest branch of another. Baby rabbits drowned in their flooded den. The mother saved only a few. All night there was death, even while Lewis was watching. I feared, at times, that he would become too accepting of death, and lose his instinctual will to live. My worry was unfounded, but I didn’t know that until the Marshals returned home.

  For the longest time they did not speak of him. They went along about their business of cooking, cleaning and, for Jeffrey, studying. For a while, it was as though Lewis had never been born, had never lived in that house. Then Brittany drove up. She jumped from the car practically before the engine was off and ran to the house, knocking loudly and pushing the doorbell.

  Mrs. Marshal answered the door. “Oh, come in, honey. You must be worried.”

  “Jeff called from the hospital.”

  “I know. Lew asked him to.”

  “What is it?” Brit followed Mrs. Marshal into the living room.

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No, he just said Lew was in the hospital, but that I couldn’t see him until tomorrow. Then he said something about them taking him somewhere, mumbled and hung up.”

  “It’s pneumonia.”

  “Pneumonia? How’d he get that? He didn’t even have a cold.”

  “The doctor said he was run down. He never sleeps.”

  “How bad is it? Is he awake?”

  “They’re optimistic.”

  “They said he’d be fine,” Mr. Marshal corrected, coming into the room and sitting in a stuffed chair. He looked like an older Lewis and Jeffrey, but they definitely had Mrs. Marshal’s eyes.

  Brittany turned her attention back to Mrs. Marshal. “How long do they think he’ll be in there?”

  “Not long. Now sit down. We heard about the engagement.”

  She smiled shyly. “Oh, that’s right.” She held out her hand to show off the diamond. “I just assumed...”

  “Don’t assume anything as long as Lewis is around.” Mr. Marshal opened the newspaper. He didn’t look at either of them.

  Mrs. Marshal waved a hand at him to dismiss his comment.

  “I’m sorry,” Brit pulled her hand back.

  Mrs. Marshal leaned forward following the hand. She took it into her own. “Don’t worry about that.” She leaned closer. “It’s very nice, isn’t it? Lewis has artistic tastes.”

  “He does.”

 
“What the hell was he doing out last night anyway?” Mr. Marshal stood up and threw the paper into the chair before leaving the room.

  Brittany looked a little worried.

  “He’s just upset. We all are.”

  “I know.”

  “He was calm until the doctor said that Lewis would be all right, then he got angry, as though Lew had done something to him instead of to himself.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. That’s the way he is. He and Jeff are alike in that way. They’re both very practical and businesslike. Things done irrationally, in their minds, are just plane crazy. Jeff seems to handle it a little better.”

  “Well, they’re brothers.”

  Mrs. Marshal looked away. “I suppose they are.”

  “So, why can’t I see him tonight if he’s going to be okay?”

  “They want him to rest. Told us all to go home.”

  Brittany lowered her head and shook it back and forth, “Why does this stuff always happen to him?”

  “I wish I knew. I’d change his diet.”

  They laughed at the ridiculous sound of her statement.

  Mrs. Marshal put her hand over Brit’s knee. “I think you’re good for him.”

  Their eyes met and held. It looked as though they were examining each other’s thoughts, or true feelings, eye to eye. They pulled apart simultaneously, as though there was a hidden signal they both adhered to. A grin flashed across each face in silent satisfaction.

  “We know about the baby and all. It’s okay.”

  Brittany shifted in her seat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I hope not, dear. You shouldn’t be.”

  “But...”

  “But it takes two. I know how life is. Don’t take me for an oldster who doesn’t understand. It’s too bad it couldn’t have been planned, but don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry for. You two are in love, that’s what matters.”

  Then they discussed other things, Brit’s mother and father, the cottage, Lew’s successes in the art field. They didn’t mention his collapse, and Brittany never mentioned what I know she must have thought about, and that’s their naked lovemaking at the cottage site the night before, the night of the collapse. I sensed a little guilt in her, that maybe she helped to push him over that edge. Or it may have been me projecting; although, I should have known it wasn’t her, or anything about her, but more the cold wind and rain. Why he came to me, to sit through the rain, instead of rest, I don’t know.

  CHAPTER 11

  LEWIS RETURNED HOME totally disoriented. Yes, he was on medication, but mild medication. He feared common thought, a cycle he had gone through before. Yet, I could always get in and probe. He just didn’t open to me fully. If there was anything I could have done to hold him within common thought, I would have done so. But what could I do but try to ease his mind into wanting to stay? Like the man who wants nature to stay with him when he enters the city, so I wanted Lewis to stay with me when he went to the city.

  Those first weeks home, Lewis remained in the house. He often felt tired and tried to get rest, his biggest problem, because when he got into a painting fury, he tended not to stop. He would have to be forced by Jeffrey or his mother to put down his brushes and go to bed. He ate very well though, gorging himself at every meal, and gained about ten pounds over what Jeffrey weighed. He looked a little bloated from the additional weight, but then I liked him lean.

  Brittany visited more and more often as they planned their small wedding (family only) and set a date only a month away, mid-July. Brittany wouldn’t be showing yet, so they figured she could still wear a regular gown. Lewis bought a new suit for the occasion, no tux for him. Everything up to the day of the wedding, July 12th, went very smoothly. For those thirty days leading to the final date, the house was filled with happiness. Brittany and Lewis’ parents met for a cordial dinner and became friends in the process. The uncomfortable position of Brittany’s pregnancy was set aside. Mutual friendship and understanding between the parents, apparent good feelings for one another’s children, and the fact that Lewis was selling well, appearing in magazine after magazine, all made for a worry-free wedding and, in all their eyes, a happily-ever-after marriage.

  The only one to show signs of dark within this white, fluffy cloud of happiness and acceptance, was Lewis, and maybe that was because I could see inside him and not inside the others. One evening near the wedding date, he and Jeffrey began to talk, as they had more and more often as they got older.

  “So, how’s the nervous groom?” Jeffrey had started.

  “Unsure.” Lewis was laid out on his bed flipping through his latest sketch pad.

  Jeff pulled out and sat on the chair to their desk, the one they’d done homework on for so many years, the one Jeff still sat in to do homework when Lewis was out. “You’re supposed to be nervous, not unsure. Unsure sounds like pending cancellation, calling it off. I’d heard of that being done before, but never in my wildest dreams could I imagine my obsessive brother in such a position.”

  “You sound like a lawyer talking like that.”

  “My persuasive business meeting tone. Long useless monologues.”

  Lewis smiled and closed the sketch pad. “I told you about our fight.”

  “Yeah. That was a long time ago.”

  “Did I hesitate to suggest marriage then because I didn’t want to marry her, or because I was just nervous?”

  “I don’t know exactly. How did you feel?”

  “I need her and I don’t. Does that make sense?”

  “No.”

  “I need her around, her image, her, her... feel.”

  “Let’s not get into sex, she’s already pregnant.”

  Lewis sat up. “No, the feel of her being around when I need her, being close enough that I can work. Not on top of me.”

  “Wow. On top of you? Is that how you feel she’ll be?”

  “I don’t want her staring while I paint, saying things. Sometimes I need to be alone.”

  “You paint while I’m in the room watching.”

  “That’s you. You’re me. Maybe I’m used to you.”

  “You can get used to her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “She’ll be taking care of the baby anyway.”

  “Maybe.” Lewis flopped back onto the bed. “I don’t know. I keep thinking of that Indian spirit I saw.”

  “Good God, don’t start that again. You’re starting to spook me.”

  “No, Jeff, listen. He pointed at me, like he was saying, you’re it, just you, alone. That’s what I got from him.”

  “And the raccoon said, ‘Not my ears’. I think you’ve been hallucinating most of your life, how else could you do some of that weird stuff you do?”

  “The abstracts,” Lewis said to the ceiling. “They’re just a twist of reality. The real crazy stuff is still inside my head.”

  “Well let it out, I’ll hit it with a hammer and we’ll both be done with it.”

  Lewis sat up again and looked right at Jeffrey. “So what do I do with my insecurity concerning the marriage?”

  “Swallow it. And keep it down.”

  “And keep swallowing?”

  “If you have to. Don’t you feel responsible? A little?”

  “Of course I do. But do I want to make a mistake?”

  Jeffrey brought his hands to his face. “No, not at all,” he said quietly.

  They both sat staring at one another.

  Lewis broke the silence. “I’ll make a decision I can live with.” He got up and headed for the door.

  “Where you going this late?”

  “For a walk.”

  “To look for your wood demon?” There was a definite sound of sarcasm in Jeffrey’s voice where there had been a slightly joking sound earlier. Lewis noticed the contrast and felt hurt, mistrusted. He had confided in Jeff and Jeff didn’t believe that he could make such a decision.

  “Spirit,” Lewis corrected, just to haggle him.
>
  “Don’t stay out late. I don’t want to worry about you lying in filth again.”

  “Then don’t worry,” Lewis yelled up the stairs. When he passed the living room where his parents were watching the news, Mrs. Marshal looked up. “You’re not going out this late, are you?”

  “I won’t be gone long.”

  “Oh, Lewis, why must you?”

  “I have to think.”

  She sighed.

  Lewis stepped into the warm summer air and high humidity, a moth flew by his ear on its way towards the light that reached through the glass of the front door. It fluttered almost like a bird.

  For the first time in a long while, I could feel Lewis’ willingness to open up fully, to lower himself into common thought. But what he expected from nature was too much, an answer to his problems, a catalyst to his feelings, something to “show him the way”, and there was no such thing waiting for him. Without his imagined spirit to guide him, I feared he might revolt by blocking common thought out completely. He would become as all other humans were, lost in his private thoughts. Because of the link we had established, I expected to be able to read him most of the time, but I needed for him to accept common thought willingly or even that link might fade.

  I followed him to the cottage. It was almost finished. Lamps and appliances, bedroom and living room furniture, had all been planned for and bought. In the loft were a second set of easels, stretched canvases of different sizes, a sofa, paints, shelves, everything he needed only in a larger room than the bedroom he shared with Jeffrey. He would no longer have to store paintings in the basement.

  Lewis climbed the stairs to the loft and, in the darkness, stared out over the field. What did he search for, a revelation that would never come, one that nature could not supply?

  I let go completely and waited for him to come to me. I watched him through the large pane-glass window in the top half of the cottage. Jeans and tee-shirt. Ruffled hair. He stood with his legs apart, a slight paunch to his belly from sitting around and eating. The urge to enter his mind, to see what he was thinking was great, but I held back. In a few minutes, Lewis was there with me, with us all. His mind searched the woods, searched the field; he lingered around squirrels, field mice, deer. Like a bird, he flew into the topmost branches of trees, like snakes he wriggled under rocks, like fish he swam along the stony bottom of the brook. Lewis had dived in deeper and with more trust than ever before. He wanted answers to his problems, but all we could answer was instinct: eat, drink, copulate, die. Was that enough? Lewis belonged to common thought. It was there inside him stronger than mere image or color, stronger than just a sensation. How long would it last? How long would we be so close? His human mind, just like animal thought, couldn’t hold on forever, it would eventually have to turn to its own privacy.