Chameleon (Days)

by Dean Serravalle

  I hate my wife as I scream at her. And I know she hates me. Her words, her voice, the way her arms move to clear the air I breathe, all point to someone, anyone, to blame. How else can you be alive to understand acceptance, true acceptance with no doorway to change, without anyone to blame?

  So we blame each other and begin to destroy what’s left of us.

  The good. All that is good. Oh, how we take for granted all that is good between us.

  I retreat to my office again but not to write. I don’t want The Man to see me in this defeated state. No creator should be seen in such a context. Creators are omniscient. Creators are all knowing. Creators are not shitty businessmen.

  Instead, I search for properties in cottage country. I escape into their views, onto their docks, in their forested landscapes nestled privately in a green bush, while I hear her packing a bag. I walk out of the office.

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I can’t stay here. I’m going to a hotel. You don’t know how it is. You go to work, you don’t see it all. You can make yourself numb for a few hours before they go to bed, but you don’t know. You never know. You never want to know.”

  She is stuffing clothes from the laundry basket into one of the kid’s knapsacks. I know she isn’t going anywhere because she hasn’t changed out of her pajamas.

  “I don’t want you to go. Sleep upstairs, I’ll sleep downstairs.”

  “You can’t run and think it won’t be here when you come back.”

  This is the point when I realize why she is really upset with me. It convinces her temporarily.

  Dejected, she takes the laundry basket up to our bedroom. The light goes off and it gets colder in the darkened home without her.

  DAY 27

  “They are here.”

  The Messenger wakes with a dry mouth and the taste of rotten flesh in his mouth. Kashif hasn’t moved an inch from his position last night. He doesn’t appear tired. He doesn’t yawn or rub his eyes. The height of the fire has lessened and he is staring over it with an intense look. The Messenger follows the direction of his eye line to hear noises in the battle. No voices. The trees twitch violently. Every once in a while there is a groan, or a moan. The noises and the rustling of trees gets closer and closer like a wave of energy, like an invisible harmattan gaining momentum as it swallows more air and condensation.

  “Are you ready to go yet?” Kashif asks.

  “You know where we are going?”

  “Whoever reaches the mountain alive will take us towards the Syrian border. There will be a few sabotage attacks before we reach it. After we cross the border, there will be another battle, after which we will be transferred. When we reach our final destination, there will be an economic war, or negotiation, and the victor will present us to the council to achieve ranking.”

  “Ranking?”

  “Yes. All of the groups are ranked. Capturing me is a coup. The story we made up will keep us alive the whole journey.”

  The Messenger finds a seat next to Kashif, not too close. The space around him appears electric, like an invisible fence.

  Screams now disrupt the forest as dawn spreads itself against the valley with a thinning mist. The Messenger can hear the language of battle now. It is directional, instructive. Kashif doesn’t move or flinch. He is planted in his spot and his eyes close, not to rest or meditate. He is definitely listening to something within him, a selection of music.

  The violence is now ascending the mountain and bullet sounds are heard splicing into missed targets. Trees, rock-embedded ground, ricocheting off of cliffs. Grenade explosions shake the mountain a little. The slicing of missed arrows cuts the air. The Messenger’s stomach is disturbed. He doesn’t know if it is indigestion or Gibran awakening within him, fearing the outcome of this battle.

  “Are we to sit still?”

  Kashif doesn’t hear him. He is locked now in his trancelike state.

  The Messenger can hear voices getting closer. And then it becomes quiet. Peaceful.

  Three men emerge onto the scene. They slowly approach, place their guns on the ground gently, so as not to awake Kashif. And then they crouch their way to the fire. They pay no attention to The Messenger. By the time they reach the area by the fire, they are crawling on their knees. The Messenger can determine they are similarly in a trance. Their eyes are widened and softened now. There is blood on their attire, on their faces. Their eyes are captive to the vision before them. When Kashif opens his eyes fully, they place their cheeks to the ground. Although they are bearded themselves, one with his entire face nearly rolling in waves of hair, they are scrawny and young.

  They don’t speak. They transform into attentive students, stopping a respectable distance away not to encroach upon the hallowed ground of their teacher.

  Kashif observes them as if to recognize a signature. After acquiring a positive identification, he assumes the role. He rises gently, as if in slow motion. His movements now have transformed. No longer are they determined and forceful. Now they are languid and fluid, like a dancer’s. His face transforms in synchronicity to his movements. He appears as an elder now, a rabbi breaming with wisdom.

  The changes are different, this time around, or so The Messenger observes. These changes are not base level contortions or facial manipulations. This transformation is transcendent. Method acting. Kashif’s body is obeying what he believes himself to be right now—a spiritual leader. Even his fingers appear different. No longer wire-like with a strong grip around a scaling knife, they are softened and the skin on the edges of the knuckles is softer, wrinkled.

  “I have returned,” he speaks in an assuring whisper now. His voice is raspier. He has become the story they put together the night before. He has become the man who has seen a god. His body believes it. He makes his body believe it somehow and the fiction becomes truth before The Messenger’s eyes.

  “Let us assume the honour of delivering you to our Masters. They will be pleased to welcome you.”

  One of the boys rushes into the cave as if knowing there is baggage within. How would he know, The Messenger questions. Is Kashif communicating telepathically with them, or is it his body language dictating the details of their obedience?

  The young boy returns from the cave with the baggage. Everyone’s attention shifts towards The Messenger. Their eyes are appreciative to him, even Kashif’s. The boy with the blanketing face beard offers him a hand to help The Messenger from the ground. The Messenger takes it.

  “Thank you for finding him.”

  Through the beard, The Messenger detects a good boy, someone who listens to his father.

  They lead the way down the mountain and into the valley. Along the path dotted by Gibran’s blood, there are mutilated bodies, a series of battle casualties. All of the men are young and barely out of boyhood. The Messenger tries to get Kashif’s attention but he is too focussed now. He floats behind his escorts, while they constantly look back to see if he is real. The bearded boy walks behind The Messenger to protect them from a back door attack.

  When The Messenger glances behind him, he sees the smoke rise from the fire he created the night before. No one motioned to put it out for fear of disrupting its dying energy.

  DAY 28

  “I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make him a hero.”

  “I am doing no such thing. I am simply creating him at this stage in his life,” I explain to The Man. He is stalking me on my midnight walks. It is cold and wintery outside and this is another attempt to gain an uninterrupted night of sleep. I like the silence when everyone else is asleep. And I feel better the next morning, no matter how many hours I sleep.

  “He has too many sins to account for. He can never be a true hero, even if he manages to save his daughter’s life. It doesn’t exonerate him from everyone he has killed, or those who have died because of him. Even Macbeth a
s a serial killer pales in ­comparison.”

  I should have known The Man would find me, even in my attempts to sneak away from life in the middle of the night. He has a nose for privacy and whenever he catches a scent he invades and attacks my peace.

  “He is only doing what his instincts are dictating to him right now.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Dean. I do like his makeup. Not your stereotypical terrorist or former terrorist. He is creative, not brainwashed, but organic, one in line with his surroundings despite his ability to change like a chameleon in plain sight. By the way, is this what you will title the work—Chameleon?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Karma Chameleon, like the Boy George song.”

  “Now you’re just being silly.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “Of whom?”

  “Of the way I created him above you.”

  “I haven’t even developed yet. I admit, I like his creativity, his superpower ability to transform. That’s a nice touch. But this isn’t a superhero story, Dean. This is supposed to be a literary novel. I thought you were aiming for the fences with this one. You were so angry in the preface. It was like you were fed up with everything and you had a chip on your shoulder. And from that beautiful anger, I emerged. This guy seems a little too soft for his history.”

  “And you know his history?”

  “If you are basing him partially on the real chameleon, the Hezbollah leader of the eighties, yes, I am familiar with that history. You created me to be investigative and wise above my means. I suppose he is a character foil of me, a sexier version? Kashif is an artist. He commands attention by his talents and his innate, natural abilities. I can see why you would want him as your protagonist, even above The Messenger, who, to me, is the unsung hero of this novel thus far. Listen up though, you can’t make someone who isn’t heroic into a hero. It will never fly.”

  “Why not?”

  I can almost see the words from my mouth forming in my visible breath. My heartbeat is accelerating because I am walking faster subconsciously. My feet want to get away from The Man without realizing he doesn’t have real feet. Fictional feet are always faster.

  “Because as a character you emerge from your context and his context is evil, not good.”

  “What context did you emerge from?” I ask him.

  “The brink of you quitting as a writer.”

  I’ve thought about it and I know The Man is alluding to this consideration. I know I am a writer. I am sensitive to everything I see, touch, feel, hear and encounter. I am too observant to the point of distraction. I love to read until my eyes burn and my whole being comes alive when I am engaged in a story. But sometimes, this isn’t enough. There are many artists who fall unrequited. There are many creators who are rejected by a chameleon-like world.

  When I first fell in love with writing, I decided I would write a novel. I was eighteen and it ended up being a novella. I found an ad for a literary agency in Pittsburgh. I sent them my novella and they returned a letter asking me to send the entire manuscript. They also quoted me an “editing” charge. That whole first semester of university, I worked on extending the novella into a full-length novel. I stalled the agency and when it was time, I sent the whole book and a cheque from my savings for this editing fee. It returned edited all right, and also with a contract for representation.

  I remember feeling so happy, so accomplished, so hopeful. This is what I wanted to do. This is how I wanted to live my life, creating stories along the way. I felt confident and better than the students in my seminar sections who were too focussed on impressing the professor with big words. They would discuss my stories one day, I resolved under my breath.

  Three months later, I received a letter stating that a publishing company wanted to publish my novel. The exhilaration was unbearable. I told all of my friends and family. Everyone was so proud. I felt important to them, and most importantly, to myself. The condition for publication required another cheque, which my parents without question provided as a gift.

  Eight months later I was told the publisher had gone bankrupt. Two weeks after that I received a notice from a lawyer with a number of other writers swindled into giving money to both the agency and the publisher.

  I had been duped, humiliated. I would have to tell everyone who was special to me that the book wasn’t going to come out, that I had been scammed, that I wasn’t as talented as they thought.

  The rejection and dejection initiated me. It introduced me to real sorrow, true embarrassment, and it might have broken a window on the house of my academic security.

  So I started to look into M.A. programs. I was going to learn the craft from the ground up. Start publishing short stories and poems in literary journals like all of my favourite authors, whose bios I had scavenged to find similar rejections.

  I attended writing retreats, went to Harbourfront to listen to some authors. When I reached the front of the line to have Rohinton Mistry sign my Fine Balance novel, I was bursting again with the question.

  “Did you ever encounter rejection as a writer?”

  “Rejection? No, no, I was never rejected.”

  I wanted to kill him but there were too many gawking witnesses who gazed upon him like a god of literature.

  I think about the very beginning on my walk and I presume The Man is listening to my thoughts. I am exposing myself to him. This, I know, is dangerous. I don’t like him studying me. There should be limitations to his understanding of his creator. Some mystery. Otherwise, he will not act like the character I created him to be.

  “You made me a mystery,” he says softly, almost regretfully.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t think me worthy enough to be a hero? Was I solely the prologue guy who comes out on stage first to quiet down the crowd before the play starts?”

  These are his words, I know, but they are my thoughts. Does that make sense? He speaks what I truly think of him and ironically, when he says the words, he comes across as hurt.

  “I spend so much time with you that I never think to insert you in the story,” I say to The Man.

  “Which is why I inserted myself into it earlier.”

  “I don’t want you to do that anymore.”

  “I promise.”

  “Sometimes you create someone and the story dictates the direction of his life. I created you and him the same way. I thought about you both. I got to know you both. I researched you both. I crafted you with everything I was capable of. But the story takes on a life of its own, just like life happening when you don’t go to work, or when you don’t leave the house. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfect sense. If the story needs me, it will find me.” The Man is satisfied.

  “Exactly.”

  We walk in the boundaries of this conversation around the neighbourhood. Most of the lights are out, this time of night. There are a few burning in upper windows or flickering from a screen in another. Every time I consider turning back, I decide to change my direction. This sudden turn lengthens the walk and usually includes another couple of blocks. It is so quiet I can hear the sound of trucks on the highway. What a lonely life it must be to drive without passengers at this hour. I can only imagine how many voices a driver must hear on his way to nowhere in ­particular.

  DAY 29

  Kashif follows the boys through the foliage but slows his pace as he does so. He is trying to gain space from them, The Messenger believes, just as he did from him on their walk to the mountain. The Messenger wonders if there is something wrong. He is not speeding up as he did on the way to the mountain. In this scene, he is separating himself in reverse, which confuses the young bearded man covering the backside.

  “Do you need some water?” The young man scrambles through his shoulder sack. The others stop once they notice.

  “Keep walking,
” Kashif advises them. They obey.

  Kashif takes the water canteen and pushes the bearded boy back a few steps. In one motion, he pulls The Messenger close to him.

  An arrow lodges itself in the young boy’s chest. Minutes later, the two leading the way are ambushed with machetes. The thump of the weapons gouging flesh is a familiar sound to The Messenger, as are the moans before death. It reminds him of the time he was stabbed by the doctor who saved him.

  From the thickened brush ahead of them a new group emerges, while the one lodged in the tree, who shot the arrow, climbs down. The Messenger is impressed by Kashif’s ability to sense danger and protect himself with space. The space has now become his territory, and once again, this new group of terror soldiers hesitate to approach him.

  “We have come to bring you to them.”

  The Messenger stands closer to Kashif. The closer he stands to him, the more protected he feels. He doesn’t understand why he no longer wishes to die. Before having met Kashif or Sabal, he would have welcomed any opportunity, like this one, to be killed. Now he fears death again. Has Kashif created this fear in him? Has Kashif introduced him to another level of fear, the one without a cure?

  He had read many books about death addicts. Those who couldn’t stop thinking of the final act, those who craved it every moment of the day. He considered these people kindred spirits of his. He had read that Therese Lisieux, the child saint, actually became disappointed when her God made her wait. She died young, but not young enough to her. She craved dying like she craved food to survive.