Anyway, I wanted to do another post this week, but my mom's flying in tonight (!), so I won't have time to write one. However, I do have a (rather short) story that I wrote last year that my mom happens to love, so I thought it might be fitting to post it. It's definitely not my typical writing style at all; you may not even believe that I wrote this. And it probably doesn't make an exorbitant amount of sense, and it may end too abruptly (it should really be longer than I made it, probably), but it has some images that I'm rather fond of. So, if ye be brave enough, venture forth. And thank you to anyone who reads this blog--your interest is seriously appreciated.
Oh, and Happy 4th of July. Don't blow yourselves up.
Eliot Lawrence was a boy with extraordinary gifts. He could simply look at a piece of music and be able play it on any of a variety of instruments. He could skim through a thousand-page book in five minutes, and then recite a rather interesting passage from page 342. He could be given a large group of large numbers and multiply, divide, add, or subtract them in his head–even find their mean and their median, all while creating a numerical pattern out of their digits.
Yes, Eliot Lawrence was nothing short of a genius; and, at ten-years-old, one could logically presume that he would be given national attention, as a guest on countless morning newscasts and late-night talk shows, a subject of adoration for the American public, a darling little boy who was a gift from the great God Almighty himself (as his parents would certainly attest.) And normally, in the case of most other singular child prodigies, those assumptions would be correct. But not in the case of Eliot Lawrence.
For he could not only see everything around him in a wonderful vision of technicolor–the words and the numbers and the notes. He could also see things that went unseen by others, things dubbed “nonexistent,” considered “hallucinations.”
And it was this gift, above all his other gifts, that kept him locked always in his room, confined by the parents who both feared and marveled at him, both loved and loathed him.
Eliot awoke to a turquoise day. The rainbow rays from the sun shone in through his window and bounced playfully around the room, consorting finally to a nautical blue-green. He sat in his small bare bed and rubbed his eyes, shrugging the sleep off with a yawn and a stretch. Strewn haphazardly around his room were hundreds of books and papers, each of which gave off its own unique intensity–be it light or heat or sound–by which Eliot could easily tell them apart. He lived in the garage because it was not connected to the house, and thus he could be free to play all the music and conduct whatever kinds of experiments that he liked. His mother would bring him meals three times a day, never speaking to him (out of both awe and contempt) but offering him a gentle smile that he could be contented with. His father he never saw, but yet he knew him quite well, as he also knew his mother, for he always watched them in his mind.
He decided that it was 6:45 A.M., and he glanced at the clock on the wall just to make sure–though he rarely did this because clocks could be wrong, but his senses were always right. His breakfast would arrive in approximately fifteen minutes, so he decided to read a few of the novels that his mother had so kindly brought him last night.
He flipped quickly through Dickens’ “Bleak House,” which he had already read twelve times before (a fact that his mother neglected to notice), and then he stood up and walked over to the door. His mother would be early today.
He watched in his mind as his mother got out of bed before her alarm could go off, having stirred all night waiting for her husband to come home. Eliot saw how her eyes had drooped and her cheeks had sunk in when he finally did return in the early morning hours. “She thinks he is having an affair, poor mother,” he thought to himself, “but he has merely been drinking away his sorrows caused by his brother’s secret illness, poor father.”
He put his hand on the doorknob a few seconds before he heard his mother unlocking it, and he gently opened the door as widely as it could go. His mother, surprised by the unusual forwardness, cautiously stepped into the room. She carried a red tray that had on it some scrambled eggs, bacon, and grapefruit (his favorite, though she could not know that.) She set the tray down on a table in the corner of the room, and prepared to exit when Eliot spoke to her.
“You’re purple today, mother. Quite violet indeed.”
She touched her face, wondering at his words, entranced by his lyrical voice, embarrassed by what she took as an insult. “No, no, I meant your glow,” Eliot answered. “Your glow is quite violet today. Is everything alright?” He knew the answer to this, of course, but he wanted to keep her in his room as long as he could. An overwhelming feeling had taken him, a desire to see her face in front of him, not inside of his mind, to hear her speak, not listen to her thoughts. He needed his mother, his real, actualized mother.
She stood there, stunned and immobile.
Frantically, knowing that time was passing quickly and her instinct to flee was to kick in soon, he cleared the books and the paints and the violin that occupied his only chair and he offered it to her. “Please,” he said, “sit here while I eat, mother. I always eat quickly, and then you won’t have to make another trip to retrieve my tray.” He went and gathered some tissues as she timidly took a seat on the chair. When he returned to her side, she was weeping and he softly placed the tissues in her lap.
He stood in front of the table and ate his breakfast with urgency; the faster that he finished, the sooner he could continue speaking to his mother. He could hear her humming in her mind to a song that he used to play for her as a toddler. “She remembers?” he thought. “I always knew she did.” The turquoise of the room blended at the edges of her violet to create a brilliant shade of deep blue. “The color of love,” he thought. “The color of love!”
Just then, she finished weeping and dabbed gently at her puffy, wet eyes. He got up and walked over to her excitedly, bells jingling in his heart to the tune that his mother had been humming, his face hot, his hands blue fire. He boldly sat in her lap and looked up at her, wiping a stray tear, his eyes changing beautifully from solid brown to liquid gold.
Her mouth gaped, she held her breath.
“I love you, mother!” he cried, throwing his arms around her for the first time in his life, sobbing into her neck, his little body heaving and shaking. “I love you! And you love me! I saw it, I feel it, I know!”
She instinctively wrapped her arms around him, and cradled him like an infant, beginning her weeping all over again. She kissed his face and his hands and pressed his cheek against hers. In this way they sat for hours, kissing and hugging and sobbing and sighing, never wanting to let go.
When they finished, they sat in silence–or what was silence to her, as he could hear the rain that would soon be falling and the piano concerto that came from one of his books. He finally lifted his head off her shoulder and gazed into her face, the soft, maternal face that he had always longed to trace with his tiny fingers. She looked at him lovingly, unable to find words to say.
“There is no need to speak, mother. I have always known this day would come, when you would see I am not a monster, but just a boy.” Her eyes widened. “You can stay here all day if you’d like, I certainly wouldn’t mind,” he said to her, nestling his head once again on her shoulder. Her embrace loosened, became less urgent. “You are still purple, mother. Purple means that you are worried and sad and love-stricken today. But there is no need to worry. Father is not engaged with another woman, certainly not! His brother is ill, and he does not want frighten you with the possibility of his death, so he stays out at night and drowns his pain. Do turn blue, mother, please. Everything is alright now. You can be happy and I can be happy, and father will be happy, too, once he hears of what has happened this afternoon.” He looked back up at her, his golden eyes churning slowly, gracefully. “You have accepted me.”
Horror seized his mother and struck her heart like lightning. She pushed him off her lap and stood up in a frenzy. “NO!” she shouted with fear. “No no no! You are a monster! Not a child, but a monster, a devil!” She searched her apron pocket for the key to the door as Eliot sat on the floor motionless, his mind and eyes muted to all but what really existed. His mother slipped through the door and slammed it shut, locking it quickly and escaping to the house.
Eliot’s vision went black and his mind went blank and his consciousness removed itself from his body.
Minutes later, when it returned, the turquoise was gone. All the colors were gone, as were the sounds and the lights and the words and the numbers. His eyes looked out at an empty, lifeless world. Weakly, Eliot rose from the floor and slunk to his small bare bed, collapsing into a restless, dreamless, colorless sleep.
The rain that he had heard earlier finally arrived, and pattered softly on the roof of the garage.
Yes, Eliot Lawrence was nothing short of a genius; and, at ten-years-old, one could logically presume that he would be given national attention, as a guest on countless morning newscasts and late-night talk shows, a subject of adoration for the American public, a darling little boy who was a gift from the great God Almighty himself (as his parents would certainly attest.) And normally, in the case of most other singular child prodigies, those assumptions would be correct. But not in the case of Eliot Lawrence.
For he could not only see everything around him in a wonderful vision of technicolor–the words and the numbers and the notes. He could also see things that went unseen by others, things dubbed “nonexistent,” considered “hallucinations.”
And it was this gift, above all his other gifts, that kept him locked always in his room, confined by the parents who both feared and marveled at him, both loved and loathed him.
Eliot awoke to a turquoise day. The rainbow rays from the sun shone in through his window and bounced playfully around the room, consorting finally to a nautical blue-green. He sat in his small bare bed and rubbed his eyes, shrugging the sleep off with a yawn and a stretch. Strewn haphazardly around his room were hundreds of books and papers, each of which gave off its own unique intensity–be it light or heat or sound–by which Eliot could easily tell them apart. He lived in the garage because it was not connected to the house, and thus he could be free to play all the music and conduct whatever kinds of experiments that he liked. His mother would bring him meals three times a day, never speaking to him (out of both awe and contempt) but offering him a gentle smile that he could be contented with. His father he never saw, but yet he knew him quite well, as he also knew his mother, for he always watched them in his mind.
He decided that it was 6:45 A.M., and he glanced at the clock on the wall just to make sure–though he rarely did this because clocks could be wrong, but his senses were always right. His breakfast would arrive in approximately fifteen minutes, so he decided to read a few of the novels that his mother had so kindly brought him last night.
He flipped quickly through Dickens’ “Bleak House,” which he had already read twelve times before (a fact that his mother neglected to notice), and then he stood up and walked over to the door. His mother would be early today.
He watched in his mind as his mother got out of bed before her alarm could go off, having stirred all night waiting for her husband to come home. Eliot saw how her eyes had drooped and her cheeks had sunk in when he finally did return in the early morning hours. “She thinks he is having an affair, poor mother,” he thought to himself, “but he has merely been drinking away his sorrows caused by his brother’s secret illness, poor father.”
He put his hand on the doorknob a few seconds before he heard his mother unlocking it, and he gently opened the door as widely as it could go. His mother, surprised by the unusual forwardness, cautiously stepped into the room. She carried a red tray that had on it some scrambled eggs, bacon, and grapefruit (his favorite, though she could not know that.) She set the tray down on a table in the corner of the room, and prepared to exit when Eliot spoke to her.
“You’re purple today, mother. Quite violet indeed.”
She touched her face, wondering at his words, entranced by his lyrical voice, embarrassed by what she took as an insult. “No, no, I meant your glow,” Eliot answered. “Your glow is quite violet today. Is everything alright?” He knew the answer to this, of course, but he wanted to keep her in his room as long as he could. An overwhelming feeling had taken him, a desire to see her face in front of him, not inside of his mind, to hear her speak, not listen to her thoughts. He needed his mother, his real, actualized mother.
She stood there, stunned and immobile.
Frantically, knowing that time was passing quickly and her instinct to flee was to kick in soon, he cleared the books and the paints and the violin that occupied his only chair and he offered it to her. “Please,” he said, “sit here while I eat, mother. I always eat quickly, and then you won’t have to make another trip to retrieve my tray.” He went and gathered some tissues as she timidly took a seat on the chair. When he returned to her side, she was weeping and he softly placed the tissues in her lap.
He stood in front of the table and ate his breakfast with urgency; the faster that he finished, the sooner he could continue speaking to his mother. He could hear her humming in her mind to a song that he used to play for her as a toddler. “She remembers?” he thought. “I always knew she did.” The turquoise of the room blended at the edges of her violet to create a brilliant shade of deep blue. “The color of love,” he thought. “The color of love!”
Just then, she finished weeping and dabbed gently at her puffy, wet eyes. He got up and walked over to her excitedly, bells jingling in his heart to the tune that his mother had been humming, his face hot, his hands blue fire. He boldly sat in her lap and looked up at her, wiping a stray tear, his eyes changing beautifully from solid brown to liquid gold.
Her mouth gaped, she held her breath.
“I love you, mother!” he cried, throwing his arms around her for the first time in his life, sobbing into her neck, his little body heaving and shaking. “I love you! And you love me! I saw it, I feel it, I know!”
She instinctively wrapped her arms around him, and cradled him like an infant, beginning her weeping all over again. She kissed his face and his hands and pressed his cheek against hers. In this way they sat for hours, kissing and hugging and sobbing and sighing, never wanting to let go.
When they finished, they sat in silence–or what was silence to her, as he could hear the rain that would soon be falling and the piano concerto that came from one of his books. He finally lifted his head off her shoulder and gazed into her face, the soft, maternal face that he had always longed to trace with his tiny fingers. She looked at him lovingly, unable to find words to say.
“There is no need to speak, mother. I have always known this day would come, when you would see I am not a monster, but just a boy.” Her eyes widened. “You can stay here all day if you’d like, I certainly wouldn’t mind,” he said to her, nestling his head once again on her shoulder. Her embrace loosened, became less urgent. “You are still purple, mother. Purple means that you are worried and sad and love-stricken today. But there is no need to worry. Father is not engaged with another woman, certainly not! His brother is ill, and he does not want frighten you with the possibility of his death, so he stays out at night and drowns his pain. Do turn blue, mother, please. Everything is alright now. You can be happy and I can be happy, and father will be happy, too, once he hears of what has happened this afternoon.” He looked back up at her, his golden eyes churning slowly, gracefully. “You have accepted me.”
Horror seized his mother and struck her heart like lightning. She pushed him off her lap and stood up in a frenzy. “NO!” she shouted with fear. “No no no! You are a monster! Not a child, but a monster, a devil!” She searched her apron pocket for the key to the door as Eliot sat on the floor motionless, his mind and eyes muted to all but what really existed. His mother slipped through the door and slammed it shut, locking it quickly and escaping to the house.
Eliot’s vision went black and his mind went blank and his consciousness removed itself from his body.
Minutes later, when it returned, the turquoise was gone. All the colors were gone, as were the sounds and the lights and the words and the numbers. His eyes looked out at an empty, lifeless world. Weakly, Eliot rose from the floor and slunk to his small bare bed, collapsing into a restless, dreamless, colorless sleep.
The rain that he had heard earlier finally arrived, and pattered softly on the roof of the garage.
