Continuation of Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Continuation and revision based on an idea of where it should actually go!

Pageant Question 10: If you could go back to a certain time in your life, what would it be and why?

 

When my beautiful baby boy turned three, I stopped going to play group, swim at the Y, and "Mommy-n-Me" yoga.  Cutting off his grandmother was harder, but not impossible.  I packed away most of the toys in our apartment and all of the diapers as well as the training toilet.  If anybody who cared to know me cared at all, they would have been seriously concerned.  It was far worse than they could have imagined.

Raising Calvin alone was not easy, and I abused myself every day with thoughts of how stupid I was when I had slept with his father.  I barely even remembered the man, and he was a man.  He wore a suit and everything.  I was old enough to know better, and this guy was so professional, so pulled-together, I thought he was okay.  He wasn't.  Luckily, he never tried to contact us.  He had to have found out I had a baby, but not so much as a peep.  I say I was lucky, though I really could have used the money from child support.  Calvin and I lived in an attic apartment in the city, and even though we didn't have a lot it was cramped.  I couldn't imagine how women and girls who weren't educated managed when I could barely make it through social services application processes.  I was persistent, though, which is why Calvin was enrolled in so many great programs.  Not anymore, though.

It was the morning of Calvin's third birthday, and spring finally seemed to be around for good.  I was up extra early to decorate and set out his presents (a real vintage Speak & Spell I found at a thrift store and fixed up, a stuffed dog that had to have been donated new, and some clothes--sorry, kid.)  In the morning, Calvin usually woke himself and called me from his bedroom, "Mommy!" he'd call in a sing-song voice.  "I'm a-way-ake!"  Bustling about, taping up streamers, I didn't notice he hadn't called yet, and it was after eight.  I wasn't a nervous mother, but of course I worried.  I pictured him, smothered in his pillow.  I pictured having a doctor explaining "sudden infant death" could happen to toddlers, too.  I pictured him kidnapped by his absent father, whom I might not even recognize if I saw him on the street.

Calvin, however, was awake.  I found him sitting up in his bed, staring at his hands.  He turned them over and looked at the backs, then again to the palms.  The look on his face frightened me because it was so intense.  "Calvin?" I asked from the door.  "You okay, buddy?"  My voice startled him, and my toddler looked up at me, stared for what seemed like a very long time, put his hands to his mouth and burst into tears.

I ran to his bed and held his shaking body.  What in the world had scared my baby so badly?  "It's okay, it's okay," I crooned over and over, rocking him.  Finally, Calvin was down to sniffles, and he said something he had never said before, "Mom?"

"Mom?" I repeated, sitting back to look at him.  I smiled, thinking that suddenly my baby at age three now thought himself old enough to graduate from "Mommy".  My smile faded when I saw his glistening blue eyes searching my face so intently.  "What is it, Calvin?  What's the matter, buddy?"

"Mom... I can't believe it's you.  I'm really here."

 

  He walked off in a straighter, more purposeful way than I'd ever seen, and came back with the box of tissues from the bathroom.  After that brought a new burst of tears, I finally pulled myself together.  "You okay, Mom?"  I nodded.  "What were we going to have for breakfast?  I'm starving!"

  I haven't had those since...  For a long time."  I noticed the pause, but ignored it to make my little boy's favorite breakfast.  I realized Calvin, at thirty-five, was older than me.

computer," and "Can we have sushi for dinner?"  Nonna's coffee mug would often mysteriously drain itself of liquid.

This is all physics.  My calculations for returning to my own body."  Calvin didn't hear my quiet objection that he was in his own body.  He slapped the table.  "I wish I could have brought my notes with me!  How stupid of me not to realize Bernmann wouldn't have written his papers yet.  Why was I so dumb?"  He looked up with the eyes of a nearly middle-aged man.  "I know you always told me that my father was brilliant, but there's got to be a run of stupid in my genes, too."  Calvin couldn't miss my look this time, and he tried to backpedal.  "No, Mom, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

and an individual could travel along his time stream."  He took my silence as additional proof I couldn't follow and waved one chubby toddler hand.  "It's not important, Mom.  What's important is that I get back to being me, and you will have your Calvin back.  I'll be able to see what happened in the future because of my changes here."

My baby slid out of his booster seat, never taking his eerily old eyes off of me, his sobbing shadow of a mother.  I thought he was going to give me the hug he always did when I was feeling blue, but this was not my little Calvin.  My Calvin sensed when I was sad and tired and threw his arms around my neck to cry with me.  This Calvin's eyes were cold, and they saw me start to bend when he came near.  He stopped, his mouth tight.  "Mother," he began, "pull yourself together."

"I can't, remember?"  I indicated my wasted chest, "I don't have all of me anymore."

His eyes narrowed, "This is what you're mad about?  That I saved your life?  You'd be dead by the time I'm ten if it weren't for me."

"At least I would have my Calvin."

He grabbed his hair and growled, "I am your Calvin!"

"No, you're not!  My Calvin wouldn't yell at his mother.  My Calvin would have hugged me when I'm sad.  My Calvin wouldn't call his mother 'smart enough'!"

"And my mother was an angel!" he screamed.

I shook my head, "Because she's dead, Calvin.  She's dead and you made her into an angel, but you disdain the real, live woman before you who is your mother."

"My mother would have given her life for me!"

My voice was quiet, but steady, "I did."  I knew he wouldn't understand the future I had before my unplanned pregnancy.  I knew he couldn't fathom that I had a life for myself that ended once he came along.  He thought I was stupid because I let his father get away.  He thought I was stupid because I didn't get my degree or have a prestigious job or a nice house.  He probably thought I had been stupid to ignore my own body and get cancer.  I realized now that Calvin, the thirty-five year old Calvin of the future, was using me just as much as his father had; he wanted to prove his theory, and saving my life was secondary.  He thought of me as much as his father had.

Calvin looked up at me, his small chest heaving, his little fists clenched.  I could practically read his mind: How dare you get in the way of my discovery?  I wondered if he could read mine: Where did I go wrong in raising you?

"I'm done."  Calvin's sudden dismissal of our argument was stunning.  He started gathering up his papers.  "I need a backpack."  I couldn't imagine at that moment why, but just then he was straining to reach the middle of the table, so, of course, I helped him stack the papers he couldn't get to.  He wouldn't look at me.  "A backpack.  Please.  Now."

I moved to get my old pack from the closet, even while wondering why.  My deluded mind forced his actions to fit what I thought was best; he was gathering his papers into the backpack for my safekeeping here, like I said.  But it wasn't true.  Calvin had gone into his room and was already zipping up his baseball-themed windbreaker.  I had always had to help him with zippers, but, of course, his fingers were as clever as his mind these days.

"What are you doing, Calvin?"  I shivered.

"Leaving."

I laughed, which made him turn his narrowed eyes in my direction.  I explained, "But, you can't leave.  You're only three!  Where can you go?"

"I'm going to the university and I will find Dr. Bernmann and I will explain what happened.  I don't think it matters now that it would be a paradox..." he froze in the act of zipping the backpack closed and a slow smile illuminated his face.  Calvin turned to me, "My, God!  It was me!  It was me the whole time!"

I didn't understand, but my baby was looking at me and smiling, so I knelt and smiled, too, "What was you, Calvin?"

"I'm the one who inspires Bernmann to write his paper.  I invented the entirety of time travel myself!  It was me!  Me!"  As Calvin laughed, I realized he wasn't looking at me at all, but rather at his genius.  He hefted the pack to his small shoulder; it was nearly as big as he was and I imagined seeing him as he would be on his first day of school in two years.  He turned to me, smiling with his angel's face at his own glory, "Goodbye, Mother.  I'll have Dr. Bernmann return my three-year-old self when I'm gone, and, I guess, I'll see you now and later."  Calvin went to the door put his hand on the knob above his head and said over his shoulder, "By the way, Mother, why don't you buy me some more advanced books?  If you work a little harder raising me, maybe I can reach my full potential despite your...circumstances."

I couldn't move.  It was like I was kicked in my ruined chest, and I could only watch my baby leave, walking down the stairs to our apartment one at a time.  I heard his little feet in their second-hand sneakers take each step, one foot then the other, one foot then the other, because his legs were so short.  I faintly heard the door to the outside open and slam shut, and I pictured Calvin shoving it with both hands, the triumphant smile still on his face as he planned out how to convince this Dr. Bernmann to listen to a toddler.

Despite his words, Calvin was my baby, and I ran to the window the overlooked the front sidewalk and threw it open to call to him, ask him to wait for me and I would do whatever he wanted.  Simultaneously, traitorously, I felt like as big a sucker as I did when I cried to his father's back when he walked away.

I saw Calvin on the sidewalk.  I saw a group of local college students breeze past him, ignoring the toddler on his own because what did they care?  They had tests to take.  Calvin walked to the curb between the parked cars.  I opened my mouth to shout before he got too far to hear me, but he had already stepped out into the street.  It was another college student, hurrying on his way to class, worried about finding a parking space, not thinking that a toddler would walk out into traffic in the middle of the block.

My baby is gone.  He came back to save me, and I lost him.  I'm in classes now, fulfilling one of the dreams I had before I made the foolish mistake of sleeping with a man I thought cared.  I'm majoring in physics, and I'm a Teaching Assistant for Dr. Bernmann.  He likes me a lot, and I've inspired him to so many breakthrough ideas.  What keeps me up at night now is wondering: how far back do I go?

Continuation of #324 from January 1, 2015

324

Sitting in the passenger seat of a car again was freaking me out.  After only being able to walk or maybe hitch a ride on the back of an animal-drawn cart, the speed at which the scenery was streaking by was alarming.  Without wanting to, I was clutching the "ohshit" handle and my legs were stiff in front of me.  The smell, too.  It reeked in here, though I know I reeked to Richard.  I smelled like animal, but the car smelled like chemicals and it burned my sensitized nose.

Posted by KarenLE at 10:59 AM 

Richard hovered around me all the way into the apartment, like I was a stray sheep and he was my concerned and knowing sheep dog.  He unlocked the door, but didn't open it.  "Cara, I..."  I don't know what he expected me to say, or what he wanted right then.  I wanted a shower.  I wanted to run.  I wanted to go home.  "I kept everything the same.  I knew you would be back."

Not for long.  God, please, not for long.

One year ago I went for my evening walk and got whistled at by a bunch of men I couldn't see who were drinking on a porch across a busy street.  I kept walking, my destination the woods and the gorge along the river that was one of the only truly natural parts of the city.  I risked stumbling into homeless people's camps and teenage drinkers, but it was usually quiet and I hardly ever saw anybody.  The city streets were more dangerous.

I always told Richard when I was going out.  I used to ask him to go for a walk, and I used to not walk if he said no, but I stopped doing that some months ago.  I think he would have walked if it had been his idea, but since it was mine, then, no.  I didn't know or care what he did after I left.  He didn't seem to care how long I was gone.  This particular walk, I would be gone for one year.

Richard locked the door behind him, and I started to hyperventilate.  "Cara, sit.  Are you okay?  Should I take you back to the hospital?"  I shook off his hands again, registered the hurt look, but I didn't care.  I fell to the edge of the sofa and leaned down to catch my breath.  Richard tried to give me water.  He hovered by the phone.  He asked if I wanted him to fill the sedative prescription, he would be right back.  I kept shaking my head no and staring at the cheap carpeting.  Richard had vacuumed, and he never vacuumed.  I hated that I knew, and I hated Richard for trying to help, and I hated that if I left, they'd drag me back to the hospital and, this time, they'd put me in the psych ward.

Where do you go when you don't want to be where you are?  When the ties that hold you become thinner and thinner and people start letting go?  Who would believe that I found a way out?  Temporary, though.  Temporal-ary.  My brain was split in two.

Doctors here.  Healers there.  Cars here.  Horses there.  Stripmalls here.  Peddlers there.  Television here.  Magic there.  Richard here.  Jacob there.  Me here.  Me there.

"Richard," saying his name made my teeth squirm, "I need some space."

I don't think it mattered what I had said, just that I said something to him because Richard looked more pleased than he should have.  "I'll go pick up your prescription, then.  You... have a shower?"

He didn't want to offend me.  I nearly laughed.  "Yes.  Fine.  I will.  Please."  Please go away, please leave me alone, please don't come back, please let me get out of here.  Except for the plan.  I had to prepare, and that meant staying for a while.

I showered and made myself a temporary plan.  I couldn't stay with Richard, but I had to stay nearby, so I would go home, if my parents would have me, their thirty year old married daughter, back in her childhood room, interrupting their retirement.  I needed to call them, anyway, since only Richard had spread the word I had been found, and I didn't get to talk to them myself.

I have to be honest; the shower felt damn good.  I soaped and scrubbed head to toe three times.  My hair was long and the quitters covered the drain.  I actually considered not shaving, since I hadn't in so long, but the urge to be smooth again was too strong now that I was surrounded by soaps and creams and scents.  All the fragrances in the tiny, steamy room were a little overpowering, and I promised myself to restock with unscented varieties.

Blog Commentary: I Should Really Try to Finish Something. Anything.

Hello, Dear Reader.  Blog Stumbler.  Internet Wanderer.

If you poke into what I've been doing here, you know I started Project Once Upon a Time as a challenge to write the beginning of a story every single day for a year.  It took me longer than a year, but I persevered to 365 starts and was proud, but I didn't want to stop!  It was really a lot of fun to start all these stories; yes, sometimes a brain-wracker, but fun to push myself.

My second challenge to myself was to go through the giant list of beauty pageant questions I had for my Public Speaking class students.  The first bunch were from ones I'd use in class, and the next, larger bunch were from the list of any question I found but deemed too difficult (or inappropriate) for my class.

Well, I finished that list with my previous post: "What motivates you?"  So, now what?

I think I ought to finish (or, at least, continue) some of these stories.  When I chose my major in college, I wanted to be a writer.  I pictured wallpapering a room with all my rejection letters.  I pictured getting piles of magazines in lieu of pay for published stories.  I pictured Being a Writer!

You see how that worked out.  I'm a college professor who wishes I wasn't.  I am an improvisational comedian who wishes I could play for a complete living (it's a partial living right now.)  I am a closet writer.  This blog has been my peek out of the closet.  As of today, four people subscribe to my blog.  Three of them I know personally and one dear girl is apparently just a very nice person.

Blogs are vanity.  I know.  But the public nature of this blog has, at least, motivated me thus far.  I'm hoping it will motivate me to continue, finish, and, perhaps, even dare to try for some rejection letters.  I am not sure the format I will use to continue some of these stories, and I may mix some other story-starts in, too, but this is where I will begin.

Thank you, whoever you are, for reading.  As always, if you have comments or questions, please interact.  I'm around.
Karen

What motivates you?

Pay attention to the weight of time.  The increase in weight is imperceptible at first, but it builds, and if you fail to notice, it will crush you.

A flutter of panic in the heart when the heart realizes its beats are finite.  The agonizing regret of misused moments that add up to hours, days, weeks, months, years that could have been used.  Pairing the crush of time with tired bones, fear of pain, and dread of failure makes each day less likely to be "the one" where it all changes for the better.

Motivation should have started when there was what seemed to be an eternity of time, but eternity breeds procrastination.  Wisdom would say that even now there is an eternity of time compared to the weight that will be added in another ten, twenty, or thirty years.  My age could double, and yet now it feels too late.

Fear crushes motivation.  Action crushes fear.  Doubt crushes action.  Doubt and fear build upon each other.  Action builds motivation.  Analysis: act.  Even if you're wrong, act.  Be wrong.  Be disappointed.  Be reprimanded.  Lose a job.  Lose your money.  Catch a cold.  Fight for change and be thwarted.  Whatever you do, though, ACT.  Be excited for the failure so you can banish the fear.  If success comes, be delighted, but delight in the disappointment, too.  Act to banish fear and doubt.  Act to boost motivation, and motivation will boost your action.  Time will lift from your heart and the ache will lift from your bones and you, in thirty years, will look back and you can say that every moment was used to its fullest.

Do you think you are pretty/handsome?

Trolls, by their nature, are solitary creatures.  They live alone because they are extremely territorial and will fight to protect what they see as theirs.

After a troll is born, its mother will nurture it for no longer than three months.  After three months, a toll baby will open its eyes and, because eye contact can be a threatening gesture, the mother will abandon it to the elements.  The baby trolls that survive learn quickly to survive and will, once they realize what trolls are like, shun their own kind.

Names are rare among trolls.  If a troll lives close enough to humans, he or she will quickly become known as "The Troll".  Trolls do not normally think of themselves by name.  Rarely, trolls even achieve language; however, there are always exceptions.  Cassandra the Troll is one such example.

How would you react to your best friend telling you she was pregnant?

Holy crap, Amy!  Who's the father?  You're freakin' forty-two years old!  Why would you do this?  How can you even...  I mean...  Okay, I'll ask.  How can you even hope to pay for a kid right now?  Wait!  Where are you even going to put it?

Geez.  No.  Seriously.  You live in a one-room apartment over a garage.  You barely have room for your cats, so how will a baby and all its stuff fit in there?  Hold on a moment...

When did this happen?  I mean, when are you due?  Have they been able to tell you about this baby yet?  Is it...okay?  I know we're not ancient yet, but, still, the odds of genetic disorders goes up.  And since when were you regular enough to even get pregnant?  What are the odds of that?  Alright, back to the genetic thing.  Is the baby okay?  Can they tell?

No, wait.  Go back further than that.  Who's the father?  How did you...  Who did you...  When did you...  Was it...natural?  Did you purchase a...um...donor?  Does the guy know?  Will you tell him?

Yeah, you're right, I think I'm hyperventilating.  I've got to find a paper bag.  Hold on...

Okay.  I'm back.  While I'm breathing here, you tell me.

Uh huh.

You only have how long left?  That'll be this year!  Okay...  Breathing.

Uh huh.

No, I don't remember you telling me.

Uh huh.  Well, I don't check Facebook regularly so I didn't...

Uh huh.

Okay, that's good.  But what about...

Uh huh.  And your parents are alright with that?

Ha!  I'll bet they did!  Was it your mom or your dad who...

Oh, my God.  Well, that's good, I guess.  Okay.  Hey, can you paint your old room purple again?  Ha!

Uh huh.  You're naming it what?

Weren't those your cats' names?

Ha!  You can't do that!  Do your parents know those were your cats' names?  Ha!

Huh.  Well, all right.  It sounds like you have it all planned out.  That's good.  I'm just so shocked.  I thought it would be you and me who never had kids.  Now it's just me, I guess.

No.  He's had a vasectomy.  Unless a miracle occurred between the tubes, it's not happening.

Yeah, well, I guess yours is a miracle.  Congratulations, Amy.  Hey--at least it's not twins!

What?!?