Technology is so great....*Not!*
Yeah, I said it.
It had been about 15 years since I had said *not!* like that, so I kind of had to. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm finally somewhere that had working internet, so I can continue posting excerpts and uploading my wordcount. Whoo!
There are a few false flatline days (and a couple actual ones) in my word graph now, but I'm working to make them less noticeable. I wrote about a billion words (give or take) at the Write-in today, so that certainly helped.
Ok, can't think of what else I was going to say, so I'll just post the next story chunk.
I need sleep.
*slump*
Immediately, I started having bad dreams. Both while sleeping and awake, I lived in a nightmare world.
At night, I would dream about feverishly running after something, and then getting lost on an open plain. This dream place was not the sort of warm and grassy plain that you might imagine buffalo running through. It was always colorless gray and cold like winter, but there was no snow, the sun nothing but a distant memory beyond the clouds. Just endless mist and pine trees and gray-white grass. I had become a creature in this dream, something like an misshapen alligator, the last one of its kind. So deeply alone and directionless, a sound bloomed deep in my chest and rose and boiled up until it erupted out, pouring toward the sky in an endlessly long howl. I would just wail and wail until I couldn’t stop, until my lungs burned and shook with the resonating sound. A single wolf’s howl, the saddest sound in the world, like I used to hear on Dad’s old nature tapes. Many times, I woke up crying, a soft and nearly soundless version of what had been in my dream before.
During the day, nothing was real. It was as if none of us knew how to live anymore. Hannah stayed in her room or out with friends most of the time, Paula suddenly discovered that there were shows on TV that she wanted to watch all throughout the day, and I drew a lot.
Mom was not home often. Sometimes she would leave us with our aunt for the whole day, and sometimes she would just leave us for Hannah to watch after school. When she was around, I could feel her always thinking, almost as if she was trying to recall something that she could not quite remember. It was like she was trying to remember where she had put something that she could no longer find.
The only one of us that didn’t seem to really care or change much was Julia. Sure, she had cried when we did, and asked why Daddy was not coming home anymore, but as soon as our open grieving stopped, she seemed to forget that it had happened at all. She just went back to normal. Aunt Carmela told me that it was because she was just too young, but I still could not accept that. I found myself getting angry just being around her, seeing her laughing and playing, even when I tried to ignore her and leave her by herself.
Days blur together when you are lost and have stopped caring. When nothing really matters, daylight and schoolwork and dinner with the family lose all definition and importance. I simply could not feel anything. Someone had flipped a switch, and I lost the ability. It was as if my entire body had fallen asleep, losing all sensation. I could not feel my feet when I walked, I could not see the colors when I looked around. Eventually, I forgot that I had ever felt anything at all, before. Normalcy became when I blankly repeated to friends and teachers and all manner of concerned eyes, “he died in a car crash. A drunk driver fell asleep at the wheel.” At first, I forced myself to sound sad, feigning the emotions and reactions that I felt I ought to show. Eventually, I couldn’t even make it sound convincing. I knew I was sad, I knew my favorite piece of life was gone forever, but I just couldn’t feel it.
I couldn’t feel anything, for a long time.
The first tingles of feeling finally began to prick through the haze a few months after the accident. Like any waking limb, the little bits of returning feeling came in the form of pain.
Looking through the mail one day, since Mom usually didn’t get around to it much anymore, I spotted a letter from the state. Normally I would have ignored the thing, like any other piece of grownup-looking mail, but it was addressed to my father.
It had been a few months now, but every once in a while, we would still receive pieces of mail addressed to the dead.
Feeling voyeuristic, I opened it.
It was an official letter, the one that was to annually notify David Brooker that his wildlife rehabilitation license was going to expire, and wanted to know if he was going to renew it again this year.
Those words struck in an instant, hitting me where I least expected it. Leaping away from me without warning, my mind immediately flew to the empty animal shed that still stooped in the back of our yard. Memories of all our patients, images of helping Dad tend those animals, and all the stories and experiences that went along with it, flashed by like a searing storm. I remembered riding with Mom and Hannah shortly after the funeral, to turn over our last patients, a pair of baby raccoons, to another rehabber for the rest of their care. I remember standing there on their front porch, polite and internally reeling, while my mom carefully explained what had happened as she handed them over. I had watched the orphaned raccoons curled cowering around each other in the corner of their cage while the two adults talked, and all I had wanted to do was crawl in there with them and disappear.
I missed my father so suddenly and so fiercely, staring down at that unrequited letter, that I swore I could tangibly feel a physical wound tear open inside my chest, reinjuring whatever I had tried to cover up inside and desperately hope would heal on its own. My father would not be answering that letter, and it hurt to imagine how he would have felt had he known. I could not imagine anything that would have saddened him more, aside from knowing that he would be leaving us behind, than knowing that he would have to stop caring for his animals so soon. Those raccoons, so much like needy and ferociously-mischievous toddlers, along with every other animal that might have come our way, would have to find someone else to care for them from now on.
I saw my father so vividly then, felt and heard and understood him so startlingly clearly, that it sucked the breath out of my chest in a burst of pain. His story was truly over and he was gone. For the first time, I came to the unbearable realization that he really was forever out of reach and out of sight. It was over. He had gone on, and left me behind, here.
…You’re a good boy, Blue. Stay that way, alright?
Yes, Dad.
You have to take care of your sisters and your mother. You’ve got to make me proud, okay?
I will, Dad.
I had never really understood how people could have a ‘personal relationship’ with God, or any other mystical being, praying and promising as if it was a real person. Dad had tried to explain it and make it real for me, but it had never clicked. Right then however, with my father so unreachably far away and yet excruciatingly real, I almost felt as though I could understand. If those people truly saw Him as their Father, someone they could not actually see until they were reunited with Him after death, then I could nearly understand how they did it.
I promised him, then. I promised him with every inch of my useless being that I would stay a good boy, I would take care of my family, I would continue to be who he wanted me to be, because I had no other reason to be anything at all. As alienated as I always felt around my family and friends, he was still the closest thing I had ever had to a reason or a place. Even with him gone, he was the only purpose I could imagine ever having. It was this, or nothing. Be what he had wanted for me, or nothing at all.
I saved that letter from the state. I tucked it away where I had saved the feathers he had given me, where I kept the broken pieces of my favorite toys and the remnants of Paula’s security blanket. I saved that letter, and vowed with everything that I had, that I would pick up where he had left off, starting with the purpose of this letter. He might not have been able to continue what he loved to do in life, what he had wanted to do for our family, but I wouldn’t let him down .I promised him that, as soon as I was old enough, I would apply to become a rehabilitator, would continue serving my family, and would work forward from there.
It had been about 15 years since I had said *not!* like that, so I kind of had to. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm finally somewhere that had working internet, so I can continue posting excerpts and uploading my wordcount. Whoo!
There are a few false flatline days (and a couple actual ones) in my word graph now, but I'm working to make them less noticeable. I wrote about a billion words (give or take) at the Write-in today, so that certainly helped.
Ok, can't think of what else I was going to say, so I'll just post the next story chunk.
I need sleep.
*slump*
Immediately, I started having bad dreams. Both while sleeping and awake, I lived in a nightmare world.
At night, I would dream about feverishly running after something, and then getting lost on an open plain. This dream place was not the sort of warm and grassy plain that you might imagine buffalo running through. It was always colorless gray and cold like winter, but there was no snow, the sun nothing but a distant memory beyond the clouds. Just endless mist and pine trees and gray-white grass. I had become a creature in this dream, something like an misshapen alligator, the last one of its kind. So deeply alone and directionless, a sound bloomed deep in my chest and rose and boiled up until it erupted out, pouring toward the sky in an endlessly long howl. I would just wail and wail until I couldn’t stop, until my lungs burned and shook with the resonating sound. A single wolf’s howl, the saddest sound in the world, like I used to hear on Dad’s old nature tapes. Many times, I woke up crying, a soft and nearly soundless version of what had been in my dream before.
During the day, nothing was real. It was as if none of us knew how to live anymore. Hannah stayed in her room or out with friends most of the time, Paula suddenly discovered that there were shows on TV that she wanted to watch all throughout the day, and I drew a lot.
Mom was not home often. Sometimes she would leave us with our aunt for the whole day, and sometimes she would just leave us for Hannah to watch after school. When she was around, I could feel her always thinking, almost as if she was trying to recall something that she could not quite remember. It was like she was trying to remember where she had put something that she could no longer find.
The only one of us that didn’t seem to really care or change much was Julia. Sure, she had cried when we did, and asked why Daddy was not coming home anymore, but as soon as our open grieving stopped, she seemed to forget that it had happened at all. She just went back to normal. Aunt Carmela told me that it was because she was just too young, but I still could not accept that. I found myself getting angry just being around her, seeing her laughing and playing, even when I tried to ignore her and leave her by herself.
Days blur together when you are lost and have stopped caring. When nothing really matters, daylight and schoolwork and dinner with the family lose all definition and importance. I simply could not feel anything. Someone had flipped a switch, and I lost the ability. It was as if my entire body had fallen asleep, losing all sensation. I could not feel my feet when I walked, I could not see the colors when I looked around. Eventually, I forgot that I had ever felt anything at all, before. Normalcy became when I blankly repeated to friends and teachers and all manner of concerned eyes, “he died in a car crash. A drunk driver fell asleep at the wheel.” At first, I forced myself to sound sad, feigning the emotions and reactions that I felt I ought to show. Eventually, I couldn’t even make it sound convincing. I knew I was sad, I knew my favorite piece of life was gone forever, but I just couldn’t feel it.
I couldn’t feel anything, for a long time.
The first tingles of feeling finally began to prick through the haze a few months after the accident. Like any waking limb, the little bits of returning feeling came in the form of pain.
Looking through the mail one day, since Mom usually didn’t get around to it much anymore, I spotted a letter from the state. Normally I would have ignored the thing, like any other piece of grownup-looking mail, but it was addressed to my father.
It had been a few months now, but every once in a while, we would still receive pieces of mail addressed to the dead.
Feeling voyeuristic, I opened it.
It was an official letter, the one that was to annually notify David Brooker that his wildlife rehabilitation license was going to expire, and wanted to know if he was going to renew it again this year.
Those words struck in an instant, hitting me where I least expected it. Leaping away from me without warning, my mind immediately flew to the empty animal shed that still stooped in the back of our yard. Memories of all our patients, images of helping Dad tend those animals, and all the stories and experiences that went along with it, flashed by like a searing storm. I remembered riding with Mom and Hannah shortly after the funeral, to turn over our last patients, a pair of baby raccoons, to another rehabber for the rest of their care. I remember standing there on their front porch, polite and internally reeling, while my mom carefully explained what had happened as she handed them over. I had watched the orphaned raccoons curled cowering around each other in the corner of their cage while the two adults talked, and all I had wanted to do was crawl in there with them and disappear.
I missed my father so suddenly and so fiercely, staring down at that unrequited letter, that I swore I could tangibly feel a physical wound tear open inside my chest, reinjuring whatever I had tried to cover up inside and desperately hope would heal on its own. My father would not be answering that letter, and it hurt to imagine how he would have felt had he known. I could not imagine anything that would have saddened him more, aside from knowing that he would be leaving us behind, than knowing that he would have to stop caring for his animals so soon. Those raccoons, so much like needy and ferociously-mischievous toddlers, along with every other animal that might have come our way, would have to find someone else to care for them from now on.
I saw my father so vividly then, felt and heard and understood him so startlingly clearly, that it sucked the breath out of my chest in a burst of pain. His story was truly over and he was gone. For the first time, I came to the unbearable realization that he really was forever out of reach and out of sight. It was over. He had gone on, and left me behind, here.
…You’re a good boy, Blue. Stay that way, alright?
Yes, Dad.
You have to take care of your sisters and your mother. You’ve got to make me proud, okay?
I will, Dad.
I had never really understood how people could have a ‘personal relationship’ with God, or any other mystical being, praying and promising as if it was a real person. Dad had tried to explain it and make it real for me, but it had never clicked. Right then however, with my father so unreachably far away and yet excruciatingly real, I almost felt as though I could understand. If those people truly saw Him as their Father, someone they could not actually see until they were reunited with Him after death, then I could nearly understand how they did it.
I promised him, then. I promised him with every inch of my useless being that I would stay a good boy, I would take care of my family, I would continue to be who he wanted me to be, because I had no other reason to be anything at all. As alienated as I always felt around my family and friends, he was still the closest thing I had ever had to a reason or a place. Even with him gone, he was the only purpose I could imagine ever having. It was this, or nothing. Be what he had wanted for me, or nothing at all.
I saved that letter from the state. I tucked it away where I had saved the feathers he had given me, where I kept the broken pieces of my favorite toys and the remnants of Paula’s security blanket. I saved that letter, and vowed with everything that I had, that I would pick up where he had left off, starting with the purpose of this letter. He might not have been able to continue what he loved to do in life, what he had wanted to do for our family, but I wouldn’t let him down .I promised him that, as soon as I was old enough, I would apply to become a rehabilitator, would continue serving my family, and would work forward from there.