RP: the Backwards-Forwards Boy
Date: 27 February 2005
Characters: Roger Davies, [Jeff Whitecalf]
Location: Roger's cottage on the stream
Status: Private
Summary: Jeff drops by to issue an invitation to the Sunday sweat.
Completion: Complete
Jeff had known himself destined to be a healer almost as long as he could remember. It wasn't just having power. To the Ojibway, one had to be chosen by the spirits, the manitou. In medicine families, children were watched to see which of them would be singled out to wear the bearskin and carry the otter bag.
Jeff had been so chosen on the day he and his younger brother Thomas had been playing "backwards day" ... mostly to annoy their mother. They'd sat that morning at the breakfast table backwards, put on their clothing backwards, walked backwards, even sat backwars in the old car's rear seat. But when they'd reached the nearby school where the tribal children went with the white children, Thomas had forgotten all about being backwards, dashing through the door after his friends. Jeff had started to follow, then had remembered, stopping when he'd reached the doorway to turn around and go through it ... backwards.
The backwards-forwards boy, the contrary, the one who saw just a little off-kilter. That very evening after hearing the story from Jeff's mother, his grandfather Ed had pulled him aside and looked him over, then poked him in the chest (just a little bit hard). "The manitou called you." He didn't ask Jeff if he wanted to be a healer. When the spirits called, one didn't refuse.
He'd been eight years old that day. Now he was twenty-eight and he stood outside a stranger's door, contemplating the wood, still called by the spirits -- across an ocean this time.
There were many kinds of healing. Not all of them involved flesh and blood. He knocked.
Characters: Roger Davies, [Jeff Whitecalf]
Location: Roger's cottage on the stream
Status: Private
Summary: Jeff drops by to issue an invitation to the Sunday sweat.
Completion: Complete
Jeff had known himself destined to be a healer almost as long as he could remember. It wasn't just having power. To the Ojibway, one had to be chosen by the spirits, the manitou. In medicine families, children were watched to see which of them would be singled out to wear the bearskin and carry the otter bag.
Jeff had been so chosen on the day he and his younger brother Thomas had been playing "backwards day" ... mostly to annoy their mother. They'd sat that morning at the breakfast table backwards, put on their clothing backwards, walked backwards, even sat backwars in the old car's rear seat. But when they'd reached the nearby school where the tribal children went with the white children, Thomas had forgotten all about being backwards, dashing through the door after his friends. Jeff had started to follow, then had remembered, stopping when he'd reached the doorway to turn around and go through it ... backwards.
The backwards-forwards boy, the contrary, the one who saw just a little off-kilter. That very evening after hearing the story from Jeff's mother, his grandfather Ed had pulled him aside and looked him over, then poked him in the chest (just a little bit hard). "The manitou called you." He didn't ask Jeff if he wanted to be a healer. When the spirits called, one didn't refuse.
He'd been eight years old that day. Now he was twenty-eight and he stood outside a stranger's door, contemplating the wood, still called by the spirits -- across an ocean this time.
There were many kinds of healing. Not all of them involved flesh and blood. He knocked.