CHYLD

 “I see him, Bsalikai. He is still in the stars. He
has yet to descend.” Spoke Milandral, her eyes sparkling as bright
as the universe that surrounded her.

“Is he the blue light next to Efritees?” Bsalikai asks.

“Yes. Yes, that is he. Watch how he brightens. Now his birth
will begin.” Milandral shivers with delight at the anticipation of
her soul son’s birth. From her position beyond all time, and space,
Milandral watches moments as they enter her spirit, lifted from an
others experience, and placed in sequence for her to feel. The boy is
her, and she is the boy.

 

Announced as a fat baby with too much hair, I popped out on a
Saturday morning as the sixties sun was setting. I am told that I did
not cry upon my entry to this world. I just smiled.

My first memory involves me bouncing to my heart's content in a jolly
jumper attached to the doorframe facing into our tile-floored
kitchen. Our obese black cat would watch me with envy and I would
watch him with the same longing. He wanted to bounce and get all the
pleasure of our parent’s attention, while I just wanted to stretch
out on the floor, unfettered by restraints, and be left to eat when I
chose. Despite our palpable resentment of one another, we managed to
get along quite nicely throughout our years together. As I never knew
his real name, I will always remember him as “My little kitty”. I
seem to remember calling him that, and he always responded without
incident.

From here, things get rather vague until approximately four or five.
At that age, I recollect standing on the couch, enveloped in my
father’s arms, us both staring out the window at a nearby stop
sign.

“S…T…O…P.”

My dad spelled the words out slowly, over-pronouncing each letter to
the point of absurdity. To this day I can still hear those words
perfectly. The gift of reading that he brought me at such a young age
was one of many.

It was around this time that I found my first friend. His name was
Bob. Bob and I would spend an enormous amount of time together doing
all sorts of playful, fantastic activities. We baked bagels in an
oven on the wall behind my bed, raced cars in world championships on
my bedroom floor, and fought gallant wars on roads we made in the
gravel of the driveway. Unfortunately, my friendship with Bob proved
to be short lived. You see… no one else could actually see Bob
other than me. This proved to cause an undue amount of anxiousness
from the adults in my life at the time. Much effort was put into
explaining to me that my friend did not exist. Soon enough, the
effort paid off. I ultimately quit believing in Bob. I have often
wondered, if everyone else had chosen to believe in Bob, would he
have stayed?

 

“The animals like him. I suppose they see his soul. This makes
me glad.” Milandral says with a smile.

“It is in his eyes. The veils of life are translucent to the
animal kind. They recognize their own kindred spirit.” Bsalikai
explains.

“I love him so. Do you think he knows we are here?” Milandral
asks.

“Yes, Milandral, He knows we are here.” Bsalikai responds, reassuring her
with a warm sensation of calm.

 

By the time I was eight I had decided I liked to fight. I still have
no idea why. Perhaps it was because I was pretty good at it
immediately. Paul Carter, had asked me for a fight, after school, in
the park, where all our fellow classmates could watch. I obliged and
we met as planned, each with our respective posses in tow. Once we
squared off, I proceeded to thump Paul once in the nose. Blood spewed
everywhere. I felt it was a glorious moment. Paul disagreed.

“No fair! No fair! You’re not supposed to punch!” He said.

Although I did take the time to ponder his cries of injustice, I
decided that the fight had indeed been more than fair. As a matter of
fact, I concluded that punching was not only fair; it was also very
effective. After this incident, I was determined to properly learn
how to box like the boxers on television could box.

At this point of my life, my parents liked to wander, although, I
think I would just have to call them opportunists. Some new job would
offer itself up in the next town, or province over, and we would
promptly pack up and move, no major questions asked. By the time I
was in grade seven, I was entering my fifth school since my formal
education had commenced. Friendships were all pretty short-lived in
those years. I’m pretty sure my girlfriend’s latest prognosis
that I have a “fear of intimacy” is correct, and it very well
could come from this migrant upbringing I was exposed to. I do think,
if I managed to read enough self-help books, I could find myself a
cure somewhere. That is, of course, if I ever decided I wanted a
cure. I've always been pretty happy being exactly who I am.

 

“He is changing Bsalikai. He no longer watches for us in the
sun. He no longer sees as he should. For this I am worried. Will he
come through clearly?” Milandral asks, her eyes giving away her
anxiousness.

“Yes, Milandral, all is as it should be. These are confusing
years for him. The intentions of others are forming in him now. He
will wash this away in due time. There is no need to fear.” Bsalikai calms her fears with a knowing tone.

“I am his soul mother. For me there will always be fear and
trepidation for him. I will watch and try to bring him light. Dark
times are coming. I can feel this.” Milandral explains.

“Yes, Milandral, they must. It is his path.” Bsalikai
responds in a sombre manner, as he again moves to concentrate on this
most dangerous portion of his soul son’s path; the teen years…

 

I smoked my first joint at the tender age of thirteen. I bought it
off of the meanest, toughest kid I knew. It was strange how nice he
was to me after I became his pot customer. It was like I had been
initiated into some kind of clandestine fan club, only I was the only
member. This guy didn't like anyone, although, through a combination
of fear and respect, all the cool kids liked him. His friendship with
me was nearly unheard of, and, quite inexplicable. His acceptance
instantly catapulted me into the status of being one of the coolest
kids in school though. That’s when I decided to start selling pot
myself, with him as my primary source. As cool and fun as it was to
be in his, I wanted my own clandestine club.

After I’d been selling drugs for about four months, I embedded
myself with a completely different peer group, one where I was no
longer a follower. The mean kid had moved on, as a friend and a
source. I'm not sure where he ended up, but jail is high on my list
of guesses. Regardless, I wanted to be a leader, not a follower.

One occasion, on a regular Friday night in our redneck logging town,
the excitement of an evening's gravel-pit party was on all of our
minds. The obvious roadblock to our expectation for a night filled
with drunken hedonism was our usual lack of funds. I decided to 'step
up' and steal my dad’s liquor in order to share it with my friends.

Two older guys that had recently started hanging around our
high-school, parking lot social circle offered to give me a ride to
complete my heist. They had a car. That alone was enough to inspire
my respect and adoration in those days, so I instantly accepted their
invitation, as friends and as co-conspirators. On the ride to our
objective, one of them offered me a toke of a joint. Not wanting to
look in any way ‘uncool’, I obliged with a hefty inhalation of
the particularly aromatic smoke. From here, that evening began to
get a little hazy.

I know we stopped at my house, where I completed my daring theft of a
large bottle of some sweet, cheap liquor. When I say “daring
theft,” I mean I walked into the basement, shoved a bottle from the
shelving there into my jacket and walked up from the basement and out
of the empty house. No one was home. It may not have been daring, but
it was certainly theft.

After returning to the car with my loot, the drivers promptly
assisted me with gulping back this entire bottle (of what may have
been peach or maybe strawberry schnapps) in a matter of minutes. I
managed to gulp back several ounces of it myself. It was disgustingly
sugary and high in alcohol content, especially for a fourteen year
old. I was drunk immediately.

At this point, I realized that my chauffeurs had no intention of
returning me to my awaiting friends. These guys simply wanted my
alcohol for themselves. Now we had drank it all, I was like a tossed
candybar wrapper on the back seat. I was going wherever they went,
and they were pretty disinterested in me, or anything I had to to
say. They turned the music loud and ignored me completely, laughing
and joking with each other.

I began to lose consciousness in the back seat of the vehicle. At
first, I had just closed my eyes to stop the car from spinning. I
didn't want to vomit all over the back seat of the car, as that may
have elicited a violent reaction. Then, when the spinning finally
stopped, I was no longer awake.
I first awoke to find myself
alone in the car with all the windows fogged up from my breath. I
reached up to give the glass a wipe to see where we were parked. From
the view, I quickly ascertained that we were at the ocean. A sandy
beach littered with driftwood and illuminated by the moonlight
stretched out in front of me. My brand new friends were nowhere in
sight, so I relaxed back down in the seat and fell asleep once again.

When I next awoke, I thought I must still be at the same beach, as I
could not remember any movement of the car since my last awakening,
and the windows were still foggy. After coming to the conclusion that
my stomach had calmed down quite a bit, and my vision had returned to
normal enough for me to get up and see what I was missing, I
proceeded to open the passenger door and climb out of the car.

I was no longer at a beach. I was in somebody’s driveway next to a
run down, rancher-style house. A little shaken, and discombobulated
by the transition, I made my way towards the carport's entrance to
the home. I was now starving, so I stopped at an apple tree along the
way and scored myself several apples that I held bunched up in the
front of my shirt. Munching away, I wandered into the house where I
could make out the sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog”
screaming from a radio.

The living room I entered was filled with about a dozen
rough-looking, older kids. They were all engrossed in drinking beer,
listening to the music. The room was roughly half women, half guys,
and most were paired up. Each of the female counterparts sat there,
looking as indifferent as they could, and each clutched identical
black leather purses with tassels and various trinkets dangling from
the zippers.

My presence in the room didn’t seem to draw much attention from
anyone, so I grabbed a seat on the corner of a couch and began to
polish off the pile of apples in my lap. It was then that I looked up
to see the barrel of a shotgun pointed at my head.

“Are you eating my fucking apples?” asked the long, rusty haired,
dark eyed youth at the other end of the gun.

“Uh…ya…I guess I am. I got them off that tree outside.” I
answered. The large mouthful of chewed apples suddenly took on the
consistency of sawdust. I no longer had any saliva in my mouth to
swallow it.

“Who said you could take my apples? You know what I do to people
who steal from me? Do you? I’m gonna blow yer head off!” Even
though his statement was uttered with what appeared to be absolute
seriousness, for some reason, I could not respond with anything but a
smile. The character in front of me combed my face for any shred of
fear that he could feed off of, but he could find none. My lack of
reaction may have been partly due to the mouthful I couldn't swallow
or talk through, but it came across as a fearless smile.

With ACDC’s “Hells Bells” providing the soundtrack in the
background, our standoff lasted for what seemed to me like an
eternity. Finally, after what was probably really only 20 seconds,
the silence in the room was broken.

“Aww… I’m just fucking wit ya. I’m Mickey. You can have some
of my apples. Just, next time, ask me first.” With that, the gun
dropped down, was put away, and the party resumed around me. I placed
the remaining stash of apples on the coffee table. I didn’t feel so
well.

 

“Look at his eyes, Bsalikai. They are so tired and confused, and
he is still so young. Have we chosen a path too difficult? I am
afraid the obstacles in this life may prove too great for him. I am
much saddened by his consumption of these intoxicants. Will he come
through clearly? Will he find the light?” Milandral asks,
disheartened by the evening’s nearly tragic conflict.

“Yes, my dearest Milandral, do not angst just yet. He will find
his way from this period of self-destruction and gain much needed
wisdom from its conflicts. A soul’s journey to enlightenment is
never to be easy. The light will come.” Bsalikai says, with
all the calmness he can now muster.

“I will send him gifts now, Bsalikai. He will read and he will
write. He will attract those who wish him well. He will have health
and wellness of the body. I will bring him these gifts, Bsalikai. I
will bring him gifts. I know we are not theoretically supposed to
intervene in a soul child’s life, but, I think I must.” Milandral
insists, sure that, with her help, the boy will eventually find his
way. No better life was there for him. The mistakes he makes carve
him into the being he will become. I believe he will come through
clearly. Now, we will be at peace with who he is. Free will demands
acceptance Bsalikai. It demands acceptance of what he will become.”

“Yes, the will is free, Milandral. The will must be free.”