July 2007 - Posts

Gideon McGee's Dream: Chapter Four


Saturday morning Gideon awoke as the sun peeked above the horizon and shot its fingers into his room. Normally he could be found with the shades drawn and the covers pulled over his head until ten or eleven a.m., but this day was special. He was to meet Jenny Bloom at Dr. Spiro’s home at eleven o’clock. The day held the promise that the night kept from him. The dawn sky was clear, and the full moon was still visible in the west as the sun exploded in the east.

Simon McGee agreed to drive his increasingly hyper brother to Goldman Avenue for the interview with Dr. Spiro. By the time they left their house, the rest of the family was glad to be rid of the youngest male McGee.

“Calm down, Gideon,” Simon said, as he maneuvered the family Ford around the numerous potholes in the dirt road. “You’re so nervous your face is starting to break out."

“No way,” Gideon said in alarm. He jerked the rear-view mirror in his direction, and checked his reflection. “Where?” he asked, turning his face from side to side. “I don’t see any zits.”

“Right there,” Simon said, pointing in the general direction of his brother’s face. A large smile spread across his own at the thought of his brother’s unease.

“Where? I can’t see it.” Gideon frantically moved his head from side to side in a futile attempt to discover the imaginary irruption.
“Relax, Gideon,” Simon laughed. “I’m just jerking your chain. What’s the street number on Goldman? I forgot.”

“Forty-four Goldman Avenue. Jenny said it’s halfway down the street on the right, an old red colonial. You’re such a jerk, Simon.” Gideon turned the rear-view mirror back in his brother’s direction.
“Sorry, little brother,” Simon said. “I couldn’t help myself. You’ve been driving everyone crazy all morning.”

“Yeah? And I suppose you were Joe Cool on your first date, Mr. know-it-all.”
“This isn’t exactly a date, Gideon,” Simon said. The ease with which Simon sailed through life made it nearly impossible for him to understand Gideon’s plight.
“It’s the closest thing to one I’ve ever had, so be quiet. You’re making me nervous.” Gideon’s foot tapped out Morse code on the Taurus floorboard.

“You’re making yourself nervous. Forget about Jenny for a minute, and think about what you’re going to ask Dr. Spiro.”

Gideon and Simon rode in silence for the next few minutes. Simon listened to Led Zepplin on WRX radio, and Gideon listened to his thoughts. He knew nothing about dreams, and believed the sitcoms on TV that they were the result of one too many bean burritos. He’d just have to depend on Jenny to ask the right questions while he worked the tape recorder. Life was just too stressful to cope with sometimes, he thought.

“There it is,” Simon said as he applied the brakes on the aging blue Taurus. “Big house. There must be a lot of psychos around Norwich.”

“Yeah, and you’re one of them. I think I’ll ask Dr. Spiro if he takes any charity cases.” Gideon dashed from the car, barely dodging Simon’s fist that crashed into his recently vacated seat.

“You’re the one that needs a shrink, you twerp,” Simon yelled after his brother, whose smile was his victory sign. Gideon relished these small victories as a poor child savors a square of chocolate.

“Pick me up at twelve o’clock,” Gideon shouted back. “Don’t forget.”
The walk up the brick walkway to the Spiro’s front door seemed a mile long, and with each step Gideon’s heart picked up its pace. He noticed the large horseshoe doorknocker on the front door just as Sue Spiro swung it open.

“Hi Gideon,” she said. “Jenny’s already here. Come on in.” Sue was a tall girl, and her brown eyes were level with Gideon’s. Her smile was quick and broad, and came from her heart. If Gideon allowed the thought, he could almost imagine she was happy to see him.

As he followed her through the long hallway to the study, where he was to meet with Dr. Spiro, a large painting on the wall caught his eyes. It was a circle filled with what looked like two curved teardrops, one black and one white. At the center of the white teardrop was a black eye, and at the center of the black teardrop was a white eye.

“That’s the symbol of the Tao,” Sue said, happy that Gideon noticed her favorite wall hanging. “Tao means the Way in Chinese.” Her long slender finger traced the symbol in the painting.

“The way of what?” Gideon asked, absently fingering his face for the imaginary blemish his brother placed earlier.

“The Way of life,” Sue said as though it was as plain as the small nose on her face. “
“They look like two fish kissing each other’s tail,” Gideon replied.

“You're right, Gideon, they do. They’re supposed to represent a world of opposites. We think black is the opposite of white, but the Tao says that it’s all mixed together. That’s why each fish has its opposite’s color at its very center.”
Gideon thought of his dream and the black and white circles, and it occurred to him that there might be a connection between this symbol of the Tao and the symbols of his dream. His finger drifted to his ear in search of a fingernail’s worth of wax, and the thought left his head.

“Come along, Gideon,” Sue said, not noticing his catch, or the dropping of it on the hallway carpet. “Jenny and my father are waiting for you.”

The door to Dr. Spiro’s study was open, and, as he crossed the threshold, Gideon’s long straight nose sniffed a cloud of pipe smoke. The walls were lined with books, more books than Gideon had ever seen outside a library. He couldn’t imagine anyone ever wanting to read so many books. Dr. Spiro was seated in a dark black leather recliner, and as he stood to greet Gideon it became obvious from whom Sue inherited her height.

Gideon’s eyes, directed straight ahead, gazed directly at Dr. Spiro’s protruding Adam’s Apple. The psychiatrist stood at least six feet four inches tall in a body that seemed more suited to a weight lifter than a man of the mind.

“Hello, Gideon,” he said, extending his spade-sized hand. “I’m Ben Spiro. Jenny’s been bringing me up to speed on your dream project, and, more interestingly to me, the dream you and Barbara Howser had a week ago. Please, have a seat.”

Gideon took the only other seat available, which was next to Jenny on an overstuffed couch. He was grateful for the lack of additional seating as he slowly sank into place.

“Hi, Gideon,” Jenny said, shooting a broad smile in his direction. “I’m glad you remembered the tape recorder.”

Dr. Spiro sat down again in his recliner, and reached for his pipe on the desk. The room smelled like a tobacco barn.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked. “I tend to think better with this pipe in my mouth. It’s a habit I’ve not been able to break.”
“No, go ahead,” Gideon said, thinking that Dr. Spiro must do a lot of thinking. “That is if it’s all right with you, Jenny.”

Ignoring Jenny, Dr. Spiro lit his pipe.
“Dreams are my favorite subject,” he said, in-between puffs. “They can tell us a great deal about ourselves.”

“I always thought dreams were nonsense,” Gideon responded. “Caused by stomach indigestion.”
“To most people today, they are nonsense. But it hasn’t always been that way. Before the modern age people placed a great deal of importance on dreams.”

“But isn’t that old fashioned?” Jenny asked, looking to Gideon for support.
“Old,” Dr. Spiro answered, “but not old fashioned. It’s only been about three hundred years that we’ve stopped listening to our dreams, ever since Isaac Newton, the great mathematician and philosopher.”

“What did he have to do with it?” Gideon asked, being drawn into the conversation by Dr. Spiro’s easy way, but slightly distracted by Jenny’s nearness to him on the couch, and the cloud of smoke that was quickly filling the room.

“Newton started us on the path of measuring and quantifying nature. You know. Every effect has a cause. We stopped believing in dreams when we started believing that our universe is a machine. We stopped believing that there might be a reality beyond what our five senses could measure. What we couldn’t experimentally prove gradually faded from our experience.”

“Before two weeks ago I hardly ever dreamed,” Gideon said. “If dreams are so important why don’t I dream every night?”

“You do,” Dr. Spiro answered. “You just don’t remember them. There’s all kind of research available now that tells us all human beings dream every night. In fact, if your dreaming is interrupted night after night, you will become psychotic or, as you call it, crazy.”

“How can dreams be important if we can’t even remember them?” Jenny asked. Gideon nodded his head.

“Do you have to know how an engine works in order to drive a car? Do you have to know how an energy plant converts oil to electricity to enjoy its benefits? Dreams work in the unconscious, Jenny, that part of your Being you’re unaware of.
“Your mind is much like an iceberg,” Dr. Spiro continued. “The part you see above the water line is like your conscious mind, that part of your mind that is aware. The greater part of the iceberg, however, lies beneath the water line, and is invisible. I suspect that what lies under the water is common to all of us. What lies above is what we choose to be aware of.”

“What does the ocean that the iceberg floats in stand for?” Gideon asked, surprised that he should even think of such a question. It wasn’t like him, and he wondered where it came from. Maybe it came from the same place his dreams came from, he thought.

“Some might say the ocean stands for God, or consciousness itself, and if that’s the case then there is something that binds us all together,” Dr. Spiro said.
“When we remember our dreams,” Jenny said, “why are they so strange? Why are they hard to understand?”

“Because they speak to us in symbols and therefore are abstract like a Picasso painting. The images you see in the dreams stand for something else.”

“But if they’re important to us why don’t they just come out and say what they mean instead of making us guess?” Gideon asked.
Jenny looked at Gideon, impressed by his question. Without knowing, she slid her body a fraction of an inch closer to him, not realizing it was that part of the iceberg below the surface that moved her.

“Great question, Gideon,” Dr. Spiro said. “But to answer it you need to understand a little about how I see the world and the part we play in it.” He placed his pipe, a white meerschaum, in the ashtray. “I believe we are much, much more than what our five senses perceive.

“For instance, in my practice I’m seeing a young man with multiple personality disorder. Do you know what that is?”
“No,” Jenny said. Gideon shook his head.

“It’s when several distinct personalities exist in the same person. That is to say, what appears physically to be one person is actually several different people in one body. In this particular case, the indi¬vidual I’m speaking of has sugar diabetes in his primary personality, for which he must take regular insulin injections to control. His secondary personality is completely free of the disease. One of his minor personalities is a juvenile delinquent, and I’ve actually seen his face break out in pimples as he assumes this identity.”

“How can that happen?” Jenny asked, her eyebrows arched in disbelief.
“What we know of nature says that it can’t happen, just as what we know of nature says miracles can’t happen. But they do, and they happen all the time. A miracle doesn’t break the laws of nature, but it does go against what we know of nature.
“Have you ever seen the National Geographic TV show where people walk barefoot through red-hot coals without even blistering their feet?” Dr. Spiro asked.

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “No way. It had to be a trick, like something a magician would do.”

“It’s real,” Dr. Spiro assured him. “I’ve been present during a fire walk, and I can promise you, it is very real. You can’t believe it, because you have a particular view of reality that this event doesn’t fit into, and so if you walked on the hot coals you’d burn your feet. You must remember that your beliefs about reality are not necessarily attributes of everyone else’s reality.

“What I’m getting at is that who we really are, our real self, or soul, if you will, is much larger than we suspect, and we exist in some way in other forms outside of our bodies. Some call it Heaven, some Nirvana, but it’s another form of existence. There may be many and most of them beyond our conception.

“Our dreams speak to us in symbols and images, to answer your question, Gideon, because it’s a common universal language.”

“Let me see if I have this straight,” Jenny said. “It’s like me trying to communicate with someone who speaks only Swahili. Words won’t work, but I might be able to get my point across by drawing pictures. Is that right?”

“That’s close enough,” Dr. Spiro said. “And the images the dreams use invariably relate to energies within ourselves that we’re exploring. Dreams can compensations for those parts of ourselves that we fear to live out in our daily lives.”
Gideon couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer. The information Dr. Spiro presented did nothing but heighten his interest in his own dream.

“What about my dream?” Gideon asked. “You know. The one Jenny told you about. What does it mean?”

“I can’t tell you what it means, Gideon. Only you can determine that. But I can guide you toward finding your own meaning. It seems to me that yours was an important dream, what we head shrinkers call a big dream.”

“What do you mean, a big dream?” Gideon asked.

“It deals with more than just your day-to-day living. It suggests you may be approaching a crossroad in your life. The symbols it uses, especially the gold circle, are universal, and generally refer to... “

With Gideon on the edge of his seat, the phone rang, interrupting Dr. Spiro in mid-sentence. Gideon could tell from Dr. Spiro’s set jaw and tightened lips that there was some sort of an emergency. He reinserted his pipe and bit down hard.

“Okay, officer,” Dr. Spiro said into the phone, his pipe bobbing from the corner of his mouth like a pendulum on a Grandfather clock. “Don’t approach him. Keep him talking, and I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Dr. Spiro hung up the phone. “Sorry, guys,” he said. “We’ll have to finish this some other time. I’ve got an emergency.”

Dr. Spiro was out the door and out of the house before either Gideon or Jenny could say a word. Gideon’s dream would have to wait for another time.
Posted 26 July 07 09:44 from 21st Century Reality | 0 Comments   
Gideon McGee's Dream: Chapter Three
“Hello,” said Mrs. McGee, mildly annoyed that the phone tore her away from Peter Jennings and the Evening News. She reluctantly swung her feet to the floor and lifted herself from the green plaid Herculon couch. She was six steps from the kitchen and the only phone in the house.

"Hello...This is Jenny Bloom. May I speak to Gideon, please?”
“Oh, hello Jenny. This is Gideon’s mother. We haven’t met, but I know your mother. I understand she was in an accident a couple of weeks ago. I hope she’s feeling better.”

“She’s much better. Thank you, Mrs. McGee,” Jenny said. “Her arm was broken, but it could have been much worse. The man who hit her was drunk, and it was only luck that saved her. The car was totaled. He hit mom’s car at the rear door on the driver’s side. Two feet to the left and... well... mom was lucky.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it wasn’t more serious,” Clara McGee said. She felt uncomfortable and at a loss for words to describe adequately how she felt. Her mother had been killed by a drunk driver ten years earlier, and the pain had yet to go away. “Hold on a minute, and I’ll get Gideon.”
Mrs. McGee put the phone down slowly as she remembered the heartache of ten years ago. She walked to Gideon’s room, for she hated yelling, and refused to do so even though the walk down the hall was inconvenient.

“Gideon,” she said, knocking on his door. “Telephone. It’s Jenny Bloom.”

He had expected Jenny Bloom to call since being teamed with her for a science project that afternoon by Mrs. Gibson. Gideon practiced all afternoon what he would say to her, and found the thought of talking to her made him more nervous than blocking a two-hundred-pound defensive tackle. He threw open the door to his bedroom and nearly knocked his mother over as he raced for the phone.

“Hello,” he said before the phone was halfway to his mouth.
“Hello? Gideon? I can hardly hear you,” Jenny said. The sound of her voice made him dizzy.

“This is Gideon. We have a problem with the cord sometimes. It’s one of those old dial phones.” He lied about the cord, but not about the style of phone. Mr. McGee couldn’t see spending good money on a new phone just so he could push buttons and save three seconds in dialing up a number. “I guess you’re calling about Mrs. Gibson’s science project.” Gideon couldn’t imagine her calling him for any other reason.

“Yes. I tried to talk to you after class, but you rushed off so fast I didn’t get a chance.”

Gideon had bolted out of the class at the sound of the bell. He couldn’t speak to Jenny Bloom without first rehearsing what he would say. He had to avoid her, for something as difficult as talking to the girl he liked required preparation, and as with most things in his life he was not prepared. It was as though he prepared for being unprepared.

“I had a meeting with my guidance counselor and I didn’t want to be late,” he lied.
“You know, Gideon, I never thanked you for the Coke you got me at lunch just before Christmas break. I was so shocked. I was dying of thirst and didn't have a cent on me, and then you show up with a Coke. I was speechless.”

Gideon overheard Jenny complain to Barbara Howser how she’d kill for a Coke, that she just finished gym, and her mouth was as dry as straw. He rushed to the soda machine, deposited three quarters, then rushed back with the Coke.

“You looked thirsty,” Gideon said, fumbling for words.
“Whatever,” Jenny said. “Have you given any thought to our science project? It can also be a paper, you know? I’ve been thinking we could do something about the environment.”

“That’s a good idea,” Gideon said, not wanting to offend Jenny. “But don’t you think a lot of the other teams will be doing something on the environment too?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but what else is there?”
“This will probably sound stupid to you, but how about doing a paper on dreams?”
“That doesn’t sound stupid at all,” Jenny said, excitedly. “How did you ever come up with that idea? It’s great!”

“I don't know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as though Jenny was there to see. “It just popped into my mind. But I’ve been having a lot of strange dreams lately, and I thought it might be fun to find out about them.”
“This is such a coincidence,” Jenny said. “Just the other day Barbara Howser told me about a strange dream she had.”
“Oh? What was it about?” Gideon asked, not really caring about Barbara Howser’s dream, but wanting to drag out the conversation.
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell, but it had to do with a tug of war.”

Gideon’s heart raced, much like it did just before the snap of the football in a game. A sense of urgency came over him that he neither understood nor cared to understand. “When did she have the dream?” he asked, his voice harsh and insistent.

“Why do you want to know?”
“Just tell me . . . please!”
"Well, she told me about it on Monday, so she must have had the dream on Sunday, the night of the ice storm.”
Gideon stopped breathing, and his heart seemed to move from his chest to his ears.
“Gideon? Are you there?” Jenny asked.
“Yes... yes, I’m here. It must be the phone line again.”
“What is it?” Jenny asked, not believing him this time. “What’s the matter?”

“I had a tug-of-war dream the next day. You’ve got to tell me about Barbara’s dream,” Gideon demanded, forgetting his shyness and whom he was talking to.
“I’ll tell you, but if you ever tell Barbara I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Promise. My lips are sealed,” Gideon said. He made a mental note never to tell Jenny a secret.

Jenny Bloom launched into the telling of Barbara Howser’s dream, while Gideon sat transfixed to the receiver of the beige phone. “The dream was very strange. You were triplets.”

“What do you mean, I was triplets? Are you saying her dream was about me?”
“That’s what I said, and I didn't say twins. I said triplets, and each one was different. One was dressed completely in black, and wore a scowl on his face. He was a shadowy creature, and gave Barbara the creeps. The second Gideon was in white, and his face was an ear-to-ear grin, like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. He gave Barbara the creeps as much as the shadow-Gideon did. The third Gideon glowed a sort of golden color, and Barbara said she was drawn to him in the most pleasant sort of way.”

“What were they doing?” Gideon asked, barely able to contain his curiosity.
“They were having a tug of war with a golden rope. Actually, the black Gideon and the white Gideon were having the tug of war. The golden Gideon was in the center, and with each hand held a luminous knotted rope that the other two Gideons were tugging on.”

“Were they saying anything?” Gideon asked.
“The angry, scowling Gideon kept shouting, ‘I hate you’, while the mindlessly smiling Gideon answered, ‘I love you.’ The golden Gideon seemed perfectly at peace, and said nothing.”

“Who won the tug of war?” Gideon asked, impatient to hear the conclusion.
“That was the odd part,” Jenny said, closing her eyes for a moment, and reflecting on the dream. "The golden Gideon, with ever-so-subtle finger movements, drew the other two Gideons toward him. The rope seemed to disappear into the golden Gideon’s hand as he drew the other two closer and closer to him. And as the smiling and the scowling Gideons came closer to the peaceful Gideon, their shouting grew softer.”

Gideon waited for Jenny to continue, but all he heard was silence. It hung in the phone’s receiver like an angry wasp, stinging his ear. “So?” he yelled. “Don’t you dare leave me hanging like this. What happened next?”

“Barbara woke up. And that’s it,” Jenny said. “The dream ended there, with no winner of the tug of war.” Jenny couldn’t understand Gideon’s agitation. After all, she thought, it was only a dream. “What’s the big deal about Barbara’s dream?” she asked.

“I had a dream just like it,” he said, and began his story; amazed that two people could have such similar dreams. “In my dream the tug of war wasn’t between people, it was between circles, one a half circle, and the other a full circle.
“The dream started as an image of one circle, half black and half white. Gradually the circle began to split and separate down the middle where the black and white meet.

“As they separated, the space between them filled with gold until it became a complete circle with the black and white halves some distance to the right and left of the middle circle that was now completely gold.”
“That doesn’t sound like a tug of war to me,” Jenny said. “The two half circles and the gold circle aren’t connected from what you’ve said so far.”

“That’s right,” Gideon said. “The black and white halves kept moving farther and farther away from the gold center until finally the gold circle shot out two golden threads that attached to the black and white halves.
“The two halves began to vibrate as though they were trying to continue their separation from the gold center, but the thread stopped their progress.
“Gradually the gold circle began to reel in the black and white halves, and, as they approached, the gold circle grew larger.

“With what seemed to be one great final effort the gold circle drew the two halves into itself. As the last of the black and white halves disappeared into the gold, the gold exploded. The circle grew in all directions, and seemed to expand into the size of a Galaxy. It continued to grow, gobbling up galaxy after galaxy when I finally woke up.”

Jenny had the ending of Barbara Howser’s dream. She knew from Gideon’s dream that the golden Gideon would have won the tug of war, and that he would have grown by absorbing the black and white Gideons. Jenny didn’t understand the meaning of it all, but was determined to find out.

“What do you think it all means, Gideon?” Jenny asked.
“How should I know?” Gideon scoffed, thinking her question ridiculous. “Until you mentioned Barbara’s dream, I had forgotten about mine. I’ve never paid much attention to dreams, and except for an occasional nightmare I didn’t think I dreamed at all. That is, until two weeks ago.”

Jenny sat thinking for a moment, and then asked, “Do you know Susan Spiro?”
“Not very well. She’s in our Algebra I class, isn’t she? What about her?”
“Well... I’ve known her for years, and we’re quite good friends. Her father’s a shrink, and I remember Sue telling me once that he works with people’s dreams.”

“Yeah, so?” Gideon asked, not yet catching where Jenny was going with this train of thought.
“So maybe we could kill two birds with one stone,” Jenny answered. “We could find out some things about dreams for our paper, and maybe discover what your dream means at the same time.”

“I don’t know if I want to find out what my dream means. What if it’s something bad?”
“What if it is?” Jenny shot back. “You can’t go through life without some bad happening.”
“Yeah, but I’ve had more than my fair share.”

“Are you blind?” Jenny asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I said. Are you blind?”
“No,” Gideon answered.
“Tim Chimera is blind. Are you deaf?”
“No.”
“Laura Harken is deaf. Are you mentally handicapped?”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Gideon said, laughing. “Enough already. I get your point.”

“If I can arrange a meeting with Dr. Spiro this Saturday can you make it?”
“I think so,” Gideon said, knowing he rarely had plans for the weekend. “I don’t have anything planned, yet.”
“Good. I’ll call Sue now and let you know tomorrow in Mr. Numer’s class. Is that okay?”
“Sure. That would be fine.”
“Great. Then I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodbye Gideon.”
“Goodbye Jenny. See you tomorrow.”

Gideon’s loud yelp as he hung up the phone startled his mother in the next room. The dizziness he felt when he first picked up the phone returned, and he had to steady himself on the kitchen table. He wondered if this happened to every boy.
“Gideon,” Clara McGee called. “You sound like you just won the lottery. Did Jenny promise you a dishwasher?”

“Really funny, mom,” Gideon replied, embarrassed he was so careless with his emotions. “But maybe my luck’s about to change.” He walked back to his room and fell asleep that night hoping Jenny would appear in his dreams.
Posted 18 July 07 09:13 from 21st Century Reality | 0 Comments   
Gideon McGee's Dream: Chapter Two
Chapter Two

The ice storm served to mark the end of Christmas break and the beginning of the second semester. For some, who saw the beauty the storm left behind, it was a good omen. Others, focusing on its destruction, saw it as a bad sign. Some saw crap, others, fertilizer. A few, a very few, saw the storm as both good and bad, much like a forest fire that on the surface appears to ravage nature, but upon deeper reflection merely prunes it, making way for new growth.

“I don’t think there’s anything more boring than washing dishes,” Gideon said to his mother, who was clearing the table of the dinner dishes. “Why can’t we have a dishwasher like normal people?”

Clara McGee had heard this complaint many times before. “I swear, Gideon McGee,” she huffed. “If you had a dollar for every time you complained you’d be a rich boy. You could buy yourself a dishwasher for each day of the week.”

Clara McGee was an attractive woman, who had fully lived her thirty-six years and could still fit into her high school prom gown if an occasion ever arose for her to do so. Her straight blonde hair was cut just short enough to be worn in the ponytail that her daughter so loved. It required half the upkeep of the longer hair she preferred, and seemed a good compromise to getting a Bob cut, which she hated. At thirty-six, Clara McGee was more concerned with the practical aspects of life than in pleasing herself before a mirror. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone but herself, but she was a beautiful woman, and comfortable with her reflection in the mirror.

She placed her collection of dishes and utensils on the counter next to the sink and gave her son a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Mom!”Gideon complained, wiping the kiss with a dish rag. “I’m not five-years-old anymore” He loved her kisses, and would have been saddened had she not stuck to her usual routine of stealing one. It was a game they played. Each knew the rules, but never admitted to them. It was permissible for Clara to steal a kiss from her fourteen-year-old son, but open displays of affection were not allowed. Gideon learned early the gender taboos of his culture.

“Mom?” Gideon asked, his voice hesitant and unsure, like a skydiver the moment before his first jump.
“Yes, Gideon,” she replied, recognizing his change in tone.
“Do you ever think the world is out to get you? You know . . . like nothing ever goes your way. Even my birthday sucks.”
“Gideon!” Clara McGee grabbed the dishrag from her son and swatted him with it. “December 26th is a perfect day for a birthday.”
“Yeah, if you’re born in some third world country where the average yearly income is two hundred dollars, and where no one ever heard of Christmas.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It seems my whole life has been like having a birthday the day after Christmas. Shortchanged, you know.”
“No!” his mother exclaimed. “I don’t know, and I think you’re dead wrong. There are six billion worlds out there, one for each of us and no two people see it the same way. If you’re not happy with the world you have, how about seeing it in a different way?”

Gideon noticed the edge to his mother’s voice, and decided to tone down his own. “Well . . . maybe my life isn’t that bad, but sometimes it sure seems like it is. So, how do I go about seeing the world differently?”

Clara McGee thought for a moment before answering. “The world I see is quite different from the world you see,” she said. “Take Elvis Presley for example.”
“You take him,” Gideon replied, his face looking like he had just swallowed a fly maggot. “I can’t stand him.”

“That’s my point exactly, Gideon. You and I look at the same man, and we see two completely different people. I see the king of rock and roll, who might show up some day at a gas station, or a Walmart, and you see some dead guy who used to sing a bunch of corny hick-songs. There’s no ‘I’m right and you’re wrong.’ We’re both right.

“Or take football,” she continued. “Norwich High played New London High for the championship last year, and New London won. For the New London fans it was a great day. They were happy, exuberant, and did a lot of celebrating that night. For the Norwich fans the day was a bust. You have your brother to attest to that. Same day, but seen differently by two groups of people.”

“Yeah,” Gideon said, refusing to understand, and forgetting his brother’s comments about manure being both good and bad. “But it was still the same day. I’m going to take a walk down by the pond. Where’s the flashlight?”
“It’s on the shelf over the washing machine, but be careful. I don’t know how thick the ice is, so keep off the pond. Be back in an hour.”

Gideon often took walks to the pond whenever there was something troubling him. He had named the small body of water Round Pond after its perfectly circular shape. The pond was a quarter mile from his home, and sat like a teardrop on five acres of city property that abutted his land. From its grassy banks he could see the volunteer fire station only a hundred yards away. His parents played Bingo there every Tuesday night. Gideon thought taking a nap would be more exciting than Bingo, but kept his opinion to himself.

He had been feeling unsettled since the ice storm three days earlier. He couldn’t describe the feeling exactly, but sensed something was going to happen. His stomach felt as though he were dropping in an elevator, and the narrow path that he could usually walk blindfolded, now required his attention and the beam of his flashlight. His mother’s explanation only served to heighten the feeling of being disconnected. “If there were six billion worlds for six billion people, why was his so pitiful?” he wondered.

As he stood on the frozen banks of Round Pond his mind was assaulted with questions that seemed to come from somewhere other than from his own brain.
Why isn’t life fair? Why did Simon get his mother’s looks and he got stuck with his father’s? What did his mother mean when she said we all see the world differently? It’s all one world, isn’t it? Why can’t we all be the same? Questions darted in and out of his mind like mice scurrying for cover at the flick of a light switch. These kinds of thoughts and his dreams were foreign to him, and seemed as though they were injected into his mind by an invisible hypodermic needle. He wondered whose hand was on the syringe.



The siren at the fire station sounded, calling the volunteers to action, and jerking Gideon out of his thoughts. He looked at his Timex Ironman watch he just received for his birthday, and pressed the indiglo button to illuminate the time. It was 9:03 p.m., and he had been gone for an hour and fifteen minutes, and yet it seemed like only a moment. “Time,” Gideon thought. “What a chameleon.”

With a brisk stride, Gideon McGee managed to get home by 9:30 p.m. He was in bed by ten, and wondered what dream would assail him tonight as he drifted further and further from consciousness. Recently he had become aware while dreaming that he was dreaming. It was like watching himself in a feature length movie. He knew he was in the audience, and what was happening on screen, although looking real, was merely a simulation.

The images began to come into focus. It was long ago in a far off land, an exotic land of wide plains and shallow seasonal lakes, where the balance of nature remained undisturbed. A tiger came into view, long and lean, looking hungry and exhausted. It had been a harsh summer, with little rain and even less food, and the female tiger hadn’t eaten in weeks. She had little strength left, and her unborn cub was about to arrive.

In the distance she spied a small band of goats nibbling on the roots of some long-gone prairie grass. She summoned the last of her ebbing strength and made a wild charge at the herd. A small kid standing near its mother seemed the most likely target, and the tiger focused her energy in a last ditch effort to save herself and her unborn cub. She leaped at the kid, but the effort was too much and her heart gave out in mid-flight.

The force of her body hitting the ground was enough to launch the unborn cub into the light of day. It was born as though shot from a canon, and landed in the midst of the band of goats. Surprised at first, they were timid in approaching the startled cub, but soon overcame their fear and eventually welcomed the cub into their band as one of their own.

As time marched inexorably along its path, the tiger grew to think of itself as a goat. It grazed on grass like a goat. It ran from predators like a goat. It even bleated like a goat. The goats, for their part, forgot the tiger was a tiger, although they often wondered why he looked so different from the rest of them. Gideon knew that in this dream he was the tiger-goat, but as yet was unable to make the connection between the metaphors of his dream and the reality of his life.
One day, while the herd of goats was grazing lazily near a small pond, a full-grown male tiger surprised them. Just as his long sabered teeth were about to break the neck of an old crippled goat, he saw, and then heard, the bleating of the tiger-goat. He dropped his prey as if it were a hot ember, and looked in amazement at the freak of nature.

What he saw was a distorted reflection of himself. The tiger-goat looked like a tiger, although a little smaller and not as well muscled, but didn’t act like a tiger. The old male, a veteran of many hunts and fights for dominance, let loose a kingly roar. The tiger-goat bleated his reply. “Ba-a-a-a.”

“What are you?” the old tiger asked in a fury.
“Ba-a-a-a,” the tiger-goat replied. “I am a goat.”
“You are not a goat!” roared the tiger. “You are a tiger like me. Well... maybe not just like me, but you are a tiger nevertheless.”
“Ba-a-a-a.”
The tiger was so infuriated by this reply he grabbed the tiger-goat by the scruff of the neck with his mouth, and dragged him to the nearby pond. “Look,”he ordered. “Look at your reflection. Is that the face of a goat?” He forced the tiger-goat’s face toward the water.

“Ba-a-a-a,” the tiger-goat said. “I look like you.”
“You not only look like me, but the same blood that courses through my veins, also runs through yours.” The kingly tiger dropped the tiger-goat into the pond, then went to finish-off the wounded goat he had dropped from his mouth only a few moments ago. As easily as a man carries a briefcase, he carried the carcass over to the stunned tiger-goat.

“Have you ever eaten meat?” the tiger asked in disdain. Blood dripped from his jowls as he dropped the dead goat and tore at its flesh with his massive teeth.
“Why would I eat meat,” the tiger-goat replied, “when there’s plenty of grass?”
A roar went out over the plains the likes of which the animals had never heard before. An eerie silence fell over the land. The tiger grabbed the tiger-goat by the back of its neck and forced his face into the fresh kill.
“Eat! Taste!” the tiger roared. “This is what you are meant to eat. A tiger is what you are meant to be.”

As the blood of the goat entered the tiger-goat’s mouth he felt a surge of power that began at the tip of its tail and moved with ever-increasing speed through his body. He felt it enter his mouth, and with a joy he had not known before, he proclaimed with a roar to all who would hear. "I am a tiger. I have remembered!”
Posted 12 July 07 10:00 from 21st Century Reality | 0 Comments   
Gideon McGee's Dream
I write to have what I've written read and enjoyed. In 1998 I published Gideon McGee's Dream and I have decided to make it available on my blog. It's a lovely fantasy for the young and old alike. I'll begin with Chapter One and continue once a week until you have all of it.
Bill


Chapter One


Its home was twenty-four trillion miles distant in the spiral galaxy the inhabitants of the planet Earth called the Milky Way. The odds of it happening would have been ridiculously large had there been anyone on the planet to make the calculation. At twenty-five thousand miles per hour the collision destroyed both the asteroid and the moon that circled the smallest and outermost planet of the far away sun called Alpha Centauri A. It was the largest of a triple sun system.

Most of the debris remained in orbit around the undiscovered planet, but a Mexico-sized chunk broke free of the gravitational pull of the miniature orb. The rogue slab of celestial junk began its trek into the far reaches of space following the unconscious call of its neighboring star’s third planet.

Gideon McGee awoke in a panic, his dream jarring the peace that usually accompanies sleep. His brother Simon, three years his senior at seventeen, remained blissfully asleep in the bunk overhead. It had been three weeks since Gideon McGee last slept through the night. Fourteen years of dreamless sleep, or so he thought, and now this. Night after night of sleep-demolishing dreams curdled Gideon McGee’s already-sour personality. The few friends he had were bailing out, avoiding him like a fish avoids air.

Not all of Gideon McGee’s dreams were sleep stealers. Some compensated him, as life always compensates for mishaps, for the nightmares that drew dark circles under his chestnut brown eyes. One such dream was of four desert wanderers who had been in search of a fabled city of gold for many years, as their brown and leatherlike skin bore witness. Their pilgrimage had been long and arduous, filled with many trials of body and spirit, as any adventure should be. One day, one of the group, while despairing of ever finding the city of gold, spied a magnificent walled castle on the horizon. Curious and excited they made their way to the towering outer wall.

The first wanderer scaled the summit, screamed out in ecstasy and jumped over. Two more wanderers followed the first. When the last wanderer reached the top of the wall and realized he had found the city of gold, he turned and looked back upon the desert. There he saw other wanderers, lost and in despair, unable to see the city of gold although it should have been plainly visible. In this dream Gideon McGee realized he was the fourth wanderer. He woke up, not knowing if he jumped into the city of gold alone, or climbed back down to show others the way. It was the memory of the city of gold that always escorted Gideon back to sleep after one of his nightmares.

Until he had his big dream, Gideon McGee, in manner and attitude, resembled a teenage Ebenezer Scrooge, always complaining, forever cynical. His smile, which occurred only on the rarest of occasions, revealed a mouth whose corners were unaccustomed to turning heavenwards, and if listened to carefully one could almost hear them creak at the effort when they did. His smiles seemed like accidents, no sooner released than reeled back in like a hooked fish.

Life to Gideon McGee was something to protect himself against, something he had no part in creating or controlling. Slights and insults, back stabbings done to him and by him; heartbreak, for which he was never responsible; luck, that always went against him, comprised the downside of life that Gideon seemed to live in. The upside was reserved for Simon, who was bigger, stronger, smarter and better looking than his younger brother. All of Simon’s advantages, to Gideon’s way of thinking, were the result of luck, a haphazard combination of DNA.

Although Simon’s skills were difficult for Gideon to attain, it was not until his sister Prudence arrived when he was four, that the struggle to turn the corners of his mouth up or down, was decided in favor of a frown. By the time he was fourteen his attitude about life was etched on his face. His brown eyes, that seemed wider apart and brighter at four were now closer to the bridge of his nose, and only sparkled when life played one of its tricks on someone else. To Gideon’s mind he had no more control over the way things were than a feather bobbing in a turbulent sea had of controlling the tides.

* * *

The McGee family lived on the outskirts of a middle-sized New England town that in its heyday, a hundred years earlier, was the center of a booming textile industry. Today, however, it was like any other city struggling to meet the needs of its citizens. The McGee house, a brown three bedroom Cape, sat on three wooded acres and could be approached only by a poorly repaired, snakelike dirt road that shortened by half the life of the shock absorbers of the McGee car. In the summer months the McGee’s Taurus kicked up so much dust on their road it resembled a winter fog, and the sweat on Gideon’s face ran like rivulets of mud.

It was a colder time now, the first day of the New Year, and Gideon awoke to a clatter outside his window that sounded like an army marching over broken glass. Because of his fitful sleeping of late, Gideon McGee was usually difficult to awaken, for he only found peace as the sun was about to make its appearance above the horizon. This particular morning, however, it took nothing more substantial than his curiosity.

Despite his night of unsettling dreams, he nevertheless threw off his covers, yawned a sleep-starved yawn, rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his bony knuckles, then surveyed the dusky room.

He looked at his older brother on the upper bunk. “Hey, Simon. Are you asleep?” Gideon asked, his voice soft enough not to wake his brother if he was still asleep.
Receiving no answer, which was the answer he expected, Gideon McGee slid out of bed and walked to the window. The night had enlarged his pupils to the size of an ink blot, making them exquisitely sensitive to sunlight. Neither his mind, nor his eyes were prepared for the sight that was about to register on his senses as he raised his window shade. Gideon’s bedroom window faced west, so that the coat of ice from the storm the night before reflected the eastern rising sun’s rays back into his eyes. When his vision recovered from what he at first thought was a bursting brain aneurism, Gideon beheld a light show that only nature could provide, and no rock concert could match.

Every tree, every branch, every blade of grass and every rock had grown a crystal skin that sparkled with its own internal light. Like an electric spark, the sun danced from surface to surface leaving an afterimage on Gideon’s eyes, and bringing the hibernating woods back to life. Nature had connected the world outside his window with a dancing cosmic web of light. The wind blew lightly from the north causing the tree branches to tap out their song against each other much like small children playing patty cakes. Gideon stood transfixed as the light danced and skipped from surface to surface. His eyes and ears had never been so pleasantly bombarded; yet he could not identify the feeling it had created.

"Spectacular, isn’t it, Gideon?” Simon asked, placing his hand lightly on his brother’s shoulder so as not to startle him.

Gideon didn’t hear Simon get out of bed, for despite his large size he was as graceful as the wind that blew through the crystallized trees. Gideon jumped at the touch, as though respond¬ing to a horn blast he wasn't expecting. Simon removed his hand.

“Why did you sneak up on me like that?” Gideon barked, more embarrassed that he was caught enjoying the view than being startled by his brother.
“Sorry. I thought you heard me get up,” Simon said absently. He too was captured by the view that had so recently entranced his younger brother.
“Well, I didn’t,” Gideon shot back, glaring into the hazel eyes of his brother that hovered six inches above his own.

Simon turned away from the window and looked at his brother. “Why have you been so hostile lately? You’re normally a royal pain, but for the past few weeks you’ve kicked it up to a new level.”

Gideon began to fidget with his fingers. He made cricket sounds with his fingernails whenever he was nervous, but didn’t know it. “Do you ever dream?” he asked, almost apologetically.

“Sometimes. Why do you ask?” Simon said, as he placed his hand back on his brother’s shoulder. He redirected his attention to the newly created winter scene, and forgot his younger brother’s question. “Last night I almost got killed in this ice storm while driving home from Maureen’s.”
“Yeah, so what?” Gideon said, almost wishing Simon had, and then feeling guilty at the thought.

Simon looked at Gideon with narrowed eyes, his hand tightening its grip on his shoulder as his mood darkened. It was difficult to keep his fingers from digging deep enough to give his brother a small taste of pain. Simon wondered if Gideon’s sole purpose in life was to torment him.

“The point is,” Simon said, “last night I was cursing the storm and all the problems and accidents it was causing, and this morning I look out the window and I’m blown away by the beauty it created. You always see the dark side of things. You always see manure as crap, and never as fertilizer.”

Gideon squirmed under the pressure of his brother’s steely grip and pointed remarks. “How was your date last night?” he asked, changing the subject to avoid the same old lecture. He had heard it a hundred times before.
“It was fine, but why the interest in my love life all of a sudden?” Simon asked, his mood and grip lightening.
“Well...” Gideon stammered. “I’m not getting anywhere with Jenny Bloom, and I thought Maureen might have a friend.”
“I thought you were making some progress with Jenny,” Simon replied.
“Progress?” Gideon asked. “I can barely summon the courage to say hello to her. She’s caught me looking at her several times, and I think she knows I like her, but let’s face it. What would a girl like Jenny want with someone like me?”

A wave of empathy for his brother washed over Simon McGee, and for a brief moment he saw himself four years earlier. He wasn’t much different than Gideon then. “You’re too hard on yourself, Gideon. You see yourself as worthless so you act the part. How can you expect Jenny to like you when you don’t like yourself?”
Gideon turned from the window and walked across the small room to his bed and sat down, his eyes seeing nothing but his size seven feet. “That’s easy for you to say, Simon. Have you looked in a mirror lately? When I look, I want to shut off the lights.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your body or your looks. You see what you want to see,” Simon said. “What you need is an attitude adjustment. Change your attiude, and the reflection in the mirror will change.”
“That’s your standard line. It’s like saying, ‘don’t worry’.” Gideon looked away and scratched his name onto the flannel of his pajama leg. “Are you going to ask Maureen or not?”

The two boys heard footsteps in the hall, and turned as their ten-year-old sister entered their room.
“Good morning Simon. Good morning Gideon,” Prudence said, standing in their doorway in her flannel nightgown. Prudence was the youngest McGee, a pretty girl whose sandy blonde hair was worn in a ponytail tied with a yellow ribbon, just like her mother’s. If Gideon held his arm out straight, she would just clear it without ducking. Her almond-brown eyes sparkled whenever she saw Gideon, for despite his surly attitude, he was her favorite brother. “Can I come in?”
“No,” Gideon said.

“Of course you can, Prudence,” Simon said, over-ruling his younger brother. “Have you looked outside yet?”
“Yes, but it’s much prettier on your side of the house.”
Prudence’s room was across the hall, and her window faced east so that her view was into the sun. From her brother’s side the ice-covered trees reflected the sun making it easier to see, much like the full moon is easier to look at than the sun itself. It was always easier looking at the sun’s reflection than it was gazing directly into it.

“What were you guys talking about?” Prudence asked, noticing the frown on Gideon’s face.
“Girls,” Simon said, his eyes drawn to the light red fingernail polish that was beginning to chip from his sister’s delicate fingers. It somehow made her look older, but more fragile.

“I’m a girl. What do you want to know?”
“You’re too young to be of any help, Prudence,” Gideon said, delighting in the look his words created on his sister’s face.

Prudence stomped her feet and placed her hands on her hips, which at her age were no wider than her waist. “I’m ten years old, Gideon McGee, and I probably know a lot more about girls than you do. You’re such a pain.”
Prudence turned and left the room in a huff, a move she learned from watching her mother. It often made her father repent for some unseen wrongdoing that neither she nor her father knew he had committed.

“Why don’t you lighten up on Prudence?” Simon asked in a voice more controlled than he felt. “Whether you know it or not, she loves you very much, although I’ll never understand why.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well. That’s all. Leave me alone.”

Simon stalked out of the room. Gideon, still seated on the edge of his bed, cupped his oval face in his hands and wondered, as usual, why life always dealt him deuces.
Posted 10 July 07 01:57 from 21st Century Reality | 1 Comments