The Sea-Wave (6 page)

H
e was facing me, the old man, he was over top of
me. I could only see his face. It was raining, there was no shelter, I think maybe he was trying to shelter me. His face was as big as a movie screen.

One big pearl of water ran down his forehead, nose, around his lips, into his beard, then down off a long curling hair right into my mouth and down my throat.

This is real
.

It's a movie but it's real.

The credits are piling up at my feet.

This is really happening.

T
he
tones
of the sea, are so many. It is not one animal. It is
so many
. It can be, and it was so often, the deepest tone. The conversation of one thing, and another, more ancient, and greater.
Imagining them
. I could see them . . . beyond, the wall. I could picture them, and it would not even be imagination. But . . . a puzzling-together, of perception. As one assembling, with closed eyes, the bones of someone speaking. Some incredible skeleton.
If it should brush the wall, this animal . . .
I would go so far, as to wonder.

Yet often, and more often, the tone was not so. It was little more than water. The tunnelling through water, of one fish. The
murmur
. Or a million fish, together. In their freedom, teeming, and so very near . . . one who was not free. The still prisoner of a stone aquarium. Who could float, only, as a fish in glass. And listen. And
listen
.

I
could hear the ocean.

When I opened my eyes, I saw trees.

We weren't moving, I couldn't see the old man, I was worried he'd abandoned me. I imagined a coyote jogging off with my femur. Even if it wasn't healthy.

I pressed forward on my control pad. The wheels just threw up dust. The motor wasn't designed for off-road use. You have to charge the battery every day, too, which wasn't happening.

I felt panicky and giddy. I kept telling myself I wasn't alone, that any minute now I'd feel the chair start moving and the familiar beard hairs rubbing the top of my head.

But after five, ten minutes, nothing. Twenty minutes. I tried turning my head very slowly to the left, like I was doing my exercises, then to the right, as far as I could, which is only an inch or two, on a good day. But there was no sign of him. No sound, either, except that ocean sound of the wind in the leaves.

Then I saw a face. A
reflection
. On the inside of my glasses.

It was the old man. Frozen. He was on his knees. The branches were jumping all around him, it was windy, but he was as still as a tree trunk. Covering his ears. And the look on his face . . .

He looked terrified.

I
f I have a talent, if it counts, it's that I'm smart. I
became
smart. I was just a dumb kid until I started reading. Not just dumb kid books, but books nobody even looked at or knew existed. If you read a book and you understand it all the way through, it's probably not doing much for your brain.

I read Dickens pretty early on. The first time I read
A Tale of Two Cities
I maybe understood fifty words of it. I understood every dull word of
Chuzzlewit
.
David Copperfield
, though, is the best thing I've ever read. Reading anything else is a disappointment. I'd rather be illiterate than not read
David Copperfield
. Most people are illiterate. Because if you
don't
read good books, or you
can't
read good books, either way, you're not reading good books. Most people don't realize they can't actually read.

I read good books, I became smarter, I became unhappy. Probably lots of people do. Knowing more just makes you sadder. Maybe I could still be that happy-go-lucky kid in a wheelchair, trying hard to smile, if I really tried.

Sorry Mom and Dad. I'd rather read
David Copperfield
.

O
kay.

One time I was wheeling down the hallway at the Rehabilitation Centre, waiting for my dad to pick me up. He usually goes for coffee across the street till I'm finished my exercises.

There was an open door that's normally closed. I went through it down another hallway that was darker. I turned once, and just before the second turn I saw one half of a long glowing window in the wall that went down almost to the floor. There were a man and woman standing in front of the window, looking through it. They seemed pretty worried and caring like parents. As I moved closer I could see more of the window, and a man in a lab coat standing beside an empty wheelchair. He was looking through the window too and sometimes writing something on a clip-board.

This was all none of my business, but I was curious. I went closer. The people didn't seem to notice me. They were talking in quiet voices. I just wheeled up quietly behind them until I could see through the window, too.

It was a big white room. The walls and floor were white foam. There was a guy, maybe ten years older than me, with a beard, on the floor. He was rolling on the floor groaning. That was all he could do. If he came to a wall he just kicked it or flailed against it. Then he rolled the other way.

The mother said: “I really think this will help with his rage.”

Then she waited a while and said slowly: “If only he'd had this when he was younger. He really could've used this. Things would've been . . . so different.”

The father shook his head. Then he said, quietly: “No. They wouldn't've, Helen. They wouldn't've one bit.”

Then the man with the clipboard looked at me. He was about to say something, I think, but I just kept going around the corner like I had somewhere to go. Also, I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to at least get to a water fountain.

The empty wheelchair was sitting next to a door. As I passed by it I looked up. The sign on the door read: “Soft Room.”

I've always thought I'd be a happier kid if I'd never seen the Soft Room.

I
f I lived in Dickens, my name would be Cripplewitch. I love Dickens but what I don't get is that if your name is your major character flaw why someone would still marry a Murdstone, or trust a Krook. If he was trying to say that people are just dumb, he's kind of stating the obvious. But it must've been a riot, being this wiz­ard who could turn anyone who irked him into a Peck­sniff or a Barnacle. It was kind of like word murder; he was Dickens the Ripper. If you're observant and super-popular, you can actually do a lot of damage. I'm pretty observant, too. Once I lost twenty pounds before any­one noticed, and that was a waitress. I think if I spontaneously combusted my mom would keep talking to the ashes as she dusted the living room. Then she'd sweep me up and wonder what happened to me.

If my mom lived in Dickens, her name would be Oblivia Grimsack.

O
ne night I woke up, I was so dizzy. We were in the middle of nowhere. It was raining. I was sick and so dizzy. It was — I imagine it's what being on drugs is like. I counted the stars, but then I realized, with the rain, I shouldn't even really be able to see any stars. Then I couldn't see any.

I guess that's pessimism.