I’m taking a departure this week from D&D-related stuff to return to some regular old not-fantasy. This is a piece I wrote as an assignment for a creative writing class I took before I figured that college wasn’t the right place for me. I think the whole assignment was just to come up with a six-word, flash-fiction-esque title for a piece, then build around that. I don’t know exactly what drove me to write this personal account of a pivotal moment of my youth, but I’m totally sure it doesn’t warrant any further analysis.
There aren’t very many moments from my childhood that have really stuck with me. I imagine it’s pretty much the same for most people. What does anyone do as a kid that really matters, anyway?
If you were to ask me if I remember my first five years, in the small house in the suburbs outside of Detroit, I could honestly say that I do – but only in general terms. Trying to pick out details from that time is like being stuck in the waking moments after a dream that wasn’t particularly interesting; there aren’t enough pieces left to make a whole picture.
Move closer to the present, and I start to get more complete pictures. But I didn’t have any say in which ones I got to keep. While we lived in the house in the countryside, from ages five to eight, I know that I got my first computer. The day I sat at a desk, pushed that power button and started picking at keys on the keyboard was a huge turning point in my life, and I don’t remember it at all. The things I do remember seem so small.
I remember standing in the doorway to my room and whispering “Gizmo”. I knew our German shepherd could hear me down in the basement and as soon as he heard his name, I smiled at the sound of him scrambling up the stairs to come see me.
I remember leaning against the railing of the second-floor balcony, looking down at the bonfire my family had built. My dad stepped into the light with a tank full of gas. He literally fed fuel to the fire and beat a hasty retreat. I could only faintly hear the cheering of my aunts and uncles over the roar of the flames and the way the heat practically slapped me across the face.
After that, we moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. The memories of the year I spent there are more like one big stained-glass mosaic. We had a big yard with a tall fence for our two dogs to run in, but I don’t remember what color the fence was or if anything grew back there save for the grass. There was a construction site across the street, but I couldn’t say what it was they were building. I went to school, made new friends and played with them at recess, but I can’t recall any of their names or faces. I could clearly hear my parents yelling at each-other downstairs, but I have no idea what it was about. And when they sat my older brother and I down with them at the kitchen table a few weeks later, I don’t remember exactly what they said – only that they were getting a divorce and it wasn’t our fault.
None of it really stood out to me. Not until the end.
It was about a month after our meeting at the kitchen table. Mom had already moved out, so it was just my dad, my brother, the dogs and myself. Us humans were sitting in the van, getting ready to go somewhere dull, like the grocery store. I could faintly hear the dogs barking their usual pleas for us to stay through the garage door.
The van had two ‘captain’ seats (we called them ‘bucket’ seats – the kind with their own arm rests) in the middle. I was sitting behind the empty front passenger seat and my brother was sitting behind my dad, who was in the driver’s seat. Once I heard the satisfying clunk of my seatbelt locking into place I looked up, expecting us to be moving. Instead of the sound of the engine bursting to life, there was silence and my dad’s dark green eyes pointed at me through the rearview mirror.
“So,” his voice cut clear through the muffled barking, “you guys are sure you want to move back to Michigan?” I looked up to my older brother for some sort of confirmation. He had been slouching and staring at the back of dad’s seat. He adjusted himself only enough to shrug. I looked back up to the rearview and dad’s eyes were still there.
It was left up to me.
I was nine years old and here I was being asked to decide where I wanted to live; to set the course for the rest of my life as though I were twice my age. The friends I would grow up with; The amount of time I would spend with my mom; The education I would receive; The hobbies I would pursue; Everything you could think of that would shape a child into the adult they were to become took a wildly diverging path at that exact moment.
But since I was nine years old, I considered exactly none of those things. All I knew was that when I was in Michigan, everything was right. Nobody was shouting at each-other or getting divorces or slouching in their seat like all they could do was transition from a solid to a liquid state. So, I nodded. I didn’t say anything, I just nodded.
Dad didn’t say anything either. He just started the van and put it in reverse.
Convulsive Ravings 