THE JOURNAL OF LUCAS BROWN. PART 7

On my second venture I was even younger

A new memory. I am sure it is something that truly happened but it is a sequence of events that until now I could not recall.

Nothing was clear this time, there was no blatant reality to the situation, just an air of what was happened that hung in the air slightly, I occasionally felt its breeze and began to make sense of the situation, but these moments were fleeting and never lasted long enough to be truly graspable.

I was lying motionless, face up towards a whitewashed ceiling. I couldn’t move, I don’t know if there was a reason for this other than that I might have been too young to do so properly but I got a definite feeling of being impeded. As if there was a cause and my immobility was the effect.

Beep.Beep.Beep.

My little eyes could not see clearly, colors and shapes blurred together to form imperceptible masses with no finite boundaries. In the distance I could dimly see two of these masses, they were large and appeared to be standing behind some kind of screen. Although I could not make out their contours enough to say what they were, I felt a tremendous source of comfort in knowing that they were near.

Beep.Beep.Beep. Consistent and getting stronger.

Then I realized that I felt as if I had been asleep for a long time. No, it wasn’t that. It was as if I was alive again, as if somehow I hadn’t been and was now back.

The two masses stayed there, unmoving for as long as I was conscious, they emitted something, not a noise or a warmth, they were too far away, but they generated some kind of sentiment in me. I wasn’t afraid.

My little eyelids began to shut, weary and struggling to cope with their surroundings.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Strong and repetitive.

This visit has left me mentally exhausted. My body feels nothing close to what I could label tiredness, but my mind finds it increasingly difficult to remain active, to process the complications of what I am experiencing. Unfamiliar and unrequested thoughts fly around within its confines at an ever increasing rate.

As I sit in front of the mirror I realize I have less and less control over what I am thinking. This journal acts as a filter so I can put down what I know is mine. I cannot look away from the thick black, it draws me in with its vague promise of escape.

Is that really what it is offering me?

The next visit was a time I vaguely remember, another scene from a childhood almost long forgotten. It was now presented to me with all the clarity of a crisply projected movie on a gleaming silver screen.

The day progressed as it always had. My father and I set out to take one of our customary after dinner walks. We were never particularly close, and looking back I always thought my mother may have suggested, and then forced, him to take me on these outings in an attempt to hasten the process so vaguely called bonding.

The house we lived in at the time was surrounded by a great deal of nothingness, barren land once farmed and since forgotten.

We would walk up over a small hill and down onto a more aesthetically pleasing plot, grass sprouted sporadically at this time of year and looked an unusually vivid green against the otherwise dry backdrop.

We would walk through this plot and on to the only tree for as far as the eye could see. We would sit beneath it every time, we did not talk about whether or not to do this, it had become ritual, as soon as we got it to it we simply sat down as if it were a mandatory portion of our excursion. My father would then take it upon himself to do his fatherly duty of asking me how everything was. The conversation was always bland and stunted.

On this day though there was an uncommon event in our otherwise usual routine. As we arrived at our tree, we noticed that something was already lying beneath its sparse foliage.

It was a wild dog with a shabby coat.

I stood still, scared at my unfamiliarity with the beast. My father put his palm against my chest, letting me know he was there to protect me. We drew closer with baby steps.

I noticed a flurry of movement at the dog’s side, near its stomach.

4 pups sucked at its teats hungrily.

Then I noticed at the side of the tree was another pup, alone and not joining its siblings as they consumed vital life force. It was considerably smaller than the others, thing and weak looking, its eyes barely open as it gazed over at the flurry of activity it was incapable of joining.

We stood there watching. After a few minutes the pups had had their fill and began to run around the perimeter of the tree, playing with one another.
The mother still laid there, half motionless. The runt eventually picked up what little strength it had and struggled over to her. It collapsed at her side and begun to half heartedly sup milk. It could barely hold its own mouth open.

“Why doesn’t she just let it die?” I asked my father.

An older friend of mine had bred a family of hamsters. One of the litter was also a runt. The mother had rejected it due to its weakness and sure enough it had died.
This had upset me but my older friend assured me that it was for the best, and that this was simply the way that nature worked.

I gazed over and up at my father. His eyes were clouding with tears and his mouth wrinkled into a frown. It was a painful look I had never seen on his face before. He spoke without turning to face me, his voice quiet and cracked with something that told me my words had angered him,.

“Because, when you love something you don’t just let it die.”