Chapter Six

Glen remembers

 

The police now gone, Glen slammed his fist on the kitchen table, sat down and buried his head in his hands.  His arms and hands started to shake.  The only thing that quelled his tears was the feeling that somehow, in some way, he was responsible.  By “borrowing” Jessica’s memories, did he somehow cause the accident?  Nothing like this had ever happened before.  As a matter of fact, collecting filmstrips had never seemed to cause any tangible effects, adverse or otherwise.  It was not like this was the first time he had collected a memory from someone.  There were hundreds glued to his office walls, all meticulously dated and, when possible, named. 

 

He tried to remember the first time.  He was so young then, nine years old, maybe ten.  Kneeling down in church, right between his parents, he had found himself fixated on the priest.  Not the words of his homily, but the man himself.  He began to feel a bit odd, and suddenly couldn’t see so well.  Then the stabbing pain hit the back of his head.  He cried out in anguish and fell to the side, knocking his father into the man seated beside him.  The next thing he could remember was coming to with what seemed like the entire congregation standing over him, faces locked in a state of panic.  Glen’s mother leaned over and held him close to her, stroking his hair until he felt well enough to leave the Parish.

 

When they arrived home, his mother insisted that he lie down upstairs and get some rest.  While changing into pajamas, he felt something sharp in his pants pocket.  He reached in and found the film.  Confused and frightened by this strange occurrence, he quickly stashed it away in a drawer, got into bed, and tried to fall asleep.  After about half an hour of tossing and turning, he got up and returned downstairs.  Still in his pajamas, he sat on the sofa beside his father.

 

“Dad, I don’t remember what the homily was about at mass today.”

“Don’t worry about that, Champ; just get some rest so you feel better.  You can lie down with me in here if it makes you more comfortable.”

“You know how much I like the homilies.  I really don’t understand the Gospels because the words are all old and weird.  When Father Giancarlo just talks about what they mean, it helps me understand better.”  Glen’s father put his arm around him.

“Well, today he spoke about love.  You know how your mom and I love each other, and how we love you?”

“Yeah, and I love you guys too, so I know what that’s like.”

“OK, well today Father explained that before we can truly love each other, we have to learn to share that love with Jesus.”

“You mean that without Jesus, we wouldn’t know how to love each other?”

“Exactly.  See Champ, you get it a lot more than you think.”

 

His dad reached over and tousled Glen’s hair as he laid his head on his lap and finally was able to sleep.

 

When he awoke, Glen ventured back upstairs.  He closed the door to his room and listened carefully to make certain that his parents weren’t nearby.  He tiptoed over to the drawer and took out the thin strip of film.  He looked at it for a minute, but couldn’t really make out what the pictures were, they were too dark.  He reached over and flicked on his desk lamp.  Holding the film up to the light, he could examine each frame clearly.  They were all images of Father Giancarlo.  He looked much younger in the pictures than normal, so they must have been pretty old.  He was with a boy, appearing to be about Glen’s age, but it was no one he had seen before.  The boy was dressed in an alb and cincture, traditional Roman Catholic altar boy’s vestments.  The first frame showed Father Giancarlo gently stroking the boy’s hair, but in the second frame, it looked like he was slapping the boy’s face.  In the final frame, the boy’s cheek was reddened and he had taken Father Giancarlo’s penis into his mouth.

 

Glen was horrified.  He was too scared to show the film to his parents because they would insist on knowing where it came from.  He knew that no matter how hard he tried, they would never believe that he truly didn’t know where he had gotten it.  Plus, he liked Father Giancarlo.  He didn’t want him to get in any trouble and besides, someone could have just made the pictures look like that.  He knew that when his dad had film developed, the man at the photo shop could do things to make the pictures come out better, so maybe someone had a way of putting pictures together and making them look real.  He calmed down somewhat, convinced that the photos were faked.

 

No one could have realized at the time what a debilitating effect this had on Glen.  Over the next couple of years, he sporadically had similar fainting attacks and, after each one, somewhere in his clothes, he would always find more film.  Eventually, his parents brought him to a doctor who ran every test he could to find out what was causing these attacks.  Even the specialists couldn’t find any conclusive reason for them.  Although he never showed his parents or doctors the filmstrips, never talked about them with anyone, he did confess over dinner that he was “seeing things” shortly after each fainting spell. 

 

Taking this new piece of information into consideration, his parents made him start to see a psychiatrist.  Glen was quickly diagnosed as schizophrenic, and began an intense regimen of haloperidol and cognitive behavioral therapy.  When his symptoms did not decrease, the haloperidol was stopped, but the aggressive therapy continued well into his teens, when he started to learn ways to gain more control of the problem.  Whenever Glen found himself focusing on one person for too long, if he forced himself to stop, to think of something else, it would in most cases prevent the attack from occurring.

 

He then jumped up from his chair and sprinted into his office.  He glanced up to the corner where he had glued the strip of Father Giancarlo, now old and yellowed.  He took his flashlight out of the bottom desk drawer and shone the light over each strip he had hung up, searching for something, anything that could explain what had happened to Jessica.  Overridden by guilt, he spent hours examining each frame, until, finally expending all of his energy; he slumped into the chair and fell into a deep sleep. 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[J.K. (Not Rowling)]

Wow... I like how we get to see how Glen's gift first manifested itself. More than slightly disturbing, but a truly good piece of writing. It is at times that we are wracked with guilt that we revert back to something, anything that could account for the events that take place. You placed the flash-backs in a perfect location, there was nothing awkward with Glen reflecting on the painful (yet distant, so diminished) past with the painful events of the present. Nicely done.

[Alexander W. Quinn]

An interesting look into the beginning of Glen's abilities, but it still leaves me hungry to understand it. (This is good.) You've crafted such a starnge and wonderful ability here, and being a photographer I love the whole concept of memories as film strips. So fasinating...

[AlleyCat34]

A nice look into the past, this is well written, and gives the reader some information into Glens past and how this all began, what it was like for him growing up etc. It makes Glen more real to the reader. Nice job!

[Misa]

Disturbing - but enlightening - way of explaining the first film strip. l wonder at the mental/emotional impact seeing something like that would have had on glen? could perhaps use a bit of expansion, would help develop his character in a more indepth way.
just a thoguht though, and definitely keeps up the interest.