Spells

Sam's view of the world is very different from that of most, and he has no idea. But he's happy, when he feels normal. Tag: GWW Book

Sam wasn't sure if it was a wonderful sign or a sign of disaster, but Sam knew that a green sky meant something.  Maybe it meant that there would be a rain of emerald fish, or that a forest was being killed, or that everything in the world got to get better now.

 

"Or maybe you're just upside down, Sam."

 

That could be it, too, Sam thought, shifting his head so as to see a blue sky smattered with clouds of sunlit white and shadowy gray.

 

"Still narrating, hm?" The twinkling voice, imbued with both a laugh that wanted to be mocking but was thoroughly charmed, and, rather unusually, a sorrow that didn't want to show through, filled Sam with a wonderful and familiar but never stale warmth.

 

"So you do remember me!"

 

Of course Sam remembered.  His mind flashed to that wonderful night, Prom Night, dancing with Queen Elizabeth, captain fo the cheerleading squad and all-around perfect high school sweetheart--but letting go in the middle of the big slow dance, grabbing the witty, raven-haired outcast who looked ready to run the five miles home in the dark night, just to get away from that liar who invited her all the way out here only to dance with the prom queen, and doing an improvised, offbeat, irrelavent lindyhop with her, scattering the calmer, sadder, maddening dancers and coating her flattering duct-tape dress with happy, pleasure-scented sweat.  He thought through the whole dance that, someday, someday soon, she'd be Mrs. Sam Shelly.  But even sooner than that, he found himself becoming Mr. Daria Carson.

 

He slipped out of his reverie and gazed into Daria's grass-brown eyes, saying, "I wouldn't forget my own wife."

 

Her cheeks flushed and her lip quivered.  "Oh, Sam.  I...  I love you so much.  I...  God, I feel awful, I don't hate to see you like this.  You're always so... loving, so honest, when you're having your...  your spells.  Why can't you always be like this?"

 

Sam couldn't quite tell what she meant.  His spells were those dreadful times when everything inside him was quiet, when he couldn't think of anything to say to anyone, when looking at people made him want to cry but he couldn't, when the sky was never green and smiles didn't last even two seconds.  Those weren't his honest times.  Those were the times he couldn't help lying.  Those were the times when he danced with beauty queens and thought that football players deserved more respect than spelling bee champs or great dancers, when he did jobs he hated and thought about having affairs, when he was bored at a circus.  He hated his spells; he liked it better when Daria was the most beautiful thing in a beautiful world, when he could be fascinated by that change from light to shadow on the clouds, when he could dance knowing full well that there was no music, and it was possible to think of the future.

 

"I don't want to have one of my spells again," he said, tears welling up in his eyes.  "I want to be sane, I want to keep loving you."  Daria let out a sob, reached out her soft, adorably small hand with its tender, stubby fingers, as if to grab him, maybe kiss him, but she jerked it back and ran towards the building Sam lived in when he wasn't having his spells. 

 

He wasn't sure what had upset her so much--the idea of him having another spell, he supposed--but that could wait 'til later.  First, he had to learn how to make the verdant field Up and the hilly sky Down again.

Author's Note

A writing exercise from a book, "Gotham Writers' Workshop: Writing Fiction"; the exercise is to take the opening phrase "Sam wasn't sure if it was a wonderful sign or a sign of disaster, but Sam knew..." and to carry on from there in a free write. I got distracted by some birds on my way to finishing it, so it's not totally spontaneous. And I've edited it in typing it.

Reviews

[Dr. S. D. Blankenship P..]

Hello, this is very interesting I have found some mistake's though...

1.captain (fo) the cheer (-) leading squad and all-around perfect high school sweetheart--but letting go in the middle of the big slow dance, (fo should be of)

2. Irrelavent "do you mean (irrelevant)?

3. When you're having your (...) your spells. Why can't you always be like this?" (remove this and add a comma otherwise this is improper English)

4. When looking at people made him want to cry (,) but he couldn't (note the added comma)

Well please don't be to mad with me I am only trying to help. I must say Exalent read.

Thank you your friend GOTHICCOWBOY