To and Then Fro (A story)

Little Edward inhaled sharply. Through trial and error, he'd figured out how to overcome the feeling of emptiness within his bowels caused by the fluctuations in the apparent force of gravity, by highly controlled inspirations and expirations accompanied by certain expert contortions of his abdominal muscles. Little Edward reveled in his discovery, and like the true six-year old scientist that he was, he liked to repeat his experiments in order to prolong the pleasure of his find. Hence, at present the small but high amplitude swing in the garden was what seemed to have the major share of his attentions. The swing, possibly unaware of the genius it played host to, continued its to and fro motion, the only way it knew how, and each time little Edward got a momentary glimpse over the garden wall of the sheep in the adjacent fields. Having mastered the skills of elementary arithmetic only recently, Edward tried to apply it to almost everything he saw or felt. There were numbers in his fingers, the stars and the clouds, those little orbs fleeting across his eyes when he half closed them (eye jellybeans, he called them), and even the beating of his heart. In the present instance, he was keeping count of two separate things - the number of oscillations of his swing, and the sheep. It was engrossing work, since he did not get to keep the sheep in view all the time, but only for a fleeting moment when the swing was at the pinnacle of its trajectory. He counted them one at a time, then two at a time, and it left him a little awed, but overall greatly relieved to have obtained the same result on both the occasions.

There were all kinds of flowers in the garden - flowers crying out desperately for nomenclature before Edward the messiah arrived on the scene. And Edward had gratified their wishes to the fullest the way only he could. The 'aunt Tabithas' chatted gaily with the 'grampa Millers' as they swung in the breeze, looked on by the 'little-Johnnys-in-socks' from a separate bed. There were the prudish 'blue chalices' in the middle row that talked to no one except their own kind, unlike the 'Gypsy flowers', who seemed very much at peace with all those around them. His mother had once tried to teach him the 'correct' names of flowers, but he could not for the world understand how such unimaginative names had caught on.

A huge bird that Edward had never set eyes on before suddenly flew down from out of nowhere. Bigger than Edward by at least an arm's length, it had a beak of the most provocative shade of orange that Edward had ever seen. And the splendour of its wings - he could describe that for hours on end if he only knew the words. There were at least seventeen different colours on its feathers, colours that Edward never knew even existed. It seemed to him that the bird had been sent straight from heaven as a special favour for being such a good boy. The bird gazed at Edward with the solemnity and steadfastness of a spaniel in game. Edward smiled at the bird, half-expecting it to be reciprocated. But the bird, apparently unmindful of the favour, turned around leaving Edward to gratify himself with a view of its hindquarters. And lo! All of Edward's enchantment with his surroundings vanished in thin air, and he got down from the swing muttering something about the general injustice in this world under his breath.

Walking slowly with his head bowed, he entered the house. He loved the house - the clear-paned glass windows, the odour-free cleanliness of it all. Last summer, he'd stayed at his aunt's place and there was this smell of food gone bad combined with cheap perfume everywhere that had left him nauseated for days. He knew every nook and cranny of this house as if it were the back of his hand. The china on the mantelpiece, the stains on the carpet, the peculiarities of every chair in the dining hall, and the little plants in their flowerpots so near to his mother's heart - he could see them with his eyes closed. He began climbing the staircase leading to his room upstairs a little wearily, but about halfway up he felt all of a sudden somewhat invigorated and climbed the remainder two at a time, almost in a stumble. On reaching the landing he hesitated for a brief moment, as if deciding which way to go. But he almost immediately made up his mind and instead of going to his room, turned left, towards the library.

The library was the one place in the house that let you savour a bad mood. The dark mahogany walls and the cold, marble floor could stretch a grudge for hours. But he really loved the library, he did, even though he was hardly what even he himself would call proficient in reading. But there was this giant children's encyclopedia in twenty-one volumes with the loveliest colour illustrations that had a life of their own, and that was good enough for him. They were kept in the topmost stack of the third shelf from the door, and he could not reach it from down below. So he grabbed three of the fattest books he could find and lay them one on top of the other in front of the shelf, himself on top of the last book so that his head was only a little below the topmost shelf. But for all his ingeniousness, he failed to grasp the imprudence of having the smallest book at the bottom, and as he reached out for his favourite volume on tiptoe, he lost his equilibrium. He spent a second and a half hanging on to the binding of the book, for it was very tightly stacked, but then fell and the entire stack came cascading down on top of his head. He closed his eyes tightly and braced himself for the pain, yet as the deafening sound of about fifty odd leather bound books falling through a height of six feet on hard ground stopped he discovered that as if by miracle that none of the books had actually hit him, save for an Alexander Dumas grazing his right shoulder. He picked the book up, with something of a tenderness - for it was a great favourite with his father and opened it. The yellowed pages were dented in innumerable places by moths and those tiny, silvery worms that actually ate paper. What distinguished it from all the other books was a faint smell of tobacco from being in his father's study over extended periods of time. Slowly and even respectfully, he brought his nose close to the page, and kept it there for what seemed all eternity (but really the greater part of a minute). When he lifted his head again, he felt almost heady with joy and his eyes felt a little itchy. He got to his feet, tried briefly to undo the mess he'd made with all the fallen books, lost interest, crept back to the Dumas, and on a sudden impulse, hugged the book tight and fell sound asleep.

Alien noises broke his slumber. He opened his eyes slowly - in fact, they would not open at first, as if they belonged to somebody else. He saw or rather heard a young woman sobbing hysterically and a man with a black moustache saying something in a tongue he could not understand at all. He tried to move his head, but it hurt like hell. He looked down at his feet and they seemed strangely far away. Fear gripped his heart as it beat out the rhythm of the unforgotten. He tried to utter something but the words would not come.

Doctor Amarand knew it took all sorts to make up his profession. The wailing wife was nothing new to him. They had found the man on the public road near the pub lying unconscious after being hit by a truck, filled to the brim with alcohol. They had brought him home and laid him out on the bed. Since then, he had oscillated between life and death with a frequency that was simply unfathomable. "Señora", the doctor was saying, calmly, almost jovially, "su marido ha tenido un accidente. Ha sufrido una lesión de la cabeza y probablemente no recuerda nada*..."

Yours sincerely

Jude

[* Madam, your husband has had an accident. He has suffered an injury of the head and probably remembers nothing.]