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David Caraway's Journal
Jan. 22, 2008

I never saw myself as the managerial type. I mean, I never went to business school or took econ classes in college or any of that jazz. I was an English major, for Christ’s sake. I’d already readied myself for a life of barista-ing. Somehow, though, someone at Clark & Young saw something in me and hired me on as, you guessed it, a manager. The manager of the Idlington branch of the biggest company in the world. I must have been wearing some damn fine cologne for my interview.

Seven years in, I’m rolling up on 30 and beginning to wonder what the hell I’m doing with my life. It’s not that I ever saw myself in any life changing role, but at least at Starbucks, I’d be CREATING something. Something easily and quickly consumed, sure, but when you’re a manager, you create nothing. You encourage others to create, but you do nothing yourself. Not exactly making my mark on the world, now was I? I could have hurtled forty more years down this road and come out of it at the end without anything to my name but a few profit records from the Idlington branch of C&Y. Incredible.

Sadly, I never saw myself as the laid-off type either. Even the biggest corporations have to trim, and honestly, I can’t blame them for clipping away a branch like Idlington. As much as I felt like I was producing nothing, the branch actually wasn’t producing anything either (Even profit records. Even those.) I’d shut us down too, were I in their position. If I were in their position, though, I’d still have a job.

If I ever thought I was useless before, the train ride home from I-town drilled it into me ten-fold. Businessmen and women stood and sat around me, cellphones out, watches ticking, briefcases swinging back and forth. My own briefcase had nothing in it besides a purple slip, a few photos, a pinwheel from the office Christmas party, and a four function calculator from the neighbourhood realtor. I had to leave even my teeth-marked pencils behind. It’s not like I wasn’t just back in the same position as I was fresh out of college: slim options, a general sense of malaise, and no car (okay, I hadn’t ever actually gotten a car)…in fact, at least I had something besides Shakespeare Club to add to my resume. It’s just…at least I started my first job search with a general sense of optimism. I was finding it hard to be optimistic about anything at the moment, except maybe the prospect of kicking back and watching a few episodes of CSI with some cold beers without having to worry about getting up early the next day…or the day after that. The atrophy of unemployment coupled with the meager recompense offered with my dismissal was morbidly appealing. I couldn’t wait to stay in bed all day.

The light was failing when I stepped off at the station, and as the mass of people flooded around me, I pretended for a second that I was being washed away in a very fast, infinitely deep undertow. Soon, however, there was no one left, and I was alone on the platform. Amazing how short the days in winter are. It’s like God wants us to feel small and cold and alone, and as I wandered away from the crush of people in the parking lot, I felt just that.

Parallel to the expressway tracks runs the Astriola River, and it was towards that which my heavy feet carried me. I used to come down to the river to float stupid newspaper boats and get rid of the evidence of whatever mischief I’d caused that day as a kid. Maybe it could wash away the last seven useless years of my life.

I stood at the top of the bank, one hand in my coat pocket and one steadying me on a small tree. A flock of birds were flying low to the rushing water, and an elderly lady was tossing what looked like bread crumbs out to them. She must have been senile; the bread was just washing away in the current. I thought about telling her, but then shook my head sadly. I wasn’t in any shape to be turning anyone’s mind around. The water was dark and relatively quiet, despite how fast it was flowing.

Maybe it could be my undertow.

Carefully and slowly I moved down the steep bank, sliding once on the loose dirt. What would it feel like to jump in and let go? Would it be just like falling asleep?

As I stared into the depths, a bright flash of reflected light exploded on the surface and something heavy dropped into the river with a splash. Startled, I lurched backwards, almost sliding in myself. What had happened? What fell in? My question was answered seconds later as a small hand reached above the water and splashed around frantically before slipping back under.

Oh my God, a child had fallen in.

Before thinking (or taking off my shoes), I dove in, immediately regretting my choice and any previous thoughts I’d had about jumping in. It was COLD. Cold and swift, and I wasn’t that great of a swimmer to begin with. In fact, I collided with the kid underwater (luckily, I suppose), and just barely managed to scramble my way back to the shore with it, where I spat out water and…wet feathers? before turning in concern to the soaking wet but conscious kid.


((PS: after coming up with the rough version of this story, I realized I was inspired heavily by my friend Jakob's video:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1045380768576536074&hl=en ))

David Caraway's Journal
Feb. 10, 2008

Sunday mornings are the best mornings in the Caraway household. On Sundays, the mom and pop bakery under my flat starts baking early to accommodate the church crowd, and the scent of warm cinnamon scones creeps in through every crack in my elderly floorboards, wrapping its rich arms around me in a comforting embrace. On Sundays, Aaron ceases his otherwise ceaseless morning -jumping assaults and instead crawls carefully onto my bed, curling up beside me and drifting back to sleep, the perfect semblance of innocence set upon his face (that somehow escapes his visage at any point when he is conscious). I refuse to believe that his weekly ceasefire is as a result of anything but the scent of baked goods, so I jog downstairs to buy him a large chocolate scone each Sunday while my pot of coffee brews, so that the scent might keep the peace of sleep a moment longer yet. It rarely works, but he is kept occupied slowly gnawing at the crumbly treat, eyes shut in a blissful look of one completely satisfied with the world. It is a look well worth the crumbs under my pillow afterward.

On Sundays, the paper is extra thick, and I toss section after section onto the floor, where Aaron plays with gusto, some pages pretending to read, others simply tenting and crawling beneath. Eventually the stack is so high and crumpled that I am tempted to describe it as a nest, though that may also be because the flashes of Aaron's feathers and clawed toes as he squirms within are less than subtle indicators.

On Sundays, Aaron sits at the windowsill, staring out upon the city through the (slightly grimy) glass, his pointed nose occasionally brushing the glass as he strains to see farther to the left or right. I'm able to sit at my computer browsing jobs in peace for at least a few hours, though I've learned that the attic is a little too high in the sky for him...he shies away from the dormer window up there ever since the first time he looked out.

And on Sunday nights, Aaron will actually go to bed on time, inexplicably tired by 7 PM, often falling asleep where he has been playing. I am used to him tirelessly ravaging my flat until almost 10, so this is a relief I look forward to all week.

Yes, Sundays are nice.

Caraway Household
Apr. 14, 2008

Aaron's blue eyes stared intently at the red convertible, examining the gouge in the paint that stretched from one fender to the next. This was very upsetting. A trip to the body shop was necessary to fix everything. He sighed and shut the door with a metallic clank. Revving the engine, he pulled out of the parking lot where the sideswipe had happened and headed south on the freeway. Hopefully they would take him without an appointment, he thought, biting his lip. Did he need to call someone? He pulled out his multicoloured calculator and punched buttons on it, holding it up to his ear and waiting.

David stood in the doorway, one hand on the molding, watching Aaron lie on his rug with the city printed on it, motoring around a little red matchbox car with one hand, while pretending that his calculator was a phone (or at least that's how it appeared). He was most intrigued by the nonsense that Aaron was babbling...the boy rarely made a sound, much less attempted to speak. It was that sound which had drawn him to the small room that the boy called his own.

The garage was closed that day! How could it be closed? Aaron needed his car fixed! Where else could he go on such short notice?

Suddenly, the car rattled beneath him. What was happening? Was there something wrong with the engine? He needed to pull over, and fast! Careening across three lanes of traffic, he pulled onto the shoulder amidst the scraps of shredded rubber and safety glass and raised the hood, where smoke billowed out. This was going to take some help. He lifted his calculator again. Time for the special forces.

David smiled as Aaron flipped the small car on its back and began swinging open and shut the hood and doors carefully, as though something needed testing. That was just like his kid; can't play like things are just fine and ideal. Something always needs to be fixed or fiddled with...

The doorbell rang, tweeting softly in the early hours of the morning, almost blending in with the chirps of the songbirds just beginning to wake themselves. David’s ears really shouldn’t have distinguished it as anything different, but something about it jarred the man from a deep sleep, wherein he had been dreaming of pumpkin carving and Frankenstein.

Eyes bleary and dry, David Caraway propped himself up on his elbows, his shirt twisted uncomfortably around his chest. Luckily, before he had had to cogitate too long upon what had awoken him, the doorbell rang again. With a sleepy huff, he threw back the comforter and swung his feet onto the floor, where his toes wiggled for a sec before he slowly stood. A glance at the clock’s four AM readout did not register with him until he had already padded halfway down the hallway, whereupon his brow crinkled in added confusion.

As in every good story, there was no one at the door when he finally swung it open. All that remained of the early morning call was a boxy package, wrapped in brown paper…addressed to his toddler.

When he turned to return to his bed, he discovered Aaron standing behind him, rubbing his eyes with his small fists sleepily, his feathers sticking out haphazardly in a good impression of his bedhead. Apparently sleep was a thing of the past for that night.

Aaron watched David shuffle back into his room, then turned back to the task at hand. One of the scrawled drawings showed that the roof was one of the first things to build, weirdly enough. Why would someone build the roof to a tower first? That was all wrong. Aaron pouted, his pointy nose crinkling as he did so. Well, HE wasn’t going to build the roof first. The drawing person could go stuff themselves. Everyone knew a tower had to be built from the ground up.

He shuffled the papers and found the part where the base was to be built…near the end, of course. What silliness. The bottom of the tower had…he counted…six sides. So the tower itself must have six sides too! Unless that was done all wrong too. He checked the box. Luckily, the box showed what looked like six sides, too.

The base was easy to find amongst the parts. It was the biggest, and it was a single panel. Aaron grasped it with both hands and set it down in front of him with a heavy clunk, barely pulling his fingers out in time. That was close!

David popped his head out, his eyes half-closed. “Everything all right out there?”

Aaron nodded, and David went back into his room.

The next step was clearly the sides, but these weren’t quite as simple. He squinted at the picture on the box. It looked like there were L-shaped pieces that stuck out from the corners of the base and attached to the sides, leaving a gap around the base. Maybe that was for people to walk into his tower easily! He hunted around the table, trying to find the pieces. Once he’d piled up all six of them in front of him, he reached for his marker with the intent of checking them off on the final crayon drawing.

Unfortunately, a few rogue dust bunnies had clung to the marker, and as Aaron picked it up, he felt a sneeze coming on. He was too late to turn away, and he sneezed right into the pile of L shaped pieces. They scattered everywhere!

Aaron’s mouth dropped open in shock and he leapt off of the high chair, grabbing for the skittering wooden bits. He managed to collect five of the Ls, but the sixth took a little hunting, his face close to the floor. Finally, he noticed the sixth L resting precariously atop the vent grate. One wrong move, and it would tumble into the air duct, most likely never to be seen again.

He crept forward very slowly, trying not to create any vibrations. As could be expected, though, in any good story, just as he got close enough to reach out with two fingers to grab it, he felt a sneeze rise again, and there it went, down the vent, the echoes of it clattering bouncing back up as it went. Aaron let his head thump against the floor.

Now what was he going to do? That piece was lost forever, and the letter had said to make his tower exactly the way it looked on the box! Sitting up and wringing his hands, he thought hard. He would have to find something else to use in its place, as similar to the original piece as possible. Standing up and reseating himself at the table, he grabbed his big marker and traced one of the other L pieces onto one of the crayon instruction sheets, then he crept to the front door and snuck out.

He and David lived in a small neighbourhood just outside the city, in a townhouse that attached to the houses next to it. They were the only house on the block that had a tree in front of it, luckily. Aaron liked playing in it, because it had branches close to the ground. However, on this misty morning, he approached the tree for a different purpose.

Searching the ground for the right shaped twigs yielded nothing, as David had recently cleaned up the yard and mowed. Aaron silently apologized to the tree for what he was about to do, and then snapped off a twig that was approximately the same size, sanding down the ends on the concrete of the driveway to make it flatter. Hopefully the mysterious giftsender would accept a makeshift piece. It was even made of wood, just like the original! With a smile of pride, Aaron twirled around and then snuck back inside, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Light was pouring in through the windows as Aaron made a star-cone pattern out of the triangular roof tiles and put some of the sticky stuff where they met. It looked kinda like the box. At least, the box picture's roof and his creation had the same number of points, so Aaron was positive he’d done the right thing. At last, he set the roof atop his tower, adding an extra half a foot to its height. There! He stepped off of his chair and stood back, looking proudly at his creation.

Just then, David came out of his room, yawning. His yawn was stopped short when he saw the tower.

“Did you do alla that, Aaron? That’s incredible!” He walked over to examine it closer, then leaned back quickly. “Aaron, were you using my glue? You shouldn’t have touched it; that stuff’s noxious!” He grabbed the tube from where it sat on Aaron’s chair and put it on top of the fridge, then turned the fan on the counter on and towards Aaron’s tower. “When Dad says don’t touch things, don’t touch them, okay?” Aaron’s eyes began to water. Dad thought his tower was bad! He didn’t mean to do things wrong, he was just trying to fix the problems!

David saw this son’s eyes well up and sighed. Picking Aaron up, he walked around the perimeter of the tower, admiring it. “Aaron, this birdhouse is beautiful. Where do you want to hang it?”

Aaron’s eyes dried as he considered his Dad’s words. Birdhouse? Hang? This was a tower! And it went in his city! He squirmed out of David’s arms and picked up the heavy tower, toddling carefully into his room, where he placed it in the middle of his city, then pointed it to it to show that THAT is where his tower would go.

His father laughed, then picked up the box and turned it over. “Aaron, this was a birdhouse kit. Birds are supposed to live in it!” He pointed to the picture that showed a sparrow sitting on the peg that Aaron had glued in with so much effort. The birdhouse was hanging from the edge of someone’s roof. Aaron frowned, wanting to protest, but he couldn’t argue with a picture. He hung his head, then picked up his erstwhile tower and slowly walked to the front door.

David understood his intent, and followed him, grabbing some twine from a kitchen drawer on his way. Opening the door, the two were greeted by a myriad of birdcalls and the bright sunshine of a Saturday morning. David, still in his bathrobe, squinted at the light, then followed Aaron down to the tree in the front yard.

“You want to hang it here, kiddo?” Aaron nodded, his black hair flopping as he did so.

The twine went easily through two wooden loops attached to the sides, and David reached up to hang it on the branch that was at his eye level, but Aaron tugged on his shirt. When his father looked down, the boy shook his head and pointed at the branch a little farther up.

“All the way up there? You’re gonna have to help me then!” David knelt on one knee and patted his shoulder. Aaron climbed onto his shoulders and held out his arms for the birdhouse. David stood and then handed the wooden project up to his son.

Aaron had to look down in order to take the birdhouse, and his heart skipped a beat when his dad’s shoulders wobbled and Aaron tipped back a bit. The ground swirled beneath him, and his knees latched tightly on his dad’s neck.

“Ow, Aaron, don’t squeeze so tight! Take the birdhouse, and then I can hold on to you.
Aaron’s hands desperately clutched the collar of his dad’s robe, though. If he let go, there was nothing holding him on! He would fall off of his dad’s shoulders and hit the ground and die!

“Come on, Aaron, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Just let go of me and grab your house. It’ll be all right.” David was trying to sound supportive, but Aaron’s knees were starting to make him feel faint.

Aaron clenched his teeth and shut his eyes tightly. He could do this. He was Birdman! He could fly if he fell off! With that mantra repeating in his head, he put his height out of mind and slowly released David’s collar. Fumbling blindly for the house, he felt it in his hands and clutched it as tightly as he had clutched the robe a moment earlier. When he felt his Dad’s hands close around his ankles, he felt much safer and opened his eyes.

Taking care to only look up, he hung the twine over the branch and carefully let go. The birdhouse bobbed a bit, then came to a comfortable rest.

“Got it?” Aaron stick a thumbs up in front of David’s face, and David knelt again. Aaron scrambled off, glad to feel the ground again. Looking up, he was dizzy to see how high his house was hanging. David looked up too, and Aaron grabbed his hand. As they watched, a cardinal landed delicately on the pole in front of the entrance, then scrambled inside. Aaron smiled. His birdhouse was now a home.

End quest.

A basket arrives just a few days short of Christmas, in the same manner as the basket that had originally arrived with the request to be filled. Many goodies are inside!



Happy holidays!

Part 1

“Hey, Dad, where did you put today’s newspaper? I need it for a project.” Aaron poked his head around the corner of David’s study, his cheek graced with a smear of sticky paste.

David leaned back in his office chair, a smile nudging at the corner of his lips. “Are you making another piñata? You might want to make it a little less…reinforced this time.” As he recalled, the last piñata Aaron had made had withstood not only the batterings of several preteens with baseball bats, but also the full weight of the neighbour’s SUV running it over multiple times. As far as David knew, the paper-mache burro still sat collecting dust in the shed behind the bakery, its candy fillings slowly rotting into nothingness.

“Noooo, Dad, I’m not making another piñata. Did you already put it out for recycling?” In reality, Aaron was rather pleased by the resiliency of his previous paper-mache creation and was now planning on making a realistic yet lightweight Optimus Prime costume for Halloween. Who needed store-bought when he could make one with so many more features on his own?

“Prob’ly. Check the bin in the bakery, there’s bound to be at least someone’s in there.” David winked at his adopted son then leaned forward in his chair, back to his work.

Aaron took the stairs two at a time, his black hair flopping up and down, into his eyes and back out of them again. The bakery owner, Miss Rita, couldn’t help but smile at the boy as she always did, her eyes crinkling as she swept the now-closed bakery’s floor. The boy really was quite the thing, his little feathery tail sticking out from the bottom of his jacket as he fished around in the bright blue recycling bin. He looked just like her nephew had at that age.

The boy, however, was unaware of his resemblance to anybody, especially at that moment. As he had pulled out the fat stack of newspapers, the front page article caught his eye.

EIGHT YEARS LATER, GROUND ZERO STILL A NIGHTMARE

Beneath the bold headline was a picture of two identical skyscrapers, as well as a picture of a huge, jagged pit in the ground with a little bit of scaffolding in the center. Both interested and suddenly strangely repulsed by the images, Aaron straightened stiffly, his formerly smiling mouth now set in a hard line.

Miss Rita quirked her head in concern. “Are you all right, Aaron dear?”

Aaron barely heard her. The text was swimming before his eyes and his arched eyebrows drew together with sudden pain. Cradling his head in the nook of one elbow, he let the hand that held the paper drop limply beside him.

“M’fine, Miss Rita. Ju-just a little headache.”

“Come here, child, let me see your eyes.”

Aaron wandered over to the old woman, squinting and scowling up at her as she cradled his face in her hands.

“Tsk tsk tsk, just what I thought. Your eyes are bloodshot, dear, you need to stop working so hard and get some more sleep! A boy like you should be in bed at this hour. I don’t know WHAT David is thinking, letting you stay up this late!”

Aaron grumbled under his breath about night being the quietest time to think, but let himself be led over to one of the small tables and sat down in a chair.

“Let me get you some aspirin and water – I’ll be right back, all right?”

Miss Rita bustled off into the kitchen, and the sound of opening and shutting cabinets irritated Aaron’s head even more, and he angrily clamped his hands over his ears until the lady returned with a glass of ice water and two tablets of aspirin. Dutifully swallowing the pills, he made a face at the taste that they left on his tongue.

Miss Ruth turned the newspaper towards herself and examined it. “9-11? One of my good friends had a son die there. Poor boy, he never had a chance – he worked on the ninety-ninth floor of the first to fall. I don’t think they ever found his – Aaron? Aaron sweetie, are you all right?”

Aaron had pushed back his chair suddenly and stumbled to his feet, his talon-like nails scratching at the linoleum floor.

“I-I need to go, Miss Rita, thanks…”

And with that, he was dashing up the stairs towards his flat, the newspaper clutched in his sweaty hands.

How odd the boy was acting, Miss Rita thought, shaking her head. He was nearing that age.