Categories > Original > Fantasy > One Ray in The Darkness
It was no longer a question of if or even when I was going to train. When I got out of the hospital I discovered that Rick had already called the school and my jobs. I was no longer enrolled and no longer employed. Since my parents weren't speaking to me, there wasn't even a fuss to diffuse about taking a semester (or longer) off. Joe stayed with us until I was strong enough to resume business as usual. Once I was running at full power again, we left. If I'd known how long we were going to be out there, I might have given a better "see you later". I refused to say "good-bye". We WERE coming back.
What continues to strike me, a Northerner, is how arid the Arizona desert /isn't/. There's actually quite a lot of vegetation out there. It isn't all Grande Saguaro's and tumble weeks. There are a lot of animals out there too: burrow owls, prairie dogs, road runners, coyotes, and a lot of other "critters" as Joe called them. (He tended to use "critter" and "varmint" interchangeably.) Among other things, he taught me how to communicate with them, some I even managed to talk to, though cacti are far better for relaying coherent messages, particularly Saguaro. Their language is like speaking Latin or Greek or maybe Middle-English. Those guys are old and wise, much like Joe himself, though he seems like a kid next to those prickly, multi-armed old men of the desert.
He taught me a lot about his people, both Native Americans and Supers, as well as about visions, dreams, prophesy, and just desert life in general. I felt like such a moron at first. Me, the whitest of "White Men" being tutored by an "Indian Spirit Guide". I guess we all have labels we'll never live down. I loved being out there, almost alone, except we weren't because there were two of us, the only humans among other less obvious forms of intelligence. There were days when we hardly said two words to each other, and yet we always knew what the other had in mind and entertained each other pretty well.
At first it didn't feel like I was learning much. It wasn't until after my third week seizure-free that I realized what he was doing. All the talking with plants and animals, listening to the wind, and general communing with nature was a way to constructively burn all my excess energy. If my power didn't bottleneck, then there would be nothing for me to try to hold back. I wouldn't have enough left for a seizure. Back in suburbia, I'd had nowhere to go with all that mental energy. Now I did. It wasn't something I could keep up long-term, not once I'd gone home, but it worked well enough then. It didn't stop me from keeling over or having visions, but it did stop me from twitching and bleeding. For that alone, I was grateful.
In a way, Joe helped me with a lot of more mundane things too. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't developed some minor "daddy issues" after my parents and the rest of my family disowned me. My dad and I had always been close before my powers kicked in and I missed that. I caught myself reminiscing about Boy Scout camp, basement karate, and all the fun but ultimately futile attempts to teach me projectile sports. I could never be the kind of son my father wanted, but he had always been there when I needed him. He stood up for me, back before I knew what my problem was, reading other parents and their kids their rights because of how I'd been treated. I'm not sure at what point all that changed, when I had to start hiding my powers from him and everyone else because I was afraid of what might happen. I'm not even sure which I was more afraid of: that I might be put away, or that I would surely disappoint him. Joe said it was in man's nature to be afraid of what he does not understand. If my parents were ever going to get it, I would be the one to help them understand. I had my doubts about this, but since he hadn't specified when they would finally comprehend, I figured it wouldn't be any time soon.
I liked hanging out with Joe. Even though I was a legal adult, I still needed a lot of guidance, particularly about super life. I was desperate for any sort of instruction or advise and Joe provided me with much-needed answers, and useful hints and clues when he had no answer to give. He became a sort of surrogate father to me and I wondered if it was wrong of me to love and look up to this old man the way I had once hero-worshipped my father. Joe's response to this was that he could never be my father, but he felt towards me as if I were a son. Anyone who cares for another in such a way is Family. He could not and would not seek to replace my father's role in my life, but was honored that I thought of him that way. I didn't feel guilty about it anymore.
He took me on his rounds not only of the desert, but of the towns, villages, and reservations. The natives referred to me as his nephew and apprentice, immediately linking me Joe's renown and the respect he'd cultivated over the long years, assuming that I was in some way like him. They smiled at me as his protégé and despite my whiter than white skin, small build, and general gaijin-ness, welcomed me in. I wasn't one of them ethnically, but I was one of them in that I also had a unique genetic identity. Supers have their own tribe and community within society just as the original residents of America, and I was part of that race.
With my powers at an acceptable level, we finally got down to the business at hand: monitoring said power and the accompanying visions so that my head wouldn't explode. It was a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Joe's abilities were close, but they weren't an exact match. Because of that, he only had a general idea of what was going on inside my head and just my confused and fragmented descriptions to go on. Needless to say, progress was slow. I was just happy not to be having seizures, even if my dreams at night were trippy as hell. But it wasn't enough just to expend that extra energy, I had to find a way to harness it and the visions it brought before I popped something important. All we could do was settle in for a long session of trial-and-error (more error than trial) and hope it wouldn't kill me.
I will give it to Joe, he knew what he was doing as far as safety measures were concerned. He always made sure that I was worn out just enough so I could experiment without risk of hurting myself. As things wore on, he worked me less on "chores", as I came to call them, and more on my visions. I was better able to sort through and retain was I was seeing, eventually learning to restrict the flow so the I only saw one at a time and not the chaotic jumble of images I usually got. However, that didn't any clues as to what on earth I was looking at or what it meant. The picture might be clearer, but I still had no idea what was going on half the time. Just because you see visions, does not necessarily mean you'll be able to interpret them. Joe said to let him worry about that for the moment, what mattered most now was getting my thoughts in order and under control.
What continues to strike me, a Northerner, is how arid the Arizona desert /isn't/. There's actually quite a lot of vegetation out there. It isn't all Grande Saguaro's and tumble weeks. There are a lot of animals out there too: burrow owls, prairie dogs, road runners, coyotes, and a lot of other "critters" as Joe called them. (He tended to use "critter" and "varmint" interchangeably.) Among other things, he taught me how to communicate with them, some I even managed to talk to, though cacti are far better for relaying coherent messages, particularly Saguaro. Their language is like speaking Latin or Greek or maybe Middle-English. Those guys are old and wise, much like Joe himself, though he seems like a kid next to those prickly, multi-armed old men of the desert.
He taught me a lot about his people, both Native Americans and Supers, as well as about visions, dreams, prophesy, and just desert life in general. I felt like such a moron at first. Me, the whitest of "White Men" being tutored by an "Indian Spirit Guide". I guess we all have labels we'll never live down. I loved being out there, almost alone, except we weren't because there were two of us, the only humans among other less obvious forms of intelligence. There were days when we hardly said two words to each other, and yet we always knew what the other had in mind and entertained each other pretty well.
At first it didn't feel like I was learning much. It wasn't until after my third week seizure-free that I realized what he was doing. All the talking with plants and animals, listening to the wind, and general communing with nature was a way to constructively burn all my excess energy. If my power didn't bottleneck, then there would be nothing for me to try to hold back. I wouldn't have enough left for a seizure. Back in suburbia, I'd had nowhere to go with all that mental energy. Now I did. It wasn't something I could keep up long-term, not once I'd gone home, but it worked well enough then. It didn't stop me from keeling over or having visions, but it did stop me from twitching and bleeding. For that alone, I was grateful.
In a way, Joe helped me with a lot of more mundane things too. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't developed some minor "daddy issues" after my parents and the rest of my family disowned me. My dad and I had always been close before my powers kicked in and I missed that. I caught myself reminiscing about Boy Scout camp, basement karate, and all the fun but ultimately futile attempts to teach me projectile sports. I could never be the kind of son my father wanted, but he had always been there when I needed him. He stood up for me, back before I knew what my problem was, reading other parents and their kids their rights because of how I'd been treated. I'm not sure at what point all that changed, when I had to start hiding my powers from him and everyone else because I was afraid of what might happen. I'm not even sure which I was more afraid of: that I might be put away, or that I would surely disappoint him. Joe said it was in man's nature to be afraid of what he does not understand. If my parents were ever going to get it, I would be the one to help them understand. I had my doubts about this, but since he hadn't specified when they would finally comprehend, I figured it wouldn't be any time soon.
I liked hanging out with Joe. Even though I was a legal adult, I still needed a lot of guidance, particularly about super life. I was desperate for any sort of instruction or advise and Joe provided me with much-needed answers, and useful hints and clues when he had no answer to give. He became a sort of surrogate father to me and I wondered if it was wrong of me to love and look up to this old man the way I had once hero-worshipped my father. Joe's response to this was that he could never be my father, but he felt towards me as if I were a son. Anyone who cares for another in such a way is Family. He could not and would not seek to replace my father's role in my life, but was honored that I thought of him that way. I didn't feel guilty about it anymore.
He took me on his rounds not only of the desert, but of the towns, villages, and reservations. The natives referred to me as his nephew and apprentice, immediately linking me Joe's renown and the respect he'd cultivated over the long years, assuming that I was in some way like him. They smiled at me as his protégé and despite my whiter than white skin, small build, and general gaijin-ness, welcomed me in. I wasn't one of them ethnically, but I was one of them in that I also had a unique genetic identity. Supers have their own tribe and community within society just as the original residents of America, and I was part of that race.
With my powers at an acceptable level, we finally got down to the business at hand: monitoring said power and the accompanying visions so that my head wouldn't explode. It was a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Joe's abilities were close, but they weren't an exact match. Because of that, he only had a general idea of what was going on inside my head and just my confused and fragmented descriptions to go on. Needless to say, progress was slow. I was just happy not to be having seizures, even if my dreams at night were trippy as hell. But it wasn't enough just to expend that extra energy, I had to find a way to harness it and the visions it brought before I popped something important. All we could do was settle in for a long session of trial-and-error (more error than trial) and hope it wouldn't kill me.
I will give it to Joe, he knew what he was doing as far as safety measures were concerned. He always made sure that I was worn out just enough so I could experiment without risk of hurting myself. As things wore on, he worked me less on "chores", as I came to call them, and more on my visions. I was better able to sort through and retain was I was seeing, eventually learning to restrict the flow so the I only saw one at a time and not the chaotic jumble of images I usually got. However, that didn't any clues as to what on earth I was looking at or what it meant. The picture might be clearer, but I still had no idea what was going on half the time. Just because you see visions, does not necessarily mean you'll be able to interpret them. Joe said to let him worry about that for the moment, what mattered most now was getting my thoughts in order and under control.
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