lucyoncolorado

In which I'm a social worker with a case load that includes two teenage runaways, one of which is a savant...

I'm a jaded, middle aged social worker- overworked, overweight, male. My case load includes a girl who has lived between the streets and the foster system most of her life. She is coming of age this week, and many of her services will end. I'm meeting with her to explain about how she needs a job and regular rent. She's vulgar, stupid and stoned. I think she's a waste.

She has a new room-mate, a girl about her age who has always lived on the street until now. Between the two, they can afford the rent if they both work. I help them get a job at a restaurant.

About a month later, I do a follow-up visit to the restaurant. There has been an accident and the room-mate has lost her hearing and her voice. She is now deaf-mute. My case continues to be vulgar, stupid and stoned. The boss tells me that she's a lazy worker and likes to start drama with other workers, but that she keeps her on because her room-mate is such a gem. I ask how the room-mate can wait tables when she is deaf-mute. The boss explains that she does the horse tricks show down in the beer garden. My stomach sinks, and I think of the donkey shows in Juarez. But I agree to have a look.

The beer garden is set up like a horse agility competition, and my case's room-mate is dressed like a jockey. She and the horse leap over obstacles and trot over bridges. It's clear they are well-bonded to one another. I'm impressed. After the show, I ask the girl how she learned to do these tricks. Then I remember she is deaf-mute. The girl waves over the boss. They begin to communicate in sign-language. I ask my questions about her equestrian skills, and she answers that she just picked it all up this last month that she's been working at the restaurant. Likewise, she's only just learned sign-language in that time as well. I find this amazing and realize she must be some sort of a savant.

I ask her what she wants to do with her life, and she answers that she'd like to attend some proper horse training school. I tell her I'll help arrange resources to fund her tuition.

In which the horse riding savant climbs a beanstalk and falls to her death, and I have panic attacks...

It's time for winter holiday, but our deaf-mute equestrian savant won't be leaving horse-school campus as she's a runaway street kid with no home to go to. The school madam leaves her with the keys to the stable and the dorms, and she is left all alone while everyone else leaves.

I'm not present, but I'm inexplicably watching her as if she were in a movie. I see from the middle of the stable field. The doors to the stable open and the girl comes out, again dressed like a jockey. There is a small covered patio off the stable gates that steps down onto the field. The girl pauses on the patio to look down at a ceramic pot. Suddenly, a cartoonish green and yellow beanstalk rises from the pot, upwards straight towards the sky. From my nowhere vantage point, I feel myself screaming inside for her to stop and leave it alone. But of course, I'm not there and can do nothing but watch the events unfold.

The girl sets down her jockey's whip and grabs hold of the stalk which has now stretched itself up far above the stables and disappeared into the clouds. Gripping the stalk above her head, she finds a firm foothold for her first rise, and then slowly and methodically follows for two or three more steps. She's forced to angle the tips of her shoes into the tiny holds made by the stalk buds, and it's obvious to me that she'll never make it.

Once she's climbed to a level just above the stable roof, she missteps and falls to the patio ground. The beanstalk vanishes and the ceramic pot is once again empty. The girl's body is a twisted mess, and she can't shout for help. She lies on the ground, paralyzed with mangled limbs, and stares up at the underside of the patio roof. I know it will be two weeks before anyone returns to campus.

Her eyes move about, so I know she is aware of her fate. When the dehydration starts to set in, four small cartoonish looking angels appear in a row just below the roof. She fixes her line of vision on them. They taunt her and laugh. They tease one another and wave wands that do nothing at all. They fly around above her head in swirls laughing and poking and annoying her as she struggles to breath and feels her blood desiccate. Then her heart explodes, she dies and the angels all vanish, just like the beanstalk. There is nothing left now except a twisted, bloating corpse.

I'm me now, no longer a middle aged man, but still a social worker. I sit in a cubicle under soul-crushing florescent lights and stare at a computer screen. I check the date and realize that the school madam would be coming back to campus and would soon discover the body. I wait until just before noon to give her enough time to walk out to the stables, and then I phone her.

I make a nonchalant query about her holiday. I don't want her to know why I'm calling because I'd have to explain how I knew the death had happened when I don't understand myself. No one would understand that I could know about it and see it and not be able to do anything about it. I'm helpless.

The school madam explains that K has died. That's not right, I think. It's not K.

But the school madam says it is. I don't feel grief or horror or surprise or much of anything. I just think to myself, no that's not right. That isn't what happened. But I can't argue about it because I'd have to explain that I saw the deaf-mute jockey girl die. Then I realize that this doesn't make sense either. How could I have watched her die? Why didn't I do anything to stop her? It's very distressing, and I start to panic. I'm heaving and gasping for air in the cubicle, and I need to get off the phone.

I ask the madam when the funeral is. She tells me, and I pencil it on my calendar. It's K's funeral. I stare at what I wrote and think that my two best friends are now dead. K's dead body is in the stables and H is on the couch, and they are paralyzed and they know they are dying and I feel like I should've stopped it and I can't explain why I didn't. And I panic and gasp for air again.

The gasping wakes me up. I walk into the kitchen and look at the picture of me, K and H on my fridge. I think to myself, damn, my two best friends are dead. Why didn't I stop it? Then confusion again, and I realize I'm still dreaming. It's not right. K's not dead, I think to myself. But H is, and I can't wake up out of that.

In which I'm a teen runaway in a boarding school that is attacked by a storm of flying cedars trees...

I'm an underage runaway gal who has been arrested on the streets and brought to live in a locked-down boarding school for wayward teens. The building's main entry is a security gate with xray machines, only accessible by employees, that leads to an imposing and high front desk like one you might expect in a hospital waiting room. Behind the desk is a narrow hall of half a dozen small classrooms. To the right of this main corridor is a pair of locked glass doors leading to dorm facilities where we sleep in rows of white sheet beds without privacy. To the left is a similar pair of doors, unlocked this time, leading out to a concrete courtyard called The Exercise Grounds, surrounded by a tall iron bar fence.

After a morning of math and reading classes, we have our lunch in The Exercise Grounds, after which we are supposed to continue on to "specials", dull art appreciation classes back inside the building under depressing, buzzing tube lights. Today, however, the courtyard monitor is distracted, and no one tells us to go inside at the correct time. I look at the clock and begin to ask if we are on schedule, but other teenagers immediately shush me and I realize how stupid I can be. We enjoy several more minutes out in the sunshine and fresh air when the sky starts to look dreary and dark, and a strong cool wind starts to blow indicating an in-coming storm. This gets the monitor's attention, and she starts to tell us to head back inside, but at this point the other residents are starting to run around madly and they do not listen to her. The start running circles around the courtyard, kicking up the fence and knocking hats off one another's heads while hooting and flapping their arms. "Hoodlums," the monitor says dryly and then looks at the sky which is growing darker.

Then small eastern red cedars start to fly in with the storm. They are only about four feet tall, and at first they levitate in slowly and in an upright position. They look as if they've been cut off at the trunk, just before it meets the ground. They pass through The Exercise Grounds in this way, gliding over the fence and hovering over the concrete for a few minutes before continuing on above the roof of the building. We are stunned and do nothing but stare at first.

The monitor then comes to her senses and yells at everyone to come inside immediately. The pair of doors opens up from the main corridor into The Exercise Grounds, so they provide an obstacle to the mad rush of scared teenagers who bottleneck trying to get back inside. Meanwhile, the sky has become very dark and the strong wind is now full of debris; through the iron bars of the fence, I can see a billowing black mass on the horizon, growing larger. I'm reminded of old photographs of the dust bowl.

The cedars are flying faster now, still upright. They swarm in and sail past us, just above our heads, and sometimes the bottom of their trunks smash into the side of the building we are fighting one another to enter. For a moment, I think I will panic, but then I look over at my friend, Rupert Graves, who is smiling calmly and taking pictures of the trees. He looks up from his camera at me and says, "Incredible!"

I'm instantly calmed, and I make my way through the crowd back out into the storm winds towards him. He's sitting on the concrete now, aiming his camera up at the trees. It really is amazing. For a moment, I wonder how this is possible and why it is happening. Something seems just not quite right...

But then the trees turn on their sides. Now the tip of their canopy is pointed towards us menacingly. This improvement in their aerodynamics allows them to fly faster, and they shoot towards us like missiles. I'm starting to become afraid again, but Rupert Graves is still on the ground, his camera pointed up at the cedar projectiles, laughing maniacally and snapping pictures. The tips of the cedars penetrate the side of the building like arrows; their trunks stick out like shafts. It's a surreal sight, and while I appreciate the absurdity of the scenery, I start to worry that they are whooshing just barely above our heads at a dangerous speeds. We are ducked down on the ground, and if we stood up, we'd surely be decapitated. I urge Rupert Graves to come inside.

The rest of the wayward teens have already made it to safety, and now only the monitor stands at the door. She is holding it open and screaming for us to come in. We can see alarmed adults at the main desk, all shouting at us to stop our foolishness. I grab Rupert Graves by the shoulder and pull him along; he never stops laughing.

In the main corridor now, it is business as usual. The adults behind the desk start to pass out plastic bins full of our bedding and pajamas. They bark orders at us to stand in line, keep quiet, control our limbs. We are to get ready for bed. Rupert Graves is in line just in front of me, grinning cooly, amused and fiddling with his camera. It's an old school 35mm and he has used up all the exposures so he is cranking up the film. He keeps repeating how incredible it is.

When it's his turn to receive his bin, he takes it sluggishly without looking up at the adult who hands it to him. He's too distracted with his camera. She chastises him for his indolence. Then she turns to me and asks why I'm just standing there. I answer that I don't have to stay the night there as I only purchased three nights and could now return to the streets. She laughs that it doesn't work like that, and she hands me a feather pillow.