Glowien ~ (Kindergarten, ch. 1)

It is true, that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it…

– Francis Bacon, Of Parents & Children, The Essays or Counsels of 1625

~

Kindergarten

Death is Release.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

She is the stalker of all organic beings.                                                                                                                                                        

Always be aware of her haunting.                                                                                                                                                                           

To be properly aware, rid yourself of fear.                                                                                                                                                              

To be rid, know that there is none.                                                                                                                                                                       

To omit Death from Yourself, reject it;                                                                                                                                                                  

accept to Thineself, Life Eternal.

~

This was a mantra The Ineffable taught me after my accident.

I was scared to death – and how appropriate that was, being scared to death. I used to be afraid of dying, but I learned early in my training that the only way to conquer something I was afraid of, was to face it. Or, accept its challenge – but only when prepared and ready. I was arrogant and stubborn when I took my first challenge, and the accident was indicative of it. A heavy price was paid, though inevitably, it was worth it…

I was in Mrs. Merriweather’s class the morning it happened.

During math, I imposed my help on a fellow-student and she didn’t want to be bothered. I insisted though. My Dad told me later that I should, “..always ask if someone wants help, or wait to be asked. It should be their choice.”

I was just so excited, being a young-god and all, that I wanted to flaunt my shit in front of everyone, especially the dumb-fucks in the class.

I, like all children, was obsessed with attention. Dad also told me I should, “..never attract unnecessary attention. Remember honey, people obsess about things when they’ve lost control over themselves and the forces around them.”

I had absolutely no idea what that meant at the time. My Father enjoyed talking to me and my siblings like we were older and understood his terse idioms.

Anyway. As I was saying, my classmate didn’t want help, but I was persistent.

Our seats were next to each other at the circle table, so all I had to do was take a gander toward my left, and I was aware of her problem. I leaned in close to her right ear.

“The answer is…”

“I know what it is!” She whisperingly yelled.

“Then write it down,” I replied haughtily.

“Mind your own business,” she retorted. (Dad told me this, too.)

I thought about what I was going to say before I rebutted. Try to diffuse her hostility, I thought. Well, actually, being that I was five it was more like, She’s being a meanie. So I just went with…

“I was only trying to help, gahosh..” To which she responded,

“Yeah well, help this.”

And then she slapped the shit outta me. Thank Black Jesus she dropped her pencil first.

It stung, of course, but it didn’t hurt as much as the thought that I upset my classmate so much that she decided to hit me in the fuckin’ face. I’d always been so nice to her. So, why did she slap me? I wasn’t mean to her. I didn’t take any of her belongings. I didn’t sit in her favorite spot during storytime. I didn’t snitch to Mrs. Merriweather when she snuck candy underneath her desk and was eatin’ it when Merriweather wasn’t lookin’. I couldn’t figure out, at the time, what would compel her to use such aggression. Perhaps she thought I was just bein’ an asshole. I could own that, but I just stared at her, stunned.

Then the unexpected happened. She hit me again.

I was dumbfounded.

What the fuck was she thinking?

Was she crazy?

Was I crazy?

Were we both crazy?

I was appalled.

I felt angry and sad due to the physical and emotional pain from being hurt by a so-called friend.

I lowered my head while holding my hand against the left cheek she bitchslapped me on and started to cry, silently.

Then it happened…the accident.

As I looked down, I noticed a bright yellowish-golden pattern traced around the outline of my feet, sorta like the aura of a candle flame.

At first, I thought I micturated on myself. (micturate = pee. Dad was always teaching me fancy words to everything.) While thinking this, I realized that the color was warping between yellowish-gold and blue, and I didn’t pee yellowish-gold AND blue.

It was weird.

So weird, in fact, that I thought I must be delusional from the impact of getting hit twice.

That would’ve been a more socially-acceptable response rather than what truly happened.

The colors kept warping. They got brighter around my feet. The yellows, golds, and blues started rising up the sides of my ankles, then to my Achilles tendons; calves came next:

knees,

thighs,

hips,

waist,

belly,

ribs,

back,

chest,

arms,

shoulders,

neck, face, head.

It warmed where the colors touched.

It was then that I realized what was happening – I was glowing. The whole of My body had been illumed.

I panicked, while simultaneously feeling like Goku.

As the panic took over, the warm sensation became feverish. My body shook violently. My heart was beating faster than I’ve ever felt it before. Sound altogether ceased. Nothing could be heard. Fear birthed itself in the pit of my stomach, to the limbic, then through the remainder of my body. I was shaking so vivaciously that the laces on my shoes untied.

Mindfully, I couldn’t stop my internal dialogue. In other words, I couldn’t stop mentally talking to myself. (I was taught, later, the importance of shutting off the internal dialogue for clarity of mind – I can do all superphysical things when my mind is quiet.)

The inner conversation continued.

Does this happen to other kids? Am I dying? I want My Dad! I need a hug! Someone, please stop this!

By this time, Merriweather had interceded during my convulsions. She had me in a firm embrace with one of her arms. She was vigilant, the other hand at the ready to make sure I didn’t choke on my tongue.

I felt my head move upward…looking at the high ceiling of the low room. I saw the lights and how they synced with me during the convellere. They got brighter then dimmer – fluctuating. A smoky fog of the same colors, yellowish-gold and blue, formed in front of my eyes and began waving in warpy circular patterns on the roof. I noticed a black splotch on the left of my periphery.

Death.

Something sure and infinite within me, doubtless, knew that that small dark mass, an optical illusion or not, represented Death.

My mind flashed. A dream.

I was flying.

A distant scene,

…now not so distant.

I was floating on a particular consciousness of time – a shadow from what was.

The past.

A small apartment. It looked vaguely familiar.

A girl, about my age. Faint. Clearer.

Her face. In focus. My classmate – the one who hit me.

Her mom.

A fight.

The classmate crying, bright red marks on both sides of her face.

…runs to her room.

Door slams.

Scene.

The shaking abruptly stopped and the colors disappeared.

I lowered my head, turned it left, and was now staring directly at the classmate; she’d been hovering in her seat the entirety of the episode.

I was still seated on my chair in Merriweather’s embrace. The purple and yellow hooded zip-up I was wearing over my t-shirt was down over my shoulders, though my arms were still in its sleeves.

I took a deep breath, then said,

“Why did you hit me?”

At least, that’s what I think I said. My voice came from elsewhere.

“Um, because you kept bothering me?” The classmate voiced this like a question, which stood to reason, ’cause I’m sure she was freaked out by me goin’ nuclear all of a sudden.

“Forgive me. My intention was to assist you. I should’ve asked if you wanted my help.” (Fuckin’-a, so like Daddy.)

Then I gave her a command. Which I’m sure, for her, was a bit confusing.

“Tell me what you just saw.”

I was surprised she obeyed. Or rather, the other-me before the accident was surprised. The Me that was speaking from and in that chair intended everything happening.

After her re-telling of what she thought she saw, the Me that was acting in this strange event, during a seemingly normal kindergarten day, stood up slowly as Mrs. Merriweathers’ hands fell by the wayside, hoisted her hoodie up on her shoulders, calmly knelt down and started tying the un-done laces of her shoes. (During my later recapitulations, I remembered when I knelt down, I placed my hands over my shoes and the strings slithered into position by themselves. While they moved into position, I felt a strong heat radiating from the palms of my hands and fingertips. They glew golden with the familiar yellowish-blue aura around them.)

With my shoes tied, I stood up, as slowly as when I knelt down. When my legs were straight, I was taller. Stronger. More adult than a five-year-old.

An energy surged through and around me. It was as if a prominentia, sent directly from the Sun, plunged its virtues through the fiber of my body. ‘Twas as much intense as it was comforting. Empowering. Encompassing. Peaceful. Not a muscle was overwrought. I was relaxed completely. If a car were to drive head-on into Myself, it would’ve imploded from my solidity.

A commotion.

I felt the chaotic silent energy of a bunch of kinders listening and witnessing the post-traumatic stress of two peers in a potential fight. I ignored it, and them.

I looked at my classmate in her left eye. She looked frightened. I would’ve been, too. I spoke again.

“You should talk to the counselor about your problems at home.”

“What are you talking about!?”

“Your mom. You should talk to the school counselor. It’s not good to do to others what your mom does to you. Especially, if it hurts people.”

The classmate looked horrified. She cried.

“How’d you know that?” she asked, words slightly trembled.

“I don’t know,” I said tenderly. “But, what I do know, is that you should talk to someone about how your mothers’ actions inspire you to feel and react.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” whimpered she.

Time to dumb it down, I heard a voice in my head say. Talking like an adult was dead-ending this convo. Plus, as usual, I remembered Daddy teaching me that, “The conies are but a feeble folk..”, and, “..comfort the feebleminded.” So I simply said to her,

“After you hit me, I saw in My mind your mom hitting you. I remembered that your parents divorced last summer, and since then, you and your mom have been different.”

If my classmate was crying before, now she was bawling.

Without hesitation, I stepped, walked, glided, or flew into her personal space, and gave her a cuddle.

I felt a bunch of prickly-like things all over my body, like the feeling you get when you lick a battery or when you stick your finger in an electrical outlet (Daddy said, “NEVER put your tongue or fingers ANYWHERE they don’t belong!”). Only, this was a tickle-feeling, like a bunch of fast moving ants crawling over my skin.

Immediately upon feeling this, I thought of times when Daddy took me and my little sister to the park by our old apartment.

Near this park, there was a wood. Within it, there were a lot of old and ancient trees. We’d walk along the pathway, weaving in and out of the forest, in silence, like Daddy was studying the movement, or listening to the signals-intelligence The Trees were relaying to one another. He’d close his eyes and take sedated deep breaths, allowing the acerbic cool of the pacific-northwest air to permeate his broad lungs.

We live in Portland, Oregon. Here, there’re a lot of trees. I’m grateful for this.

After a while of this Nature Ritual, he would find a tree that piqued his interest, usually a pine of some sort. He gazed at it for a few seconds before walking towards it. He would stop directly in front of it, almost as if he were about to give it a smooch.

“Put a hand on the tree,” he would calmly tell Us.

This is when the magic happened.

As My Sister & I touched the tree, I noticed how my body released all tension. A feeling of tranquility and gratitude overwhelmed me. Daddy said we were, “…feeling the soul of the tree. Trees are closer to the characteristics of humans more than you know. They are True Warriors.”

As with most things Daddy told me when I was this age, I didn’t know what the hell he meant by the trees being warriors. I trusted, though, that he knew what he was talking about.

A few moments of elation would elapse after we touched the tree and, without warning, we would start to feel it. The it I’m referring to is the intense prickly-ant sensation streaming over our hands and arms. The longer we kept our hand on the tree, the deeper and more we’d feel this mild electricity course through our veins. Daddy said the electricity is, “…us becoming One with the Warrior.”

This, in consequence, made it possible for humans to know what the warrior, or tree, was feeling. And also, this link between Tree and Man would allow the tree to absorb and remove from us negative and harmful feelings and emotions. So, Daddy would tell us, if we were ever feeling upset, irritated, or sad for any inexplicable reason, to go touch a tree with the palm of our hand, or lay our spine against it, until all the bad feelings vanished. Or, gently stroke the leaves of a non-poisonous plant.

The only requisite was patience. Dad further instructed us that,

“It takes patience with Oneself when communicating with Nature & The Universe. Nature is very patient, so Nature requires us to be the same. Emotions and feelings run deep, and, just like our feelings, it takes time to understand why we’re feeling what we are and to rid ourselves of negative energy.”

As I hugged my classmate, every knot of tension and negativity within her dissipated. I actually felt her relax. I absorbed it, like I was a Tree. I made it my own; I was her and she was me. We became one body, one mind, one spirit, one consciousness. We were aware of everything and nothing simultaneously.

I was uncertain if it was just in mind or deep inside the soul that kindled the fire, but after what was an infinite minute of ecstasy, or being outside myself, I knew, doubtlessly, everything that happened to my classmate in her lifetime.

I saw every birthday party she had – and not just seent it, but felt it…lived it. There was no differentiating between my experiences and hers. They, we, were one.

This duality of worlds colliding as one, while pondering the experience later in my life, confused me and gave me a headache when I tried to make sense of it. But I remembered, then, another lesson The Ineffable taught me:

“Trying to make sense of things, through primitive reasoning, while operating in The Second Attention, is both rash and dangerous. Get used to the notion that there’re things within existence that will not be understood through base rations of The Mind. A Psychological-Ascension & Self-Awareness must first take place before those higher things can be ascertained.”

I gently pulled myself away from my classmate. She was no longer crying. I have no idea how long we’d been hugging. I noticed the tear stains on her cheeks. These lines, in contrast to the light brown tone of her skin, inspired a wonderful Mirth inside my head & chest. It felt good.

I realized, or just finally admitted to myself, that I liked the look of her face. I also liked how our skin color looked combined. My complexion was porcelain. I was slightly shorter. Both our hairs were long – mine dark, almost black, and straight – hers medium brown, thick and exceedingly curly.

We were holding hands down below and looking at each other in the eyes. We smiled.

The school bell rang its annoying buzz. Usually, this startled me. This time, however, it didn’t. I kept calm.

When it rang, I closed my eyes as if the bell reminded me that I needed to take a break and meditate.

As I opened them, after nine seconds, or so, I noticed things were sideways. The calmness left. Confusion entered. An intense hue of reddish-yellow light blinded me.

Daddy had just pulled the curtains open to flood my room with the morning sun.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey..” (He said that to me every morning in homage to one of his favorite films.)

I blinked and sat up, slowly. My hair, which was usually up in a messy bun the evening before, was down and anarchic. I brushed a mouthful away, along with the drool that now resembled a thin paste-like translucent glue.

“Sweet dreams, baby?”

“Huh?” I blankly responded.

“Did you have good dreams last night?”

“Uh, yeah…I guess so.”

“Care to share?”

“What? No. I, um…can’t really remember what happened.” I sighed. “I was back in kindergarten, though. It was really weird.” I felt high.

“Kindergarten, huh? Shit, it’s been eight years since then. You three are sproutin’ like bamboo. I remember…”

“Daddy,” I stepped on his words. “Spare me the trip down memory lane. Not before I pee and shower, please.”

“Or pee in the shower.”

I eyerolled hard. “Seriously?”

“Don’t even front. We all do it.”

“Whatev.”

“Don’t whatev Me young…”

“Daddy!?” I said, exasperated.

He stood there for minute, a bit uncased due to my second interruption. He constantly reinforced to Me, My little sister Eva, and big brother Kadmon to never interrupt anyone. It was one of the rudest things you could do while conversing.

He forced a weak smile, doing his best to resist the temptation of setting me straight.

“Aight, love. Hurry. Giz is in the shower up here and I believe she still thinks that she can drain all the hot water from it.” He giggled. “You should use the lower-level or outdoor one.”

Like I didn’t know that, I thought. My mood was miffed so I felt it best to follow his example of levity.

“You’re still calling her Gizmo? She’s in 7th grade and you still haven’t showed her Gremlins yet. She’s still waitin’ to see this cute, little creature you nick-named her after.”

“I know…haven’t had a movie-night in a while. I miss ’em. Maybe tonight?”

“That’d be coo. You’re not gonna get too many more nights with me when I’m in high school next year,” I said, while scratching that early-morning-haven’t-washed-my-shit-in-3-days-scalp-itch. “Plus, Kadmon’s social life is already cray.”

“Fuck, don’t remind me. I trip every time I think about it; You, Kad, and Eva, all in the same school with some of the same guy friends…”

“…and that’s why you’ve had us in Aikido, Wing Chun, and studying The Shoninki since we were five. I think Eva and I can take care of ourselves with boys, Daddy. Also, Kady’s gona be a Senior next year.”

“Exactly. His Senior friends goin’ after his Freshman sister. I know what I was thinkin’ and doin’ when I was a Senior.”

“That, and you didn’t have a Father who raised us like you did. Don’t You trust Me?”

“Perhaps. Time will tell,” He said quickly.

I chucked a pillow at him. “You always say that.”

“It’s true. Time tells…”

“…all lies. I know. You’ve drilled that in for a while now, too.”

“Then maybe one of these aeons it’ll make sense to you. I think the Rites of Passage, that come with adulthood, will remind you of all the lessons I’ve been uploading in you and your sister that your brother has so kindly chosen to corrupt.”

“Perhaps,” I said smiling.

With that final comment, Daddy threw back my pillow (which he caught), smiled his proud fatherly smile, turned, and left my room.

I stared at the empty space…sitting there, trying to recollect what I woke up from.

It was too vivid to’ve been just a dream. But the facts were, I was sitting upright in my bed, Daddy had come to wake me up to get ready for school, we conversed about family-movie-night, my sister, brother, and high school. As you’re reading this, no doubt in wonder as to where this is all leading, I’m thirteen, and in the dream, or whatever it was, I was five and in kindergarten.

Reasoning took over.

I shook my head to resuscitate from the daze, and taxed the whole thing off to being a lucid dream.

I laughed out loud uncomfortably.

My red iPhone beeped from the bed side table. Before it was picked up, I noticed a small folded piece of paper next to it. I instinctively grabbed the paper, unfolded it with delicate haste, and stopped.

My hands began to tremble.

I couldn’t stop repeatedly speed-reading the calligraphy-styled writing.

In my left hand read three words.

The design of the writing was old, not of the young teenage type, so I knew it wasn’t mine, nor Kadmon’s, or Eva’s, nor any of My friends’. In truth, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen someone handwrite a note.

(At school, in every class, we use the network wide Intuitively Collaborative Digital Ubiquitous System, lovingly referred to as Icdus, that absorbs and reads the brainwave emissions that are dispensed in the air upon thinking, which are then immediately, with the speed of thought, added and synced in the data storage area of our personal computers and/or hand-held devices. This allows for our notes, when hearing the teacher’s lecture, to be saved in text format, precisely as the professor speaks, or the altered notes from our thoughts, on our computers without the need of typing, therefore freeing our minds to fully take in what our instructors are teaching, without obstructing the lesson by doing needless typing or writing.)

All this I thought in an instant while the words of the note held me captive.

It merely said: It was real.

What, the dream? What was real? And who wrote this message, got in my room, and left it next to my…cell phone!

I flicked the note in my lap, grabbed the mobile, then opened the text, and before reading it, dropped the phone to the floor.

Breathing hard, I realized I was about to faint from hyperventilating. I reached for the bed-side table to support myself, and instead, rammed my hand into the lamp that was propped, it, too, falling floorward. It made an awful racket.

Within seconds, Dad, and his personal-assistant, Amana, came rushing in the room to see what’d happened.

Immediately, Amana came to my side to help me lie down, to which she began to, in a state of mild panic, command me to breathe deeply and slowly. I must’ve been sweating before I was laid flat because I felt my eyes stinging with sharp moisture.

Daddy cleared the pieces of broken glass and cell phone to make way for him to crouch at my side.

A glimpse of the kindergarten dream glinted in my mind.

My breathing steadied.

I looked up into the angelic face of Dad’s beautifully-exotic assistant. Although obviously not related, I resembled her a little.

She’d been Dad’s righthand woman since he won The Powerball Jackpot.

Dad divorced mom (a pathological-liar) a few years before his lottery win, of which he was grateful for.

That was an epic time in Our lives. The current moment, was not so epic.

Amana was on the verge of tears. Daddy was wiping away a stream. Amana lifted me to an embrace across Her lap. I took Her in when I was calm.

“What happened?” I asked weakly.

“You had another seizure,” she forced out through a sniff.

“It scared the shit out of us,” said Daddy, “We knew there’d been an episode from the sounds we heard before you started choking.”

“Please, sweety,” Amana whimpered, caressing my forehead, “You must be careful.”

“I know,” I voiced, steadying. “I thought I had it beat this time.”

“Well, you don’t!” Blurted Daddy. “This could’ve been it!” And then He started to really cry. I’d never seen Him like this before.

“What your father means,” Amana said nurturingly, “Is that we were worried that this could’ve been the big one.”

“…my god, honestly, I get it.” I said sitting up while regaining my youthful zeal. “Can you two ever just say it?”

I realized then that it was more difficult than I’d thought it’d be to say the words. I hesitated.

“I know I might…die. The chances are likely with this brand of epilepsy.” I looked crossly at my father. “I’ve known this ever since the doctor told us about my first one in…”

My voice trailed off.

I’m sure Dad & Amana were trying to get my attention, but I couldn’t hear them. My mental clarity at the moment was the only thing worthy of attention.

Kindergarten.

I had my first epileptic episode in kindergarten.

Regardless of the notion that I found similitude between these unrelated events, I, however, could not understand the semblance of this note with those three words on it. It was nonsense.

Again, as before, I threw the thoughts away into the wastebasket of it being just a very vivid dream, with the keenest amount of realism I’d ever encountered.

I came out of my thoughts and back into my room with Amana & Daddy.

“Babe, did you hear a word of what I just said?” Amana asked. She was eloquent, even through the drama of the situation.

An erudite young-woman of the utmost degree, Amana spoke six languages – Dad’s favorite ones: Ammontish, Latin, Spanish, Aramaic, Italian and French. She had a doctorate in Psychology from Harvard, another of Dad’s favorites (and the college he’s been pressuring me to attend since I could talk), and was working towards a higher-degree, in between time, from L’Abode Via Herm – a suggestion from My Father, no doubt.

“No. I didn’t. I apologize. Just thought of something.”

“About how late you’re gonna be for school I hope,” said Daddy, calming down.

“Yeah, something like that,” I responded.

“André, I suggest she doesn’t go to school today.” Amana spoke firmly and without bullshit to Dad. He liked that. He treasured it. And, she pronounced ‘André’ in its proper French dialect. He really liked that.

I interjected. “What? I’m fine. Really, I’m good. I just need to get up and move around a little. I’ll be ok.”

“She needs to be in school,” Daddy said, now back to his normal parental self. “It’s her last week. She’s got a dance and music recital, testing at the Dojo and Kwoon, and I will NOT miss these events before I go on tour.”

(Oh yeah. Daddy’s an author & musician; he plays the drums. He and his band are going on tour in the late summer after he gets back from a June-long book tour of the U.K. to promote his global, #1 bestselling novel. It’s a marvelous story. He says that Eva, My best friend, Alaniah, and I inspired it.)

Amana looked at Dad with professional annoyance. She smiled faintly at him before looking at me to say, “Fine. But keep your phone in your pocket in case we need to get ahold of you, or if you have an emergency.”

“Got it.”

“Good,” then she kissed my cheek, got up from the bed, touched Daddy on the shoulder and turned to leave. She stopped right before stepping out the door.

“I just remembered,” she said. She turned back around to face me while Dad got up to finish cleaning the broken mess at the side of the bed. “Something came in the mail for you yesterday.”

As Amana walked over She noticed the note on the bed near Me. It had fallen between Myself and the wall which was to my right.

“What’s that?” She asked, motioning her head towards the folded-sheet.

“Nothing,” I hasted, while tucking it under My pillow, making it obvious I didn’t want Her snooping.

She smirked, probably thinking it was from a boy or some shit like that.

She reached into the back pocket of her jeans, looked at the object, then handed me a sealed envelope.

It was pretty, the kind of colors girls like. I was certain it was a birthday party invite. I was unassumingly popular at school so I always got invited to the coolest parties. I wondered why someone was sending a snail-mail invite though; it was so old-school.

“I wonder whose party this one is for,” I said half-sarcastically, half-excited.

I tore the envelope and opened the card.

It was real, was all it said.

~ author: Hiram Surtyr, illustrator: Ruth Barbee ~