TARKIO - Story 1:

CHASING SHADOWS

His hands met the keys. The plastic bent and flexed at his command, but not a sound was made. He flipped at the dials, his fingers meandering about the front panel. It probably wasn't plugged in, but that didn't stop the boy inside him from shoving his heart into his eyes, welling every floundering memory into tears as he recalled every moment passed at the helm of his great-grandmother's electronic organ. Tschaikovsky once in his mind, and Singin' in the Rain the next, followed by Claire de Lune, and the bridge of Karma Police passing by. He was performing beautifully for an invisible audience, and a rerun of Law & Order blaired for background white-noise wash. Of course, his great-grandmother would be counted part of the audience, no matter however dead she was lying in her grave. This did not, however, detur the boy inside him from that distant shadow in his mind; a shade of his former self for her to be proud of, or at least to be amused by his pathetic childish wanderings on a much larger-than-life instrument. For the boy inside him was still young, and his great-grandmother still alive, asleep on the chair in the middle of the night with the TV on, snoring. "Ha!" he shouted, knowing a boyish yawlp wouldn't even half rouse the slumbering widow spider, feathered and snuggled peacefully in her web for the night.

His body began romping on the stool, butt lifting from the seat and arms stretched straight and pounding the keys. He was every part vaudville piano act and every part ridiculous, but he couldn't help from singing, and stretching out a Motzart-ian chuckle, as he taunted poor Antonio Banderas, for that was his arch rival, wasn't it? No matter! "High-diddle dee and high-diddle dumb!" sang the boy inside. Spinning the stool around, for he loved to do that incessently (ceaselessly, even), but stopped short to stare at the empty recliner. He "humphed" and cupped his chin in his hands, then dropped one arm to his lap and spun back to the keyboard. As if to shrug off loss and even death itself, he continued to play.

"Grandma Winnie, will I grow old?" inquired the boy.
"Of course you will, boy. Everybody grows old!" Winnie said with her toothless smile and throaty chuckle. The boy seemed frustrated by the response. He looked away from his great-grandmother embarrassed, searching for an appropriate response. He spotted a mirror he had, years ago, mistaken himself for another baby. The memory, however, was so buried that attempting to recollect how he knew the mirror and this supposed other baby made his nose tickle and his eyes burn. He rubbed his eyes and turned back to her. "But, then, I'll die."
"Sure you will. But not for a very long time."
"Does everyone get sick eventually?"
"Not everyone dear. Not me."
"Then how will you die?"
The question perked the ears of the generation above the boy and both siblings of that generation whipped around in the kitchen to grab the suddenly hostile (yet, admittingly innocent) words, and hush the child. The mother was first to respond, though her brother quick to try and squelch the inquiry, piped an "Ah ah ah" before she could reel her silencing words into a finger in front of the boy's mouth.

"That's not polite, boy."
"I'm sorry, Grandma."
"That's alright."
The room grew quiet in an instant. As if a time lapse had captured the awkwardness that lay ahead of the group of four and sped it up to get it out of the way, Winnie brought the boy into her lap and whispered "No matter how I go, my heart must eventually stop."
"Eventually everyone must die."
"But not you, Winnie! Surely, not everyone."
"Not everyone dear. Not me."
Her heart was so large in his mind. Pounding in her chest he could hear it from perched far out on her knee. Even facing the other direction. His mother with her hand at her waist frowned disapprovingly. She felt no sympathy for the ardour of the boy's youth. The fire of curiousity raging in his mind; the thunderstorm of twisting logic as it looped around his cerebellum. He knew, for it is in everyone to know, that sin would one day come knocking for it's due in the heart of every man, and when we come up short on rent we've got to close up shop. Evicted from our bodies we are wandering the world between worlds, the dimensions between the real and the super-real. He thought about the mirror. Could the other baby have mistaken himself for another baby as well? Is the other baby the real him remembering himself as a boy? Did he wave at himself waving from the past to the future-self waving at his past self? Which hand did he wave with, and where was the mirror? North or south? But then what are directions, anyway? Markers for which way the universe is pointing?

The boy and his brother lept from their respective seats, his great-grandmother's lap and the sofa, respectively. Their conjoined minds felt the tingling sensations in their feet as they longed to stretch their legs together; to lock arms as brothers and provide each other rapid entertainment, a heart pumping at 127 RPM, and sweaty, holey socks. Down the stairs the boy and his brother flew, and the man holding the boy inside followed in toe from the organ stool, through the kitchen, and downstairs. The lights came on, and he awoke from his wild-eyed memory. His brother was not there, nor any toys, nor strange canisters behind the stairs, nor clothes hanging up needlessly by the drying machine (old habits die hard, even when the habits have long since been forgone), nor the turntable, nor the paintings on the wall. Only a small shadow, wagging his finger at the boy inside. Still, he thought, a good slide never hurt anyone.

While he slid sock after sock, foot in front of foot, round and round the basement floor, he contemplated nothing. The smile grew on his face as he imagined every turn step for step racing his brother, chasing his sister, chasing his own shadow.

Truely, Winnie never died. Her heart merely stopped like everyone else's.