Flightsuit (10 page)

There was a scratch at the wooden door.  Ethan opened it and an old crème-colored golden retriever got up from its haunches and walked inside.  "Come on in boy," Ethan told the dog.  It nosed Leo's hand, spilling drips of water from the cup.  Leo sat the cup down on the bed and scratched behind the dog's ear.

Leo asked, "What's his name?" 

"His name's Oscar," replied Ethan.  "Say 'Hello' Oscar.  This is Leo."  The dog shifted his weight to put a paw up on the bed.  They both laughed.  "Ok.  That's enough.  Go lay down."  The dog walked over to lay on a mat under the sink, slowly wagging his tail as he went.

Leo
motioned his head toward the photos, and asked, "You live here alone?"

Ethan turned and looked toward the table, clenching
his lips.  "Yeah," he said. "Just me and Oscar…"

Leo asked,
"Who is the woman in the picture?"

Ethan turned back to Leo, "She was my wife.  We were divorced right after my son died
.  I haven't seen her in more than thirty years.  She might not be alive now.  I don't know."  Ethan stopped and looked back to the photo. 

"The one in the middle is my son, Ray.  He was twelve in that picture."

"He had a disease called 'Progeria'," Ethan told Leo.  "It's always fatal".  "Almost always fatal," he corrected, "Almost always". 

"It's a genetic disease that's inherited from your parents.  Both parents can be carriers and be totally fine.  If they have four children, one might be perfectly fine, two might be carriers and show no symptoms, and one would likely have the disease.  Little Ray didn't do anything wrong, just a nudge of luck and he'd be a grown man today with a family.  But he got a nudge the other way instead."

Leo tried to imagine the wrinkly little elf in the picture talking and playing like a boy.

Ethan normally didn't like telling other people about Ray.  There was the surface Ray, the facts about his short life, his rare illness, and his death, and there was the real Ray, the boy who suffered without complaining, because even with his little boy's understanding, he wanted his parents not to worry, who liked watching cartoons about super-heroes with gifts above those of other people, that was the essential Ray.  There was no one but him now who knew the essential Ray.

When Ethan told people about Ray, they always focused on what he felt was the surface Ray without getting to know his boy.  It wasn't a rare disease that defined his son's life.  It was playing with his cars and action figures on a blanket spread over the grass in the sun with a breeze keeping everyone cool.  It was Ray laughing as Ethan pretended to be horrified by little Ray's driving of the car.  When he told other people about his son, they'd nod to indicate they understood, but the parts of the story that meant the most to Ethan were routine, the everyday things, familiar-sounding bits of emotion and memory that were unremarkable unless the people in the story were your own family.  If the memories belong to you they meant something.

Ethan didn't like people acting like they knew and understood Ray when they couldn't possibly. 

But this was the first time, he'd ever told a boy about his son, a boy that was close to Ray's
age.  In a way, Ethan felt he was introducing his son to a potential friend, someone his own age that could appreciate and enjoy Ray's personality in a way that even parents can't.  Kids showed different sides of themselves to other kids, one reason watching children play with each other intrigued parents.  Ray had few opportunities to play with other children.  The disease charted the course of his life.

Ethan introduced Ray to Leo
, explaining his son's good humor, and his short life's highlights.  He explained that Progeria Syndrome was one of the rarest diseases, affecting one in eight million children.  Most children with Progeria had short lives, typically living only to twelve or thirteen.

Ethan brought pictures from the table.  Leo noticed several more of the strange carved figures on the table with the frames out of the way
, but it was too dim to see them clearly. "Ray aged eight times faster than you do," Ethan told him.  "He was a boy trapped in the body of an old man, not able to run and play, not able to explore like you.  He'd have loved doing that.  Would have loved to have a friend his own age to explore with." 

Leo shifted his weight to relieve pressure under his arm.  The top of the sleeve
made his arm numb.  "How long have you been staying in this cabin?" he asked. 

Ethan's eyes tracked up to the right as he subtracted, "about 45 years."

"I can't believe the people who owned this land haven't tried to get you to leave during all that time".

"I own it," Ethan said. 

"I've owned this house and the five acres out back since I built it.  I built it to live in when I worked at the iron mines.  When everyone else left, I stayed.  After Ray died, and Maggie left, there wasn't anything out there calling me, so I stayed here.  People tried to get me to leave and start over with a new wife and family, but that felt wrong.  Felt like they wanted me to forget what I'd had, forget my son.  I didn't.  I want to be with them.  If I can't be with them, I'll be where I can see things each day they touched, and I'll remember them better."

"When I wake up in the morning, they still feel here with me.  Through the day, I'll be carrying wood and walk past the little grassy spot where we played and ate sandwiches that Maggie made.  I remember them.  That's what I want.  If I leave this place behind, I'd be separated from those memories.  Pictures can't bring back the feeling of a place or the way it feels to be there and see the same sky and trees that you saw together."

Leo shifted to sit up.  "I'm sorry Leo, I wasn't thinking.  We'd better be getting you home again.  I'm sure your mom must be worried sick over you. Let me throw some things in a pack and we'll head out."

Ethan opened a closet and rummaged out an old leather backpack.  He thought for a moment
, and then pulled a fresh white t-shirt from a shelf in the closet.  It was still in plastic wrap.  There was a lot of crinkling as Ethan unwrapped it.  Leo saw a neat little stack of them, all still in plastic wrap.  Ethan flipped the t-shirt and a brand new stiff pair of jeans over his shoulder.  While Ethan pulled other items from the little closet drawer, Leo looked at the pictures laying all around him on the bed.

The photos were mostly black and white
.  The few colored ones were so faded that the colors were almost an outline.  Leo looked at the pictures of Ethan's son.  The boy looked so alien.  It was hard to imagine him laughing and playing like a normal boy would. 
It would be like watching some crazy old man pretending to be a boy
, Leo thought.  There were just a few pictures that looked like they weren't taken in a hospital. 

Ethan came back wearing the fresh shirt and jeans and smiled seeing Leo looking at the photos.

"Are you ready?" Ethan asked. "We are going to have to walk for a couple miles.  I have a truck but there aren't any roads out here, so I leave it parked at Ron McAllister's place.  I hardly ever use it."

"I've seen that truck," Leo told him.

"Do you feel up to walking?"

"Yes, I feel ok now.  It's not heavy at all
.  I just have to be careful not to bump it around or that spike sticks," Leo told him.

Ethan helped him up.  Closer now, Leo could make no more sense of the carved wooden shape
s.  "What are those?" Leo asked. 

Ethan followed Leo's eyes to one of the carvings.  He picked up the one Leo thought was a bear and passed it to him.  "I carve things," Ethan told him.  "I've been doing it since I was a boy.  It rests my mind to create things."

Leo looked at the wooden figure.  It was very detailed.  It was definitely not a bear.

It looked like a bent-over peanut.  One end was a large single eye with a thick, heavy eyelid.  The folds of the eyelid gave the little shap
e a gloomy look.  The carving was very detailed.  The creature's single large eye had a smooth lip marking its iris, and inside that an overly-large pupil.  Fold upon fold of skin protected the eyelid.  The other side of the peanut shape had two squat and slow-looking legs.  The two feet had large toenails, like an elephant's.  There were no arms on the sad-looking thing.  The wrinkles and skin texture were so meticulously carved over the entire shape that Leo thought they looked just like a real creature would look, if it existed.

Leo, held the figure up, "What is it?" Leo asked.

"I don't give them names," Ethan told him.  "I just create them.  That one lifts things with its mind.  It doesn't need arms or hands.  They are the highest life form on their rainy planet.  They look gloomy, but they aren't really.  There's something peaceful about them.  They're slow, so everything they do is deliberate and considered long beforehand."

Leo looked at Ethan. 

The way Ethan described the creature was as detailed as the lines he'd carved into it.  It didn't seem to Leo like a made-up creature that didn't exist, but just one that he'd never seen.

"It passes the time," Ethan said.

"It looks so real.  You…did a great job" said Leo.  He'd like to ask if it
was
real, but was afraid of what the man's answer might be
.  If he says its real, then what?  He'd be crazy then.  I don't want to be up here all alone with someone that's just said something crazy
.

  "I don't know where the ideas come from," Ethan said, staring at nothing over Leo's shoulder.  "I imagine them I guess.  I've tried to carve real things, but I never get the details right, its harder to rely on memory of a real thing than to envision one you've never seen."

Leo wasn't sure whether he'd just told him the little figure was real or imagined. 
Could be worse
, he thought.

"Some of them go together," Ethan said, looking around.  "That one on the table goes with this one.  They hate each other.  The one that looks like a scrawny man with bat wings for arms is vicious.  It hunts the slow-movers, but its dying out because it reproduces slowly."

"I have many more of them," Ethan said.  "I'd love to show them to you, but first we need to get that thing off you.  Are you ok to walk?"

Leo didn't answer.  He was looking at the table. 

Ethan asked "What?  What's wrong?"

Leo didn't answer.  He leaned over and nudged aside a picture frame to pick up a dusty wooden figure.  It had two arms and two legs like a man, but the part that had caught Leo's attention was its two long flat fingers.

He held the figure up into the sunlight.  The carving was posed in a squat, with its knees bent close to the ground.  One long arm reached down to the ground in front.  Those fingers curled into knuckles.  The other arm braced on its thigh with its fingers dangling open.  Leo turned the figure to better see the carved fingers.  He raised his left arm and looked at the sleeve's flattened fingers.  They were the same. 

He looked up at Ethan for an explanation.  Ethan stared slack-jawed at the figure.

Leo asked quietly, "You carved this?"  He wasn't sure what answer he wanted.

Ethan didn't respond for a few seconds.  He seemed to be asking himself the same question.  "I…I…" Then "Yes, I guess I did."

"You don't remember carving it?"

"No.  I mean yes.  I remember carving it."

"It's the same as the sleeve, though," said Leo.  "You see that its hand is the same as the sleeve's hand right?"

"It does look the same," replied Ethan, although he didn't seem very certain.

"Yeah," said Leo.  "It's clearly the same.  Look at how long the arm is compared to the fingers."  He held the sleeve out by comparison.  "It's the same."  He looked up at Ethan watching closely.  "Where did you see this?"

Ethan was clearly struggling with the idea that one of the creatures he'd carved
could be real.  He sat back in one of the wooden chairs, missing half of it, and almost fell.  He adjusted back to the center, staring at Leo's gloved fingers.  He didn't say anything. 

Finally, Leo asked again
, "Ethan.  Where did you see this?"  He held up the figure.  Ethan's eyes slowly moved off the sleeve to the figure, then he met Leo's eyes.

"I've never seen it.  Like I said, I've never seen any of the things I carve.  They're all just made up."

"Well, this one is definitely not made up.  Right?  You can see this is the same hand right?"  Leo was getting impatient with Ethan's reluctance to admit something so obvious.

"I see it," Ethan said.  "It's the same."  He still shook his head in disbelief.

"Well?  Where did you get the idea?"

"I just dream about things like that.  I dream about them.  In the dreams sometimes I'm somewhere else that doesn't look or smell like anyplace I've ever been.  The plants are all different colors and the houses don't look right.  I get involved with these things.  Sometimes they are friendly like those." Ethan motioned to the sad
, peanut-looking thing.  "And sometimes they're dangerous and we're trying to get away from things like those."  He pointed to the bat thing with long spiked wings. 

Leo asked, "We?"

"What?"

"You said 'W
e're trying to get away'.  Are you with the peanut things when they are trying to get away from the bats?"

"Yes, or sometimes other creatures.  There are several other dangerous creatures there.  One is a cat that as big as a rhino.  Those dreams are always terrible.  We're running from one place to another trying to hide.  I wake up exhausted."

"So you dreamed about this one," Leo asked holding up the crouched figure.  "You dreamed about something that wore this?"  He held up the sleeve.

"I guess so.  Although I have no idea how that could be."

Leo looked at him uncertainly, but Ethan could only shrug.

"I think…I dreamed
, I mean, that they call themselves 'Explorers'.  They discovered all of the others.  They're the ones who travel.  Sometimes we're running from them."  Ethan paused, then looked up into Leo's eyes, "they are dangerous."

Afraid to hear the answer, Leo
asked anyway "Why are they dangerous, Ethan?"

"I don't remember.  I don't think they eat the others like the rhino cats or the bats, but all of the others are scared of them anyway.  I don't know why we run away from them."