Tag: books

Fictional Friends

books.jpgThe most neglected area of  psychiatry, psychology and sociology is the influence of fictional characters on our lives and personalities.  Unlike family, teachers and friends who, like it or not, invariably have their own agenda, fictional characters are totally altruistic.  They are dedicated to us with the love of a thousand puppies.  Their very lives depend on us and they return the favour by showing us people, places and things we would never see otherwise.  They let us indulge ourselves in the kaleidoscope of life — good, bad, beautiful and ugly — without ever having to get our hands dirty.  Over time, these fictional people become our fictional friends.  They help shape and come to share our hopes, our dreams, our joy and our despair, while offering us insight into just how we’re supposed to cope with this carnival of emotions.  But long before that, before Tom and Huck and Harry Potter, we are influenced by the mythological creatures of our childhood — the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy — and Santa Claus, the guy who taught me the value of sisters and that the world just isn’t fair.

Every child knows the meaning of Christmas.  If you’re a good kid, Santa Claus brings you presents; if you’re not — ya get dick.  It’s a simple either/or equation.  Like most kids, I was middle-of-the-road, but, come the day, Santa always forgave my transgressions and I got my share of good loot.  However, one year (I think I was six) I noticed Malcolm Carson, the total bully of the neighbourhood, had a brand new hockey stick just like me.  He’d got it for Christmas, just like me.  But, then, on closer examination, I discovered that his was a Victoriaville with a wicked Bobby Hull curve while mine was an ordinary CCM straight blade.  Now, I knew for a fact that Malcolm had not been a good boy.  Within the last month alone, he had stolen my hat, pulled my hair, punched me in the stomach, washed my face with snow, threatened to make me eat dog poop and chased me home on more than one occasion — with poop in hand, I might add.  (FYI, I wasn’t even one of  his more frequent victims.  There are people from Mayfair Grade School who are still in therapy because of that little bastard.)  Anyway, this was a total tear in the fabric of my reality, and even though I didn’t understand the words, for the first time in my life, I understood the true meaning of WTF? I approached a sister with my conundrum (unlike parents, sisters normally gave you the straight goods.)  Her response (and I think she was reading Jean Valjean at the time) was:
“Santa Claus is a busy man.  There are millions of children in the world. He can’t look after all of them.”
“Then, how come I have to be good?”
“Santa Claus likes you.”
“He doesn’t like Malcolm?”
“Probably not.  Look, Santa Claus does the best he can, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out.  It isn’t fair, but that’s life.  You got a hockey stick; what more do you want?  You need to quit worrying about what other people are doing.  Forget about that little brat.  And the next time he punches you, you punch him back.  Like this.”
“Oww!”
“Now, get outta here, I wanna finish my book.”

Friday:  What happens when you learn how to read

Fall Fever

fallYip all you want about Spring Fever — Fall Fever is worse.  It plays mischief in your eyes with Van Gogh colours dancing in the trees to sad 60s songs.  It rustles crisp on shuffle footsteps that leave no evening echo.  Its dim light chilly is brittle on the breeze, and it speaks in long, muffled tones.  It wears knitted scarves and fat socks and smells like hot chocolate, steaming in the afternoon air.  It aches winter but touches your face with warm summer sun, like a treacherous lover teasing its escape.

As old as I am yet to get, I will never see September without back-to-school.  Stiff new paper; pens with all the parts; blunt pencils of virgin wood, waiting to be pointed; plastic instruments with purposes so academically secret they have never been revealed.  And books.  Heavy books.  Books that told me numbers were true and always acted responsibly.  Books that showed me that some things could be proven.  Books whose gone places and dead lives taught me immortality.  And books that lied — so cleverly, so carefully, so convincingly close to me that we became friends.

These were the books that jealously wouldn’t wait to be read.  These were the after school-books.  The week-end books when the world was too cold for walking but too soon for skating.  These were the books that were finished before any teacher ever assigned them.  These were the books that turned into libraries and later, with part-time money, into dim paint peeled bookstores, dusty with promise.

Fall Fever has a serious heart.  It is what once was — coming again on the low evening light.  Every year when the sun moves south, I hear it scratching its quill pen verse on the skinny wind.  I see the words and accumulating phrases and remember the books that brought me here.  The tales that told me, showed me, explained to me why we are all just souls — single, lost and divine.  Fall Fever remembers that for me.  And it reminds me that it is the stories we tell each other that gather us together against the wind.