The Freedom of Fantasy (Short Story)
“David …”
It’s easy to believe in God when you’re looking at the stars. Reach up and your fingertips brush eternity. Lie back against the sand with your eyes straining into that deep sky, the sky that teaches of miracles, and you can imagine that the waves are lapping at the shore for you to hear, the stars are displayed for your pleasure, the pulse of your heart is telling you how alive you are, and everyone who ever was seems to be gone. In the silence you are alone with He who possesses the world.
“David!”
Her voice, though distant, pierced his reverie. He had been so quiet, so still … so happy … if only she’d waited a minute more before calling him so he could continue to forget she even existed. He wanted to lie there forever - he didn’t really think he’d mind that so much - but, rousing himself stiffly, he climbed the sand dune that sloped down directly behind his house and pushed through the grey shrubs hiding the porch from view. What had once been a cheery beach shack was now a dilapidated one room home with a few musty mattresses serving as beds and a foldout table Mum liked to use for meals, to feel a bit dignified. The stripes of yellow paint on the outer walls had been bright originally, David could remember that, but they had faded and begun to crack long ago and nobody had thought to buy new colour for them. One of the window panes had shattered last year when Dad lost a bet and came home raging (Mum said he was “just upset”; said it in that soothing way that almost made David believe her). He’d sent Mum’s mantel clock through the glass and next day mumbled he was sorry and patched it up with some wooden boards, but the draughts still made their way in; draughts are like that, they’ll find any kind of entry point no matter how well you fix things. David reckoned Mum should’ve sold the clock years before anyway, might have gotten a decent bargain, but she’d been too precious about it and now it was gone, without anything to pay for it but a few old boards nailed to what used to be the kitchen window.
Jeannie was making dinner and Mum was waiting for David at the door. Wherever Dad had gotten to, he wouldn’t be back till late. The old kelpie dog sitting on the steps licked David’s feet in greeting, watching him pleadingly until he knelt and stroked its coarse black flanks, a pang passing through him at the feel of its protruding ribs. There was nothing to feed it but his own meals, and the butcher didn’t bother giving scraps away, but although it was never chained anymore and could wander where it wished, it chose to stay. “Because he loves you more than his life,” Jeannie said. David wasn’t sure a dog could love, but all the same he hugged it before he went inside, burying his cold nose in the hair of its warm neck.
“David,” Mum began, her voice tired and thin, “Why are you always going out somewhere? Why can’t you make yourself useful?”
“He’s just a kid, Mum,” Jeannie excused him from over by the sink. “Let him be.”
“He’s fourteen,” Mum argued bitterly, “And no one’ll take him for work. Word gets around small towns. Everyone knows about the butcher incident.”
David sat on his mattress and sunk his hands deep in his pockets. Full of sand. Mum hated sand on the floor. She kept on talking but he’d gotten into the habit of not quite listening, and besides, he’d just rediscovered a golden two dollar coin amongst the sand, and with two dollars he could easily buy maybe four yellow paged books from the opportunity shop in town. As a rule he hated to live off other people’s thoughtfulness and have them feel sorry for him, preferred to survive on his own so he could feel he’d made something of himself, but in the case of books he knew no other way. He’d choose them carefully off the shelf, cheap paperbacks with taped up spines and someone else’s name written in pencil just inside the cover, read them, a chapter here and there when time allowed, keep them hidden, and after he was done he’d simply drop them back in the charity bin and no one would ever know he’d owned them. Dad hated books more than Mum hated sand. Said they were a waste of time and money, same as most things David took a fancy to. But Jeannie had taught him to read, and now and then she slipped him a couple of coins and told him to find himself a book or two for amusement, because she understood that stars and stories were that boy’s greatest allies. She worked in the milk bar in town because Dad said a girl of seventeen ought to be earning something for her parents. David had earned once, too, till they caught him pinching from the cash register. They hadn’t paid him enough. Thought they could get away with cheating a kid. But Jeannie made him promise to manage without being a thief and since then he had taken nothing, because somehow she always knew, and he couldn’t bear to see the sadness in her eyes.
Mum still couldn’t forget what he had done.
She continued to talk, exhausting herself. David felt sorry for her, sorry she wasn’t as well cared for as ordinary mothers who had everything they could wish for and yet continued to find room for more. He was sorry for Jeannie, too. So sorry it hurt. Jeannie passed him his plate and he ate dinner mechanically while his mind raced, going over the plans he had thought on for so long, wrestling back and forth with indecision. In his stories there seemed to always be a winner, someone who worked harder than everyone else and achieved higher despite what the rest expected from him; sometimes it just seemed too wonderful to believe, too impossible and simple, but David still tucked himself away in a corner and read the book through and loved it because he could almost convince himself it was true. And then other times he would read a story and feel almost that the boy who told it was himself. A nobody without any fantastic dreams, just a desire to be cared for and wanted. A longing for change. For freedom.
Hours after the dim lights had been switched off he turned the two dollars over and over in his fingers. It was all he had. If he’d asked Jeannie for more, she would have given it to him without asking any questions. But he loved her too much. One day he was going to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of, take her away from the lonely little sea shack and the grimy milk bar and Dad’s drunken temper and never come back; didn’t matter what happened after, so long as they were far from here and together. One day. He promised. As he lay there he could hear heavy boots stamping the planks of the porch, the door whining as it was pushed open, allowing the cold salt air to sweep across the floor, and the grunts of his father making his way around the mattresses to the cupboard. There was a little flask of whiskey somewhere behind the cereal boxes that Mum said was a good remedy for illness, and Dad seemed able to sense alcohol whether anyone told him it was there or not. The sudden interruption had woken them all, but Mum soon turned to the wall and slept again, used to Dad’s fumbling and noise. Jeannie’s eyes followed David through the open door. She said nothing, because there was nothing to be said. Sitting up and peering out the one unbroken window she watched the dark figure of her brother hurrying up the hill, followed by the old kelpie dog who would run alongside him until it had no strength left in its body, and silently mused that it was those precious stories that had given him confidence and brought him to plan his escape. She knew about the clothes and tinned food he concealed in a burned out tree somewhere no one’d think to go. But she’d told herself he wouldn’t do it. He’d be afraid to.
And David ran through the long grass, barefoot, not knowing where he would go or who he would become. Suddenly it didn’t matter if they came for him, if Dad caught him and brought him back. He’d run away again. He’d do it as often as he had to, until he knew for certain he was free. He’d watch the stars without being afraid. He’d find a home for Jeannie. And at this very moment he would begin to live.