All tagged Eddie
“Dad! Dad!” Joy looks at Justin with desperation in her eyes. “What’s the matter with Charlie?”
Charlie’s hands are shaking.
Justin looks at him, and seems to freeze.
“Don’t wake up feeling bad!” Joy grabs Charlie. “Don’t wake up feeling bad! Stay with me and I’ll make you feel better!”
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“But what did he say to you?”
It’s been a day since we last saw Colin and Hugh, and Justin is trying to ask Charlie what made him run away yesterday.
Charlie keeps ignoring Justin’s questions as Joy and Charlie play with toys on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge.
“Charlie,” Justin pleads for the seventh time. “What happened? What did he say?”
Charlie looks up finally. “He said ‘poop’.”
“Huh? He said ‘poop’?”
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“Ooh, you know what!” Charlie, now bearded and moustached, tells Joy amidst the two of them laughing.
“What, what?”
“I think… I think…” he concentrates and his beard and moustache disappear. He finally looks like a kid again. That was too strange to look at.
“What if I can be a grownup?”
“A grownup?!”
“Old. Like your dad or something.”
“Ooh! Do it!”
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“I want my dad!” Charlie cries and begins to breathe hysterically.
I put both hands on Charlie’s shoulders as he cries. “Charlie. Charlie. Listen to me.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Joy is standing there, full of shame, her shoulders and arms raised, as if she’s trying to be inside a turtle’s shell. She’s ashamed. She’s taking personally the fact that Charlie apparently can’t ever dream of his father again, as if it was her fault.
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Charlie had just tried to summon his father, and even with Joy’s help - I don’t know if that actually helps or not - but in any case, he failed. And then Joy said it was her fault.
“When I met Eddie,” Joy begins to explain, clearly feeling horrible, “we played, and I… I touched him. I wanted to play with him so much! So he became real! And then he died…”
Charlie shakes his head. He doesn’t understand.
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“I can see him,” Charlie says. “I can see him in my mind. I’m trying to bring him back.”
“Go ahead,” Joy says. “You can do it!”
Charlie seems to be straining. “Just the dad who plays with me, just the dad who plays with me, just the…” he sighs and opens his eyes. “I can’t do it!”
Joy puts her hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Try,” she says. “I’ll help you!”
Charlie closes his eyes and now so does Joy.
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I sense some tension from both Charlie and Joy.
“Huh. What about your dad, Charlie?”
Now they both tense up. It’s not subtle. I’m missing something. They’ve said quite a few things over the last few weeks about Charlie’s father, but I’m not sure if any of it was about the real world.
“My Dad… he… he died. Because of me. And then we moved. And then every time I dreamed about him he ended up killing me.”
“Really killing him!” Joy adds.
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We wait for hours, but the Shrooms don’t fall. Joy and Charlie insist on not letting go of the Shrooms’ stems in all that time. Joy is holding on to the stem of Justin’s dream, and Charlie holds on to the stem of his dream.
At some point I decide to sit down on the small surface of the Shroom. I still hold Master Mind’s hand. I am still afraid I might fall when the Shroom collapses.
They spend the time talking to each other by yelling from Shroom to Shroom.
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