I wasn't born duplicitous. The skill developed as a survival trait. A child's vocabulary is limited...something about not enough folders for the brain to process things. I don't know about any of that. I felt I had enough folders, they just didn't work like other people's folders. My folders kept changing, shifting, sometimes becoming invisible.
Let me explain. I found some crayons. They weren't Crayolas. My parents never bought name brand. They might have been Grayolas or Crapolas or Ricolas. During the morning, and I think most of the afternoon, and some of the evening I wasn't allowed out of my bedroom. I'd always felt that my mom told me rules so I would have a better grasp of the English language. I am sure that is why she enunciated so slowly when she talked to me.
So I had these crayons. Now I couldn't exactly use them in the bedroom. Mom would assume I used them on the wall...guilt by association. So I walked up to the door of the bedroom. If you listen very close before you are about to do something nefarious you can sense within a few seconds, exactly how much time you have to pull off a caper. I listened. I could hear my father snoring like a factory saw. He would not be an obstacle. Where was mom? I listened. There was rustling in the kitchen. I recognized the sound. She was sneaking diet chocolates while dad slept! What a sneaky sneaker she was! I pushed the door open a crack. I could see bright light. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. My bedroom was kept dark in a vain attempt to promote sleeping. I pushed the door open another crack. My head fit in the opening enough to see in one direction but the sound of the door hinge betrayed me. I held my breath and pulled my head back into the bedroom.
For a long time I didn't breath. I found to my astonishment that I don't really need to breath. There are gills just below the surface of the jaw. You can't see them and by the time you are an adult you forget that they are there so you forget how to use them. So I held my breath, because the gills don't make any noise. It worked. Mom had turned on the television and was watching the creature feature. That should keep her busy for hours!
I tip-toed back to the door and pushed it the rest of the way open. I took one quick look down the hall. Perhaps I was too hasty. I slipped on the hardwood floor in my full-bodied pajama outfit. The feet on a child's full bodied pajama outfit are designed to trip you on carpet and make you slip on hard surfaces. It is just one tool parents have in their arsenal to keep children from having fun. My folders were different than other kids as I have mentioned before. I got to my knees. I picked up my imitation Crayolas and hovered off the ground. I bet she didn't know I could do that!
When you are a child, and you are trapped in your room for days with nothing to do, you learn to focus. My mother gave me a specific list of things I was not allowed to do. Using gills and hovering were not on the list. So I practiced them. I got so good at hovering, I learned to fly. When I mastered flying I learned to become invisible. Once I knew how to become invisible I learned how to leave my body and travel around the house at night. One time I left my body and then left the house. I traveled down to the river to see if anyone was fishing. It was late at night. I guess adults find other things to do late at night because no one was fishing. I was debating if it was a good idea to sneak into the neighbor's house to see what they do at night, when IT followed me.
I don't really like to talk about IT. IT was dark, and hideous, and had big ears and big eye brows. IT was like something I had seen on the creature feature when I had sneaked into the living room once while invisible to see what my mom was watching. I did not like IT. IT never said anything, IT just hovered near me. I flew as fast as I could back to my own bedroom. IT followed me. I didn't look back. When I got to my bed IT hovered over me like a giant.
Bed sheets have incredible power. If you hold them just right over your head you can block IT out. You can make yourself invisible. You can keep your parents from seeing that you took diet chocolate from the kitchen while they were watching the creature feature or snoring loud enough to make the floor boards rattle.
Sometimes I daydream. I have to confess that I daydream a lot. I don't know how long I had been daydreaming but I was still hovering off the floor with my crayons and mom was still watching monsters on television. I don't know why she did that when there were monsters in the closet, under the bed and in the basement. Some of them were friendly.
I figured I didn't have much time before the monster show would go to commercial and mom would get up for more diet chocolate. I flew to the wall on the other side of the hall and began writing with the green and purple crayons. It is very important to draw using the green crayon with counter-clockwise swirls while countering with the purple crayon with straight up and down lines. If you draw any other way the magic doesn't work. I made sure to do this high enough off the ground so my mom would know for sure I couldn't have done it. When she asks I am going to blame it on IT. Maybe then IT will go hover over somebody else.
When my spell was complete I pushed hard on both crayons as I pulled myself down the wall. When my crayons touched the trap door in the hall I knew I could travel to another land. I dropped the now useless crayons on the floor and crushed them into the boards with my pajama foot coverings. This would hide my tracks from the thing and it wouldn't be able to follow me. I very carefully opened the trap door and looked up. I knew from many other adventures that looking down only led to a pile of clothes in a cage in the basement. I've gone down there. It's boring. Also mom put it on the list of places I can't go.
No, what I am interested in was what was up! Somewhere up that passage, beyond the creepy thing there was a place for kids like me. I heard them calling me the last time I looked inside the trap door. I am pretty sure the passage leads inside the apricot tree outside. I've been on the apricot tree, but I've never been in it. I mean to find out what that is like. Today is that day. I start crawling up the passage. It is very hard to hover because it was so narrow. I didn't know how hard it would be to see in pitch dark. I've been practicing seeing in the dark for a long time. That is why I know the creepy thing was out to get me. I'd seem her lurking in the shadows. I am really not sure what happened next. Did I make it inside the apricot tree? I don't think that I did. Maybe the creepy thing tripped me in the dark. For one thing when I woke up I was not covered in sap.
Instead, I was lying on top of a pile of clothes in the cage in the basement. It was daylight. I must have slept here all night. Normally the cage door is open, but it was latched. I bet the creepy thing or IT did this! I tried to reach the latch. What happened to me? I can't hover or fly. My powers must not work in the basement! I looked for something to grab to lift the latch but I dropped my crayons in the hall so I had nothing.
I was trapped in the basement a long time. At first I tried to be silent. If mom finds out she will put this on the list of things for me to not do. I have to try again to get to the passage to the outdoors. Maybe tomorrow. For now I will sit very quiet. I'd never noticed it before but there are a lot of spiders in the basement. Some spiders crawl around trying to eat bugs. Our spiders don't eat anything. They just sit in their little web nests and laugh. After a while the laughter gets old. I like a good knock knock joke as much as any child, but spiders don't tell jokes. They just laugh at each other and then they laugh at you.
I was down there for two days at least. I kept thinking the creepy thing had sent me to the house of the witch in the forest in that story my mom would tell me about the two kids who got lost because they didn't bring enough bread crumbs. The witch had me in a cage and was going to eat me. That is why the spiders are laughing. They know I taste awful. I don't want the witch to find out how bad I taste. I figure if I stay down here a few more days I will be thin enough that I can make it through the boards and slip out of this cage. Then I will go up the stairs, sneak out of the door and go back to my bedroom before anyone notices I am gone.
I don't know why I cracked. I thought I heard the witch coming, but the water was also coming up through the drain in the floor. If the witch didn't get me the water would for sure. I was afraid of water. My mom told me I couldn't swim. That is why I was not allowed to go to the river. That is why I had to climb the apricot tree because kids without water have to climb trees. I screamed. Really I yelled. "Mom!" I waited. Maybe mom left the house or was eaten by the witch! "MOM!" I waited. Still nothing. I started to think about what could happen if mom wasn't there. "MOM! MOMMMMMMMMM! MOM! MOMMA! MMMMOMMMMM!"
"Dean? Is that you? Where are you?" she asked.
"I'm stuck in the basement!" I said.
"How did you get down there?" she asked.
I could hear her coming down the stairs to the basement. I hoped the witch didn't ambush her. Still I couldn't help but watch to see if the witch DID ambush her.
"HOW did you get in the clothes bin?" she asked.
"I flew there. Someone locked the latch. Nobody EVER locks this!" I said.
"HOW...MANY...TIMES...have you done this?" she asked.
"Everyday, at least once. Sometimes more. Whenever I am tired of going to the river." I said.
"You go to the river?" she asked.
"Only at night after everyone is asleep." I said.
"You may not go to the river and you may not go through the clothes hamper door. Add this to the list of things I forbid you to do! You could have been hurt! Dean, you are grounded!" she said.
So now you understand why it is that I am the way I am. Most people can't handle the truth. They tell you it is important to be honest, but the minute you pour your heart out and tell them what really happened they ground you or worse.
So now, when the lights are out and everyone else has gone to bed I tell them I have to go to the bathroom or I need a drink or I left the computer on. If you tell your wife that you are getting up because you have the urge to walk through a wall or mock IT for hovering when you can shoot beams out of your eyes...well...some people just don't have as many folders as I do.