The Winds of Change (NaNoWriMo 2012 Day 1)

~ CHAPTER 1 ~

"I’m getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin.."

Oh, beginnings. They’re always so stubborn and complex. That is, if you can manage to personify one of these bothersome creatures. A beginning is always so much more than just where the story starts, it’s where something grows, and where something ends too. What could truly define a beginning, and where do you place one? One normally puts these things at the front of their story, physically speaking of course. I suppose if we simply must adhere to such a thing today, let’s make it right when the growing started…

It was in the Fall, a very long time ago. Or at least, it felt like a long time. However, to him, it was really quite short. The boy, aged three, had short, dirty blond hair, pale skin, and a carefree attitude. He spent his days traveling around the vast land that was his parents’ summer home. It was really quite a small house, but to a child of adventure, it was endless. He’d spend every day like this – doing anything and everything that his small heart desired. He would rush to his bedroom, grab his stuffed animals, and tell them all about the wonderful time he was having on his adventures, and sometimes he’d even bring them along with him. As an only child, imagination was all the boy had, and he hadn’t entered school yet. He didn’t even know what school was! But it wasn’t any of his concern. He didn’t really have concerns at all, actually.

Today however, was different. He was in the middle of his daily routine, running around the house, plopping down on beds, getting up again, and running back excitedly, when something unusual brought him back to reality. There were loud noises coming from outside the hallway, and he couldn’t quite tell what they were, or what they meant. But he did know it meant one thing – adventure! He rushed out of his bedroom, and into the living room, where he found his parents, sitting on the couch. That was interesting. They were speaking quite loudly to each other The boy couldn’t understand what they were talking about, however a moment after he entered the room, his father noticed him. "Get back into your room!" He snapped. This was something that he did understand, and understood it very well. It was a tone in his father’s voice that meant listening to him, no matter what.

The boy obliged, but caught a glance at his mother as he hastily retreated back into his land of imagination. She was crying, and his father was still was speaking in the same loud voice as before. He didn’t know why, of course. Maybe his stuffed animals would provide more inside, he thought. They always seem to know what to do.
 

From then on, these occurrences became oddly more common. Sometimes he’d be restricted to certain rooms for his adventures, or would be forced to stay in his bedroom for an extended period of time. This was definitely not an ideal play environment. By the time he was five, the boy had grown used to this limited space, and started playing in the other rooms of the house less and less. He learned how to build blanket forts, as well as how to use his television remote to find exactly what channels the cartoons were on. The adventures never ceased however. Once, after inspecting a Santa Claus hat that was hanging from his closet door, and deciding that Christmas was without a doubt, the best holiday ever, he decided that it would be a worthy adventure to declare that it was Christmas. Because why not? To him, it’s not like holidays had any certain time of year that they reoccurred at or anything.

He retrieved the hat from his closet, put it on his head, and looked in the mirror on his dresser. Yes! Now he was ready to deliver gifts to his family. If Santa could do it, why couldn’t he? He looked around his room, gathering up several small objects that held sentimental value to him. He thought if he delivered the best gifts to his parents, it might make them happier about whatever it is they’ve been fighting about so much lately.

Finally, he came to decide upon two gifts: A small wooden train, and one of his valued stuffed animals – a plush, white dog. "Yes, these are excellent gifts" he thought. Sneaking down the hallway, he tip-toed his way into his parents’ bedroom, where they were still asleep in their bed. He put the wooden train on his father’s bedside table first. Not without difficulty, however, as the wheels on the train made it so it kept rolling off the polished wood surface. After what seemed like forever of fussing, he managed to keep it still between his father’s watch and coffee mug. He then ran to the other side of the bed, placing the stuffed animal on his mother’s respective bedside table. This also, wasn’t without some difficulty, but not for the same reason as the train. A reason he didn’t really understand, but acted on it anyway.

He gave the plush dog a few strokes on its head, whispering to it softly "Goodbye buddy, I love you."  While it was true that the dog would only be a few short paces away from his bedroom, he was leaving it in the possession of his mother now. What if he never saw it again? It was important that he made peace with it now. He still felt right about this decision for these gifts, however. His mother was the softer, kinder one of his parents, and would appreciate it more than his father would. Besides, he seemed more like a train kind of guy anyway.

As he was sneaking back out of his parents room, and into the hallway, he was suddenly stopped with a shock. His dad had woken up, and asked him what he was doing with a Santa hat on his head and what he was doing putting toys his parents’ nightstands. The boy did his best to explain that due to the power vested in him by the fluffy hat he had acquired, that it was now Christmas, and thus he was giving them gifts. The father however, disapproved, and as unfortunately decided that it was in fact, not Christmas, and to take the toys back to his bedroom. He did as he was told, and disappointingly mounted the Santa Claus hat back atop his closet door. "Perhaps next time." he thought.

That would prove to be fruitless just a few days later, when he heard his parents arguing again from outside his room. He stepped outside more cautiously this time, and tried to listen to what was going on, in hopes of understanding the situation further. He succeeded, but not in the way he’d hoped however. This time, his father saw him again, but didn’t send him away. His mother wasn’t crying either. They both just seemed concerned. She asked him to sit next to her on the couch, and he did so, his curiosity ever growing. She told him that her and his father weren’t "getting along so well" anymore, and that he would be moving out soon.

Wait, what? Hold on just a moment. What did she say? Where would his dad be going? What does this "moving out" thing mean anyway? Is this because he wanted Christmas to come early? Is that it? Was this somehow all his fault?! So many things were spiraling together at once in the boy’s mind, and it eventually became too much for him to bear. He suddenly burst out crying, without really understanding why. His mom simply hugged him and stated that it wasn’t his fault. Yet, he still didn’t understand.

After that poi

nt, life was quite different for him. No longer did his parents indulge his imaginary whims, or sit together watching television. His parents now spent their days moving boxes in and out of the house, stowing away things that he’d never even seen before. Pictures, power tools, stacks of old papers. It was all quite bizarre, and these were definitely NOT suitable adventuring conditions. The boy didn’t know what "moving out" meant, but he assumed nothing further out of the usual would change. It was already very strange in itself, as nothing out of the ordinary ever happened here.

It turns out that he was wrong about that too. He was told that he wouldn’t be seeing his father as much, but he’d still be around. Again the boy wondered, was this all his fault somehow? In the few short years of his life, had he done something wrong? Would he still have a dad? All of these questions were unlocking something within him, and making it grow. It was a personality. As he observed all of the events happening around him, there were new emotions surfacing inside that he hadn’t ever felt before. Stress, worry, guilt. He didn’t know what to do, and still didn’t fully understand why they were happening, but he did know that he didn’t like them at all.

 Eventually, his dad disappeared, and the house he once considered a place of unchanging imagination, adventure, whimsy, and fun, was now much emptier. Not just physically, but emotionally. The boy would no longer wake up every morning to see him sitting in his favorite chair, drinking a cup of pure black coffee, or find him browsing the Internet in their computer room, or organizing shelves in the garage. It was a much lonelier, and much quieter home. That was another emotion that came with his personality – and perhaps the one that he disliked more than all of them. It caused him to find the activities that he once saw as fun, to now be not even worth the time. He even saw it duplicated into his mother. The boy found as he slowly turned older, that this house, this new life where he only saw his dad semi-regularly, this new self, was changing him in a way that could never be reversed.