Kevin M. Scrima
Ethnic Fiction—Professor Murabito
2/9/15
Visions of The
Past and Visions of the Future in the Present Moment
The Native American girl told him that she
wanted him to go on a Vision Quest with her. He liked the girl. Eh, he more than liked her.
That’s why he decided to go. If he learned that emotions are stupid and had a Real
Social Dynamics mentor, like someone who taught guys how to get girls by
showing the most effective techniques behind interactions, then he would have
had a vision that this Vision Quest was a mistake, and beyond foolish.
The girl wanted company. That’s all. She
didn’t necessarily like him romantically, though she did; it was complex. She
didn’t want to go on this Vision Quest alone. She doesn’t like to be alone. Her
family were really adamant about her going through this rite of passage,
despite her not believing in it. Maybe she would lie about it and say some
things, form some story about following a rabbit to a hole in a dream, kind of
like Alice in Wonderland, and try to discover some deep philosophical meaning
to it.
He, Connor, was hoping to find a way to get
closer to her. Maybe she did want to get close to him, too, instead of it being
just company. She seemed like a needy person, always needing someone to hang
around with. Girls are needy in general, he thought.
As they walked into the woods, they
chitchatted about trivial things. His blue backpack bounced up and down as Connor
made his way down the path. He wore a red, plaid shirt and blue jeans. He
glanced at his friend, Aiyanna, her two long, black braids bouncing and
swaying, her tan, smooth skin, her brown eyes focused straight ahead. She wore
a tan-colored Native American costume, one he thought he saw in the costume
section during Halloween, or something that perhaps she bought off Amazon. He
thought she was so beautiful, that if there were a Native American magazine,
she’d be the model on the front cover, or probably could be for any other women
magazine. At least he thought.
“So… we’re going out here to a random spot
in the woods, and we’re going to sit and talk, you know, eat, sleep, like we
usually do, and suddenly a vision is gonna come out of nowhere, right?” Connor
asked.
Aiyanna giggled. “Yeah, pretty much. I mean,
maybe we’ll see something or discover something about ourselves, who knows?”
Connor made his way over a fallen tree, and
his shoes crunched on the leaves as his shoes made contact with ground. Aiyanna
added, “All a Vision Quest really is, is a deep insight to one’s life.”
Connor turned to help her over the fallen tree
and held her hand—“Thanks,” she said—and didn’t let go of it, wanting to keep
holding on to it, but reluctantly let go. That brief touch excited him, because
he was so inexperienced with girls, but her hand was also warm.
“Like…” Connor began. “Like you believing you’re
meant to be together with someone?” He glanced at her with that smirk of his.
She laughed. “Something like that. I guess
that could be one example.”
“Or realizing that you’ll never find yourself!” Connor exclaimed.
Feeling as if he was on to something, he continued, “Because you’re always changing
as a person and can barely hold on to who you are. It’s more like catching yourself instead of finding
yourself.” When Connor was excited with an idea, he rarely could hold back from
talking. This was one of those times. “It’s almost like a game of
hide-and-seek. Who you really are is hiding, but it’s your job to play the
seeker. But the problem is, everyone else is playing the same game, and also
trying to find each other. Everyone wants them to find them, which makes it
problematic for other people being able to find themselves.” Light poured in
between a few trees, blinding Connor momentarily as he instinctively brought up
his hand to shield his eyes. That sun was bright.
Aiyanna pondered his thought, biting her
mouth in such a way that it looked like she paused halfway while chewing a
piece of bubble gum, maybe wondering if she liked the taste or not, or if the
flavor suddenly left. “I’ve never thought about it like that before.
Interesting.”
“Yep!” Connor said. “There’s your vision
right there. For the both of us. Neither have I.”
She gave a slight smile.
As they continued walking, silence hung in the
air. A sound from some weird bird became noticeable. “So…” he said again,
trying to make light conversation. “Did you bring cannabis or something?”
She laughed again, as he knew she would.
“No, my parents would kill me. And I’ve never done drugs.”
“Nether have I either. It was a joke anyway,”
Connor said. “Or maybe we could be playing a video game or watching a YouTube
video? There’s this one game, called Destiny, where you enter this portal to
the Black Garden, and the whole screen has this weird, rainbow psychedelic
effect. It’s pretty weird. I recorded my reaction on YouTube. You totally have
to check it out sometime. Oh, did I tell you I have a YouTube channel? Google ‘Destiny
Psychedelic Experience.’ It’s hilarious.” Wait, didn’t this mean he already had
a Vision Quest? If finding the place where the protagonist had to go counted as
a Vision Quest.
Aiyanna laughed again. “Okay.” Video game
analogy, really? she thought. “But you really can’t get any insights from that.”
“Well,” Connor began. “It transports you to
unknown territory, and you have to destroy the Heart of Darkness. I’m sure that
means something, somewhere.” Coincidentally, he linked that heart to Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness story. “Then the player finds out that the game
sucked, there’s no more content, and that the game developers removed that
content to sell it to you as future DLC, content you have to pay for that
should already be in the game. In other words,” he said, “life’s about the
money, not what you produce, necessarily. Or,
it means that there are two kinds of people in this world: The people who
screw you over, and those who get screwed over.”
“Hmm,” Aiyanna merely said. She wasn’t used
to all this intellectual talk, though she did find it interesting. “I should
just talk to you all day, and that could be my vision quest,” she said, then
laughed.
Connor laughed. “Yeah. I always talk like
this, sorry,” he said. And as soon as he did, he added, “Or it means there are
those who you feed off of, and those that feed off you. It’s like this weird,
fucked up, parasitic dance.”
“Okay,
that’s a creepy thought,” Aiyanna said, and slapped his shoulder, telling him
to quit. “You’re going to give me nightmares.”
“If that helps you have your vision faster,”
Connor said, and laughed. “Okay, well. What else can I talk about? My friend
did shrooms once. Actually, he did a lot of drugs. He once showed me some
trippy YouTube videos, and recommended certain things to watch when you’re
high. I think he told me he stared at the same thing for one hour or something.
But we’re not friends anymore.”
Aiyanna gave a short laugh. “Aw, I’m sorry.
And Connor, I think we’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
The air was cool. A creek rushed water
between two large trees nearby. Connor stepped on a stone, and another, the
water forming around it. One was round, so he had to keep his balance, but the
rest were flat, as if they were made for being walked on. Once he made it to
the other side, he helped her over. “I hope so,” he said, then reluctantly gave
her hand back to herself. “I’m starting to get tired. How much further to
walk?” He really wasn’t tired. From a logical standpoint, he didn’t see the
point in walking further, or what a specific location a mile away could do
compared to one nearby it.
“Not too far,” she said. “The area is more
safe and secluded. I’ve come here before sometimes as a kid. I always liked
adventure and going to new places.”
Connor smiled and looked at her beautiful
face, her long eyelashes, her crooked, upturned nose. “I can tell. I’ve… been
more interested in staying put.” He liked the familiar, but always tried to put
himself in novel situations.
“Here,” Aiyanna finally said.
Thank God, Connor thought, as if He granted
his desire to stay put, even though he didn’t believe in God, or any
supernatural thing. Evolution and past events brought everything to this point.
The thought made everything weird and his mind hurt, so he tried not to think
about any of that. “Cool,” he simply said, and looked around. It was a round
and wide, spacious area. Thick grass on the ground. Wide trees surrounding the
area. A cliff jetting over that had a tree on top, but underneath was a huge
hole, like a mini-cave, which might be good to sleep in, if need be, he guessed.
“I’ve never camped before,” Connor said,
even though he has told her this. “So you may need to help me with the set up.
But I Googled it, so I should be fine, for the most part”
Aiyanna smiled as she set her beige backpack
down. “Alright, Modern-Boy.”
Modern Boy? He wondered. “Okay Out-Of-Date-Past-Girl,”
he decided to say, then smiled.
Aiyanna giggled. She pulled the tent from a
bag and began setting it up.
Connor took his out and tried to follow how
she did hers. But for some reason, his kept falling down. “Ugh!” he shouted in
frustration.
Aiyanna looked at him as she finished
putting hers up, a teepee, beige and white. “Need help?” she asked with a
smile.
Connor, stubborn, wouldn’t give in. “Nope,
I…” his blue tent collapsed. “Yes, fine.”
Aiyanna chuckled as she came over. “Look,
like this…” then she proceeded to show him how to put up a tent, which turned
into a big rectangle. Connor observed, sulking, his arms across his chest. “How
did you learn how to pitch a tent so well?” And as soon as he asked, his mouth
contorted into a smile, and he made a weird sound with his mouth and nose as he
tried to hold his laughter in, then quickly brought a hand to his mouth.
“Well, I…” she looked up at him. “What’s so
funny?”
“Um, nothing,” he said, contorting his face
back to normal and biting his lip.
Her eyebrows narrowed. “Ew. Gross.”
Then he burst out laughing, his hand on his
stomach. “Sorry.”
They carried and rolled their sleeping bags
in their own individual tents, laid a few thick, wool blankets outside so they
wouldn’t be sitting on the ground. As he sat with her, he said, “Okay,” and
clapped his hands together. “Let’s have this vision!”
Aiyanna tilted her head and raised an
eyebrow, as if to say, seriously?
Connor put his hands up in front of his
chest in surrender. It got quiet. That weird-sounding bird could be heard
again, singing its weird song. But it was the bird’s own, unique song, after
all, Connor thought, which was why it sounded weird. It probably sounds natural
to the bird, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment