Part 15

BECOMING WHO WE ARE

"Whoa, watch out! Here I come!"

Edward was on the ground floor of the Home, and Grant's vivacious voice rang out on the floor above him.

"Okay, I think I'll buy it!"

It sounded like he was having a good time.

"Second prize in a beauty contest? Gee, I wonder who won first!"

Edward, always curious, decided to travel upstairs to investigate. He found Grant in his room, sitting on the floor with a board in front of him. There were two dice, miniscule pewter carvings, stacks of cards and piles of...wait, was that money? Edward did a double take to make sure he wasn't imagining it. Sure enough, they were dollar bills, multicolored ones. Edward had never seen different colored bills before; all the paper money he'd seen was the same bland greenish-grey color.

Grant looked up from the board. "Hi Renaissance Man, how are you?"
"Grant, where did you get all that money? Did your parents give it to you? Is it from your job?"
"Oh, this isn't real money! Shoot, you've never played Monopoly?"
"...Monopoly?" Edward gently inquired.
"It's a game. A really famous game. It's so much fun."
"Who are you playing with?" There was no one else in the room.
"I'm just playing against myself..." his countenance, usually bright as the noonday sun, turned sullen.

"I wish I had someone to play with. I asked Gemma if she wanted to play, but she thinks I'm annoying."

Before Edward had processed Grant's words, he spoke again:

"Hey, I've got an idea. How about you and I play, Edward?"

Edward felt compassion for Grant, but games frustrated and confused him.

"I don't know. I've only played Rock, Paper, Scissors. And I stopped playing because I never won."
"Well, you can only do scissors, so it's rigged against you. Don't play it anymore. This is a game you CAN win."
"...I can?"
"Yeah! I'll teach you. And I'll go easy on you until you get really good. But then..." Grant clapped his hands and pointed at Edward. "It's on!"

Edward had reconsidered, and sat on the floor. Grant taught him to buy properties, how to add houses or hotels to them, and how to use the game's cards. Interlaced with these instructions were discussions about Dracula, about the book Grant had chosen to read next (The Count Of Monte Cristo), about the novel Grant was writing, and about the idea of interchangeable hands and scissors, since Edward's consultation with the prosthetists grew closer each day.

Monopoly was the polar opposite of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The latter was absolutely simplistic and was over in a blink. Monopoly was complicated and took hours to play. When they decided to put the game aside, it still wasn't over. But he'd left Grant's room that day feeling like he was growing beyond the mere acquaintanceship he'd known previously. The bond was much stronger now. This must be what it was like to have a close friend..

During one of Dr. Ravenscroft's lectures that week, he walked into the room with a package in his left hand. Upon closer inspection, the package turned out to be a sheet covering something. He then unveiled a birdcage housing a friendly cockatoo.

"Good morning, my dear ones. As you can see here, I brought a visitor. His name is Charles. He's about 5 years old...he's quite a character. He likes to babble gibberish, and when I respond to him, we have a pleasant conversation. Sometimes he'll do impersonations of me. It's a good reminder not to take myself too seriously."

The residents chuckled.

"I've seen him strut around like he's just been crowned prince of Denmark. And even though he has wings, he doesn't always use them. He'll hop from perch to perch. It's the silliest thing. He's just making it more difficult for himself."

Dr. Ravenscroft let Charles out of his cage and affectionately stroked the ivory feathers atop his head.

"Let me ask you all something: did you ever have a pet growing up? Some of you have pets at the moment. The first pet I had, back as a young boy, was a golden retriever. He changed me. Before I met him, I really just lived for myself. I appreciated many things in my life, but I didn't know what it was like to love someone deeply. Nonetheless, I had love within me, and that dog unleashed it."

Charles was now climbing all over Dr. Ravenscroft's arms and shoulders as he continued the lecture:

"Really, I think that's the greatest thing about pets. When we receive one, they become part of a community...and so do we. A community made from love. Each of us has the capacity to give and receive love. We were made to extend ourselves in that way, to become a part of a community. And when we stop giving and stop receiving...", he snapped his finger, "...we turn to piles of ash. I don't mean literally, of course. But for all the good we're doing; we may as well be ash! None of us can truly be apart in this world. No man is an island, as the saying goes."

"To say to another with all our heart, 'I love you', is to say, 'you will never die'."
-Kallistos Ware

"I love Charles and he loves me. We've formed our community. And you're all welcome to join. We've got a good thing going on."

All of this made Edward realize the gravity of his former situation, after being forced to isolate himself. He'd certainly felt like a pile of ash at the time. The bonds of love between persons, he thought, are certainly a requirement for being a "finished person". He was quite happy with how his communities were developing.

Having worked at Sideshow Bistro for over 6 months, Edward had ascended to the status of a regular, a journeyman. Hence, when the chefs fraternized, Edward was often invited to be around them. They were the only people Edward had known, aside from Kim, whose attachment style had been a slow, steady increase. Everyone else had either, from the very first moment, loved him or despised him. Sometimes the same people had done both.

On one unhurried afternoon, Edward, Aaron, Assistant Manager Tayton, and several other chefs, sat in the employee's lounge, telling one another stories from their lives. Aaron was speaking:

"I'll never forget this. I was going through my divorce and everything felt totally meaningless. I was in my car, out in the woods, and I parked near a railroad track. I had a bottle of gin on me. I was so depressed I didn't even care if I got a DUI. Stayed there for maybe 20 minutes. Drinking, thinking about life…out of nowhere, I got this REALLY strong gut instinct. Everything inside me is saying: leave. Get the hell out of there. You don't want to be there. I thought it was just the alcohol but then I realized: for some reason, I was completely sober. And the feeling wasn't going away. So I freaked out and drove off, fast as I could. I stayed at my buddy's place that night. Next morning, I check the news: a freight train jumped the tracks. Completely wrecked. In the EXACT SPOT where I'd been parked. It happened 10 minutes after I drove away."

The other chefs were awestruck. Aaron concluded:

"I didn't feel like anyone was watching out for me when I got divorced. But the universe cared enough to save me, you know?"

Aaron was a tough act to follow, but another chef, Salvador, went next. Salvador was a sly, suave, Guatemalan-born hombre. His performances were about juggling, and he was also utterly in his element telling a good story to a crowd.

"One time, I hitchhiked from San Antonio to Houston. Before we got on the road, I told the guy who picked me up: 'I've got my glock on me. If you try to hurt me, I'll shoot you. If I take a nap and I wake up and we're not on the highway, I'll shoot you.' Now here's the catch: I didn't have a gun on me!"
There was a lot of astounded laughter at Salvador's bluff.

Aaron nudged Edward. "What about you, Eddy? You got any thrilling tales?" Everyone simmered down to hear what he'd say.

"Someone tried to kill me, so I stabbed them and they died.", Edward said, straight-forwardly. Everyone's eyes widened and there were numerous exclamations.
"We were in the attic of a house. They had a gun and they shot me and missed. And the gun was knocked out of their hand. We were near the attic window, so I…" He made a forward thrust with one hand "…in his chest, and pushed his body out the window. He fell a long way."

Someone piped up: "Is that story true, Edward?"
"It is, yes."
After a moment, Salvador said: "Eddy's the big boss, man. No one messes with him."
"I didn't want to do it."
"Bro, do you think anyone WANTS to do that? It's called survival."
"Yes…I know…"

No one was really sure where to steer the conversation after this, so they all kept to themselves until their lunch break was over.

During this time, Kim began her spring semester coursework. The first resident she interviewed for Dr. Ravenscroft's book manuscript was Nadja, a young woman from Poland. She was blonde, though her hair was very straight pearl blonde, not like Kim's strawberry blonde waves. They convened at the dining room table.

"Why do you think you're peculiar? This was the question Dr. Ravenscroft required her to ask, verbatim, to every interviewee.
"I have X-ray vision. I can see into people's bodies. I see nerves, muscles, bones, organs…"

Her Slavic voice was dry and viscous. Kim perceived her as detached from her own emotions.
"When did you find you could do that?"
"When I was 8 years old. I concentrated very intensely on someone and their skin disappeared from my sight and I'd see what was underneath. It was frightening at first. I was not sure what to do."
"What happened next?"
"I kept seeing something strange when using my vision. It was ugly. Rust-colored. A little like vomit. When someone said they had a sinus infection, I looked at her forehead, and the rust was there."
"Do you think doctors would be interested in hiring you?"
"No. Very few people believe me. In one young man, I saw a heart defect. He'd never been diagnosed. When I told him what I saw, he laughed at me. He went into cardiac arrest three months later. His family thought I had poisoned him, so they attacked me."
"That's terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that…"
"I've been harassed by skeptics. I live with Dr. Ravenscroft because my own family has kicked me out!", the dryness of her voice gave way to an angry wail.
Kim reached over to put her arm around Nadja, in a sisterly way. Nadja accepted the consolation reluctantly.
"Well, I think it's a great skill to have. Could you please show me what it's like? I'm wondering if there's anything I should know about."
Nadja looked at Kim with a somewhat stony gaze. She commanded: "Stand up, and place your arms at your side."
Kim did so. Nadja subjected her to a powerful glare, similar to the one that Kim herself had used on that would-be homewrecker Shay, at Sideshow Bistro. It lasted about 20 seconds.
"Your thyroid gland…looks sort of beaten up. You should eat seaweed salad. Very good for strengthening the thyroid."
Kim wasn't about to dispute someone who'd apparently prophesied a heart attack, so she'd submit to Nadja's advice.

The week passed and the time for Edward's consultation arrived. It was a day that had been in the making for years and years. It was as if he had awoken on a different planet. Life, death and existence could all completely change. It didn't feel real. Yet, the sun's first ray climbed over the horizon to greet him, assuring him this was still Earth, he was still Edward, and he still needed to get to the doctor's office. He ventured outside his home, locked the front door and walked to the nearest bus stop, to his encounter with destiny.