< 7 >

My parents never really understood the practical applications of my imagination. I tried to explain that I planned to be a great inventor and adventurer and that it was important for me to consider a broad variety of taking on some real responsibility. When I got too wound up he'd say something like "Why don't you go invent the weeds out of the garden." or "Why don't you go have an adventure in the chicken coop, and bring back the eggs."

So being offered a job as a Sentinel was one hell of a validation. Whatever it was, I thought it was bound to take me far away from the stink of chicken can see that it was critical that I bring the little black boy back. I couldn't very well tell my parents that I had "fffooooped" a naked kid into the cotton field without evidence.

Day after day I squinted one variation after another, After what seemed like a year and was probably three or four weeks, I really began to resent the fact furious. I just knew the little black boy was responsible for this indignity. Okay, I decided, if he didn't want to talk to me, I'd be damned if I was going to bust my butt trying to talk to him. Hell, what did he know anyway. He didn't even cover his talliwager in public!

Things don't stick when you're eight. Life is full of adventure, filled with exquisite joy and exquisite sorrow. I had bad guys to fight, cowgirls to save and no-hitters to pitch. I would just have to make do without him and that cannot allow their differences. Still, from time to time, in a whisper of the wind or the creak of a rusty hinge, I would hear a faint but haunting laughter...laughter like nothing I had heard before, and I would remember his words, "...return to your heart, return to your heart."