Clifford by Harold R. Johnson

Author:Harold R. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2018-08-01T18:27:37+00:00

* * *

I lie in the darkness, my back curled, listening to the sound of my own breathing, remembering. I don’t know which I regret more: believing him in the first place, or missing out on seeing that rocket go up.

Trickster

Mom told stories about Wesakicahk, the trickster, how, whenever he did something, it always turned out messed up. She told the traditional stories that her grandmother had told her when she was our age, stories about his tricking the ducks and geese, and the loon telling on him, and how he burned his ass on a hot rock to teach it a lesson.

The wonderful thing about our trickster was that we could also make up stories about him. Clifford said that in the olden days, when someone wanted to confess something to the camp, they would wait until evening when everyone was around the fire, telling stories, and they would make up a story about what they did and blame it on Wesakicahk. Clifford also said that was why Wesakicahk left us. He saw hard times coming for the people and he didn’t want to get blamed for it.

“But Wesakicahk will come back,” Clifford said. “He will be here in the future.” Then he told me the story that he had made up:

Kayas — Clifford started the story with the Cree word that means long time ago, but since it is always used at the beginning of traditional stories, maybe it means Once upon a time — Wesakicahk had forgotten most of the teachings of the Grandfathers. He knew a little. He still remembered a few things but not much; he remembered what a rattle was for, and he still had a little bit of magic left in him. But most of the things from the Creator, Wesakicahk had forgotten.

At that time the scientists had learned a few things. They thought they knew just about everything. They had an idea about what they called space glue. They knew that most of reality was emptiness. They knew that the atoms were held together by something, but they did not know what that something was. And they knew that if they took an atom apart, the pieces would still be connected by some mysterious force. This mystery had the scientists confused, and they wanted to find out the secret of the force.

Well, one of the scientists was more determined than all the others. He wanted to be the one who became famous for discovering the secret of existence. The mystery frustrated him. The more frustrated he got, the angrier he became. Finally, in great anger, he succeeded in breaking the bond between atoms. It sounded like cloth ripping. From somewhere he heard someone say ouch. He had put a hole in reality itself.

The scientist became very afraid because the hole he had created started to grow. As a hole in anything will get bigger by itself, so did the hole in reality. And there was no way to stop the hole from getting larger.

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