Learning to Crawl by Ken Eckert

Author:Ken Eckert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moldy Rutabaga Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

But the audience called out—look what’s happening. The blanket, as it fell, was shrinking. By the time it landed on him, it was indeed only a regular bedsheet, and was only normal fabric—and Lionel easily waved it off himself and brought it to the ground with a confident wave. The crowd looked at him with a relieved look.

“Well done. I’m proud of you,” said Ralph.

“Why? I didn’t do anything. It’s a bedsheet.”

“We didn’t know that. You thought it would kill you, but you still faced it. Instead of power, or ambition, or dissecting your world impassively into deconstructed categories, you found love. You were willing to do it, and for them, not for you, and not to prove an abstract point. Maybe I am too far gone or old to have done this myself or even realized it. But you did.”

Lionel didn’t speak. He simply looked at the blanket on the ground, now light and harmlessly waffling in the breeze.

“But I’m curious. Why did you want to save all those people? Why would you want to save Edward, or Eileen, if you don’t like them and after they turned on you and treated you badly? Do you think they will thank you for it?”

“Maybe. Maybe they won’t know, or won’t care anyway. But that doesn’t change doing what is right.”

Ralph and the audience looked at Lionel.

“What?” he asked.

Ralph said warmly, “That is character, Lionel. You now have character. And that is evidently what readers love the most. Do you notice that you’re less transparent now?”

Lionel noticed that indeed, the yellowing October sun was now only faintly perceptible through his fingers.

“You didn’t save the suspension of disbelief from failing—but it didn’t totally disappear, or perhaps it changed into something else. Whatever. Well done.”

Even the crowd now looked more substantial, and more colorful. They broke into a polite applause, but a real one, and Lionel smiled. Ralph had also taken on a more solid appearance, and for the first time Lionel smiled back at him with genuine affability.

Meaning was good. Action was good. Lionel saw this. But more importantly, these things were better if they had a purpose, and saving other people was certainly a purpose. Feeling more alive than he had for ages, Lionel felt his body pulse with solidity, and he looked at his hands and saw solid mass and firmness.

He didn’t have to speak. The others could tell. It was time for him to act. Whatever this meant to the story, whether it was a new beginning or an end, it felt good to be taking an active part in it. He looked to the school, seeing its occupants slowly, slowly returning to life, and motioned towards it. The others, and Ralph, stood aside and respectfully watched him pass.

Lionel realized that this hadn’t solved all his problems, for Mrs. Wagner was in all likelihood ready to return to the library after her break to continue reading, and if she read ahead of what Lionel did, it might undermine or conflict with his future actions—or there might be some calamitous collapse at that moment.

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