“Boy.”
“Boy, come to me, boy.”
I am sitting in a kitchen chair balancing on the two back legs trying to keep myself from touching the wall behind me. I am facing west with the sun streaming in through the bronze screen door onto my face and my bare chest. I am skinnier than normal this summer and my mother continues to fill my plate at dinner with more food than I could eat even if I were starving. She thinks me sickly. I’m just not hungry.
“Boy.”
I had been ignoring it for about fifteen minutes when I knew that I had to get up and see where the voice was coming from. Yep, it’s whale. The orb sits in a nook of a huge oak tree at the corner of the front yards eastward fence line. Dad and mom are sitting on the porch in the warmth of the summer sun drinking hard tea and holding hands. Brother is down at the lake fishing with Tim Urman; a local boy who lives on the next ranch to the west. Sister is lying fast asleep on a blanket in-between my mom and dad on the porch.
“Boy.”
It’s a loud but gentle whisper that carries with it a wind, a breeze.
“Here I am boy.”
I look at mom and dad. They don’t seem to hear anything.
“Boy, I am here in the branches. Come to me.”
I look back one more time to see my parents with eyes closed and heads reclined back onto the chairs where they sit. I move slowly towards and tree keeping one eye on Whale and one eye on my parents.
Still no movement
Everything quiet
Am I deaf?
The grass is cool under my feet
“Boy, are you listening?”
This is the first time Whale had ever asked me a direct question and I was confused because he had no mouth or ears or anything to justify a response from a sane person of sound judgment. Why should I, a sane young man, be talking to a glowing orb?
“I am.” I was.
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