Ceramic DM Round 2: Macbeth vs. AlSih2o
Grow
By Sage LaTorra
Adam met his mother's gaze as she finished buttoning his jacket. Her sharp features made him feel at home. “Be carefull, Adam. It's cold out there.” Her voice was smooth and comforting.
“Yes, Maman” Adam replied with some difficulty caused by the hood of his jacket. He turned and walked, or more exactly waddled because of his heavy pants, towards the door.
“Adam?” she said, just as he reached the door.
“Yes, Maman?”
“I know you'll do well.”
“I love you, Maman.”
“I love you too, Adam.”
He stepped out into the bitting chill of the outside world, leaving the comforts of home behind him. Adam was ready to be his own man.
The world outside was not what Adam expected. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mothers touch, her warm embrace to let him know he was safe. The snow froze him, even through his heavy jacket. At least he had the jacket. Even if she wasn't here now, his mother had made sure Adam was ready for the world.
Adam was tired and scared. He had already lost sight of the house, he was cold, he was hungry, and he was growing more and more sure that he was not ready for this. It was to soon.
Maybe I should go back he thought, the wind cutting through his jacket slightly.
Maybe Maman was wrong. I'm not ready. I'll just go back. She'll still be there. I can leave tomorrow.
He took a step back towards home. Or at least the direction that should be home. But he the snow was falling, and he couldn't tell if that was the way he came. He turned slowly, searching for a sign, some way to tell which way he came.
And he found a sign, but not one telling which way he came. This sign was telling him which way to go. And this wasn't the sign Adam expected. This sign was a women.
It took Adam a second to take in the figure before him. Thoughts filled his head. Lace. Wings. Wand. Feathers. Eyes. Sharp. Strange. Important.
“I was hoping you would come out today, Adam. It's time for you to come outside.”
Adam wasn't exactly sure what was going on. But he did know this was special. “Outside? Outside where?”
“Your house of course. It's time for you to leave. It's time for you to grow up.”
“Grow up? But... I don't think I'm ready yet.”
“Of course you are, Adam. Everybody grows up. Your mother knows. She knows your ready. She knows you can grow up.”
Adam took all this in. He still wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready to change, he wasn't ready to take on responsibility. But then again, was anybody ever really ready for it?
“Okay.” Adam's voice was meek, unsure. He said okay, but his tone screamed “Not yet.”
The women laughed, her voice ringing with joy. “It's not as if you have a choice, my dear. It is your time. You are ready, whether you know it or not.”
“Okay.” Adam was slightly bolder now, but that didn't take much. “But... Who are you?”
“I am... a guide. Destiny, maybe. Or fate. Dreams, possibly. I am everything from your childhood that has prepared you for this. Every time your mother told you a piece of advice, I was made a little stronger. Every time she out ice on your knee, every time you learned a lesson, every time she taught you, I grew a little. And now, it is up to you and I to see that you become a man.”
“But I doubt you care so much who I am, as what you may call me. I really don't need a name, but you can call me... oh, lets see... Grace.” Grace approached Adam, put her arm around his shoulder, and led him off in a direction he was very sure was not towards home. Adam was still very sure he didn't want to grow up, but that didn't matter very much.
Grace led Adam into a field, clear of the bitting snow they had left. It was hard to tell how such little distance could mean such difference in climate, but Adam decided it better not to ask. Grace stopped on the edge of the clearing, and turned to face Adam. “You can take of your coat. It's quite warm here. But make sure you keep it. Your mother gave it to you for a reason.”
Obediently, Adam removed his coat, and slung in over his shoulder. “Why are we here, Grace?” he said as he looked up into the women's sharp features.
“The first thing you should ask is 'Where is here?' Here is, for lack of better words, your imagination.” As Grace spoke, a bear lumbered across the field lazily. Adam recognized it instantly: he had drawn the bear on a piece of paper his mother gave him, with his favorite box of crayons. But this was not the mass of curvy, random, disjointed lines that had ended up on the paper, this is what Adam had been trying to draw. This was the true bear, the one he had tried to depict in colored wax.
“But now that you know where we are, I'll tell you why.” Grace explained, as she glanced at the bear. “You have an amazing imagination, Adam, full of wild creations and untold promise. But you are growing up now, and people will not like those ideas. They will make fun of you, mock you, and try to crush the amazing beauty that you can create.” Adam didn't want to hear this. He started to cry. “But you cannot let your creativity, your beauty, die. Your mother would never want that. So we are here to take the ideas of childhood, and file them away. I wish that you didn't have to, your mother would never want you to, but it is not my choice to make. The world is not a nice place, and you are part of the world now. Your mother raised you well, but now you are the world, and They don't like imagination.”
Adam had continued to cry softly, but his sobs subsided, and his sniffells stopped, and he turned to Grace. “So, I get to keep my imagination? I don't have to give it up?”
“No Adam, your mother would never let them do that. She brought you up better. But the world still has some influence, and so the dreams of childhood must, at least, be packed away. Here. Come.”
Grace led Adam to the middle of the field.
There was a simple trap set there, nothing more then a box set up over a smattering of carrot pieces, propped up by a plank. A string was tied as a simple trigger.
“It is time for you to grow up Adam, and sometime that means losing things we wish we could keep. You can trap your dream, that bear, in the box, and keep him to remember. I wish he could roam free, but it is the end of his time.”
Adam took up a position behind the box, set down his jacket, and sat down with the string held tightly in his hands. The bear wandered towards him, as Grace backed away. Adam was amazed to see the bear in life. He recalled the frustration of not being able to show his mother what he imagined, at only showing her his simple scrawls in unusual colors. The bear sniffed the box, ignored Adam, and stuck his snout under the box, nibbling the carrots, then wolfing them down.
Grace watched from the edge of the clearing as Adam pulled the string and the box fell. The box was much too small to hold the bear, but that didn't matter much. The box hit the ground as the bear somehow folded into it. Grace strolled forward, and out her hand on Adam's shoulder. “Good, Adam. You are ready.”
Adam picked up the box, afraid that the bear would somehow unfold from it again, and that it would not have enjoyed the trip. But the bear did not emerge. Adam turned the box over, and found inside not the majestic bear he had trapped, but the haphazard drawing he had made with his mother's paper and his favorite crayons. Tears swelled into his eyes for the beauty he had lost. “I'm sorry” Grace said gently as she put her hand on his shoulder. “This is growing up.” Grace took his hand, her manner colder then before. “Come. We are not finished.”
They walked for some time. Adam began to feel strange. Or, rather, stranger. His legs hit the ground too soon with each step, as if he was taller then he remembered. His arms bumped into his hips awkwardly. Tree branches that he knew he should be able to walk under seemed to bend over to smack his head. Grace didn't seem so big anymore. Adam was growing.
With each step Adam grew more. As he reached Grace's height, they reached a series of buildings. Trees gave way to concrete, stone gave space to pavement, blue sky was shunted by glass. Grace stopped just the edge of the development. “Adam, this is the world. You have started growing up, and though you are not finished, it is time for you to move on. I know you are not ready, but this is your new home. I will be... around.” Grace's eye screamed sorrow as tears formed. Her voice shook. “Goodbye, for now. I may see you soon.”
She turned, and returned to the forest. As Grace left his sight, Adam lost control. He body was not his own. It grew and grew, becoming a giant among the empty buildings, while Adam remained inside, looking out of the eyes like a pair of windows. The remains of what had been the clothes of his body had become bonds. He was left inside himself, naked, with only the jacket his mother had given him, and the box that contained the last traces of his childhood. He wasn't ready for this.
“Grace” Adam screamed in desperation. “Maman! Grace! Maman!” Standing inside his own body, Adam felt undeniably alone. The eyes shut with monumental slowness, and plunged Adam into pitch black. He started to bawl, his tears a torrent of anguish for a youth he never wanted to leave. He lost track of any sense of the space he was in. It was all black. The ceiling, the walls, the floor, it was all lost in the darkness behind the eyes that had been created by the growth of Adam's body.
A light sprung to life in the darkness. The room resolved itself again, but not in the same shape it had been before the eyes closed. The source of the light, a single, unadultered light bulb, hung up from the floor. It cast flickering light around the unknowable space of Adam's body, exposing nothing more then a couple of walls and the floor in hung from. A moth fluttered to the light. This was all that was left inside Adam's body. Adam and a moth.
The moth fluttered around the bulb for some time, until Adam heard movement, a sound too big for a moth. A twisted shape entered the light. It was also Adam. Younger, deformed, the juvenile nature of childhood. The older Adam watched the creature enter the light from the wall, and watched it crawl onto the floor, it's mindless smile still fixed on Adam. The moth flew away at the creature's appearance. As it traversed the floor towards Adam, the creature spoke in a broken, childish voice. “Don't grow Adam, we can still have fun. Don't leave Adam, don't grow. We don't need to grow, we can stay young forever. We don't need responsibility, we don't need life, we need freedom, we need to be carefree.”
Adam back away as much as he could while staying in the fluctuating globe of light. The creature continued to move towards him, and Adam grasped for anything he could use against it. His hand landed on the box he had trapped the bear in. He reached into the box, grabbed the picture, and began to pull it out, purely out of desperation. The creature was close.
But as Adam pulled out the picture, the bear emerged. Not the crude scrawls of youth, but the perfect imagination of the young. It stood proud before Adam, and the Adam-creature backed away. “But we don't need to grow up... Please... I don't want to go...” The bear chased the creature out of the light, and began prowling the edges of the illuminated area. Adam was safe. He put down the box and the jacket, and sat down, feeling safe for the first time in a long time.
As Adam began to grow accustomed to his body, light broke in. The eyes opened, and Adam rushed over to look out. He leaned out the window sized holes, and saw the body give way beneath. The huge, awkward thing that his body he become began to crumble. The head fell, landing on a small platform in the empty streets. The rest of the body collapsed into dust, leaving Adam free to crawl out of the head.
Just as the body had changed, so had Adam and his belongings. As he reached for the jacket, he found a pile of clothes. Glad to have something to wear, he unfolded them, surprised at the size of them, but even more surprised that they fit perfectly. Adam had grown now, not just his body, and his new clothes fit. He reached for the box, and coaxed the bear back into it. Reluctantly, the bear returned to the box, and to the simple drawing. As soon as the bear returned, the box became a small briefcase.
Much better suited for a man Adam thought.
He stepped out of the head onto the street, stopping only momentarily to take a good look at the awkwardness, the pain, the bonds, the sorrow, he had left behind, all of it in the shape of the huge head of his old self. He was grown now, and Adam was ready for the world. But it wasn't ready for him. Not that it mattered much.
