@freewritehouse March Madness Chapter 12 ”Beads”

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I'm am taking part in March Madness by the @freewritehouse! This is the first attempt from me and I hope I can see it through! I will try. If you would like to play along please check out more here.

Thanks for reading these free writes and I hope to one day edit them all! I am open to constructive criticism.

Word count: 1,928

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Chapter 12
Beads

That night Grant was still feeling good about himself. His grandparents were relieved that he had taken responsibility for his actions and they were all happy to but the whole situation behind them. What at the start seemed like a major crisis that would forever scar him was now turning into a minor bump in the road. Sister Sue was back to her normal unaffected self and if anything Grant had earned the respect of Father Don for baring his soul in confession.

Now, all that Grant wanted to do was listen to music in his room and work on his model tank. He did not want to think about school, candy, or Father Don anymore al he wanted to do is turn his mind off and concentrate on gluing tiny pieces of plastic together and if he was lucky he would make it far enough to start painting the German Panzer he had been working on for so long.

After a few hours of labor being hunched over at his desk and working on his model tank, Grant decided it was finally time to go to the bathroom and start getting ready for bed. He had lost track of time and saw that it was already 10:00 o'clock.

Grant grandparents never made much of a fuss about Grant's bedtime as long as he got up in time for school, on his own, he could put himself to bed. After all, he was almost a teenager and his grandparents liked to operate this way letting Grant have responsibilities taught him valuable lessons in maturity. It was the same way they had raised their children.

After returning from the bathroom, Grant flicked off the light and jumped into a bed. As the initial shock of the cold sheets began to fade away Grant was laying on his back and stared at the ceiling. He was finding it harder than normal to fall asleep. The stress and exhaustion of from his time in the confessional booth made it difficult for him to concentrate on his model tank. Yet here he was wide awake and his mind was racing and all he wanted to do was fall asleep.

His mind was racing. The words he had spoken from earlier in the day were repeating in his head. Some of it did not even make sense. It was like a cd that was skipping in the player.

”Bless me, father, for I have sinned”

”I lied.”

”I stole.

”I don't believe.”

Images of St. Marys Church were flashing in his mind.

The tabernacle, the altar, the confessional.

The voices of the congregation all whispering around him. Intrusive thoughts were guaranteeing his lack of sleep. Prying into his mind and forcing him to relive the anxiety he had felt at the church.

I thought I was over it? He wondered. Why is this happening? There's nothing left for me to do, I confessed my sins. It's supposed to help me.

It was pitch dark in the room and there was not a noise to be heard. The only thing to be heard was the invading voices pecking away at Granta restless mind. Grant was trying really hard to close his eyes but it was a battle to keep them closed.

When he did finally managed to close his eyes, a scene began to unfold before him as colors danced about that were projected onto the back of his eyelids. Greens, purples, reds, blues, yellows all danced around together like a choreographed production. Swirling and swishing together they moved rhythmically to the beating of Grant's heart.

Grant was not bothered by what he was witnessing, he was slightly entertained by it and brushed it off as an effect from his overactive mind trying to relax itself and fall asleep.

As he began to sink into a relaxed state he was jerked out of it as his pulse began to quicken. Adrenaline was released into his body and his blood was rushing. It was a similar experience to when he was frightened in the woods or the night of his mother's accident.

His heart was pounding in his chest and every fiber of his being was screaming at him to run! Run away! Danger! But he could not move he lay paralyzed, he was stuck to his bead.

Ping, pang, clunk. whooooosh!

The forced air furnace had kicked on and was emenating sounds from the basement up through the heating ducts. This sound was familiar to Grant. He heard it several times a day, it was so regular that often times he did not hear it all, yet at this moment it terrified him as his beads of sweat began to form on his brow, his body was burning hot.

He wanted to remove his thick down comforter that was draped over his body but he could not. He could not move. He was frozen in place. All he could do was open his eyes.

Grant squeezed his eyes shut once more. The dancing colors were erratic now, they were swirling and jolting about. They danced on a background of sheer and utter darkness and when it became too much for Grant to witness he opened his eyes back up but the picture did not change, the colors remained.

Looking around the room, trapped in his unresponsive body, Grant searched for anything that would help calm him down. Maybe a dull light from the street lamp outside or the hallway light seeping through underneath the door. There was nothing only darkness and the swirling colors dancing faster and faster.

In an instant, the colors stopped. They had vanished from Grant’s sight. This came as a relief for him and was hoping this was all some sort of waking dream. There was nothing but complete darkness.

A numbing sensation was now emanating from Grant's chest and it felt as if his breastplate was being split open from the inside. Tingling, miniature bolts of static electricity were shooting down his nervous system into his extremities creating a sense of weightlessness.

Soon the colors returned, however this time they were different. A bright green mass was hovering directly above his chest. There was a strange feeling now, Grants body was still paralyzed, however, the feeling of anxiety has subsided. A blast of warm calming energy shot out from the boy's chest and began to mingle and formed with the green glob of color that's was still hovering directly above him.

The green shape had changed now. It was no longer a formless mass of color, but it had changed into a rectangular shape and the bottom half was glowing white. The consistency reminded Grant of two layers of jello, green on the top and white on the bottom. It was stationary above him but it was vibrating and seemed like it was connected to something, and deep within himself, Grant knew he was bound to it as well, by some invisible force. He could not see what was connecting himself to it, but he could certainly feel it.

Then something really strange happened. Out of the ceiling burst a cylindrical shape that had a pointed tip. It was a deep dark green and it too was vibrating to the same frequency of the green rectangle.

The green cylinder began to grow and was growing as root would, it was adding masses of green color to its apex as it went. It was reaching out into the darkness of his bedroom searching for something. It was searching for Grant!

Moving like a hypnotized snake through the air, the green mass searched until it reached its destination and took a calculated position right into the middle of the square mass above Grants chest. By doing so it had connected directly to Grant.

Grant was struck instant with the knowledge of exactly what it was. It WAS a root. More specifically, it was the root of his family tree. Connecting Grant to all that was and all that will be.

Grant understood. He felt his entire family from the beginning of existence reaching all the way back to his Neanderthal ancestors. Even though he didn't know what a Neanderthal was he knew them, he felt them. He felt them all. It was a realization of his own existence he had been there the whole entire time, from the very start. His life had not begun in 1987 as he once thought, existed long before that.

There was something else. Another realization. There was no judgment and he merely existed with his family. There was no sin, no regret, just a pure feeling of embrace. He belonged to them and they belonged to him. They were alive within him and they always were, only now had they been illuminated by the searching root. But what was it and how did it get there?

Grants awareness began to move. It was leaving his body and it traveled upwards now and was moving along the green root towards the ceiling. His body did not move and his mind stayed attached to his body aware of what was happening and trying to process every event as it unfolded.

It was only his awareness that was traveling outside of his body, that's how Grant understood it. Soon his awareness had arrived at the base of the root. Using only his existing understanding to try and grasp what was happening, Grant assumed it was the base of the tree. There at the base, a large sphere of spinning light brown splinters of wood was forming shapes for him to see. It was like he was witnessing it in his mind's eye.

The events that were unfolding in front of Grants awareness did not take place in his room, in fact, they did not take place anywhere. But they were real and Grant was experiencing them.

The sphere was gyrating as the splinters of wood spun around the globe of light brown color, deep within symbols were forming.

Wait a minute, I recognize these symbols! Grant thought. But how? Where did he see them before? It was in a dream! In his dream, they were appearing in the sky while he stood atop of the mountain. What were they trying to show him?

There was a different feeling now. It was similar to his family line but it seemed more powerful. It was brighter. One by one the sphere began to show Grant one single symbol at a time.

Grant was trying with all his might to engrave the images into his memory but as each new symbol revealed itself the one prior to it escaped his consciousness. It was too much for his brain to handle. He could not process the information as he normally would if he was reading plain English text.

The sphere began to fade and Grants awareness retreated back to his body.

He was left lying on his bed and he was feeling pure joy. He was free from anxiety. He no longer felt the weight of his mothers death or the shame of being born with sin. None of it mattered to him anymore. He had connected with the divine and it was not the divine that he was taught in school. It was ancient. It was native. It was his.

Grant had been exposed to a long forgotten way of life. Something had awakened it inside of him. There would be no turning it off and it was up to him to decide what to do with it.

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