Don't ever stop believing...

A Gifted Child Fragment taken from: The Storyteller, Volume I In order for you to understand the difficult decision I am now facing, you should’ve been there when it all first started. This, here and now, is what I had tried to run away from for years; but I guess it is catching up with me now. I know I’m being unfair to you, as you can’t understand what I’m talking about. But soon you will know. I’ll make you my accomplice throughout this story and maybe you will come up with a solution to this mess; however, I know that nothing you and I do will change things to the way they could have been... They should have been.

Without any further delay now … let me now take you there.

I was a man of science and physics; there was no logical explanation for any of my son’s powers. Christie kept a journal on all his abilities, to try to better understand our son. She discovered that as Logan remained awake more hours of the day, he would use his gift to move things.

I would read Christie’s journal every night to try to understand my own son better:

Today I prepared steamed veggies with butter; Logan enjoys eating his veggies. I notice that as I gently fed him, his hands would move as if he was a master puppeteer, and invisible strings were being moved every time he moved his little fingers. A few lemons fell off the table as he ate and he also made a chair come closer to us. Did he intend for me to sit on it?

I felt a knot in my throat. I realized Christie might be losing her sanity as she was creating elaborate plots to justify what Logan did.

Was my son aware of his gift? Was he in control of it all the time?

That Sunday we spent a pleasant afternoon swimming and running a little with Logan; we had lunch outside our cabin by the pool. It was a beautiful summer day.

I told Christie, “We’d better tell Logan he’ll need to get ready to start school tomorrow; I’m sure he will be happy.”

My wife smiled.

“Hey Logan! Come here, buddy. We want to tell you something….” Logan and Jesse were too distracted, chasing all kinds of flying bugs.

He finally ran toward us; Jesse followed Logan.

“What?” he said, eager to go back to playing.

“Well, remember the place we took you to last week? The school for special children?”

“Yeah,” Logan said distractedly.

“Well, Mommy will take you there tomorrow, for a few hours, so you can learn very important things….”

“Why?” He seemed not to like the idea anymore.

“Because you need to learn things and meet other children,” Christie said as she tried to take Logan’s blond curls away from his face.

“I don’t wanna,” he said as he looked away.

“Oh, c’mon! It will be fun!” I said.

“Can Jesse come, too?” he asked, hugging the now-grown-up dog.

“No, he’ll have to stay here,” I said.

“But I want Jesse to be with me!” Logan said at what seemed to be the beginning of a fit.

Christie and I looked at each other for a little bit.

“Honey, Jesse is a dog and school is no place for a doggie….,” Christie said.

“Then I don’t wanna go!” he said emphatically.

I didn’t like the tone of his voice.

“Listen, Son: Jesse will be right here whenever you come back….”

“No!” he yelled at me for the first time in his life.

“Logan!” Christie started to reprimand him.

He ran away, ignoring her, and went back to his game with his dog. I stood up and went after him; I had never spanked my child but I would do it if I had to.

“Please don’t,” Christie warned me.

“He can’t talk to us like that. If we don’t show him he needs to respect us, then nothing we have taught him will have been worth anything,” I said.

I took Logan by the arm and said, “Listen to me, young man! That is no way to talk to your mother or me. Jesse is not going and that’s final, you hear me? You will go to school tomorrow.”

His face turned red with anger. He tried to set his arm free from my grip. He yelled as he started to throw a fit like we had never seen him do before.

I struggled to hold him and tried to calm him down. Soon I felt myself being lifted in midair and being thrown away. I heard my wife scream somewhere below me as I flew; the landing was a hard one. I landed on my back and without any warning. The fall had knocked the air out of my lungs; I tried to get up but there was a weight on my chest that wouldn’t let me move at all.

Christie screamed for Logan to stop doing it. He was still screaming in anger.

I heard a big splash. I tried to get up again, thinking Logan might have hurt his mother, too but I couldn’t get up; I was pinned to the ground. The more I struggled to set myself free from whatever was holding me down, the worse the pain in my chest grew. I thought for a while I might be having a heart attack.

It seemed forever as I heard Christie begging Logan to stop throwing a fit. I heard her promise we would not send him to school. She ran to my side and tried to help me get up but she couldn’t move me an inch from the ground.

I looked at my wife’s face. I saw terror as she grabbed me by the shoulders and screamed, “He’s killing Jesse!”

I couldn’t speak.