Unaware - 1. The Chris Who Isn't Chris

There is a certain innocence that only comes with being unaware. It is pure innocence, one that is untainted with ‘ought to know’ or ‘might have known’ or any of the other things that come with the responsibility of awareness. Unaware is being untainted; untouched. Unaware is apart from the evil, the darkness, the deceit. Unawareness is honest and uncomplicated. And Chris was unaware.

He wasn’t unaware of everything, not by a long shot, but he was unaware of what it meant to truly live in the world. He wandered through it, untouched and unaffected; unaware.

He was unaware of how to ‘behave’ properly; how to act; how to speak… without full honesty and innocence; of how to deceive and how to hurt. He was unaware of the games people played and as a result he was often hurt by them… when he wasn’t protected by friends and family who truly loved him no matter what. Of course, he was unaware of that too; he had no capacity to love or be loved – or so they thought.

They said that Chris had been damaged at birth; that his brain hadn’t developed properly… somehow. They said that he was retarded, that he would always be different; disabled; unable; less. They said a lot of things but that is because they were unaware. The thing that they were unaware of was that Chris wasn’t Chris at all.

Today the Chris who was not Chris was sixteen. It had been a long sixteen years for his mother and she was weary. After years of struggle; endless rounds of doctors and experts and tests and disappointments she finally settled down and allowed herself to love her son exactly as he was. She loved him deeply, openly, unconditionally; even though he never returned it.

It was seven o’clock and she was about to wake him for the first of his birthday surprises. As she often did, she stood and watched him sleep. He slept so sweetly; untroubled with the cares of the world; lost in dreams that always made him smile. There was no shadow in him.

Gently she brushed the fine, blonde hair out of his face and it shimmered golden in the sunlight that poured through the window. He was beautiful, so beautiful. They said he was a monster. They said he was ugly and inhuman. They said a lot of things and she laughed at them all. A flood of maternal feelings washed over her and made her smile.

It was true that he was strange looking with high arched brows and eyes so deep and green they looked artificial. She often wondered if it were something to do with his disa… his different way of being, that made them so, because there was no one with green eyes in her family or his father’s; the father who had left long ago, unable to cope with the stigma of having a son such as he, along with the family who felt the same way. Ah well; she had done very well without them.

“Chris,” she called softly, stroking the long silkiness of his hair. He could not bear to have it short although sometimes he submitted to have her trim it with only extreme discomfort rather than the screaming hysterics he displayed at any attempt to take him to the hairdressers for a proper haircut.

“Chris,” she called again, shaking him gently and he sighed, turning his head towards her and blinking open sleepy eyes. The bright smile was on his lips even before he had properly woken.

“Good morning, Mother,” he said in his sweet, dreamy voice.

“Good morning, my darling. Happy Birthday.”

“Birthday?” He blinked and yawned.

“Yes, remember? It’s your birthday today. You’re sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” His eyes snapped open and he sat up, an eager, almost calculating look in his eyes, but it was fleeting. The excitement remained, however.

“Yes, almost a man now darling. Come on… up now. Shower and dress in something nice. There are surprises waiting downstairs.”

“Surprises?” The excitement was growing and she smiled. “What are they?”

“If I told you then they wouldn’t be surprises would they?”

“No.” He thought for a while and then grinned. “I won’t be long.”

“Don’t forget to clean your teeth.”

“I won’t,” he said joyfully and threw back the covers. No matter how many times she told him to protect his modesty he had never managed to acquire any.

The Chris who wasn’t Chris, was excited. He grabbed some clothes, wondering briefly what his mother had meant by ‘nice’, then skipped to the bathroom to shower. The hot water felt good; very good. He liked water; all kinds of water. He like standing in the rain: he felt that he would like to take off his clothes and dance in it but his mother wouldn’t let him. He liked the sea; he liked the swimming pool; and he could swim like a fish, although he was only allowed to do so where it was ‘safe’.

He stood under the spray until a voice with a smile in it called through the door. “Chris, time to get out of the shower, dear. Hurry up and get dressed now. Don’t forget to clean your teeth.”

Chris smiled and stepped out of the shower. Quickly he dried and dressed, something he didn’t always remember to do. He didn’t understand why his mother was so upset when he forgot and went downstairs wet and naked. He had never learned why it was wrong but he had learned that it upset his mother so he tried his best to remember not to do it.

Finding his toothbrush and toothpaste he leaned over the sink and scrubbed his teeth energetically. When he had done he rinsed his mouth and looked at himself in the mirror. He liked his face; it was pretty. He knew that there were a lot of people who didn’t think it was but they didn’t really matter; he liked his face and that’s all that mattered. When he smiled he liked it even better.

“Chris.”

“I’m coming, Mother.”

Downstairs, the family was gathered in the kitchen, around a table piled with colourful boxes. His eyes lit up and excitement thrilled through him so that he could barely contain himself. Steve was there. Chris liked Steve. He was Mother’s friend. He lived here with them and he made Mother smile. Steve had two children who didn’t live with them because they were grown up and they were here too, along with Chris’ older brother and sister. Alice didn’t live with them anymore either.

The youngest member of the family, Lily was wriggling in Steve’s arms, trying to get to the presents. She was Steve’s little girl; Mother’s too. If he really thought about it Chris struggled a little getting his head round how she belonged to Steve and Mother both, when the rest belonged to one or the other. That’s why he didn’t think about it.

“Lily,” he called and Steve let her go to run to him.

“Chris; you’ve been ages.” Her pout condemned him and he grinned, sweeping her up in his arms.

“I’m here now.”

“Can I help you open your presents.”

“Nu hu… my birthday; my presents.”

“Please Chris; pleeese.”

Chris laughed out loud. “Maybe just one.”

Chris’ mother watched with mixed feelings as Chris opened his presents. His eyes would light up with each present and he would laugh delightedly. Then he would move on and do the same with the next, forgetting the first. It was typical behaviour… for a young child.

Another thing she was bothered about was the way he was with Lily. She delighted him and he was good with her… but he didn’t love her. She was a distraction; a delight; a… thing and he treated her like any other thing… like the presents he was opening now. While they were there in front of him they were fun; when they weren’t there they went out of his mind. She was sure he was the same with her; he was the same with everything.

She sighed, then joined the party.

Later that afternoon Chris was resting in his room. He got tired easily and usually had a nap in the afternoon. He didn’t go to school, being home schooled to his capability, and so it was a daily routine. He liked routine; routine helped him remember what he was supposed to be doing.

He stared at the ceiling and sighed. Why did he always feel so out of place? Why couldn’t he ‘get’ this life? He was happy, in his way, but no one else seemed to understand that way. In the beginning, when he was little, he tried to explain; he tried to tell people how he saw the world but sometimes it made them angry and sometimes it made them sad but they all told him he was wrong so, over the years, he learned to hide it.

Looking over to the table he saw a little collection of packets and bottles. They were medication he was supposed to take and they did make it easier to live in the world, kind of. He hadn’t touched them in days and he was wondering if that was a good idea or not. He felt prickly all over and his mind was racing. Waves of something close to longing; something close to pain; something close to sorrow washed over him. There was a strange sense of anticipation. Yep, he was definitely waiting for something; what?

Tossing and turning he couldn’t find a comfortable spot and there was certainly no possibility of sleep any time soon. When a pounding headache began somewhere deep in his skull he gave up and staggered to the bathroom.

The face that looked back from the mirror was unfamiliar. It seemed as if a tiny flame had ignited in the pupil of each eye and it reflected on a face that was pale as parchment. It seemed as if all colour but the green and gold had leeched out of him. His cheeks looked hollow and his ears somehow… wrong. They itched and burned and he scratched at them lethargically.

Lethargic was the word that best described him right then. His movements were sluggish and his mind seemed to be trapped under a veil. Shit, maybe he should take that medication after all.

He was on his way back to his bedroom when he realised that he wasn’t; he was heading for the back door. What? He shook his head and it hurt; really hurt. Pain stabbed through him and he shivered, feeling sick. Fuck, was he sick? He felt really sick and when he turned to try for the bedroom again, the room swung wildly and for a brief moment everything went black.

Blinking his eyes to bring the room back into focus did no good. The whole world was out of focus in more ways than one. Groaning, he put his hand to his head and pushed at his temple trying to force out the pain that was gnawing at his brain. He took a step, two… and then everything went black again; this time completely.

When he opened his eyes he was still standing but he wasn’t in his living room; he wasn’t in his house. Shivers wracked him as he realised he was in a wood. It was not a forest with sunlit glades and sweet smelling, crackling leaves underfoot. It was a dark, twisted, old wood. The silence was deep and complete, the smell was of must and decay. What light there was crept sluggishly through the darkness, illuminating little and only making the shadows deeper.

The crack of a stick sounded sharp as a gunshot and made him jump and spin. There was nothing there. A step, two, three, and he realised there was nowhere to go; at least nowhere that had any direction for him, so any was as good as none. He made his way from one patch of darkness to another until he found himself in a dark glade, centred by a pool so deep and so dark it seemed to exude its own shadow.

Slowly he crept towards the edge of the pool, step by step, inch by inch. When he looked down into the water he saw himself looking up at him. It wasn’t a self he recognised. Frowning he crouched down and stared. The face that stared out of the water at him was his face, he was pretty sure it was his face. Raising his hand he touched his cheek, watching the boy in the water do the same. He jumped when the cold fingers met his cheek.

The bright green eyes mesmerised him and he suddenly realised that he was leaning forward so far he was in danger of pitching into the water. Startled he pulled back and looked quickly around, shivering, his skin prickling with the sense of someone watching him.

“Who’s there?”

The only thing that answered him was silence. It was a very deep silence, he realised: an unnatural one.

“Please.” He didn’t know who he was speaking to or what he was asking for.

A sudden plopping noise snapped his attention back to the pool. Ripples were spreading out from a point out on the surface and broke up the picture of Chris in the water. Although he peered keenly around he could see nothing but the water and the ripples and the fractured reflection.

Bending over the water he waited for it to still, watching his face shimmer back into focus. Once again the reflection puzzled him. It was him but not him and now the difference was even more pronounced. The face was fuller; the eyes less green.

Another plop startled him again and he looked up to see nothing. Then there was another plop and another and suddenly it was raining, fat drops of water throwing themselves down from the sky, breaking up the surface of the pool.

He looked around sharply but there was no one there. Now, more than ever, shut off from the world in the cool darkness of the strange wood, he wanted to take of his clothes and dance. And why not? Why not take of his clothes and feel the cold drops strike his body and slide down his skin? Who was here to tell him he couldn’t? Who was here to see?

Heart pounding, his fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his clothes, until he was able to discard them and kick off his shoes digging his toes into the mud at the edge of the pool. And then… and then he was dancing.

If he had thought about it he might have wondered why it didn’t hurt when he trod on sharp rocks and sticks: he might have wondered why his body threw itself so readily into the leaps and spins; how he never made a miss-step, never faltered, never stumbled. He didn’t think about it. He didn’t think about anything except the dance and the rain.

And then the rain stopped.

Panting, he threw himself to his knees in the mud and watched the face emerge from the shivering water. This time he was more convinced than ever that the face wasn’t his. What was happening? Was he going mad? Was something happening to his mind?

He’d always known that there was something wrong with him; something different. He’d never really thought to wonder what it might be or to worry about it. Suddenly it hit him that everyone said there was something wrong with his mind and, although he had never felt that way before, he was feeling it now and wondered what it meant. What was going to happen to him: naked, muddy and alone in a strange wood full of shadows and silence.

The face in the pool grinned. Startled, Chris scuttled backwards. Had that been him? Had he smiled? He didn’t think so.

He was about to leap to his feet and run when something happened. It wasn’t something huge and grand and spectacular and… but it was. It was… it was… simply this. He realised that he wasn’t Chris. It was a simple thing, and a complex thing and a small thing and a huge thing. An enormous grin broke across his face and he started to dance again. He wasn’t Chris. He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t disabled. There was nothing wrong with him; nothing at all. He had never understood the world because it wasn’t HIS world. He wasn’t wrong; it was.

“I’m not Chris; I’m not Chris,” he sang as he danced, raising his face to a sky full of moonlight. He had never really felt at home anywhere; he was always slightly out of place but here… finally… here he was… home. “I’m not Chris,” he yelled when he was finally exhausted.

A shadow detached itself from the trees and stumbled towards him. He stopped and stared. Slowly he was drawn, step by step across the clearing towards the figure who emerged from the darkness. The figure was taller than he was, broader, fuller, browner, more… solid. But it was… it had pale blonde hair and confused blue eyes and a face that was familiar, very familiar but not as pretty as his.

He reached out his hand and touched the cheek that was so alike and different to his own. The skin trembled, the eyes blinked, the lips twitched. The boy was frightened, he could feel it. But he wasn’t frightened. This was his place; his home. He grinned, joy bursting inside him. He leaned forward and briefly touched his warm lips to the boy’s cold ones. “I’m not Chris,” he whispered and smiled, “I’m not Chris, but you are.” He turned to walk away.

As a last thought he turned back. “Chris?” he said. The other boy turned and stared at him. “You’re not mad either”

“I don’t… understand.”

“Did you fit? Where you were before… did you fit?” The boy shook his head. “It was my life, you see. You were living my life; that’s why you didn’t fit and why I didn’t fit. There’s nothing wrong with me; there never was; I was just in the wrong place.”

He frowned and though for a while. “I wonder why they do it. I’ll have to ask. You mustn’t ask in your world because they won’t understand.” He walked back to Chris and kissed him again. “They’ll be good to you. They think there’s something wrong with you but they’ll get over it. I guess they are going to take you to the doctors again because they won’t understand why you’re getting better, but you’ll be okay.” He turned again, but before he walked away he had a final thought. “Don’t take the pills,” he said and then he forgot.

With every step he forgot more. He forgot about Chris, about Lily, about his mother, his home, his life… they were never his. Getting excited he started to run. He sped through a forest that was no longer still and silent. As he ran the lights kept pace on both sides. The wood was alive with them and he knew they were leading him as they were following him.

Eventually he came to a clearing, deep in the forest. There were people there. They were strange people: big people; small people; red people; white people; green people: people with four legs and people with two, people with wings and people with wands. They were his people. He was home.

He paused by one of the people, one that looked very much like a tree. “Take care of Chris,” he said before he forgot it all. “Make sure he gets home okay.”