Caleb Mithun

I just fell in love with my own character.  Notice he has a last name, as I intend this story to be longer than my others and...wait for it...not specifically for children!  I actually dreamed some of it the night I spent in Nana's room (Mo slept over), and in the morning Nana handed me a notepad and pen with instructions to write it down.  Thus, a story temporarily titled "Dream Story."  Catchy, right?  Here's some of it I was just working on.  It's still rather rough.


Chinatown is very loud and very stressful place.  Without a friend it is hardly enjoyable, and every time I visit I end up wondering why.  Everyone pushes.  Everyone yells.  Venders shove all their breakables into the street so that children will break and parents will buy.  For eight years a ceramic black lab without a tail sat upon my dresser, keeping memories of my mother’s scolding voice and squeezing hand.  A two-inch layer of stickiness covers the buildings and streets like plastic on a sofa.  Shop after shop sells the same gaudy merchandise: popsicle stick-and-tissue fans, shimmery tops in cracking and yellowed covers, ostentatious paper lanterns.  A small, greenish-white statue of a woman nursing her baby.  Beside it one of the same woman, this time her mouth open in fright as a Gollum like infant winds over her shoulder and bites for more than just milk.  Something for everyone, I guess.

But this day Caleb was my companion.  I’d forgotten how different of a person he was now.  He used to have days where he couldn't look in my eyes.  Often I’d have to beg before he would go anywhere.  As much as he despised the familiar he seemed to dread the strange even more.  Now he wanted to spend the day in Chinatown.     

And what a Chinatown it was.  Still loud, still sticky, still garish; but grand and wonderful and exciting.  The fans turned fit for the hold of gloved fingers, the tops into humbly cased princess gowns, the lanterns whimsical hints of present joy and joy to come.  We assumed every person warm and happy, and those clearly neither melted away into our warmth and our happiness.  Caleb vanished into a toy shop and returned with a pair of kazoos, which, though in no sense Chinese, are the dearest possessions of two friends on holiday.  Being infinitely more musical than I my friend took reign of a core melody, leaving me to harmonize and embellish as my inner composer insisted.  Our opus rather annoyed the more solemn passersby, so we ducked into an alcove between storefronts and soon had a fixed semicircle of audience.  When happy Caleb lit the world like Libertas’s torch.  People flocked and clapped around this young man about to burst with all that is right and true and excellent, all the good the world has and some that it does not.  A girl with the waistless figure and splotched face of one between child and womanhood stood nearer to us than the others, her dark eyes glossy with suppressed delight at my friend’s emancipated and full delight.  Grinning around his instrument he skipped toward her with steps Buster Keaton would be proud of, and between flushed cheeks her little mouth dropped open to the sweet notes of silly gladness dancing before her.  He danced and danced for his shy lady, at last dropping on his knees a mere breath from her face, playing out one long final tone before pulling the kazoo from his lips and placing it at her feet.  Then he closed his eyes and laughed like Christmas.

Petite hands took his face, and the girl kissed him on the mouth.  He looked in the eyes just as surprised as his own, bowed his head with a smile, and collapsed to the ground as if fainted.  The girl picked up the kazoo and scampered away.

The happiness around us rang closer, and Caleb looked up just in time to see a swarm of squealing girls closing over him.  He fell trying to stand, but I grasped his wrist and we flew.  Minutes later we arrived at the entrance of a sit-down restaurant, laughing uncontrollably.