Arnold Carey
January 19, 2013 9:14 PM
Identity Crisis (Room One) by Arnold Carey
Arnold had never gotten the hang of skipping stones. He didn’t know why. His mother, his immediate family’s expert on all things outdoorsy, had tried to teach him many times, as had Uncle Donnie, and Grandfather had given it a try once, too, but no matter what they did or he did, he could never make a stone bounce instead of making a splash and then immediately sinking. He still tried it every now and then, because he could never give anything up, but as far as he could tell, he hadn’t improved in the skipping-stones department since he was four years old.There were compensations, though. He had learned to make a big deal out of being able to make just an ordinarily thrown rock make a bigger splash when it hit the water than his cousins and Anthony could. Of course, that had gotten boring for everyone else after a while, so now he was stuck losing on purpose to his younger cousins because the others were too old to find it fun anymore, since it would be kind of…mean, he guessed, to beat six-year-olds every time just because everyone in roughly his own age group had outgrown the sport.
That, too, though had its compensations, in that it had introduced a new challenge: how to make the smallest splash with a thrown rock.
That was the game he was playing right now, on his own in the water room, trying to throw rocks as far as he could without them making big splashes in the water – reminiscent of, if not identical to, the pond behind Uncle Donnie’s; he almost thought that if he turned just right, he might see the back porch, with Aunt Gigi bobbing up and down on her chair as she tried to enjoy the minutes away from her kids and make sure no one drowned at the same time – which had been there when he came in. One after another, he threw them, since there didn’t seem to be a shortage of them here on the bank and because doing something like this helped him put a distance between himself and his thoughts, something which he did not think the challenges were going to do a good job of replacing Quidditch in….
His shoulder moved forward, of its own volition on a wave of angry energy, more sharply than it had been moving, and the rock sailed halfway across the pond before it landed with a big splash. Arnold scowled after it. That was the last thing he needed, to not even be able to play a kiddie game right, some chance that indicated he had in the challenges.
He had resigned himself to the loss of Quidditch quickly enough, but hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of dislocation that the absence of the prospect of the games gave him. Before school, it had just been a way to pass the time, but since he had been at school, it had slowly become the thing he had constructed himself around. He didn’t begrudge his brothers their successes – the idea of having something Arthur wanted in particular was alien to him – but it had been nice, going from being the one almost everyone except his grandfather just sort of overlooked to having a hundred people he’d never met all know his name, just because he was good at spotting and catching a chunk of metal you could barely have made a piece of jewelry out of. Plus, he had been counting on the game to distract everyone from his other failings as he entered his Advanced years – the RATS, and the challenges once had found out about them, even though he had been briefly, if not optimistic, at least okay about those, at least until the lists came out and Arthur was a team captain. He didn’t wish for Arthur not to have it, and didn't really want to boss people around himself, but he felt like this was just going to draw attention to his inadequacies, which was something it was just hard to feel much enthusiasm about.
At least one big thing this year – the ball – was nothing for him to worry about, since he knew perfectly well how to dance and didn’t have to even think about who he was going to take to the occasion. He wouldn’t make a fool of himself there. Unless Fae, embarrassed to be seen with Arthur and Anthony's idiot brother instead of Aladren's Quidditch star, developed a diplomatic illness, of course....
He threw another rock. In a little while, he knew, he’d resign himself to things again, but right now, he just wanted to throw rocks. So he did.
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Arnold Carey
Identity Crisis (Room One)
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Arnold Carey
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