The Magic Tree: Part III

Gonga hurried back home that night, eager to rest and make plans for his adventure. He wanted to time his arrival at the Magic Tree to coincide with darkness, when the lights would be most beautiful. He knew he was a fast walker, and could easily cover ten miles in less than three hours. But it was already past midnight, and he wanted time to plan his route to avoid the highest traffic areas.

He also had a strange desire to walk into the sunset at the beginning of his trek. Somehow, walking into the sunset seemed like it would add just the touch necessary to bring his wishes to fruition. Just maybe something would happen. Just maybe, somehow, he would re-gain contact with his family.

He lay awake for over an hour that night, and when he did sleep, confused images of his family filled his mind.

He spent the morning passing out flyers for work and took off early to pull up maps and plan his route.

The clouds had finally parted, and as he set out, he watched a spectacular red sunset. Gonga smiled to himself. Things had started well. Maybe, just maybe they would end well also. How in the world going to the Magic Tree would help him in his search for his family, he had no idea. But one can always hope. And so he did.

A scant three hours later, he stood in front of the Magic Tree, witnessing its glow for the first time in his life. He watched in awe as the lights faded almost imperceptibly from red to blue, or from blue to green and back again. It was bigger than he had imagined, and more beautiful. He smiled wryly. Few things managed to exceed expectations like that.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “You from Congo?” A teenager wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch hoodie regarded him solemnly.

Gonga nodded, wondering how the boy had been able to tell.

“I keep getting these random texts from someone. They think I’m their son or something. Or at least, they did. Till I texted back and told them they had the wrong number. They tried to call too. But I didn’t answer. My phone plan doesn’t cover international calls. No way.”

Gonga felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Then they started asking me to contact their son. Said that he was from Congo or something. Anyway, you looked different, so I thought I’d ask.”

Gonga stuttered, “My family in Congo…” then his words failed him.

In the hours of conversation that followed, he finally unraveled the mystery. In his family’s haste to escape the approach of a gorilla band, the notebook with his phone number and other contact information had been forgotten. His youngest brother had insisted that he had Gonga’s number memorized, and so when the family reached one of the major cities, they bought their first cell phone and tried contacting their son. But his brother had unwittingly flipped a couple numbers, and the only responses they received were ignored calls and strange text messages.

Until…Gonga visited the Magic Tree.

The Magic Tree: Part II

Gonga kicked at a bottle cap and watched it skitter down the road. He hadn’t heard word from his family in over a month, and he was starting to lose hope.

Gonga’s eyes drifted upward and he paused. Something bright was reflecting off the street just around the corner. He hurried down past ColdStone, staring at the tree in front of Shakespear’s pizza. It was so beautiful!

Someone had wrapped brightly colored strands of Christmas lights around the trunk, around every single limb and all the way out to individual twigs. The tree glowed in brilliant detail.

Gonga stood beneath it, staring up into the branches. Blue, green, yellow, pink, red and every shade in between.

Someone laughed. “You think this is great, you should see the real magic tree.”

Gonga’s heart twisted inside. The Magic Tree? It sounded wonderful.

“Where is it?” Gonga asked, looking at the college student sporting a windbreaker and a black and gold baseball cap.

He jerked his thumb, “Oh, somewhere down in the Cherry Hill shopping center.”

Cherry Hill? That sounded even prettier. “How far…to walk?” Gonga jerked the words out.

“Walk?” the man looked surprised. He guffawed. “You couldn’t walk that! It’s probably ten miles at least.”

“I will go walk,” Gonga breathed. “I must see this Magic Tree.” Visions of his family flickered through his mind. Maybe, just maybe something would happen.

The Magic Tree: Part I

Most people refuse to believe in magic. Yet occasionally something happens to make you wonder. There are times when things work out so perfectly or in such an unexpected manner that you can’t help believing. Or perhaps it’s something bigger than magic. Maybe there’s actually a Someone who engineered the whole thing, who planned it out beforehand, and who keeps watch to make sure the world continues on its orbit.

Gonga experienced such a moment not long ago.

Back home in Congo, communication was down. Maybe the towers had been stuck by lightning. Maybe a gorilla force had gone through and taken out the radio operators, or knocked out the internet servers. More likely someone had just decided to rip the copper wiring out of the whole country and sell it to a scrap yard.

Whatever the reason, Gonga hadn’t heard anything from his family in over a month, and the worry was beginning to set in hard. He was so accustomed to his evening Skype chats with his family that now he found himself staring at the computer screen for hours each evening; and vaguely hoped that something would change, that somehow his family would manage to get in touch with him.

This evening Gonga couldn’t take it anymore. He was tired of sitting cramped inside, waiting for nothing to happen, feeling the cold grasp of fear tightening on his heart. What if it was a gorilla band that had wreaked destruction? Had his family survived? Were they OK? Did they manage to escape? If only they had come with him to America when they had the chance so many years ago.

Gonga shambled along Hitt Street, headed towards downtown Columbia. The soles on his shoes flapped aimlessly. They had grown thin and ragged as he saved every cent possible to send back to his family in the Congo. He wanted to give them the best Christmas they had ever experienced. But now what was the point?

To be continued…

An Artist’s Follies

One would think that being an artist himself, Gonga would know the wiles of the artists and be adept at avoiding them, especially the female artists. Unfortunately, this has proved a false assumption. The simple fact that Gonga is artistic has both blinded him and made him more susceptible in a single blow.

The most recent example happened a week ago. Gogna was sitting near Middlebush, playing his accordion with all his might. A few passers tossed spare change and dollar bills into his suitcase. Between classes, students gathered in a knot around him to observe his playing and enjoy the music.

One girl in particular placed herself squarely opposite him on the ground and listened with rapt attention. Her reddish hair gleamed, and her peasant style shirt fluttered slightly in the breeze. He liked having her watch him. He liked it even more when she threw back her head and laughed at his fumbling, and his exaggerated clownish behavior.

This particular girl with the broad face and rapturous smile sat and watched him for two days in a row. On the third day, she came by a bit earlier in the morning. But this time she had a frown on her face.

Her voice was gently accented when she spoke, “I’m horribly sorry. I feel like such an awful person even asking this.” She paused, “I have no money for the parking meter. And I thought…” her voice trailed off and Gonga watched her eyes drift to the coins lying in his suitcase.

“Take,” he grunted in his gorilla voice, reaching down and catching up a handful of quarters.

“Oh thank you!” she cried, her eyes shining.

And so began a very long habit of the peasantly artistic student using Gogna’s accordion money to fill her parking meter day after day. She sat and watched him occasionally after that. But more and more, she looked rushed. At times she would appear covered in clay or pottery. Other times it was paint. And once her hair even looked as though it might have been dyed purple with wash-out dye, but there hadn’t quite been time to thoroughly get the dye washed out.

Of course, the height of it all occurred the day she, stammering, asked to borrow the textbook someone had just dropped in his accordion case. He planned to sell it at the Textbook Game and make some real money for a change. But she looked so forlorn as she explained that she had that very Physics test in less than four hours and desperately needed to study.

Gonga let her borrow the book.

It wasn’t till that evening when he headed back to The Textbook Game that he realized he had been taken in by a fellow artist. She popped out of the store right as he entered, refusing to make eye contact with him, and rushed on her way. Gonga saw the cashier lifting the book he had just purchased from the girl and putting on the trolley behind him. It was the Physics book.

Gorilla Fears

What would cause a gorilla to jump off a bridge? What could be so horrible that anyone would be tempted to jump from the solid security of masonry and brick into the cold, cold waters and face the terrifying sensation of liquid slowly filling your nostrils and lungs, covering your eyes and cutting off all hint of life.

Well, the potential of banana extinction could bring him close to that state. After all, seeing the devastation of the rain forests on TV over Thanksgiving break brought a lump to his throat. No, not a lump of sadness, but a lump of fear. The cold, sheer terror of wondering whether there would be bananas tomorrow, or the next day, or a year from now.

After crashing into a roller-skater while dodging traffic across College during rush-hour, Gonga also fears riding his skateboard. In fact, he now refuses to ride his skateboard anywhere near real traffic areas. And if he sees even one roller-skater, he gets off his skateboard and carries it home.

Gogna has the usual workplace fears as well; getting kicked in the shins, running out of flyers, having someone steal the cash tips out of his accordion case or even the occasional pie in the face. Yes, shin-kicking gorillas seems to be a hazing activity of one of the fraternities, hence Gonga’s increasing desire to wear shin-guards while at work. He figures if construction workers get to wear hard hats, he can at least add his own form of protection.

But one fear that truly makes his blood run cold is the fear of textbooks going online. If textbooks go online, then there will no longer be used copies for re-sale; only used log-in credentials. And since those are usually limited to a certain time-period, the resale value drops dramatically.

Even online textbooks wouldn’t quite cause Gonga to rush to find the nearest bridge. However, the thought of student loan companies going bankrupt does. After all, without a steady supply of fodder for the textbook mill, “The Textbook Game” will fail, and Gonga will be begging on the streets again. Even the thought of student loans becoming more difficult to acquire makes Gonga queasy on the inside.

The Impotence Of Proper Spelling

I am sure you have had the necessity of proper spelling drummed into your head from a tender age. Teachers say it, parents preach it and your friends all compete at spelling in those ‘honerous’ contests called “spelling bees.”

Gonga has always wondered why they’re called spelling bees anyway. After all, proper spelling of the noun for those little insects which fly around gathering nectar to turn into honey is not all that difficult. No, it’s words a bit longer than that which trip Gonga up.

In response to one worried note from a teacher which attempted to convince Gonga that he should work harder at learning to spell properly, Gonga sent another note asserting that he agreed that proper spelling was impotent. The teacher took this to mean that Gonga thought her teaching style was impotent. From that point on, Gonga was on his own.

He later posted on a girl’s wall, telling her, “You are such a sweaty girl!” Not only did he accuse her of overactive sweat glands, he also happened to forget to insert the comma before “girl,” which is probably why she immediately sentenced him to a life-time of Facebook friendlessness. Less than a year after that he made the mistake of messaging another friend, stating that the deodorant he used was utterly senseless. He meant “scentless” of course, but that friend called him up and started cursing him out in the middle of class. Suffice to say that this time Gonga had the pleasure of de-friending the person and deleting all the vulgar things that had been posted on his wall in the interim.

More embarrassing, and also more damaging, he addressed a thank-you letter to the donor who had funded his scholarship that year to, “The Deer Fiend.” Apparently that individual did not appreciate being likened to some sort of four footed, cloven hoofed demon and promptly revoked any future funding to the school.

In general, Gonga forgets letters and often confuses the proper use of vowels. When he writes his mother that he is going to get ‘beat’, she has finally stopped worrying for his safety and realized that he is simply talking about vegetables. He will also occasionally write home, telling that that he accomplished a spectacular ‘feet’ in finding shoes large enough for his ‘feat’. This inevitably sends his parents into ‘contusions’ of laughter.

Pumpkin Football

Gonga stared at the orange orb on the table in front of him. It glared back with as yet un-carved eyes. Gonga scowled in response. Of course his pumpkin would end up glowering at him. That’s always how things worked.

He raised his knife thoughtfully, considering how to procede.

Should he make a big mouth, or a little one? Bother with a nose at all? Maybe do eyebrows instead?

Eyes first.

Half an hour later Gonga looked at the mangled mass in front of him. He suddenly realized that he never should have worried about the eyes in the first place. They wouldn’t remain intact enough to glare back at him anyway. He speared a chunk of pumpkin on the end of his knife. How did those girls manage to make such realistic faces anyway?

He looked at the next pumpkin and grinned.

He shouted, “Derrick!” and swept the pumpkin off the table.

“What?” Derrick shouted in response from outside the screen door.

“Football!” Gonga barreled out the door at break-neck speed, curling over the pumpkin and shouldering his way past Derrick.

“Hang on there!” Derrick was after him in a flash. “Pass!”

Gonga turned and hurled the pumpkin at him.

Derrick juggled wildly for a second before capturing the orange ball.

Gonga smacked his hands together.

“You want it?” Derrick smiled and lobbed the pumpkin towards him at top speed.

Gonga recognized the glint in his friend’s eye a second before the pumpkin smacked him in the skull. It shattered, spewing pumpkin seeds and pulp all around him.

“You!” he shouted, diving towards Derrick.

The two went down in a heap with a mass of pumpkin rinds in-between.