"Think of your behaviour this way. Say, you're on a desolate island and you want to get off. In your case, you have a problem about your relationship with Dreamer and you don't like that problem. There are solutions, just as there are bridges off that desolate island. Granny told you about one solution. Talk with Dreamer. You didn't. You burned that bridge down by not following her advice."
"When Dreamer tried to apologize to you privately, that was another bridge off your problem island. You wouldn't let her apologize to you. That's another bridge that you burned down."
"Then Dreamer apologized to the entire Wilizy family in public. You didn't respond. You never said that you appreciated her words, that you weren't mad any more, or anything. You burned that bridge down too."
"When you started thinking that you'd like to get back together with her, you didn't talk to her. You spied on her instead. That was another bridge that you burned down. A simple talk with her won't work any longer."
"You think now that you might want to be friends with Dreamer, perhaps even more. But you are on a desolate island that you yourself created; there are no easy bridges left for you to leave that island. The only way to leave that island now is with an act of courage."
"Courage is not growing a moustache. It's not being more masculine. It's not learning to fight instead of coordinating communications from inside a ship. The courage you're seeking is found in everyday life. Both men and women have courage but may have difficulty finding it. Dreamer found herself on a desolate island where everybody in the family thought that she had behaved very badly. She found the courage necessary to escape from her island by making a public apology and then working hard to gain everybody's trust."
"Wizard, courage is simply this: Forcing yourself to do something when you don't want to do it. It starts with little things – accepting an apology or telling a girlfriend you'd like to slow down. When you have the courage to force yourself to do small scary things, it's much easier to deal with the big scary things. Refusing to confront your fears only makes the problem worse."
"Hank and Yolanda's family has a ritual for such situations. Wolf and Yollie both went through a difficult period in their lives. They were struggling to find themselves. They went off and lived in the wilderness by themselves. They looked at their lives to that point; they asked what kind of person they wanted to be; they thought about how they would get there. They went into the wilderness as a kid; they came out as an adult."
"On the hillside above us, you will find a cache of supplies. You will find everything there that you will need to walk back to the home compound. Some clothes, but not many. Hiking boots. Some ways of obtaining food – a bow, a few arrows, a knife, snares. A canteen with water. You will find means of building a crude shelter. I confirmed in the last couple of days that you know how to use snares and feed yourself. I am satisfied that you can survive on your own in the wilderness."
"You know where you are now. You know enough about this part of the country to find your way home. You will leave your sling and pinky ring with me. I have told William that you are on a mission and off-line. I will strike your camp and take it with me. If your life is threatened, remove your brain-plug and I will come."
"The family will know only that you are on your wilderness challenge. If there's anything more for them to learn, that will come from you, not me. When you return to the compound, everything that happened here between you and me will be forgotten. It didn't happen."
"Go now. Use your brains, but find your courage too."
# # # # # # # #
The next morning, while Wizard was leaving the crude camp that he made out of tree branches, Maddy was leaving the cottage. She had finished off what cereal was left. She had crammed as much food as she could into her backpack. She turned neither left nor right but instead went to the spot where the trail was very muddy and swampy. She sat on a stump and stared. She could see snakes slithering in the mud. But she could also see a sort of trail.
Maddy left her backpack on the ground and went back to the cabin. At the front door were Brute's big rubber gumboots. She looked at them for a long time. Then she lifted them and went back to the muddy area. She didn't have to take off her own boots to get into Brute's. His boots came up to her knees.
Maddy entered the swamp timidly. Looking for snakes. The ground underneath was mucky, sucky, and gucky. One time, she lost her balance but she didn't fall because she put both her hand and arms into the guck to stop herself. A lot of times, a boot would get stuck in the mud. Maddy would grab the top of the boot and pull it and her foot out of the mud. Then she'd take another step, get stuck, and pull the boot with her foot out of the mud. In time, the trail opened up and became more solid. She could see far enough ahead to know that there was a road. A real road. Maddy took Brute's boots off and left them on the ground. Then she walked onto the road, looked to the left and to the right. She saw some buildings way off to the right, so that's the way she went.
Maddy was off Snake Island. She had found courage.
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Chapter 23
Watertown, New York
March 1, 2086
Dear Florence,
I am sending a young girl to you in the hopes that you will be able to help her find her parents. She has a bot that will tell you what little information I have been able to get from her. I thought that if I sent her to a fellow Weight Watcher west of me, and if you sent her to a fellow Weight Watcher west of you, and so on, we could send her far enough west for her to find her parents. I know where her parents are. Read the bot and you'll understand.
Back here in Watertown, the big news is that Bulky Barney, our messiah, has put a mechanized ramp into the church so that members can come in and out more easily. Before – we had to push our most advanced followers and their wheelchairs up a ramp. That proved to be sinful because we'd break into a sweat. It didn't make any sense to go to church to be faithful to our religion and then at the end of the service, sin by exercising and breaking into a sweat. Our messiah thought about that and decided to put in a moving ramp that would take us up to ground level.
We're still meeting in the basement storeroom of the local Bulky Barney retail outlet. Our church has all the conveniences we might want. The chairs are comfortable, and when it comes time to have communion with Barney our lord, we have a mug of thick fruit syrup right by our hand to drink and a bowl of candies to munch on. Nobody has to get up and walk. I myself have now managed to reach the 250 pound level and wear my badge proudly. Of course, our senior members top the scales at over 400 pounds, so I have a ways to go yet. However, I go to church weekly. Afterwards, I browse through all the barrels of religious foods that Bulky Barney sells and I stock up on these things as our religion encourages. The people at Bulky Barney are very supportive. We see our bill by the time we reach the top of the ramp and, with a quick initial, the money is deducted from our bank account. The prayer resources are delivered that afternoon to our homes and the staff will even bring them into the house and scatter them around in Bulky Barney mini-barrels so that it is easy to act on an urge to pray.
We had a good sermon today. One of our apostles came in and told us about the evils of artificial sweeteners. I believe he's an apostle; he might be a saint. I get them confused. It all depends on how much discount they give us Weight Watchers on whatever we buy from them. Anyway, this man was the owner of the Sweet Sweet Sugar Emporium in town and so he knows his stuff. We were all convinced by the end of the sermon that we should stick to eating sugar and not corrupting our bodies with artificial sugars. So we sung the hymn A Cupful of Sugar Will Help the Medicine Go Down and we all agreed to try his offering – a sack of sugar – at his special discount rate. I'll tell you whether it helps me to gain weight or not after I've tried it. It does taste very good, but I don't know if I can get a cup down every hour. I've tried it and it actually makes me nauseous. But faith in one's religion is not always easy to keep and I'm s
ure that I can work my way up to that quota. The nice thing is that the Emporium will keep delivering the sacks of sugar on a regular basis without us telling them to.
I've been too busy with this little girl to keep my regular routine, so I'm looking forward to meeting all our members for the Tuesday service at Dunk, Dunk, Dunk that Doughnut. The owner is an apostle, I believe. I've noticed that all of the apostles/saints are very slender – at least compared to us. They explain that they are unable to gain weight no matter how hard they try, but they feel guilty about that. So they support our religion by giving us special deals when we come to their businesses.
The Dunk is a good example of that. We can stay as long as we want. They do ask us to pray several times an hour and their staff will bring by hot doughnuts for that purpose. They also serve us a juice of some kind or a hot chocolate. They give us two or three doughnuts at a time in case we want to be very fervent in our religion. They used to bring a dozen at a time, but those got stale if you left them on the plate too long. The doughnuts we get now are fresh and hot. All we have to do is raise our hand and the staff will give us another batch. The price used to be ten doughnuts for the price of nine. The apostle is giving us a better deal now. Twenty doughnuts for the price of nineteen. We get double the doughnuts, so we're all happy about that.
The Dunk ownership has built a big room full of large comfy chairs just for our members. You can sit in a recliner if you have reached the Cake Doughnut loyalty level. If not, you still have a comfy chair. They're so soft that we all sink into the cushions. When we want to leave the service, it's too hard for most of us to push ourselves up out of the chair. However, one of their staff will come by, attach a wide leather strap to our body, and winch us out of the chair. There's a nominal fee for this that is added to our bill.
The Dunk's managers gave us our own room because they allow non-believers to buy doughnuts at their business. These non-believers usually come and go quite quickly, but now they have their own room to do that. This way, we don't have to look at their skinny bodies and worry about how they will not reach the promised doughnut shop in the sky when they die. I thought that was very considerate of the Dunk's managers.
Speaking of considerate, my bank manager messaged me to tell me that my bank account was empty. But since he's an apostle or saint, he has agreed to give me a mortgage on my house at a Weight Watcher's discount. From now on, all of my religious costs will be added automatically to my mortgage. He has reassured me that the bank has plenty of money to lend me if I want to increase my devotion to the church. He even said that he could make my house into a shrine and people could come by and look at it. I will need to reach the 450 pound level first though.
All is well for me here. I'm feeling good enough to consider becoming a sponsor for the church's Vegetable Anonymous support group. Not only do we help other followers, but Bulky Barney also gives V-A sponsors special prices that nobody else can have. I would have taken this young girl to you directly and would have enjoyed a visit with you, but my copter can't lift me off the ground any longer. I'm expecting one of the new apostles/saints by this afternoon and he'll tell me how I can donate my copter to the church by giving it to him.
Yours in watching our weight grow,
Rhonda.
# # # # # # # #
Watertown, New York
March 1, 2086
My name is Rhonda and I'm a Weight Watcher. Accompanying this bot is a lost little girl. I'm asking my fellow Weight Watchers to keep on sending this girl west until somebody can take her directly home.
Here's what little I know about her. It's not much. But if each Weight Watcher adds new information about this girl to the bot, the last person on the list will know quite a bit. When she's finally delivered to her parents, please let me know. My email address is at the bottom of the bot.
I met this little girl when I was in the checkout line in our local food store. She was in front of me and patiently waiting her turn to pay for an apple that she had in her hand. I saw that she was dressed in warm outside clothes and was carrying a backpack on a shoulder. When she reached the front of the line, she put her apple on the conveyer belt, just like everybody else did. Floyd, the cashier, told her it would be 5 cents and held out his hand. She held her hand out for the apple.
"No. First you give me 5 cents; then I give you the apple," he snarked. Floyd is short tempered early in the morning.
The little girl just looked at him.
"Do you have 5 cents?"
She shook her head No.
"Then get out of here. People are waiting."
"Floyd, give her the apple for Weight Watcher's sake," I said. "She's obviously hungry." I don't normally take our religion's name in vain, but Floyd can be quite a jerk.
"Are you paying for it?" he asked me.
So, that's how I ended up with an apple and a little girl. I told her that I'd take her to a spot in the store where she could sit down and eat it. I was walking beside her when I got a whiff and leaned over for a better smell. "Let's go to the washroom first," I said. "I think you need to go, right?"
She nodded. She was in the stall and I heard her whimpering. I smelled the reason why. Turned out the urge to go had been a long time ago. I had her push her jeans and panties underneath the stall door. They were past saving so I dumped them in the trash. I told her to stay in the stall and then liberated a face cloth and towel from Floyd's shelves. Serves him right for being a jerk. She wasn't too bad about letting me clean her up, but she had a nasty rash on her bum. I liberated some ointment and put some on. She pulled out a clean set of panties and jeans and put them on. She did so very gingerly. I had been prepared to do more liberating but it wasn't necessary because she had some extra clothes. Whatever she was doing, she had planned it first.
"This ointment will help you feel better but your bum will hurt for a couple of days. Are you frightened of me?" I asked.
She shook her head – No.
"Good. I'm not frightened of you either. I'm going to invite you home with me, help you get rid of that rash, feed you, and keep you safe. You can run away from me whenever you want. I'm obviously not able to run after you and catch you."
She nodded at me and I gave her the apple. She put on her backpack and we left the store together. I just figured that she was a little Watertown girl who had run away from home over some spat and her parents would be looking for her soon.
When I reached my house, I told her to take off her backpack, coat, and shoes and leave them at the door. She seemed quite content to do that. I gave her a tour – showing her where she'd be sleeping, where I'd be sleeping, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room. I showed her how to open the front door. I even left it open a bit.
I told her I'd wash her apple and cut it into slices and she could eat it. She watched everything I did – never took her eyes off me. Solemn face. Not a hint of a smile. She even came over when I took the knife out of the drawer and looked inside. Curious little thing, I guess. She didn't want to sit down and I didn't blame her. She stood by the table watching me as she ate. When she was finished, she went to the sink but couldn't reach it. She just looked at me and held out her arms. Not a word.
I was thinking that she was shy and scared. I lifted her up to the counter. She knelt on it, turned on the water, washed her hands, and turned the water off. She held out her arms again and I lifted her down. We stood there looking at each other.
"Do you want anything else to eat?"
She shook her head – No.
"What would you like to do now?"
She just looked at me.
"My name is Rhonda. What's your name?"
She just looked at me.
"You do know your name, right?" I figured her to be about 5 or 6 years old.
She nodded.
"Are you too scared to tell me?"
She shook her head – No.
That left me kind of scratching my head, but I decided not to push it
. "Would you like to show me what's in your backpack? I won't take anything from you."
She brought me the backpack and I put it on the kitchen table, put a chair next to the table for her to stand on, and told her to go ahead and take things out. She had a partial second set of clothes. Three empty water bottles. A thick sweater that had some paper folded inside of it. A flat machine of some kind. And at the very bottom, some felt pens. I looked at her; she looked at me.
"What's this machine for?" I asked and reached for it.
She screeched, grabbed it, and held it tight to her.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I won't take it from you. Do you know what it's for?"
She nodded.
"Will you tell me?"
She shook her head – No.
"Are you able to speak?" I had thought about that squalling noise. A normal 6 year old would have yelled No or something like that when I had reached for it.
She shook her head – No.
A mute, I thought. That explains some things. I looked at the felts. "Can you write?"
She nodded – Yes.
# # # # # # # #
I managed to find out a few things but she couldn't write very much. Her name is Maddy. She is 5 years old. When I asked her why she was walking around by herself, she wrote Mommy and then underneath that Daddy.
"Your mommy and daddy are lost?"
She nodded – Yes.
"Are you lost too?"
She nodded – Yes.
"You're looking for them?"
She nodded – Yes.
"Can you write the place where you live?"
She shook her head – No
"Do you know where you live?"
She nodded – Yes.
I was stuck for questions. I didn't know what else to do. But I saw the piece of paper sticking out of her second sweater and asked her if I could see it. There was some handwriting on one side of it. It told a short story about an unhappy little girl looking for her parents. "Is this story about you?"
She nodded – Yes.
I turned the paper over. It had some computer printing on it. A business letter of some kind. The letterhead was simple. Safe Haven Ranch #4. No address, but the date was fairly recent. "Did you used to live at Safe Haven Ranch #4?" I asked.