Wild

Chapter 1: The Good the Bad and the Dead

'I wonder where all these thoughts come from?' he thought as he walked along. 'There is no one around but they are new to me, every one of them.'

So he said aloud, Thank you for the thoughts.

Then he was glad he did it for he felt a joy he had never felt before enter his spirit and settle welcomed in his soul. And he felt like he had just pleased his mama just before he bent down randomly to pick up a rock in the dusty road. But the thought came to him not to do it just as the light rain started silently falling the entire way around him.

'Should I obey it?' he thought. 'It might be just a thought.' But was there such a thing as just a random thought? His brain would have to have malfunctioned and then begin thinking when there was no reason for it to think anything but, 'A rock. I think I'll pick it up.' But it hadn't. It had thought something he had not willed it to think, 'Don't pick it up,' though actually I put words to it, and he never actually heard a word in his mind either. What was that? A new kind of thought, one not his own in his own brain! Where had that come from?

Thanks for the thought, he said and this time felt as if a warning had been given to him by his mama. It was more than a thought. It was an order from whatever was giving him all these thoughts and had used his brain to think it knowing or hoping he would notice the difference which he had. So he decided to obey whatever it was because if it could do that, it might be no one a kid should mess with. But he had already messed with it. It had given him thoughts he wondered how they came to be. He thought them but where had they come from? Had he messed with it, or had it messed with him? Either way he was into something here.

What are you? he asked it. An invisible Martian?

Then he understood there are no aliens, just alien thinkers and he was amazed by the thought for he would never have figured that out on his own and it was absolutely true.

Then a few seconds later he saw where an animal had lain down in the grass to rest probably and he understood.

I can see you by your tracks! he said amazed again and he liked being amazed. So he said, Show me some more of your tracks, but everything around him seemed identical to what had always been there, even the place in the tall grass where the animal, probably a deer had lain down. I don't get it, he said and waited for a thought.

Finally after what seemed forever to him it came to him that everything, the coming nighttime, the stars, the sun, the moon, the sky, the trees in the distance, the brush, the bushes by the stream, the bog humps, the tall grass on the other side of the road, the impression in the tall grass, the deer, everything was its tracks.

Even me? he asked, Am even I one of your tracks like your thoughts were a track and like your warning was? And there it was again, that warm feeling of joy in his spirit that settled very welcomed this time in his soul.

Is everybody one of your tracks! he said in his amazement. Then he felt embarrassed for he knew that of course they were. But not all of its tracks were pleasant. But suddenly the thought came to him and he understood that once they were all its tracks. There is someone else here with us, right now! he said and foolishly looked around in a manner that most often would have accompanied the thought but of course there was no one he could see. Then he saw something, a hungry old coyote and he understood as he saw it was carrying a small black animal, probably a large cute mouse. That's him! he said but felt a stern warning in return.

He turned around then and started for home, knowing there is no such thing as one coyote. They had never done anything to him because there were plenty of little rodents and large bugs and things around for them to eat. But there was always that chance.

However as he walked he had the thought that since whatever it was out there wasn't just out there, it was everywhere if the good tracks were its tracks and the bad coyote tracks and things like that were the tracks of someone else like his dad when he was drunk. He could talk to it anywhere then even when something bad was around. He then noticed he was suddenly not afraid the bad one was around and he looked back where he had come from and said, Thanks for the feeling it's safe. And he felt like he did every time his mama was pleased by something he did and thought of it as the smile on her face.

Then he came upon the tar papered shack but as he got nearer he heard his dad shouting. He couldn't hear what he was saying but he knew that tone. He was drunk again! Drat! He hated it when his dad got drunk.

He was afraid of him because of the way he hit his mom and took the strap to him afterward just for being a no good brat or for letting his dad beat up his own mama. He knew it wasn't true; none of it. And he didn't pay any attention to what his dad was cussing about either as he carefully opened the door so that it wouldn't creak glad it was already almost dark in the house and they were behind the blankets that served for a bedroom wall. So he quickly went to the walk-in clothes closet where his cot was, took off his clothes, all of them for they were wet. Even his underwear were damp from the light rain that had been falling outside that entire time. Then pushing his parents' clothes aside on their hangers he crawled in under the sheets on the bare canvass cot naked.

Later he could see there was a light burning in the main room of the shack and his dad was beating his mama again by the sounds of it. She screamed and screamed and then all at once she went silent. What was that about? Was the bad one gone? Did the good one put a stop to it somehow?

He got up off the cot as the sheet fell to the floor of the clothes closet and peeked around the doorpost just in time to see his dad coming his way. What was he going to do? He ran directly at him hoping to surprise him and managed to get by him without his dad even touching him and once in the main room he didn't know what to do again but his dad was staggering after him! So he ran for the door with his dad hollering, Darn you boy! You let me kill her this time! I hope you're proud of yourself, boy! Boy! Boy...! Boy...? as he headed out to the road that led back where he had met them, the good one and the bad one.

It was raining now, raining hard! But the neighbors must have called the cops. He could hear the sirens. 'Cops!' he thought. 'Who called the cops?' There wasn't a town for thirty miles and nobody in these parts had a phone! And they were too far away to have heard any of it anyway.

Then he realized it. Of course the good one had managed somehow to get the cops out there in a hurry! He felt safe again and he stopped running. He would have had to soon or fall down anyway and he knew it by the way the air burned his lungs and the back of his throat, and his eyes watered, but he couldn't see anything it was so dark now. He could barely make out the road as the muddy water ran in every direction it seemed but always downhill. Even then he wondered why that was, just as he did every time he saw it since he first noticed it was true, just as true as the good one?

Then he heard it. It was a gunshot! Had the cops killed his dad! What was going to happen to him now? His dad was bad but his mama had always seen to it he had clean underwear and something to eat and she had been kind to him. When his dad wasn't around. Where was he going to get that now? He crawled in under a large dead-fall on high ground where it was dry and mossy shivering for the rain on his nakedness and he soon fell asleep.

He was awakened time and again as cars came from the highway to the shack and there was a lot of talking, even a shout here and there. Once someone yelled, I tell you there must be a little boy out there somewhere by the looks of these clothes! But the rest of the conversation was muffled and he was so sleepy. He just went back to sleep. Then later on he heard what sounded like a herd of cars leaving the old rundown shack's yard, well- it was a yard? Wasn't it? Well... Sort of?

The next thing he heard was a red-headed woodpecker nearby pecking at the dead wood of the dead-fall he was under. It was loud enough to wake-! His mama? His dad! It was real! It hadn't been a dream! He was alive! His dad hadn't even touched him and he was alive! So he scooted out from under the dead-fall and let out a loud shout for the shear joy of it.

But wait a minute-? They had left him out here? They had gone back to town without him! He had never been to town exactly but he had been close enough to see it one time when they were stealing strawberries from that berry farm.

But there it was again that feeling of safety. So he looked about him and said, Thanks. Then he made his way down the muddy, clayey, road naked as a bedpost with nothing hung on it. And finally he made it to the shack. There was a bunch of red sticky stuff right by the door but just inside. He almost stepped in it. Then supposing it was blood, his dad's blood, he managed to get around it and went back to his cot after he noticed the plank they sat on to eat that had been set atop two large pieces of firewood his dad couldn't even split. It was all dark reddish brown like the blood at the door and some of it was on the linoleum on the floor by the table too. He hesitated. 'Mama?' he thought.

He looked under his cot. No clothes. He looked everywhere in the shack he could think to look. No clothes. Anywhere! They must have taken them? What would they want with them old, raggedy, holey, things?

Then he got the steel mop bucket from under his cot and the rag mop from the closet in his parents' bedroom closet and mopped up the blood as best he could, and ate some leftover salt pork from yesterday morning that was still in the frying pan in its own light gray grease with black and brown pieces of meat in it. But suddenly he heard something out in the yard. 'People!' he thought as he ran to the door, stopped dead in his tracks in fear, 'I'm naked!' he thought. Then he opened the door just wide enough to see and yet slow enough to keep the boards of it from creaking at the same time feeling dead inside and out.

Chapter 2: Alien Spirits

Jesse Wild grew up in a foster home for a year or two then a kindly older couple took him in and adopted him. Their house was pink with blue trimming and orange tin flamingos in the yard and he went to school, with a duck tail, sideburns, patent leather shoes, wore nice clothes, had a rock collection and an avid interest in the Bible, reading Genesis over and over again while spinning Rock 'n Roll singles on his record player while trying to understand what God had been talking about.

It was actually a middle sized city and there was plenty to do and plenty to keep a kid occupied. He learned a lot from the older couple and loved them like they were his only parents, the only ones he ever had. They had never had a grandchild for their only daughter had died of polio when she was a kid. It worked and it worked well. Everything turned out just fine. Jesse was happy and well-adjusted but a bit of a bore so his friends thought for he didn't ever like sports or anything that reminded him of his birth father at all, though he had forgotten why.

One night when he was about to graduate he was standing out in the yard looking up at the overcast sky when he had the thought, 'Don't pick up that rock!' as plain as day in his mind and his thoughts returned to the good one and the bad one.

It's you again! he said loudly, I thought you were just the imaginings of my childhood trauma.

Then he looked down. It couldn't be! It looked-! Could it be? It was the same rock just the way he remembered it. He had seen it often enough in his dreams to identify it without a geology kit but of course he never had. It was the same exact rock!

You are, he said looking up at the dark sky again, Simply amazing!

Then he felt that old joy enter his spirit and settle in his soul but it nearly made him cry. Why had he missed it so? It was like it died. People who went to church couldn't explain it to him. People that didn't got spooked or thought he was out of his mind or something. So he had given up trying to figure it out.

Pick up the other rock if you want to live forever, it said so he could hear it as clearly as had it stood next to him on the lawn he had mowed that very day with a push mower with the curved blades attached to a single large wheel.

Yeah, he said and looked at a large agate of some sort only more like something other than that actually, something he had never seen before. How about you tell me why I shouldn't pick up the other rock?

You'll die, it said.

Why! he found himself almost shouting.

Just don't pick it up, it said.

Jesse! he heard a feminine voice call to him and recognized the voice immediately as the cheerleader that lived next door. Who are you talking to silly? You're out there all by yourself. People will think you're crazy!

She had added that last sentence as if it were a whisper but he had heard it all the way from her window and so had anyone else in the neighborhood whose windows were open and it was hot and muggy so nearly everyone had all their windows wide open hoping for even the slightest breeze.

Okay, Jesse chuckled, Come on down here. There is someone here I'd like you to meet. I'll explain when you get here. It's really neato!

Be right over, Lover Boy! she said putting on bright red lipstick with her left hand.

You will like her, he said, She's really the bee's knees but weird!

He never heard anything or felt anything as he waited for a reply.

Aw! Come. On! he said, Talk to her too! Please?

Then he heard the aluminum screen door slam next door but continued looking up though he saw nothing but darkest night sky above him. The neighbor girl immediately stood beside him and looked up and sort of squinted without her coke bottle glasses looking up or trying to look up right where he was looking. When he noticed he giggled uncontrollably.

What's that, Daddio? she said, put her hands on her hips and popped her bubble gum in defiance.

Come. On! he exclaimed, You're as blind as Patty without your horned rim glasses. He was talking about the girl on the corner a ways from his house whose house was green and yellow that he was going steady with. What are you doing, Doll? he asked her knowing she had the hots for him. Then he bent down, picked up a june bug and added, What's this I have in my hand?

She took her bubble gum out of her mouth with difficulty and placed the entire huge wad in her little white purse inside a Kleenex. Then she said, A kissing bug, and made a circle with her lips protruding as she closed her eyes.

Jesse looked at her and didn't even laugh, thinking how ridiculous she looked even back then.

See these rocks? he asked instead as she opened her eyes with an expression of genuine disappointment on her face.

So? she pouted.

My friend up there says that if we touch this one we will die, he said.

HUH? she screeched and put her hands up beside her rosy rouged face one on each side about shoulder high being sure to reveal her bright red nail polish. Really? Why would he say that? she added as she started to touch it but he batted her hand away.

You know! he said, Like in the Bible? Adam and Eve?

Yeah? she taunted him, Like all of a sudden you're Billy Graham or something!

My friend also says, he said, If we touch the other one we get to live forever.

My! she gasped bending down to get a better look at the strange rocks, I don't think I've ever seen either one of them actually. Then she dropped the act and looked at him in alarm. You wouldn't want to live forever without me, would you?

Of course not, Doll, he said and she hugged him tightly though he refrained from hugging her back again.

Then she reached down and picked up the rock that it had said they would die if they touched it. And...?

She didn't die. So she held it out in his direction.

Oh, no you don't! he laughed. I'm too superstitious for that one. No thanks, Doll. Just put it back on the ground where you got it.

Obey me! it suddenly boomed from above seeming very angry.

Why? the girl said having heard it too and so turning while thinking someone was behind her, probably Jesse's friend she was surprised when there was no one there and looked puzzled a bit but readily accepted the situation, looked up in its direction and asked, Say! Daddio! Who do you think you are anyway? God or something? in open rebelliousness and stormed home muttering as she went.

She's of him...! Now, it whispered when the metallic sound of her screen door was finally heard.

Jesse laughed, Yeah, sure. Don't tell me. You are God!

Does it matter who I am, it said, If you won't obey me?

Okay, okay! Jesse said, I'll obeyed you. God or just some alien that thinks he's God. Some spirit. I'm not a little kid anymore. Okay?

But he didn't.

There was no reply either that Jesse could discern for quite some time. And in the end he went back in through his own aluminum screen door wiggling the front half of his fingers on his right hand and throwing the cheerleader next door a kiss with the other one. She had come back outside without him noticing and stood out in her driveway watching him.

He thought she really would swoon this time!

When he had run his bubble bath and had crawled in the green tub, behind the yellow towels in the towel rack and the oval braided rug with a pineapple design, he sat back with his hands folded behind his neck feeling the almost hot soothing liquid around him and sighed when he had the thought, 'Be careful what you say to him.'

Okay, okay, that's enough! Jesse snapped back and threw soap at the pale yellow wall. You have done enough damage for one night, don't you think?

There was no reply and nothing out of the ordinary took place in the entire length of time Jesse waited until finally the same voice he had heard outside said, Why don't you believe in me, Jesse?

But Jesse ignored it.

You believe in God? it seemed to almost pout.

Look! Jesse sighed, I don't know who you are or how you got the rock. This is nineteen sixty-five not the nineteen fifties anymore. Things have changed Daddio? Why me? Why don't you go bother someone else? I've read the Bible Billy Graham lied to the Russians about. It doesn't say anything about aliens or purple spotted giraffes or pink elephants for that matter either. Get my drift, Cookie?

There was no reply.

Look God, Jesse finally said after a while, If you are really there why did you write such a confusing book for us to read anyway?

Suddenly he understood more than he had thought possible. He understood the entire story of Adam and Eve in Genesis in a way that was better than most as the Holy Spirit can only truly relate it. And he was impressed. Then he realized the good one had never actually spoken to him before and instead sent him concepts he put words to but this was a major revelation to him. Was he enlightened? Or what!

Okay, Jesse sighed but for a different reason, nervousness, If you are God. Then who's he? The bad one-? The Devil? Then he was embarrassed for the answer was redundant. But he heard no reply. 'Be very careful what you say to him,' he remembered one of them saying.

Then he continued to soak and think about what was going on. Good and bad, the Devil and God, Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit and the Pharisees and he thought he understood some of it now anyway. Thanks for the thoughts, he said, got out of the tub, let it drain, wiped the bubble bath away completely soap scum and all as the sudsy water went down the drain, put a towel around his waist, went to his bedroom, just let the towel fall on the floor and put his white briefs on and climbed into his full sized bed with just a white sheet and lay there in the dark with his fingers locked behind his head when he heard that same voice say, Look out your window.

But Jesse was unsure so he waited for a reply from whomever else was there. Finally he had a feeling in his soul that said it would be okay and that there was no danger in it.

So he pulled the drapes aside and expected to see the dreary overcast sky and no stars just a completely dark sky out there above the cheerleader's roof but just then he saw instead a bright light and it moved steadily downward toward him before just as suddenly it was gone!

He is an alien! Jesse said aloud in horror barely noticing the cheerleader was watching him from her window in her flimsy nightgown now.

Then he heard the thought again from a long time ago, 'There are no aliens just alien spirits.'

Spirits! Jesse said in shock, I thought you meant alien thinkers? Then he realized it is the same thing. If one is not of God he is an alien thinker whether from another planet or not. But he is an alien spirit too if he's an alien thinker.

Jesse didn't sleep at all that night, but he was more refreshed than usual when it was finally time to get up to go to school.

Father, he said, God, I have sinned many times according to your holy Scriptures. The words of the Gospel are words written for me too. Will I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior one day? Like now? Then he thought a while and said, Why not now?

After that he sat on the edge of his bed and prayed to be saved from sin and death by the power of the Holy Spirit and to be made new and have all things made new. But immediately following that he got out of bed, dressed for school, walked through the house, picked up both rocks, put them on the bench seat in the front of his bright blue fifty-seven Chevy, drove to the reservoir and put them gently in the part of the water just above dam in 183 feet of water according to the depth marker beside the dam. Then he sat in his car in the warm sunlight and read and actually understood what he was reading in the Holy Bible, King James Version and all.

Finally he stopped reading not knowing how long he had read but feeling no hunger for missing breakfast or guilt for being late for school and remembering his birth parents he said, Now at last I forgive even him and my poor mama too, God.

Then he started his car, turned around on the mowed grass, weeds, dandelions and thistles, looked both ways and started to enter the thoroughfare before he saw it.

Chapter 3: Creating All Things New

He pulled over to talk to a man standing on the shoulder of the highway in long grass with sharp tassels finding himself with his front tire just off the pavement because it had no side striping. He hated when he did that. Then he leaned over, rolled the window down and said, You're a long ways from nowhere Mister. Do you live around here? Get in! as he opened the door on the right side just in front of the man.

Thank you Jesse, the man said as he sat on the wool Indian blanket design on the bench seat.

Jesse looked him over...! Really well. How did he know his name? He didn't remember ever having laid eyes on him before?

So you did it, the man said, You're a Christian now.

How did he know that!

Boy, I hope you're proud of yourself this time, boy. Boy! Boy...! Boy...? the man said in his dad's drunken voice.

Jesse came to an abrupt stop and pulled over just as he said the last boy. Then he sat and stared at the man. But the man never said anything and Jesse couldn't think of what he wanted to say either. So he put the car in first and got back on the highway finally hitting fifth miles later as he sped toward school.

Don't worry about getting to school late, the man said, I can take care of that.

Jesse was quiet a while. Then he put her back down in fourth gear and slowed to a safer speed for the highway was narrow and there were many curves in it and tons of traffic behind him and from the other way too now. Finally back in third he wondered just what he had in the car with him besides.

What are you? he asked.

Suddenly he looked and a weird sort of brown, tan and black squid-like thing with several appendages and skin like a reptile sat beside him as he pulled over again and looked at it in awe and in fear.

You wanted to see what I looked like, it said and appeared to be a man again.

How- Jesse said, How did you do that? as he waited for an opening in traffic before the third car, an old green Nash Rambler almost stopped to let him in again.

Tracks, remember Jesse? the man had been saying, In your brain, or was it your thinking? We have abilities you don't that's all. Well some writers do to certain persons but not many. Then it suddenly turned into a large bouquet of yellow poppies in full bloom beautifully yellow in the sunlight with brilliant green foliage in a silver tinfoil covered flowerpot on the man's side of the seat. We can appear to be anything we want, to your kind, it said a moment later when it had turned back into a man. You've seen me before. I was the coyote with a large black mouse in the wooded area that day.

You? Jesse asked and fell silent but strangely calm, even peaceful in the silence that ensued.

God told you to, 'Be careful what you say to him,' and you have been, he said with a certain amount of sadness in his voice. You've thought I was evil ever since then. No, no. It's okay. I know he thinks I'm evil too.

Then they drove a while and the man looked out the side window in silence at the rapidly moving trees and grass, brush and bushes racing toward them before he sighed a long, drawn out sigh. Do you suppose there is any chance of changing that? he asked Jesse who remained silent. Look! he said a moment later, "I've made planets before. A lot of us have. But we are not like God. We can't control thoughts and events and everything involved like he does and some of us are really, very evil. What we do to the people- or creatures- I guess is more accurate, it's horrible. I did it too.

Then I came here. It was already made and I observed what the one you call God did and is doing and will continue to do. And, quite frankly... He seemed confused a short while. Well, I'm convinced he is the original, the one that has always been before anyone else. He is so far advanced compared to us. Not because of his power you understand. At least he never showed me anything I couldn't have done if I had ever even thought to do it or ever had reason to do it. He just never does it in the same way we do and he does it to everybody even us all at the same time and he doesn't do it for the same reasons we would even think to do it. He loves you people. He knows what we are. We are a lot more like you were than you will be like us from here on out. Then he stared at Jesse. You have access to him. Will you teach me to be like him, like Jesus of Nazareth... Like God?"

I can't, Jesse said. I don't even know how to pray for you.

What? What is he? the man asked ignoring Jesse's reply.

There was nothing before him, Jesse found himself saying as he listened to his own voice saying that as if it were the voice of someone else though he even recognized it as...? His? But he hadn't ever realized it before either.

Space, the man said, We all came from there originally. Then he sighed.

Not even space, Jesse said in the same way, He was that he was without a beginning.

How do you know these things? the man asked.

I don't, Jesse said expecting it to be like it was before, You have to believe he is, for he is that he is.

Which is? the man said quickly.

Three persons in one person? Jesse said just as quickly back as he wondered what that was.

I think I understand now! the man said, It's not a thing that he is, like what we are. It's like a logical argument. He is that he is! Then he seemed to be reeling in some conclusions for a long time before he said, What's the next premise?

There isn't one, Jesse understood, But being that he is, there never was one and never will be one. It's just like me arguing that, I am that I am and you are that you are or were in the end. But in our cases we won't ever know what that was if we don't become like he is, not like we were when he made us.

He made! the man said, Me?

He did, Jesse said surprised he had said it, But you've changed that. We were all made in his image.

I know you, all of you are, and especially you now, the man said, But me!

"He is your God too if you want him to be and don't want to