Freewill by Chris Lynch Read Free Book Online Page A

him.
    Do you want to fail any more tests? Can you afford to fail any more of life’s tests, big or small?
    Or is it even one? He doesn’t do it on purpose. He has no more control of this than you do. Let each other off once in a while. Can you do that?
    â€œDon’t start on my dad, Pops.”
    Let it go. You don’t have to.
    You are pointing a long, hard, angry finger at your father’s father. Is that what you want to do?
    â€œPut that finger down, young man,” he says.
    What do you think he thinks? Do you think the whole thing is hard for him? Do you think it is harder to lose your father or your son?
    Do you think it was your fault?
    WillWillWillWillWillWillWillWillWillWillWill.
    Do you think it was his fault?
    Does one of you owe something?
    What do you suppose he thinks?
    Do you give a shit?
    â€œI don’t give a shit,” you say. But you do slowly lower your hand as directed. You turn your back to him now and watch as the tide attempts, in small grabs, to take back the head that it gave you. It looks like a hard job, a big heavy mother job. But in increments, it will get done. The tide will win. It always does.
    It is impossible to hear it, but you know your slope-shouldered grandfather is fighting his way back up the beach. He is headed to work in his garden, just as sure as you are sitting there. His garden is your beach. Only when he runs and hides, at least things grow in his wake.
    This never works out quite the way you intend it, does it? Probably not the way he intends it either. But he tries. You know that he tries. You give him that, even if you don’t tell him.
    But there is no book. No rules, no diagrams. Seat-of-the-pants flying, for both of you.
    â€œSorry, Pops,” you scream, toward the sea, as it takes back its gift.
    Odds are long that he heard you. But you will assume hedid. And if he did he will be waving the wave he waves, without looking back. To acknowledge, and absolve you.
    But you don’t need to look to see if he’s doing it. You slink into a cross-legged lump in the cold wet sand, staring staring at rotting skulls and white horses and gray horizon and vast, vast, vast untold.
    Why can’t we do better than this? If everyone is to survive we have to do better than this.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    So whose turn is it? Who’s next? That’ll be the question. Do you know? There has to be a next, right? These things always happen in threes, don’t they? Don’t they always happen in threes? Why is that?
    So, who?
    Do you know?
    You’re afraid you might.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    â€œHere it is, Mr. Jacks.”
    â€œWill.” Mr. Jacks springs up out of his office chair to greet you. He acts as if it is a surprise and an honor to have you arrive, even though you are a student and arriving is the barest minimum of what you are supposed to do. What do they think? Has it sunk to where the barest minimum is more than you can manage?
    What are the options after that?
    â€œOh,” he says, taking the gnome out of your hands and examining it like he’s some kind of art collector making a very important purchase. “Oh,” he says, twisting it around, rubbing it, looking into its eyes ears and nose. “Yes, ah yes, this is good, Will. My mother will be thrilled with it. Very fine work.”
    It isn’t though, is it? It isn’t, because you made no effort to make it so. A gnome is a gnome is a gnome, and you some time ago became disconnected from the very freakishness, garishness, inhumanity of the creatures. Do you understand why anyone would want one? The only way you could make any kind of distinctive statement would be to make the thing look human, friendly, pleasant. But you’re not capable of that either. So the only distinctive feature of this guy is the morbid thrust of his eyes, bulging two inches out of the sockets. Like when they find drowning victims washed up on your