Transformation

The stifling summer heat made my brother's suggestion of exploring the forest irresistible. A carpet of needles and rotting leaves beneath our feet, we threaded our way through pine, maple, and sourwood trees as some long-forgotten instinct drew us toward a stream teeming with frogs, snakes, crawdads, and freshwater eels. Walking along the banks of the shallow creek following its languidly moving current we came to the mouth of a narrow canyon. Here Mother Nature had brought individually insignificant drops of rain together using their collective power to carve a pathway through a slab of stone. Periodic flood waters paying homage to her power left gifts of debris lodged against the sides of the miniature gorge over the years where they became a permanent subtext to human extravagance.

In the narrowing artery formed by the rock walls, the flow of water quickens. A partially buried saw blade sends the liquid into the air where dappled sun's rays morph the droplets into tiny silvered fish before they drop back into the artery from which they came. The water, incited to rage by the canyon's confinement climbs its steep sides where it finds and fills an empty tuna can and the inverted faded blue fender of a child's tricycle. Trapped by these forms, the water changes from frenetic to calm in the blink of an eye. A sudden cloud burst surprises us and my brother runs for cover while I stand catching raindrops with my tongue as they drip from my eyelashes and run down my cheeks. The rain soaks my hair plastering it to my head like a helmet: an unremarked sign of what is to come.

The rainstorm passes quickly and my brother and I return to entertaining ourselves. Capturing bugs, we place them on sticks and leaves: pretend ships which we set into the swiftest part of the creek's current. Whose ship will prove to be the fastest? Laughing and shouting we run along the edge of the water as our makeshift sloops are whisked downstream, bobbing and bouncing about. If a bug captain is flung from his vessel, we cry "man overboard" at the top of our lungs in this child's paradise with no one to tell us we make too much noise. Here we laugh till our sides hurt: this place where truth has no authentication because nothing is as it appears to be. Here, tadpoles morph into frogs and caterpillars spin silvery shrouds about themselves becoming winged emerald and azure jewels: beings with long curled antennas who once crawled, but now are creatures of the air. In this space where caterpillars physically transform, I am the one changing.

The following day we return to our Narnia to hunt water snakes. My brother's new friend, hearing of our plans has invited himself to accompany us. Colton is older than my brother and me and my mother doesn't like him. She's never said as much but I can feel her fear when he's around: know she wouldn't approve of his coming along. We hunt in the stream. Heedless of our wet shoes submerged in the creek we turn over its large rocks where snakes like to hide. An hour passes with no success and Colton is growing restless. We happen upon an empty beer bottle that he retrieves and smashes on the rocks at the water's edge. Then drawing my brother aside Colton whispers in his ear and the two gather the bits of the broken bottle. I watch, wanting to be included but having no desire to risk cutting myself on the brown glass. Colton digs a hole in the mud at the edge of the stream and carefully places the glass shards at its bottom. Inching closer I see they have been set in an upright position. Now he and my brother disappear without a word, each in a different direction. Unnerved by their silent withdrawal, for a moment I consider returning home, but curiosity wins out and I delay my departure.

My brother returns first, carrying a big green frog. Before I can speak, Colton appears and together they set the frog in the hole Colton dug, placing it so its soft underbelly rests upon the glass spears beneath it. Colton grabs a rock so heavy, he must carry it using both hands and sets it upon the amphibian. Time stands still for me as the air grows heavy, saturated with the frog's pain. I stare in disbelief at what is unfolding in front of me and glance toward my brother. He appears distorted, misshapen and ugly as though I am observing him in a carnival mirror. The shock of what I see galvanizes me and I bolt for home. The normalcy of our family dinner that evening only serves to intensify my memory of the day's events and the feelings that accompany it. I am afraid: petrified my failure to act has, in some way, made me an accomplice to the cruelty I witnessed. Tomorrow morning I will wake to discover an unhealable chasm has opened between my brother and myself.

Fifteen years after departing Virginia I would run into a classmate and listen as she tells me the story of how Colton killed five students at his graduation ceremony using his father's automatic pistol, before turning the gun on himself. Before leaving, I acknowledge the part of me that feels justice has been done. Studying for my Ph.D. many years later I would read "Demonic Males, Apes and the Origins of Human Violence," a coursebook by Dr. Richard Wrangham. An anthropologist and primatologist Ph.D. from Cambridge University, Dr. Wrangham spent much of his life doing research for his book, a book that positions men as inherently violent. Somehow it felt liberating to realize we were in agreement on that subject.