Waves

What would Finnegan’s opinion of me be now, I wondered. Would he scold me for my carelessness at Black’s Beach? Would he marvel at my heroics, twice escaping the green hat pursuer? Did he know any of this stuff? I had a feeling that he did, after all, he said ‘I know’. He was a man of few words, but the words he chose to say, had weight. He didn’t just throw syllables around like some people do, for nothing more than to hear their own voice. For Finnegan to say ‘I know’ was definitely a confidence builder.

I opened my eyes and looked over at him, sitting next to me. He still had the same ridiculous outfit, but I saw him differently than I did at our first encounter, mostly because I was different. I guess we all assess people through a filter, and my filter had certainly been overhauled the last few hours. I had the three ball, firmly gripped in my hand. I was more tattered than when I started, but other than that, it was me. Would I finally receive a better explanation of my task? I was sure I would. So I thought I could get the ball rolling, sorry for the pun.

“I know about symploncy,” I said to him.

“And what do you know about it?” he responded.

“Well, when I don’t possess the ball for a period of time, then I get it back, there is an energy surge. Also, the ball is gaining in power, and so am I.”

“The ball has no power at all,” Finnegan said, pulling the rug out from under me. “It is the entity residing in the ball that has the power.”

“That’s sort of what I meant. So, what is this entity anyway?”

“Let’s take a little walk,” Finnegan said to me.

“A walk? I really want to know what this task is and what is going on. It has been a really weird day. I think I’m entitled to know!”

“Walk, Paxton,” he said calmly.

You know, that was the first time he called me by name. It got to me, it worked. I calmed down and got up to walk, Finnegan too. We started walking slowly along the semi-busy sidewalk. People passed us in both directions. This time I thought I would just be quiet and let him talk. Clearly me pressing him didn’t do anything so why waste my strength, I might need it. We were quiet for a little bit. It was awkward, I’m not accustomed to these silent pauses, but I let it go. I knew he would talk when he was ready.

And as we walked, I thought about all these people near us. Here we were, in the middle of something significant. There was some sort of sorcery going on in an inanimate object, evildoers were trying to kill me and animals were going haywire, yet all around us were tourists buying funny T-shirts and eating tacos. The contrast was creepy but wise old Finnegan didn’t seem to notice or to care. He just strolled along, then finally spoke.

“Someone is about to die, back where you started.”

“At the gliderport?” I asked.

“Yes, a bad fall, a serious head injury.”

“When did it happen?”

“That isn’t a valid question.”

Not a valid question? What does that mean?

“Shouldn’t we do something?” I asked, urgently.

“We have, we have you.”

At this, the air sucked out of me. I was going to save someone’s life? Finally I got my answer, at least in part. Finally, a task, but it seemed way out of my league. I was going to help someone with a serious head injury? And back at the gliderport? I can’t go back there. I left a trail of enemies along the way.

“Let me explain,” he said, as we kept walking.

“Please do.”

“The entity living in that object is called a ploncedite.”

“And that’s where the word symploncy comes from,” I said, thinking I was oh so clever.

Finnegan ignored my comment and continued.

“To say that a ploncedite is living is not entirely accurate. It has no consciousness so in that sense it is not a living being. It has power and it grows but not entirely on its own, that takes concurrence with the owner.”

“And that’s me,” I stated in a semi-question.

“Yes, for this one. You see, it takes tremendous power to heal a serious, life-threatening injury. The ploncedite in its inception, or infancy would not be nearly strong enough. That is why the growth is necessary, that is why you are necessary,” he said, “and you’re close.”

“Close?” I asked, “I thought I was ready.”

“Ready for the next phase,” he explained, “and in all likelihood, more danger. As you have discovered, there are people who would exploit the ploncedite for their own purposes. I can’t help you with that, you have to manage.”

“What do these bad men want to do with the ploncedite?” I asked.

“That, I don’t know. There are many possibilities,” he paused for second, “have you ever seen a building get leveled?”

“Well, not in person.”

“But you’ve seen videos of buildings being destroyed, by a wrecking ball…”

“...or dynamite,” I interrupted.

“Yes, right,” Finnegan continued, “it takes just a few moments to tear down what took weeks, perhaps months of meticulous work to build. Destruction is easier than healing. Those men can do a lot of damage with only a moderately empowered ploncedite, whereas we need it at full power for our task. That’s why they were eager for this one, even at first.”

“But,” I added, “as it grows in strength, they want it even more.”

“Naturally.”

“I see. So how does a ploncedite come into being?” I asked.

“We start it, place it and pick an owner. And we do a lot more than that, that you wouldn’t understand. Also, certain objects are better adept than others at housing the ploncedite, based on size, shape and weight.”

“Do you pick owners based on size and weight?” I asked, wryly smiling.

Finnegan gave me a little smile back and a chuckle. Yes, stone-faced Finnegan actually gave me a bemused snicker, which might be even more incredible than the ploncedite itself. Even though we shared a small laugh, it was a good question and one that I wanted an answer to. How was I picked? I have shown some incredible resilience and fortitude, so I’m guessing I was picked because of bravery, or at the very least potential for bravery.

“To understand how you were picked, you need to understand concurrence,” Finnegan the teacher explained, as we continued strolling, “the ploncedite will grow on its own but very slowly. For the ploncedite to grow as we need it to, it needs to connect with an owner and grow as the owner grows. But at the same time, the ploncedite helps the owner grow.”

“They help each other,” I audibly explained to myself.

“Thus concurrence, yes,” Finnegan confirmed. “The owner’s growth is the most important part though, growth meaning confidence, strength, stamina, cognitive reasoning, bravery, things of that nature.”

I was feeling good about this, for about a second. Finnegan continued.

“So picking a soldier, for example, would be a bad idea because a soldier already has achieved those things. We needed someone with great space to grow.”

My balloon popped, make that exploded, incinerated. I stopped walking abruptly.

“Are you telling me I was picked because I’m a wimp?!” I said angrily.

“Partly.”

That made me mad - really, really mad.

“I think I’ve just been insulted! You want someone who’s weak and scared? Is that it? Well I am really pissed off right now!” I screamed.

“Good,” he responded, emotionless.

“Good?! This makes you happy?” I totally lost it, strangers were tuning into this fight. “Well you can just find yourself another boy! Another weak-minded fool for you to manipulate! I’m out of here!”

I tossed the ball to him and didn’t even wait to see him catch it. I turned and marched out of there. I didn’t need this crap. I stomped away, still wanting to kick something. I was ticked, probably more than I had ever been. Then I started to feel a little dizzy. I think it was my anger that was doing it.

As I stumbled a bit, in my woozy state, then righted myself, I was no longer on the sidewalk. I found myself on a desert plain and I was running. It was similar to finding myself watching hang gliders in that I didn’t remember a beginning, I was just there, in the middle of an activity. I was running fast, as fast as I could, faster than was humanly possible. And running next to me was a huge African elephant. We were running side by side. His gallop shook the Earth with every step. We ran and we ran, next to each other. We weren’t racing nor was I his prey. We were running together, him and me. And I was running as fast as he was, without tiring.

It felt great to run this fast without getting fatigued. And it felt great to have this enormous friend as my running partner. I loved the sounds he made while running; snorting, breathing sounds and the sounds of weight and power as this huge beast continued to land and push off with his mighty gait. But then I started thinking, why was I running? I didn’t know. So I stopped, and he stopped with me. He looked at me and I at him.

Then I was back on the sidewalk, although in a different place. Maybe I had been walking or even running while in my dream state. I hope I didn’t trample anybody. Why did I get so angry? What Finnegan said wasn’t that terrible. I flipped out, totally out of character for me. What was going on with me? Let me think. So he said that they needed someone with space to grow. That’s me alright, I mean, I still sleep with a nightlight. So as I settled down and realized that I did fit the profile. I thought about something else, Finnegan said ‘partly’. He said that was partly why I was chosen. What was the other part, or parts? I’m sure there was important information that I could have used. There were probably things he was about to say that weren’t insulting, yet I stomped off, uncontrollably. What have I done? I needed to make this right.

I had no idea where I was, again. I was completely lost. If only I had Derek to direct me. So I walked a bit more then turned a corner. I went down the street and up another street. Aimlessly I wandered, through streets and intersections, sometimes I crossed and sometimes I turned. Then finally there was Finnegan, seemingly waiting for me. He didn’t have the ball. Maybe he didn’t catch it. I walked up to him, sheepishly.

“I’m sorry… I...”

“It’s expected,” he responded, “You have grown a lot today, bravery, resourcefulness, strength, the ploncedite has done you well, and you have done well. But what has also grown are your emotions. It takes time and experience to learn how to control that.”

“Wow, I guess so. Where’s the ball?” I asked.

“Where it needs to be.”

“What now?”

Finnegan didn’t tell me to walk with him this time, he just started walking and expected me to follow, which I did.

“How does it feel without the ploncedite?” he asked.

“Strange, like my arm is missing.”

Finnegan nodded approvingly. He didn’t say anything else and I didn’t either. We walked past a large art gallery then turned a corner, down a hill toward the ocean. At the bottom of the hill, with the ocean in view, in all its splendor, we walked along another street behind the gallery. We came to an iron gate. I didn’t think we were supposed to open it but he did anyway. We entered into a charming walled back courtyard, behind the art gallery. This courtyard was built on a slope so on the higher places we could see the ocean beyond the wall. All around us were well manicured lawns, plants and palm trees. We walked on a twisty path, past flower beds and modern art sculptures. There was no one there, the serenity was exactly what I needed. We sat on a bench, a decorative cannon in front of us and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean.

“So you want to know what ‘partly’ means.” Finnegan said as more of a statement than a question.

“Yes,” nothing surprised me about him anymore.

“What do you think?”

“Well I’m hoping that it has to do with potential. That, yes I have room to grow, but you saw potential in me to make that growth.”

“That is definitely a piece of it, yes.”

“There’s more?” I asked.

“Tell me about the wolf.”

“You know about that?” I asked, stupidly.

He didn’t answer, and why should he? Of course he knew about that, why else would he have asked?

“What about the wolf?” was my second question, and a better one at that.

“What did you see in your mind?”

“I saw colors and abstract… I don’t know… just weird stuff. But I also saw faces, familiar yet unfamiliar faces.”

“What about these faces?” he asked.

“I don’t remember the woman, it happened so fast, but I remember the man. You know, he kinda looked like me, except older. Was I looking into the future?” I said excitedly, as if I just solved a riddle.

“No, not the future, and it wasn’t you,” Finnegan continued, pausing first, then he started telling a story. “There was this young married couple, filled with ambition, big dreams, you know the type. She got pregnant and they just felt they weren’t ready. And there was another couple who badly wanted a baby but couldn’t have one. So there was an adoption.”

I think I knew where he was going with this story. My heart started pounding, there were always things in my life that I couldn’t explain. Maybe they were coming into focus right here, right now. So I added to his story myself.

“And the adoptive parents got pregnant after all, three years later with a baby girl,” I said, quivering. Finnegan nodded as if I was exactly getting it. I was starting to breath heavy, my heart was racing as I continued filling in the gaps with an additional epiphany, “and the young couple who had given up their son, had another son, seven years later, that they kept.”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“I’m adopted,” I said, barely getting the words out of my mouth, “why didn’t they tell me?”

“It isn’t easy.”

“They never treated me any different.”

“Why should they?”

At that moment, this huge revelation got the best of me. I burst out crying. I hadn’t cried in years but that was all over. I sat on that bench with my head in my hands and sobbed. I cried and cried, and as I cried I felt something pressing against my legs. I peeked through my tears and there lying at my feet was a full-grown white tiger, asleep. It was powerfully and peacefully comforting.

I wasn’t sure what I was crying about. Was it for me, for my foundation being rocked? My parents were still my parents, what changed? Or were the tears for a young couple, giving up their son to adoption, and all the struggles and self-doubt that come with that? Or maybe it was for a childless couple, thrilled with their new baby son but without the skill or courage to explain things to him, and in some real way, forgetting his origins as irrelevant.

Eventually I stopped crying, completely drained. I rested on this bench, my eyes still closed for another five minutes, trying to right myself, trying to regain my focus. When I finally opened my eyes, the tiger was gone, but more importantly, Finnegan was gone too. I was alone.