Serial 1

 Chapter 1

I

            The garden was vast and filled with its early spring magnificence. One end was filled with flowers of all kinds, faces turned toward the sun, which was just at its daily peak, and on the other end were the vegetables Phillip’s mother used to help feed her family. At the far end of the garden was a pear tree whose branches extended out over the endless barrier of the brick wall and out above the sidewalk. The vines of the tomato plants reached higher than Phillip could touch.

            He was only three, and with his full, blushed cheeks he was a very pretty child. His thin, dusty hair fell over eyes that shone with color. Plump legs were crossed underneath him as he swirled his hands around in the mud. His mother had left him alone for the moment to go pick some pears.

Phillip took a hefty glob of some of the more solid mud, and began to work his short, clumsy fingers through it. Slowly, through great effort, a form came forth out of the grime in his hands. Looking pleased with himself, Phillip cried out to his mother, “Cat!”

            Mrs. Crane looked over at Phillip from her perch on a bright red ladder under the pear tree. She was wearing a pretty, yellow sunhat with a brim that extended out far beyond her scalp, shielding the fine bones of her face from the hot summer sun. In her hand was a burlap sack filled with the bird seed she’d just been pouring into a feeder.

            “Where’s the cat, sweetie? I don’t see one,” Mrs. Crane scanned her garden for any sign of the neighbor’s fat tabby, Mildred. She pushed a long strand of her red hair out of her eyes grimacing as she realized that she’d also rubbed mud on her face.

            Phillip held up his creation for his mother to see, and called out again, “Cat!”

            “Oh, sweetie that’s a lovely cat. Did you make that?” She beamed at her child, feeling that he must be the smartest three year-old in the state of Massachusetts.

            Satisfied with the attention he’d received, Phillip carefully lowered his cat sculpture onto the ground. It stood there for a moment, and then slowly, very slowly, turned its head to look up at Phillip. It made a sort of strangled mewling sound, then seeing a fly dart past it, swung around and began to chase the creature across the lawn. It galloped clumsily, falling down quite frequently, as if its limbs were not built quite right for its body. Phillip watched in fascination, laughing wildly as his little creation bound around the garden after its prey. However, its exuberance got the better of it, and it did not see the descending foot of Mr. Crane as he came out into the yard to greet his wife and child.

Phillip screamed as his father crushed his beloved cat. Thinking him hurt, Mr. Crane rushed over to pick him up. However, despite their best efforts, neither of the elder Cranes could get Phillip to stop screaming, and getting him to bed that night was nearly impossible. The following morning though he was back to his usual, beaming self, the bizarre events of the previous day forgotten.

II

Phillip lay in bed, inspecting his hands in the sunlight. The sunlight having made it through millions of miles of space and several layers of atmosphere relatively undimmed, was deeply bruised by the heavy curtains on Phillip’s bedroom window. Nonetheless, it shone through. His hands were rougher than the hands of most children his age. He hadn’t yet grown old enough to shave, nor had he yet begun to lose the soft features of youth. His hands looked older, more weathered, in comparison.

            To his left was his bookshelf, so full that he’d begun laying books flat in stacks on top of their vertical friends. His favorite was “Demian” by Herman Hesse. Phillip’s walls were plastered with photographs of his favorite artwork, and with some of his own sketches. He was mostly a sculptor, but nearly every one of his pieces began on paper. There was a knock on his door and Phillip pulled himself upright as his mother walked in the room.

            “That was your art teacher on the phone, Phillip.”

            Mrs. Crane hadn’t aged much in the ten years since the incident in the garden. Perhaps there were a few strands of gray in her hair or a line or two on her face that had not previously been there, but all in all, she was much the same.

            “He said that if you start putting a portfolio together now, you could have it finished in time to apply to the arts school upstate. He’s willing to write you a letter of recommendation. He told me that they only accept thirty students into each grade, so you’ll have to really put your best foot forward.”

            Phillip got out of bed and began to excitedly go through the stacks of his work that he hadn’t yet pinned on the walls. “I don’t know what I’d put in a portfolio. What kinds of things do they want?”

            Mrs. Crane managed to look elegant even doing something as mundane as stepping out of a doorway and into a room. She ran her long fingers along the wall without ever quite touching the art on it.

            “I think that they want variety of medium. Perhaps you should submit a few of your better sketches and some photographs of your sculptures?” She pursed her full lips delicately in concentration. “How about this?” she asked, resting her finger lightly on a charcoal sketch of Phillip’s father. He was a firm jawed man with hard, heavy features, softened by a growing plumpness. Phillip crossed the room to stand beside his mother, looked carefully at the piece. Then, with a decisive nod, he began to remove the tacks pinning it to the wall.

            “That will do. Maybe I should try and paint something? Which sculptures do I want to include? Should I show variety there too? I mean, I’ve worked with clay, stone, and a little metal…should I include some of each? I don’t really like anything I’ve done with metal…”

            Avia Crane laid a gentle hand on her sons shoulder, turning his head gently towards her eyes, so she could stop the gears spinning in his head too hard and said, “Put your favorites in. That’s all. How about you get a rough idea of what you want and show me later, ok?” Phillip nodded and his mother leaned down to kiss him on the head before she left.

            After she’d gone, Phillip went out to the garage where he kept his sculptures next to his mother and father’s assorted tools. He touched each piece with his hand as he strode slowly around the space. There were a few assorted urns and bowls he’d formed out of clay alongside a silly imitation of pooh bear he’d constructed a few months ago. It was paper-mache placed delicately on top of a wire form. He’d sculpted a few various animals out of soap stone and alabaster. Among those were his attempts at abstraction. Some of these were alright, but none as well-shaped as his realistic pieces. Mostly when he  tried to make something abstract, he just ended up with a flowless blob or some shadow imitation of reality.

            In the corner of the garage was a roughly hewn man Phillip had built out of pieces of fine, twisting wire filled with chunks of stone broken off of his other works. It was the only piece he hadn’t touched while he was there. Phillip hadn’t touched it for months. It seemed too depressing to him, a creation built entirely of the unwanted excess of others. The figure stood motionless as Phillip left.

III

            Mrs. Crane stepped lightly between the various parents and faculty members of her son’s high school who crowded the auditorium. She seemed to almost pass through them, her eyes lightly scanning the space. She held a plastic cup of grape juice in her hand, which would have seemed perilous next to her snow white dress had it been anyone else. She never spilled a drop. Her gaze contained a gentle intensity as it rested momentarily on each of the pieces of art filling the room.

            Martin Crane, her husband, made his way behind her with a great deal less elegance. He was a big man, nearly six foot four and broad. Mr. Crane apologized to various members of the crowd as he passed. He was vaguely aware of the clanging as the clock tower on the other side of campus called out the eighth hour.

            Some of the pieces were on sale. Avia Crane paused in front of a dynamic painting of a forest that, if looked upon from a distance, transformed itself into a canvas crammed with various fairies and goblins. She wondered if she should buy it, but her lips pursed lightly when she saw the price at the bottom. She remained looking at the painting for a moment so as not to appear impolite, then continued on just as Martin made it to her side, searching for her son’s works. Phillip had said nearly nothing about what he’d made, but assured her that she would know his work when she saw it.

            She turned a corner, slipping past a rather busty mother in a muumuu, who Mr. Crane tactfully avoided, and there they were. An entire corner of the room was filled with birds. There were a few paintings of birds along the walls, and they were lovely, but nothing compared to the magnificent sculptures covering the floor. Mrs. Crane maneuvered her way delicately toward her son’s art, whispering light niceties into the ears of those she passed close to.

            There were sculptures of birds in flight, and birds resting in nests. The ceiling held an installation piece of 43 (Avia’s age) wire birds suspended from twine as they flew in a V formation. They were light enough that the wind coming from an open window made them swing gently in the breeze. The mediums were varied; Mrs. Crane saw wood, stone, metal, paper, mixed media, but it was all birds.

            Mrs. Crane inspected a beautiful paper sculpture of three baby birds and their mother resting in a nest. The entire thing was constructed of a single, large, precisely cut piece of paper, folded into shape. The paper had, what appeared to be a poem covering it. Because of the folds in the paper, Avia could only make out a few scattered phrases, but they all seemed to indicate that the poem was, like the rest of the pieces her son had in this exhibit, for her.

            She turned around to make her way farther along her son’s works, when she saw him in the center of the room. She beamed, and made her way toward him. He was with his father, speaking to a plump, middle-aged woman in a long, green dress and a young man about Phillip’s age who was presumably her son. They were all standing in front of another paper bird. It was a crane, standing fully erect, with its wings turned so that they were spread vertically, as if it were reaching for both ground and sky.

            “It took ages to finish; I’ve spent most of the year making this collection,” Phillip gestured to the gallery around him.

            “You made all of this in one school year?” The mother’s eyes went wide and glanced slowly around the room as Mrs. Crane approached. “This is all so beautiful,” she breathed.

            Phillip turned to look at his mother as she walked up and pulled her into a hug.

            “I love them,” she whispered, “Thank you.” Mrs. Crane turned to the woman and her son, extending her pale hand and said, “I’m Phillip’s mother, Avia Crane.”

            “Holly Parker,” the other mother said, taking Mrs. Crane’s hand, “And this is my son, Charles.”

            “Charmed,” Mrs. Crane smiled as Phillip and Charles shook hands.

            “Your son’s been telling me all about his exhibit, but has yet to mention what the inspiration was. Why birds?” Mrs. Parker asked, tilting her head slightly to the right.

            Phillip chuckled, “Well, everyone seems to think it’s a narcissistic thing, because my last name is Crane. It’s not; it’s an homage to my mother. The name Avia Crane has a lot of ‘birdiness’ in it, so I thought that this was the best motif.”

            “And Martin doesn’t exactly call any specific animals to mind, does it?” Mr. Crane laughed to himself good-naturedly.

            Mrs. Parker’s smiled broadened, as she reached into her purse. “That’s beautiful. You’re so lucky to have such a lovely son, Mrs. Crane,” she paused as she spoke, and made a sharp ticking noise to herself, “I’d like to buy this one,” she said, indicating the crane next to them, “Who do I pay?”

            “The money goes to the artist’s personal fund, but you pay at the front,” Phillip said with a practiced air.

            “Well I’d better go do that,” Mrs. Parker bobbed off through the crowd, pausing now and then to ask someone to let her through.

            “I’m going to go keep looking, sweetie,” Mrs. Crane said, kissing her son on the side of his head. She glided off into the crowd. Mr. Crane followed, leaving Phillip and Charles standing together uncomfortably.