It was a sun-beamy, ice cream ‘n’ chocolate syrup-type Saturday morning in June, a creek-splashy perfect day for a country lad keen for adventure. Eleven-year-old Neal crossed the gravel road that bisected his family’s farm, opened the picket gate, and entered the pasture. His uncle’s sheep grazed at the far end of the twelve-acre meadow, the flock’s ever-contentious ram safely preoccupied with its amatory duties. Wielding a thistle-decapitating willow switch, Neal followed downstream the two-foot/three-foot/four-foot-wide creek that without ado altered its depth and width to accommodate the whims of the terrain. He often spent hours along its close-cropped banks, in search of the elusive water snake, while trying not to disturb the drowsy bullfrogs sitting zazen amidst clumps of sheep-resistant weeds.
In the spring-fed brook’s limpid pools, schools of speckled daces hung suspended in tenuous order, instant chaos but an overhead shadow away. Neal sometimes fed them crumbled pieces of stale toast and laughed as they scattered.
When Neal was five, his father taught him the sport of empty mustard jar racing, and Neal and his neighborhood friends, brothers “Cook” and Bruce, spent countless happy hours cheering on their bobbing crafts, prodding back into the current any laggards trapped by treacherous eddies. But that was a simple amusement for simpler times – a diversion outmoded by Neal’s growing appetite for aesthetic enrichment. Through seasons of familiarity, the humble stream had evolved from a mere playground to a spiritual retreat, and was now a part of Neal’s soul. Nature was his best friend, its fauna and flora his sidekicks, and inside their realm he stepped lightly, offering respect to flowers, weeds, and wildlife alike.
Neal’s paternal grandmother had taught him the names of her lifelong friends, the flowers and butterflies, impressed upon his consciousness the fact that the creek was a living entity, the issue of two widely separated springs, and thus fated to merge and remerge with increasingly larger streams and rivers until its reunion with the Atlantic Ocean.
When Neal equated that final juncture with death, his Granny assured him that death is not an extinction, only the expansion of our awareness into another dimension, a glorious afterlife.
That’s all and well, Neal had thought, but how does it apply to me, since I will never die? Then, spiritually armored, with a joyous whoop and a brief stutter-step of anticipation, he resumed his eternal exploration of the ever-flowing brook. It contained multitudes; all of which – had they the gift of speech – would have awarded the nameless creek the honorific of “Mother,” and Neal entered her embracing realm without knocking. His love had secured that right, and he exercised it freely.
As Neal trod the left bank, checking the muddy bottom for the telltale bulge of lurking snapping turtles, his reflection followed, swimming apace upon the water. However, instead of disintegrating in the rapids, or dissolving into tattered shreds at the occasional waterfall, Neal’s likeness persisted – as static as a photograph – extending from bank to bank. Neal gaped in astonishment as it floated downstream.
What the heck? He wondered, thoroughly unsettled. What’s going on? He waved his arms, grimaced, expecting the reflection to mirror his emotions, but nothing changed, except for the image’s width, as it shrank or expanded to fit the ever-changing banks. On went the strange photo, Neal close behind, shouldering through curtains of overhanging willow branches, skipping over patches of sweet flag, until his visage entered the long, dark vaulted-stone culvert that burrowed beneath the ninety-foot-tall earthen railroad trestle that separated the sheep pasture from the swampy woodland on the downstream side. Neal turned in dismay to race home, where he found his father in the yard, gassing up the lawnmower.
“What’s up, son?” he asked, noting Neal’s frantic demeanor. “Looks like you’ve seen a ghost. Don’t tell me that damn ram is loose again?”
“Worse!” Neal exclaimed, relating in disjointed phrases how his reflection had been imprinted atop the creek. “The last time I saw it, it was going into the railroad tunnel!”
“Hmm,” his father hmmmed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. But on the other hand, I’ve often heard that wonders never cease. So, what say we drive down to the Hay Creek Bridge on Route 82 to see if it shows up there? Chances are, I’d wager, that it faded out in McGowan’s swamp, or sooner.”
Neal didn’t think so, but held his peace. Father and son piled into the family sedan, and off they went to the newly built bridge over the sixty-foot-wide Hay Creek. Arriving a good twenty minutes ahead of the projected appearance of Neal’s hijacked image, they leaned over the bridge railing to peer into the water, where the shadowed forms of several large trout rode the current, noses upstream, slowly switching their tails side to side.
Dad probably thinks I made this up and is playing along just to put off mowing the lawn. Neal spit dejectedly into the creek; one of the fish rose to investigate the dimple, then sank back down, disappointed.
“I used to get wild notions, too,” his father confessed. “I guess it’s part of growing up.” He glanced down, then upstream, but saw nothing unusual. “Well, we gave it a chance, but now I think we might as well leave.”
But Neal knew what he had seen, trusted his own eyes, and intended to stay. “Look, Dad, our creek only flows about a-mile-per-hour,” he reasoned, “and it’s a good mile from here to where it joins Hay Creek. Let’s wait another twenty minutes, or so. C’mon, what’s the big hurry?”
Actually, there was none – the indefatigable grass could wait – and his father admitted as much. Ten minutes later, his son’s bank-to-bank image slid beneath the bridge.
“Good God Almighty!” Neal’s shocked father blurted. “You weren’t pulling my leg, after all! Just what in the hell is going on?”
Neal hadn’t the foggiest and said so. Together, the gobstruck pair watched Neal’s face pass into the downstream woods.
“Let’s go the Geiersburg Bridge, see if my face makes it that far. If it does, then it’s only a hundred yards to the Schuylkill River,” Neal said.
“Hell, Neal, it’ll take at least three hours to get there, if it even does. And don’t forget about the waterfall in Arter’s swamp, not to mention all the rapids in the reservoir woods. By the time it reaches Geiersburg, it’ll look like a bad Picasso painting, ha-ha-ha. I say we forget about it and see if we can’t catch some of those trout for supper. That is, if your homely puss hasn’t scared them off! JUST KIDDING!”
To a degree, Neal shared his father’s skepticism, worried, too, that the series of whitewater rapids would at least distort his image, perhaps turn his goofy smile upside down, but he wasn’t about to concede the likelihood. After a successful bout of persuasion – okay, out and out whining – two hours later, father and son waited upon the Geiersburg Bridge. A half-hour later, just as the Grover’s Tavern fast pitch softball team was crossing the bridge en route to Saturday morning practice, Neal’s now-scowling visage rippled under the bridge.
“What the hell is that?” the catcher cried, pointing at the eerie sight. “Some kinda omen?”
“I say we forget about practice. Let’s take up a collection for beer, and scoot down to the Monocacy River Bridge to see if it shows up there,” the pitcher suggested. “A man don’t see stuff like that every day.”
“Say, kid,” the shortstop said to Neal. “You know what? That face sure looked a lot like you. What do you say about that?”
“He don’t know diddly-squat about it,” Neal’s father interceded. “It’s just one of them coincidences, like seeing a face in the clouds.” He grabbed his son’s collar and tugged him towards the car. “C’mon, we might as well go down to see for ourselves. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to mowing the grass anyhow. Maybe in another three hours, these clowns will have gotten bored and beat feet for the nearest barroom.”
“Yeah, and maybe my smile will return,” Neal hoped.
However, several of the players had photographed the image and sent it loose in cyberspace, where it ran wild. Another die-hard traditionalist had contacted the Reading Beagle (“The newspaper that sniffs out the news, and brings it to the bay.”), who sent a photographer and reporter on the trail of the wayward countenance. When father and son arrived nearly three hours later, they found the three-hundred-foot-wide Monocacy Bridge packed shore-to-shore with an enthusiastic horde of true believers, a smattering of cynics, and the jaded reporter, who was itching to pen a tongue-in-cheek article mocking the delusions of the crowd.
“Sweet Jesus, son! This is getting out of hand. If these jokers ever hang your name on the reflection, we’ll never get a minute’s peace! Here: put on this old John Deere baseball cap and pull it low. I gotta feeling that your image is about to go ‘viral’. Ain’t that what people nowadays call an instant fad?”
Neal nodded his assent, but observed his likeness may have dispersed. “There are a few rapids between Geiersburg and here, I’ve been told.”
Ineffective rapids, it turned out, because in due time a 300-foot-wide enlargement of Neal’s still-frowning mug sailed into view. The crowd roared, Neal and his father gulped, and the reporter, had he chewed tobacco instead of sunflowers seeds, would’ve swallowed his cud at the sight of the full-color, true-to-life portrait.
“The next bridge is only two miles downstream, at Douglassville. Do you want to wait there, Dad?”
His father shouldered through the excited throng, and ushered Neal to the car. “No, I don’t. We’ve already blown half the day chasing around your kisser. I say we leave it go where it will and forget about it. Mark it down as one of those unexplainable phenomenons, like women. If it ever gets to the ocean, that’ll be the end of it anyway.”
“But supposed it isn’t? Suppose it just gets bigger and bigger until it stretches from New Jersey to England?”
His father started the engine, cursed the truck that had parked him in, back ‘n’ forthed until he squeezed free. “That’ll never happen! No way! Lots of weird do-do happens in this world, but there’s gotta be a limit, otherwise we’d all go nuts.”
I’d say that some already have, Neal mused, watching the semi-delirious crowd mill about, yammering of miracles and magic and the looming Apocalypse.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I guess I should have taken a walk in the woods this morning, instead of going to the creek.”
“No, no, no, no! It ain’t your fault. Philosophers claim that there’s a reason for everything, so I figure that God put your skinny ass by the creek for a purpose. We just can’t understand why, that’s all.” With a yip of tires, he drove away. “What say we fetch our fishing poles, dig up a few worms, and try to catch ourselves a nice trout dinner?”
Neal had no objection, and within an hour, they had four large rainbows on a stringer. An hour later, the aroma of frying fish temporarily erased the memory of Neal’s fugitive visage.
* * * * * * * * * *
But back at the Schuylkill River, the game was still afoot, or more precisely, afloat, slowly heading eastward, while frowning at the indignity of it all. Word of the miraculous apparition had wildfired across the Internet, and curious witnesses lined every river bridge and accessible bank between Pottstown and Philadelphia. News helicopters swooped and darted, maneuvering for the perfect angle, as live footage of the prodigy was beamed worldwide. Billions of viewers watched Neal’s displeased visage enter the Delaware River, and then slip into the vast Atlantic, where, all of the chattering heads and social influencers agreed, the face of the Unknown Frowner would surely dissipate.
However, the loving God who had created all creatures great and small, and then awarded man the right to slaughter them, thought otherwise. Within a week, via an unprecedented feat of osmosis, Neal’s still-scowling image extended from the Western Hemisphere to Europe and Africa. A memorable photograph taken by the residents of the orbiting Space Lab was beamed across the world, which now instilled mass wonder, but initiated the creation of several cults.
“You know, son?” Neal’s father noted, as they watched the evening news. “It’s said that everyone will eventually get their fifteen minutes of fame, but I think you’ve exceeded the limit.”
Neal mulled over his father’s opinion, then pointed out, “Maybe so, but if no one knows it’s my face, how can I be famous?”
As Neal’s discombobulated father considered that, an intergalactic battle cruiser “manned” by a hostile race of aliens emerged from behind the moon. Its officers gathered at the helm, studied Neal’s foreboding expression, then shook their elongated, insectoid noggins.
“Looks like the Earthlings are protected by a formidable God,” said the navigator to the captain, who nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, why tempt fate?” the pilot added. “Scuttlebutt has it that the contentious blighters are about to self-destruct anyway. I say we move on to the next galaxy, leave these jokers to stew in their own broth.”
“Hard aport!” the captain ordered. “Kick this sucker into hyperdrive, and let’s move on! Why risk our thoraxes conquering a race of troublemakers? We’ve come too far for that.” And in a flash of blinding light, the space raiders were gone.
* * * * * * * * * *
The very next day, a butterfly in Equatorial Guinea flapped its wings, one thing led to another – yadda, yadda, yadda – and a newly formed hurricane sucked Neal’s mug into its vortex, only to spit it out, pixel by pixel, upon the coast of Florida.
Neal, meanwhile, decided to forsake the creek for the adjoining forest, where he was abducted by a troop of wood sprites. But that’s another story for another time.
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