2 Change in Management

by RJ Johnson

  Rhythmically, Alex fell into a routine, taking the pie plate tin, washing it in and out of the water and sand several times, stopping occasionally when his hands grew too cold from the chilly mountain stream.

  It was at this moment that a stone, long and thin, with the curve of a claw from some vicious beast, began hurtling its way down the mountain stream. An odd-looking stone, it had a deep black color and projected an undeniably otherworldly feel. Dashing itself against rock after rock, it flew towards Alex’s gold-digging efforts as if it had a mind of its own.

  Filling the pie tin with a fresh batch of rocks and dirt, Alex felt the cold water begin to numb his hands. He withdrew his hands and flexed them, leaving the pie tin to sit underneath the rushing water for a moment. Blowing into his fists, he wiped them dry on his shirt and stuffed them under his armpits as he glanced around looking to see what Scott was up to.

  Faster and faster, the stone traveled down the swollen river. It bounded off a few various rocks before finally settling into Alex’s pin tin with a gentle clinking sound. Alex, his hands now sufficiently warm, glanced down at the stone now sitting in his tin. He grabbed it, held it closer to his face, and examined it closely.

  “Meh,” Alex grunted to himself, “you’re pretty, but you ain’t gold.” Alex tossed the stone off to one side and returned once again to his work. As he bent down to pick up the tin, he was surprised to see an identical stone sitting in the middle of the sand and rocks. He looked over to his side, where he had tossed the previous errant stone. It was missing. Frowning to himself, he stood and threw the stone deep into the meadow. Satisfied that it was gone, he crouched back down to the stream, intent once again on making his fortune.

  Something whipped past his ear at an incredible speed. Alex slapped at his head, intent on killing whatever it was that had just invaded his airspace. He missed, and as he turned, he saw the mysterious stone at his feet, laying innocently in the noontime sun.

  Alex’s eyes narrowed as he picked up the stone again. It felt warm, warmer than it should have been, considering it had come from the frigid waters of the mountain stream. It vibrated softly in his hands, creating a tingling sensation that wasn’t unpleasant, only…unexpected.

  “All righty.” Alex muttered to the stone in his hand, “Either you’re some sorta boomerangy stone thing, or...” he trailed off, he laughed. It probably fell out of his hand as he went to throw it. Shrugging and still addressing the stone, he added, “You’ll be less trouble in here.” He slipped the stone into his pocket, his thick jeans unable to mask the soft vibration from the stone against his hip.

  He was about to return to his work when Scott yelled to him from across the meadow.

  “Hey, you dare me to climb this tree?”

  Alex looked up towards Scott, who had traveled to the other side of the meadow. If there was one thing he loved about his friend, it was how Scott was always trying to show off for him. Alex waved back at his friend. Scott mistook his wave to mean he should start climbing the tree.

  The vibrations on his hip began to intensify, and Alex slapped his pocket. “Cut it out,” he muttered, but the stone happily ignored Alex, and continued to vibrate once again against his hip.

  “Come on,” Alex said out loud. He took the stone out of his pocket and let it lay in the palm of his hand. His eyes settled on the stone, and for a moment, the world paused.

  The stone was flawless. It sat comfortably in Alex’s hand, almost as if it had molded itself to the contours of its environment. Alex didn’t know why, but as he stared into the stone, he was overwhelmed by a calming influence. It was the feeling of Christmas; warm, soft, comfortable, with a pleasant afterglow of peace and love. Alex had felt that way when he was smaller, each and every time his mother had tucked him into bed before he fell asleep.

  On reflex, Alex closed his eyes and began to smile, basking in the pleasing power of the rock in his hand.

  As Alex basked in the glow of his new find, on other side of the meadow, Scott climbed his way to the top of an old and tired-looking pine tree. He stood triumphantly at the top, waving his cap and screaming at Alex.

  “I did it! I made it to the top! You owe me five bucks!” Scott screamed from the top of the tree.

  “I didn’t bet anything!” Alex shouted back, snapping back to the present moment. “Besides, you gotta come check out what I just found!”

  “What is it?” Scott yelled from the top of the tree. “Didja find gold?”

  “No, but it’s pretty cool anyway!” Alex shouted back at Scott.

  “OK! Hold up, I’ll be right down!”

  Scott retreated from the edge of the branches and back towards the trunk of the old pine tree. Standing at just over eighty feet tall, the tree had been through many generations of fire, drought, and floods. Thanks to Smokey the Bear, the yearly cycle of rejuvenation through fire had gone out of style, and now without proper management, the forest was dying. For this ancient tree, it had been a nasty infestation of bark beetles (a nefarious insect that burrowed its way through the wood, killing the tree slowly over time). The trunk of the enormous tree was black and looked rotten in several areas. Suddenly, Alex didn’t feel so good watching his friend scale down the tree.

  “Hey, Scott!” Alex shouted at his friend. “Take it easy on the way down. That tree doesn’t look so good.”

  “You worry too much, Alex!” Scott shouted back from the tree, stepping down onto lower branches. “I’m fine. This tree is solid as a…”

  BANG! Like a gunshot, the branch Scott had just set his weight on snapped clean in half, revealing the rotting carcass of the former giant that had once ruled over the valley. Scott began to fall to the ground, almost as if in slow motion.

  Too far away to do anything but scream, Alex watched as his best friend’s body took a beating through the branches of the tree. The sickening crack and snap of bone echoed across the meadow. Finally, with a thud, Scott landed on his back, his limbs sticking out at odd and unnatural angles. His right leg bled profusely from a nasty compound fracture, the white bone sticking out sharply from his shin.

  “Scott!” Alex ran for all he was worth over to his broken best friend. He reached him, his eyes blurry through the tears. The blood was everywhere, and Scott was not moving at all. Alex whimpered, scared to touch him, “Scott? Are you OK?”

  Scott mumbled something unintelligible. Wiping the tears from his eyes, Alex sniffed and drew a deep breath. His young mind raced to think of what to do.

  The decision was easy. Of course.

  “Scott you stay here. I’ll go get my dad. He’ll know what to do!”

  Scott, unable to reply, sighed slightly as his breathing became shallow and quick. Alex got up and began running with every ounce of strength he had.

  Fortunately, his house was only a few hundred yards away from the constructed park meadow, so it didn’t take long for Alex to burst through the front door of his house, screaming for his father.

  “Dad! Dad! Where are you?” Alex cried, his voice echoing through the house.

  “Alex? What’s wrong, pal?” Ted McCray stepped out of the kitchen, a tall sandy-haired man whose laugh lines crinkled around his face in worry as he watched his son burst into the kitchen in tears. He dropped his butterknife on the counter and moved towards Alex, crouching to his son’s eye level, wiping his tears away. “What’s goin’ on?” Ted asked calmly.

  The words tumbled out of Alex, too quickly at first for his father to understand him. “Scott’shurthe’soutinthemeadowhefell!”

  “Slow down, champ. Scott’s hurt?” Ted stood up, grabbing Alex’s hand as he led him out the door. “Where is he?”

  “Outbythemeadowwhereweplayedwiththestream.” Alex burst into a fresh batch of tears, “I’m so sorry, Dad!”

  “OK, buddy, I need you to take me where Scott is, all right? Where is he?” Ted urged his son.

  “Follow me!” Alex turned and dashed out the back door towards the meadow, his father hot on his heels.


  A deep pit of fear began stinging Ted’s stomach, and it only worsened as he drew closer to the still body next to the small seasonal stream. Seeing blood around the small body, Ted whispered, “No…” and pushed himself to run even faster. As he reached Scott, he fell to his knees, using his momentum to slide the last few feet.

  “Good Lord,” Ted breathed softly to himself as he examined Scott’s broken and bloody condition. Ted ripped off his flannel shirt, tearing it up into small rags and using them to bind the wounds. He turned to his son.

  “Alex, I need you to run back to the house and dial 911. No dawdling, no arguing, just go!”

  “But I want to stay with Scott!” Alex whined, fat, salty tears running down his cheeks. “I want to help you.”

  “I know, bud, and the best way you can help him is by going and calling the doctors to come help him right now, OK?” Ted said soothingly. Alex nodded and grabbed his best friend’s hand.

  “I’ll get help for you, buddy. I promise!” Alex began to turn away, but something stopped him.

  Clutched in his other hand and forgotten through the excitement, he held his newfound stone. It flashed brightly, and Ted cried out as he shielded his eyes away. After a moment, a warm blue light began enveloping Alex, spreading across his arms and down the length of his entire body.

  Ted watched, partly fascinated, partly horrified, as Alex began to shiver. The energy passed from the stone clutched in the boy’s ten-year-old fist, through his body to Scott’s. As the light spread, Scott screamed loudly in obvious pain. But at the same time, Scott’s injuries began to heal, his body repairing itself in front of Ted and Alex’s disbelieving eyes.

  Broken bones exposed to the elements slid back into Scott’s body, finding the precise points of fracture, repairing themselves instantly without a trace of the previous trauma. Blood that had freely gushed out of Scott's wounds slowed to a trickle, until finally, the wounds sealed themselves shut without a single hint of a scar.

  As his last gash finished healing, Scott stopped crying out in pain, and only muttered a few unintelligible words. Alex, unsure of what had happened, dropped Scott’s hand, and the blue glow surrounding his body faded away, retreating back into the stone from whence it came.

  Ted watched it all incredulous and stood, slowly stepping back from his son and his friend. Barely able to croak out any words, Ted looked at his son in amazement. “What was that?”

  Alex was also too shocked to react, and just stared dumbly at Scott, completely stupefied by what he had just seen. Ted shook himself back to reality and joined his son in looking down at Scott. As the miraculously-healed boy began to come around, Ted shook him gently. “Are you OK?”

  Scott, as if awoken from a peaceful nap, turned on his side away from Ted. “Fine. Need sleep.”

  Soon the meadow, once filled with the cries of pain and anguish from the 11 year old, was filled with Scott’s gentle snores.

  Confused, Ted picked up Scott’s tiny body, turning to his son. “Let’s get him back to the house, all right?”

  Alex wordlessly complied, grabbing his father’s hand and holding it tight, like a drowning man looking for rescue.

  Having just seen his kid perform a miracle, Ted felt his mind running a mile a minute. It wasn’t something you got up in the morning expecting, he thought. He swallowed and put on his dad face.

  Shoving the kitchen door open with his foot, Ted brought Scott’s slumbering body upstairs, lying him down on the guest bed. Staring at the serene Scott, who slept as if the last fifteen minutes had never happened, Ted looked back to his son, who stood fearfully in the doorway, watching his father and best friend.

  Ted took Alex by the hand and led him to the bathroom. He wiped Scott’s blood off of his son’s hands and cleaned him up. Alex, still not saying a word, refused to look at his father. Ted didn’t know what to say; he knew that Alex was confused and unsure of what was going on. Nothing in his ten years on Earth could possibly compare to what they had just witnessed.

  “Listen, pal, I know you’re a little...” Ted paused struggling to find the perfect words for what they had just witnessed, “taken aback at what you just saw, but it’s important that I know exactly what happened out there, OK?”

  Alex nodded slightly as he decided to trust his father.

  “Me and Scott, we went to the stream to try and pan for gold. I wasn’t paying attention to him, and he climbed the big tree… I’m sorry Dad, I should’ve never let him...”

  “It’s OK, buddy. I told you, no one’s in trouble.”

  Ted placed his hand on his son’s shoulders, looking to reassure him that everything would be OK. Alex swallowed and looked up at his father, bravely continuing his story.

  “Well, I found this stone,” Alex raised it up to show his father, “and I thought it was pretty cool, so I yelled up at Scott to come down and look at it with me. When he started down, a branch broke, and then he fell.” Alex burst back into tears as he finished the sentence, “I wish I had been paying more attention. This is my fault!” Ted grabbed his son, clutching him tightly to his waist as Alex’s eyes poured tears all over his jeans.

  “No, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. In fact, I think thanks to that stone of yours, Scott’s gonna be just fine. Say…” Ted leaned down again, “do Scott a favor and go get him some water, all right?”

  Alex nodded and ran to the kitchen. Ted walked back over to the bed and examined Scott’s prostrate body once again, checking for broken bones, cuts or bruises; anything that proved Scott had just fallen from an eighty-foot tree.

  “Not so much as a scratch on you,” Ted muttered to himself. He moved closer to the bed, sitting on the edge as he examined Scott’s leg, which Ted had been certain was the scene of a protruding broken bone. But there was no trace of any injury.

  “Incredible,” Ted said out loud to himself. Alex rushed back into the bedroom with a glass half full of water, having managed to spill most of it in the short run back from the kitchen. Ted dipped a rag made from his former favorite flannel shirt into the water and began dabbing it onto Scott’s forehead. Scott stirred slightly, awakening from his nap.

  “Scott, you with us, buddy?” Ted worriedly asked.

  “Yeah, I…” Scott replied, looking around in the room in confusion. “I think I’m all right. Where am I?”

  “You’re at our house, so you can just sit back and relax, all right?” Ted said soothingly as he dabbed the damp rag on Scott’s face some more. “Tell me something, son, do you remember anything?”

  Scott’s face scrunched up hard in concentration. “I remember…” Scott struggled for a moment as his memory returned, “I remember falling,”

  “Then what?” Ted asked.

  “And then, I remember…something hurting, like a lot.” Scott took a deep breath as he recounted the experience. “Then it really started to hurt, but then there was this, like, blue sorta glow, and then I was happy and it didn’t hurt anymore.” Scott looked around and worriedly asked, “Am I dead?”

  Ted chuckled at that. “No, buddy, you’re just fine. Just a close call today, that’s all.”

  Ted got up and went to the door. “Hey Alex, help Scott settle down for a minute or two, all right? I’m gonna go call his mother and have her come pick him up.”

  Alex nodded silently, still clearly shaken. Then, like any normal ten-year-old boy, he walked to the TV, plugged in his game controllers, and handed one to his friend. The TV lit up with the animated adventures of Mario and friends, as the two boys began arguing over who would be first player.

  Forcing his queasy feelings back down to his gullet, Ted moved towards the phone, dialing Scott’s mother.

  After explaining what had happened, and extracting a promise from her to not sue him so long as there wasn’t a hair harmed on her little boy, Ted hung up the phone, relieved. He turned and looked at his son, who had retreated from the bedroom with an empty glass.

  “Scott wanted some Pepsi, and I said
it was all right,” Alex said. “Is that all right?

  “Sure, bud,” Ted replied almost to himself. The fact was, he was still so distracted that Alex could have asked for black tar heroin and Ted probably would have agreed. Ted McCray was a man of science. Empirical observations that matched experiments and results; that’s what had shaped his worldview for nearly as long as he could remember. But nothing in his lifetime of scientific experience and knowledge could explain what he had just witnessed, and that, more than anything else, disturbed him.

  “What about Scott?” Alex asked, unsure of what else to say. “Can he still stay the night?”

  Ted snapped back to reality. He still had a boy to raise, and that boy was looking to his father for answers.

  “Well, his mother is on her way over to pick him up, I’m afraid.” Ted sighed, “If I were you, I wouldn’t count on being able to play too much over at his house for awhile.”

  “But he’s my best friend! This wasn’t my fault; it was Scott’s stupid idea to climb that tree! I didn’t even know he wanted to do it!” Alex protested loudly.

  “I know it wasn’t your fault, pal, but sometimes…” Ted trailed off, “Sometimes, moms get overprotective of their kids. Even though accidents happen, some people just can’t accept that they can’t control every piece of the world at once. And for those people, sometimes they feel threatened until they get enough distance to see it’s not so bad after all.”

  “What does that mean?” Alex demanded.

  “Well, it means that you’ll get your best friend back after his mother has calmed down some and becomes rational again.” Ted smiled, “Don’t worry, this ban isn’t permanent. I’ll make sure of that.”

  Alex, reassured, turned to go back to the guest room to return to Scott and their paused video game, but before he could escape, Ted grabbed his son by the shoulder. “Not just yet, bub,” he said in a firm tone of voice.

  “What?” Alex asked scared.

  “Now, I know today wasn’t your fault….”