QUACK

The Duck Incident

“When this child Jesus was five years old, he was playing by the ford of a stream; and he gathered the flowing waters into pools and made them immediately pure. These things he ordered simply by speaking a word. He then made some soft mud and fashioned twelve sparrows from it. It was the Sabbath when he did this. A number of other children were also playing with him.

But when a certain Jew saw what Jesus had done while playing on the Sabbath, he left right away and reported it to his father, Joseph, ‘Look, your child at the stream has taken mud and formed twelve sparrows. He has profaned the Sabbath!’

When Joseph came to the place and saw what had happened he cried out to him, ‘Why are you doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath? But Jesus clapped his hands and cried to the sparrows, ‘Be gone!’ And the sparrows took flight and went off, chirping. When the Jews saw this they were amazed; and they went away and reported it to their leaders what they had seen Jesus do.”

                                                          The Infancy Gospel of Thomas [2:1-5]

THIS CHAPTER IS FROM SASHA'S POINT OF VIEW.

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From the moment we got back Deno’s, I work the damnedest to stamp down on my feelings. It is getting harder and harder to be around Ethan without any of it seeping through. My body is cracked on the surface, and I can feel the unrequited love rising from the faults and fissures.

I can’t even explain to myself what it is about him that draws me. The attraction, for starters, is not focused on the physical. There are a lot of boys in school that fare better in that department than Ethan. Which is not to say he is unattractive physically: I’m just saying that is not it.

For certain, it is not chemistry. For goodness’ sake, there is none of it, and the lack of it is upsetting. It is not his winning charm, either, because I have no idea what that means, and I don’t even know if he has any. It is not for the engaging conversations that I stick around, or his sweetness, or his thoughtfulness of me. He is very much unlike any boy I know that there is no way to describe him in ways I have grown accustom. 

All I know is that I can’t put my finger on it, and, for whatever the reason, I have to stay away before I get in any deeper. I know myself enough to say when I can’t feel the bottom anymore, and I know I’m not a good swimmer.

But then late morning of the Saturday after Deno’s, Ethan shows up on my doorstep, asking to go to the park.

“What’s in the park, Ethan?” I ask him, stepping aside to let him in. His hands are clasped around a fish bowl. It is the one I got him for the fat goldfish from the fair, the one he decided to call Jerusalem.

“I need to go to the park,” he says, “because I want to set Jerusalem free.” He hands me the bowl, where the goldfish is looking distinctly, well… dead.

I look up at him, wondering how he managed to kill the poor thing in mere days, if he knows this, and how he feels. Of course, I won’t know unless he tells me, and alexithymia, the reason why he can't express his feelings properly, kind of gets in the way of that.

“Um, okay,” I say. I set the bowl down on the coffee table. For a long time he just stands there, not moving. I try to figure out what’s so different about my house from his, in this neighborhood of square little brownstones stuck together side by side. It pretty much has the same layout: my house is just a little bit more lived in, just a little bit homier than his and Sal’s.