The fall day smelled rich to the boy as he hurried from school. In upstate New York you shoved time as full as you could, till it burst, before the harsh winter came and the whiteness blocked you off from playing with your friends on many days. Falls were filled with football, exploring and endless afternoons of make-believe. As the boy hurried from school he saw a man approaching him, his eyes on the boy so that there could be no mistaking whom he wanted. The boy hurried, looking down, suddenly nervous. The man seemed familiar in a disquieting way.
The man spoke his name, leaving no doubt who his target was. He said it a second time as the boy pretended not to notice.
"Sir?" said the boy hesitantly.
"Let me drive you home," the man said evenly.
"But I shouldn't drive with strangers. What would my parents say when I was let off with someone they don't know?" The boy said.
"I can let you off up the road, so they don't ask any questions, besides I'm not a stranger, am I?" The man turned and walked back to the car as he spoke.
Suddenly the boy recognized the man. His unease grew, but as he hesitated his curiosity overcame unease.
"No, I guess not." The boy said as he followed the man to his car and climbed in.
They drove quietly out of the one gas station town. The barber barely looked up from the chair in front of his shop. The drove from paved roads to hard gray dirt roads, past the cloistered homes on Main Street, to the thinly spread quiet dairy farms. The drove quietly, the beautiful day filling in the silence.
"What do you dream about, what do you wish for in the secret places in your mind." The man asked.
"Don't you know?"
"I've forgotten most, and the memories I still have, have been altered by time. I'm not sure of them anymore. They have lost their color and are now mostly dull black outlines. They have lost their flavor, and richness. I have forgotten the passion and cannot rekindle it."
The slowed at the road used by the farmers as a shortcut to the fields. It was deeply rutted and the man pulled in. They drove to the raspberry patch that was a great secret of the boy and his friends.
"Rockets and space. I dream of rockets and space." The boy said a little self-conscientiously.
"Why?" said the man.
"Because we don't know what out there, I read all these stories, and each one is different. Each one is a guess. That's what's fun. We know the past, we know about the Chinese, the Europeans. We don't know about space. Is there life on Mars, hidden and waiting to be discovered? What lies under the clouds of Venus. Do beings live on a planet circling other stars, and do they wonder about us. I want to travel on a rocket ship. Barely protected by its thin walls, free to wonder and wander."
They had reached the raspberry patch, and got out of the car. The coolness immediately surrounded them, the boy relaxed. The raspberry patch had browned; the unpicked berries turned to hard brown knobs.
"Do you remember this patch? Kevin and I come here often.
"I'm afraid it was lost to me," the man said. "What other things can you remind me of?"
"Do you remember Wendy? I sort of like her." The boy said sheepishly.
"Fill in the picture."
" She is my height. Her hair is brown and short; her skinned tanned, from all the time she spends outside. She is the fastest person in our class, even faster than the boys are. She plays baseball with the boys rather than hanging out with the girls after school. I think I love her."
The man had closed his eyes.
"I think I remember. When she smiles you get so nervous you can't think, your brain short circuits, your afraid your friends will notice it seems so obvious."
"Is that silly, or is it real love?" The boy asked.
"Oh, its real, its more real than the raspberries that were ripe in the summer. Enjoy it, let it fill you, emotion this deep, and this pure comes rarely."
"I read alot, sometimes I try to write stories. Dad says its silly. But I wonder if I can make people feel what I feel. Just like stories make me feel things."
"Don't worry about what your father says. He's forgotten the power of a boys dreams, and wishes. As people get older their hopes lose substance and power, they forget that fantasy is more important than reality, and that the unseen has more substance that the seen."
They talked for a time about other dreams. The boy growing bolder as the time flowed. The man laughed at the size of the dreams, the sheer scope of imagination and grandeur the boy possessed within his head. They spoke of Heinlein, and Asimov, of possibilities not yet limited by experience, time and tiredness. Childhood came alive, and the man wondered at how easily it had slipped away. Not suddenly, but gradually and he closed his eyes as he remembered, his heart ached at the loss. He glanced at his watch as the afternoon passed.
"Its time to go." he said quietly.
"Wait, you haven't told me about the future, what becomes of me?"
"I'm afraid I can't."
"That doesn't seem fair. I told you everything you wanted to know!" The boy said indignantly.
" You told me what could be, I would be telling you what was. There is a difference. What could be is virgin territory, with paths to be chosen and carved out with the work of you hands, the sweat of your brow, your imagination. What is, is a path already chosen, a limiting of choices, the death of hope and freedom which is worst than death. I do not want to kill you I want you to live."
"Did I do everything I wanted?" The boy said.
The man thought a minute. " Yes, we did." He said.
"Why did you come back?"
"I have a grandson about your age. I wanted to understand him; I wanted to remember what it was like to be new, for each experience to be fresh. I wanted to remember the first charged love. The passion that comes from new experiences and discoveries, and the pains of growing up and fitting in.
"Did I help?"
"Yes, a great deal." the man said as they got into the car.
They drove back to the old road and to the boy’s house. Each was filled with thoughts, one of the future the other of forgotten dreams. When the got close to the boys house the man dropped him off.
"Thanks for giving me some time." He said.
"Where are you going now." The boy asked.
"Back home."
The man turned the car around and drove off, dust rolling into clouds behind him. And then he was gone.
The End
Wesley Ike lives in Atlanta and works as a District Manager for a large retail company. After twelve years of marriage, he has two beautiful daughters and a wife whom he loves more with each passing year.
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