Hopscotch In A Parallel Universe

By Julian Gallo

A New York City writer hops back and forth through moments in his life. Over the course of one weekend afternoon, as he and his wife care for their newborn daughter, he tries to put the pieces together in order to figure out how he arrived at this particular moment in time. The presence of a child in his life forces him to reexamine his own with the hopes of learning something in order to protect his daughter, who he knows in the back of his mind will eventually have to face life as it is. No one is asked to be brought into this world. That choice is made by others, a realization which hovers over the entire narrative as he ‘hopscotches’ through his memories, unsure as to whether he will be able to shield his newborn daughter from what she will inevitably face. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ionisation
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386714385

Julian Gallo

Julian Gallo lives and works in New York City. His poetry has appeared in over 40 journals throughout the Unites States, Canada and Europe. He is the author of 9 poetry books, "Standing on Lorimer Street Awaiting Crucifixion" (Alpha Beat Press 1996), "The Terror of Your Cunt is the Beauty of Your Face" (Black Spring Press 1999), "Street Gospel Mystical Intellectual Survival Codes" (Budget Press 2000), "Scrape That Violin More Darkly Then Hover Like Smoke in the Air" (Black Spring Press 2001), "Existential Labyrinths" (Black Spring Press 2003), "My Arrival is Marked by Illuminating Stains" (Beat Corrida, 2007), "Window Shopping For a New Crown of Thorns" (Beat Corrida, 2007), "A Symphony of Olives" (Propaganda Press 2009) and "Divertimiento" (Propaganda Press 2009). He is also the author of 6 novels, "November Rust (Beat Corrida, 2007), "Naderia" (Beat Corrida, 2011), "Be Still and Know That I Am" (Beat Corrida, 2011), "Mediterraneo" (Beat Corrida, 2012), "Europa" (Beat Corrida, 2013), the short story collection "Rapid Eye Movements" (Beat Corrida 2014) and "Rhombus Denied" (Beat Corrida, 2015)

Book preview

Ionisation

Stockton, California

2018

Hopscotch In A Parallel Universe

Julian Gallo

©2018 Julian Gallo

Other Books by Julian Gallo

Fiction

November Rust

Nadería

Be Still and Know That I Am

Mediterráneo

Europa

Rapid Eye Movements: Stories

Rhombus Denied

Breathe

Shadows

Sleepwalking Through The Garden of Earthly Delights

Bedtime Stories: Subconscious Fictions 1987-2017

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Cover Photo: Stock Image/Creative Commons

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This is a work of fiction.  All names and places are strictly from the imagination of the author or are used fictitiously.

www.juliangallo66.blogspot.com

www.medium.com/@JulianGallo

Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them

— Dr. Seuss

New York City,

Present Day

1

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Go ahead, throw the rock.

See where it lands.

Proceed.

2

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1971

You have a fascination with birds.

You always look out the kitchen window into the back yard to see if you can spot any exotic ones — Blue Jays, Cardinals, Robins. You do spot a Cardinal now and then, sometimes a Blue Jay, both of which are kind of rare in this part of New York.

Sparrows and pigeons are legion, however they bore you. There are so many of them that you hardly notice them anymore. You want to see more of the ones you see in your books on birds.

Your aunt, who makes ceramics, encourages your love of birds and makes you a ceramic Blue Jay, as well as a Cardinal, both of which you keep on top of your dresser. You also have a smattering of toy birds that you play with, one of which is blue and white with suction cups on its feet so you can secure it wherever you decide to stick it. You try the wall and make several futile attempts to have it scale it. 

By the time you enter kindergarten you still have a fascination with birds.

One of the projects — a cigar box collage for which you make for your father for Father’s Day. You paint it black and cover with various pictures of exotic birds. You cut them out of various magazines your teacher provides for the kids. Outside, inside, underneath the lid, on the sides, on the bottom, you leave no visible space.

It is a box of birds.

Later that afternoon you present it to your father and he loves it, puts it in his top dresser drawer to use for loose change, papers, business cards, and other various items.

Years pass and you completely forget about it. You no longer have the same fascination with birds and your interests turn towards other typical boy things — cars, baseball, planes, trucks, books, toys...

3

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Winter 1970

He is little a Indian boy who lives with his father and mother. One day, while out walking, he encounters four hungry tigers and surrenders his colorful new clothes, his shoes, and his bright yellow umbrella so they will not eat him. The tigers are vain, each thinks he is better dressed than the others. They chase each other around a tree until they are reduced to a pool of ghee. The little boy then recovers his clothes and collects the ghee, which his mother uses to make pancakes.

Whenever your mother reads you this story — one of your favorites — you try to imagine it, picture the big scary tigers, the little boy dressed in all his refinery. You can smell the jungle, feel the heat, the moist leaves against your neck, the grass under your feet. You hear the guttural growl of the tigers, feel the fear the boy feels about being eaten. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear it. It never gets boring.

There was once a cicada and an ant. The cicada spends the entire summer singing and dancing while the ant works to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the cicada finds he’s dying of hunger and begs the ant for food. However, the ant rebukes his idleness and tells the cicada to dance the winter away now.

You always wonder why the ant is so mean, that he won’t help the poor cicada. You don’t like the ant and you feel sorry for the cicada. Your mother explains what the story means but you still don’t like the ant. You find him cruel. The story bothers you. You don’t like hearing this one. You ask her to never read this to you again. But it sticks with you. You can’t forget the cruelty of the ant.

A miller lies to the king, tells him that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king calls for the girl, shuts her in a tower room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, and demands she spin the straw into gold by morning or he will cut off her head. When she has given up all hope, an imp-like creature appears in the room and spins the straw into gold in return for her necklace. This happens again and again until the girl has nothing left with which to pay the strange creature. He extracts from her a promise that she will give him her firstborn child and so he spins the straw into gold a final time. The king keeps his promise to marry the miller's daughter but when their first child is born, the imp returns to claim his payment. She offers him all the wealth she has to keep the child but the imp has no interest in her riches. He finally consents to give up his claim to the child if she can guess his name within three days. Her many guesses fail, but before the final night, she wanders into the woods searching for him and comes across his remote mountain cottage and watches, unseen, as he hops about his fire and sings and while singing the song says his name. When the imp comes to the queen on the third day, after first feigning ignorance, she reveals his name, and he loses his temper and their bargain. In his rage he drives his right foot so far into the ground that he sinks in up to his waist. Still in a rage, he seizes the left foot with both hands and tears himself in two.  

There’s something about the little imp which pleases you and you laugh whenever you hear his name and laugh even more when your mother gives him his funny, high pitched voice. There are illustrations of this creature, which she shows you as she reads — a small, humpbacked man with a funny nose and teeth. You like him. You think he’s funny. You have her read the story to you over and over again. It becomes one of your favorites.

When she’s done reading, she closes the book and tucks you into bed, kisses your forehead. As you drift off to sleep you are still laughing, thinking of the little imp and his tricks and ultimately his tragic fate. You lie there, looking about the bedroom imagining him leaping from dresser to dresser, from dresser to the closet door, from the closet door to the windowsill, leaping all over the room until you feel yourself slowly drifting off to sleep, carrying these images with you into yet another world, where the imagination takes root, where countless other worlds will eventually spring forth.

4

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1971

She chases you around the kindergarten playground trying to kiss you.

You run away from her, not wanting to be kissed but she never gives up.

After many furious attempts to avoid capture, she finally corners you and plants a delicate kiss on your cheek, hugs you.

You become close friends.

You remain friends all through kindergarten and all through the first and second grades. She sits next to you in class, often helps you with you’re school work, corrects your spelling.

That’s frome not from, she says, taking the pencil from your hand and erasing the E off the end of the word.

You share each other’s drawings and sometimes even share each other’s lunch.

When the other children tease you, she sticks up for you. When you’re home sick, she sometimes drops by the house with her mother to bring your homework. One time she even brought some chicken soup.

Little by little you grow to adore this cute little girl with the black pigtails. She’s your best friend. You look out for one another.

By the end of the second grade you’re heartbroken to learn that she’s moving away.

You can’t imagine what third grade would be without her. When you get home that afternoon, you go into my bedroom, try not to cry. You remain strong and maintain your composure, however the thought of not seeing her in class is unthinkable.

What are you going to do?

You never see her again, never hear from her again.

5

Throughout the years you often think about her, wonder what happened to her.

How did her life turn out?

Did she make it through adolescence okay?

Did she ever get married, ever have children?

Where does she live now?

What interests did she acquire?

What does she do for a living?

When thinking of your own adolescence you pray she didn’t turn out like many others of  your generation — confused, cynical, angry, pumping herself full of drugs and partaking in other forms of debauchery.

You always remember her cute smile, her little black pig tails, how kind she always was to you. You never forgot her, even after all these years. Had she ever thought about you? Did she even remember you?

When the age of social media arrives you suddenly become inundated with friend requests from people you haven’t seen or heard from since grade school. These old faces begin popping up one by one, faces that still — incredibly — look the same. Naturally you begin trying to see if you can locate your old friend with the little black pigtails but it proves to be elusive. Perhaps she’s using her married name? Perhaps she’s not a user of social media at all.

You begin inquiring about her to your old grade school classmates to see if anyone remembered who she was. Not many of them do, however you do receive a message from her older sister, who directs you to her social media profile.

Your heart jumps.

She’s utterly unrecognizable. Despite many of your old classmates looking exactly as they did then, the girl with the little black pigtails maintained no trace of her former appearance. If she had been sitting across from you on the subway, she’d be just another commuter, another face, an unknown, a stranger.

Nevertheless you begin to compose a message to her, tell her who you are, mention the school you both attended as children, and leave the door open for her to contact you. A lot of time has passed but you still hold on to hope that she may remember.

You finish the message, click send.

All you can do is wait.

She never responds. Perhaps she doesn’t remember after all. Disappointed and a little saddened by this, you never bother to contact her again. That’s just the way it goes. Time passes, people move on, people forget. Not everyone will have the same memories.

However it is a testament — however minor — to the power of memory as well as how people will enter your life, no matter at what stage of development, and they will somehow embed themselves inside you. Although you caught a glimpse