The Silhouette (Alan Quinn and the Second Lifes)

THE

  SILHOUETTE

  THOMAS WILLIAM SHAW

  EDITED BY

  CARLY STRICKLAND

  Copyright 2013 Thomas William Shaw

  CHAPTER ONE

  Three weeks ago, my dad disappeared. In that time, my life took on a drastic change deeper than my wildest, death defying dreams. My name is Alan Quinn and this is my story.

 

  My family had just moved into a crooked old house in the tiny town of Ashton, Kansas. It was definitely not the kind of house I preferred to brag about. In fact, the first few rides home from school, I would walk the opposite direction until I could confirm that my school bus had successfully driven away. I couldn’t have any potential friends thinking I was a freak.

  Don’t believe me? The second floor windows were boarded up. Our screen door rarely stayed on its hinges. Weeds and dead flowers scratched my legs when I walked through the front yard. Old trees swallowed all of the light and cheer out of the landscape. If it were not for the Jaguar Dad’s employer bought for us parked in the garage, it wouldn’t have been crazy for the neighbors to think we were destitute. Fact of the matter, we were anything but destitute.

  Dad saw things in a completely different light. He said, “These are our canvases to paint.” To him, a strange house acted as the best possible solution for our next predicament. And, for the Quinns’, there was always a next predicament.

  Dad worked for some man I had never met who agreed to pay him unlimited funds for dream studies and to further explore his field. The man also added a clause to Dad’s contract where he agreed to move us any time Dad got uneasy about the area. It was easily the worst thing that could have been offered to my family taking into account that my father got uneasy about everything.

 

  I should have gotten used to it after a while. Just at thirteen, I had moved four times to different countries around the world. We were on Australia’s Gold Coast up until my sixth year.

  My fondest memory of Australia happened to be my worst birthday. My birthday candles kept getting blown out, so I complained to Dad. He insisted it was an invisible person that kept doing the deed. Mom suggested we should have turned the air conditioning off, but Dad had already packed most of our suitcases. Dad’s employer sent a car to pick us up the next day, and we were on the next flight to Brazil.

 

  The flight was great. It shook from the time we took off until we landed. The in-flight movie, the animated version of Alice in Wonderland, which I had never really cared for, was left on loop for the duration of the trip. Every time it would start over, Mom would get excited, claiming, “It is like watching my life story unfold. I should never have followed that rabbit.” She would follow it up by punching Dad in the shoulder to let him know that he was the rabbit.

  Dad spent the whole ride with his face glued to the window as if another world awaited him beyond the clouds and endless blue sky, only taking breaks to jot down notes in his journal. He didn’t even notice the plane took three dips towards the ground. Between me and my parents, I was the only one ripping into my arm rests for dear life.

 

  Life in Brazil lasted two years. I do not have a whole lot of memories from that time besides the fact it was always hot and I never really fit in. Dad was okay with Brazil until some new neighbors moved in next door. He spied on them from his bedroom window, claiming they were doing the same thing to us during the night. Mom thought the neighbors invited our family to one too many salsa dances, but, other than that, had no problems with them. The night we skipped town, I didn’t have a pillow to sleep. Dad had already packed it up.

  He said, “I bet it is a cover up. First, it is salsa dancing. Next, brainwashing and espionage.” There was no time to argue before we were off to the next stop on the Quinn family world tour.

 

  London won the prize of being my favorite place we have lived even if it was only for a few days. What I loved most? The way it affected Mom.

 

  We used to explore the city together while Dad was off experimenting. Mostly sticking to window shopping, Mom would let her curly blonde hair bounce against her shoulders while she asked me how glamorous she would look in some of the dresses. Occasionally she used her acting chops from her days as a performer to enchant whoever would stop by and watch. She quoted Shakespeare, sang, and anything else to drag all of the attention to her. To an outside eye, it would appear mushy and boring. To me, it was a time to see my mother at her happiest.

  On the last day, Dad was up to his old tricks, freaking out over nothing, and breaking Mom’s heart. She got so mad at my father for forcing us to move again it practically made her curls tie themselves in knots. Still, he would not budge, citing that there was a bar down the street from our flat that housed suspicious individuals.

  He said, “It is only a matter of time before they begin to riot and destroy our home.”

 

  We downgraded from our pleasant London flat to a tiny cottage in Nowhere, Germany, because they could not get us there. Germany started him with the theys and the thems. It didn’t help that we had a group of men, who had been following us ever since we had left Brazil, who claimed to be dream chasers that fed his paranoia. I only saw them in passing, but Dad referred to them as business partners whenever he was around Mom. She only believed him because they shared his interest in dreams. Dreams were what he obsessed over.

  The night before we moved from Germany, I overheard one of the dream chasers, Davison, informing Dad that “things had been taken care of.” It often made me wonder if my Dad was a spy for the government or something. The idea made moving to Ashton, Kansas a little easier to swallow. At least he would have been something cool.

  I never knew much else about them, but Mom never failed to make fun of Dad and his friends every time he came home from their meetings. She really blew her gasket when they followed us to Ashton. The fact that they served to be one more reason for Dad to avoid our family made them unfavorable to me, too.

 

  On week nights, they would get together in the musty, cobwebbed basement level of our home. I often had trouble getting enough sleep because sleeping was difficult when six or seven grown men were yelling at the top of their lungs about a dream they had the night before. Their voices would carry right through the vent in my bed room.

  Some of the dreams sounded normal. One example would be like realizing you were in a public place and missing your pants. Another would be the classic where the dreamer leapt from a tall skyscraper to his doom. Most of the dreams were cheesy, but Dad had bizarre dreams about dragons, a magical city, and shadow people he referred to as Silhouettes.

 

  He would say, “They reached for me, ripping and pulling me from my bed to their world. Naturally, I fought back against their prying fingers, but I grew tired. What did I find? Horror? Death? No. I found Poetry. A castle, colored with pastels like a child only could have drawn, stood as the backdrop for meadows lush with blue grasses. Children who could shift in to any animal they so choosed rolled around with creatures I couldn’t even pretend to describe, but that isn’t even the best part. You want to hear the best part?”

 

  “Tell us,” the dream chasers would beg.

 

  “The world had a construction crew. I could feel the heat beat against my face as not men, but dragons used their flames for creation. I promise I woke up with holes burnt out of my bed clothes.”

 

  I could tell by the silence amongst the group that all of their jaws had dropped. I placed my hand on m
y own jaw to discover it had done the same.

 

  It got to where in the second week I would purposely stay awake until Dad took his turn. Mom called him delusional and childish, but I thought no matter how weird some of it sounded, he at the least told great stories.

  One night he said, “There is a twist to this world—Draio—it is where all of your favorite authors, artists, performers go to live on, creating.”

 

  Teasing him, I heard Davison say, “You’ve taken this too far, Reese.”

 

  “I have not taken it far enough. I was a teenager in a classroom being taught by none other than Mark Twain. This time it felt less like a dream and more like a—memory.”

 

  “This place,” the dream chasers would ask, “is it heaven?”

 

  “No. It is more like a waiting room. Who am I to decide? You do not have to die to get there, but you can not possibly know how to live until you arrive.”

 

  The night before he disappeared, special interest grabbed me when he took his turn and included my name, Alan, in the tale.

  He foresaw a revolution coming for the world he visited in his dreams, and I was the one to have initiated it. I usually listened to his stories from my bed, but for that one, I had to climb down to the floor and place an ear to the vent.

 

  His voice trembled with fear as he spoke, “The Silhouetes, with their prejudice, will woe the day they attempted to recruit Alan to their ranks. They will try to warp him to their cause, but loyalty never lies. No, no. I saw them again last night—the cages. The world, once so magical, is a distant blur, but there are some animals that deserve to be caged. If they escape, brothers, we must fight!”

 

  One of the members broke in, “How do you know any of this is real?” He stole the words right out of my mouth.

  Dad did not hesitate. He said, “I saw it in a dream. How can it not be real?”

 

  It was the most powerful thing I had heard him say. Just hearing it made me want to leap on to my bed and rush to sleep. I would have given anything to escape to that world. I climbed under my covers, closed my eyes, and let my dreams take over.

 

  The wonderful feeling did not last long. The alarm on my digital clock sounded off, letting me know four in the morning had arrived, making it far too early for me to be awake on a school day. I did not remember setting it for that time.

  My head pulsed with a headache thanks to the noise of my parents arguing in the living room. Fighting was not so uncommon for them, but the loudness and terror in Dad’s voice was all it took to persuade me to hop out of my bed and get right up against the door to hear what they were fussing about.

  I cracked it open, instantly regretting my decision. From my vantage point at the top of the stairs, I could see Dad desperately pacing back and forth in our exceptionally wide living room, occasionally tripping over the coffee table as he fiddled with the black tie wound tightly around his neck. The tie matched the pristine suit he had put on, tailor-made for—moving.

  Mom sat on our satin red couch with a glass of pink wine in her hand, a stuck up expression on her normally pleasant face. Dad mumbled her name, Maggie, repeatedly while Mom rolled her bright blue eyes, shining with assistance from the dancing flames in our fireplace. All of the signs were there that typically lead to another move, but something felt a tad off-pattern.

 

  Dad finally broke the awkward silence that had been hanging in the air. He said, “They are coming for him, Maggie. It is time to face it. We can not protect him anymore unless you listen to me and allow us to leave.”

 

  He could not find his balance. A sweat ring coated his button-up. He kept struggling to swallow with his dried throat. I had never seen him so nervous before. The whole thing made me want to run to get him water before he’d go on a mad scramble to pull out the suitcases.

  He didn’t even stop pacing until Mom sat down her wine glass and drunkenly wobbled off of the couch. She reached out her arms to give him a hug. A bizarre tactic, but it shook up my father long enough to calm him down. The embrace, identical to their wedding portrait hanging above the couch on the wall, reminded me they were once in love.

 

  “Thank you. I know it will be tough to move again so soon,” Dad said, gripping tightly to Mom’s waist. She whispered something in his ear, leaving a shade of betrayal in his eyes.

  He said, “Could you repeat what you said, Maggie? I am not sure I heard you.”

 

  Mom’s tears poured freely as she pushed him away. She spoke quietly at first, but got louder and louder, screaming, “There’s no one coming.”

 

  I should have closed my door right then and blocked out the whole argument, but I knew the noise would obligate them to include me in their conversation. All I could do was watch as Dad exploded.

  He protested, “Are you out of your mind?”

 

  Mom shook off her tears and stomped off to the kitchen, ignoring the repeated warnings about the creatures who were apparently coming for me. I almost believed it. Then I thought, “Who could possibly want a teenager whose only claim to fame is the ability to adapt to new environments on the fly?” Moving so often, I certainly had some experience to draw from.

 

  Dad gripped his tie like he was ready to choke himself. He said, “Do not worry. I will take his place and go instead.” His eyes widened with crazy ideas. “Yeah, it will have to work.”

 

  He stopped and waited for Mom’s response, which didn’t look like it was ever going to come. She stomped back in, holding his personal suitcase she grabbed from the next room over.

  The wine had kicked in, adding fuel to her sarcastic attitude, “Alright, Reese, if you want to save him from the awful they who’s trying to hurt us, by all means go.”

 

  Ignoring Dad’s dead-eyed reaction, Mom held up the suitcase, “Well?”

  He ripped it out of her hands, “I wish you understood the risks I am taking to protect this family. I really do.”

 

  The suitcase hit the ground. Its wheels popped out on impact. Dad grabbed the handle and banged it up the stairs and down the narrow hallway, passing framed photographs of the three of us spending time together—as a happy family.

  I quietly closed my door so he couldn’t see me, but I wish I hadn’t. It would be the last time I’d see him for a while.

 

  Fast forward three weeks and I was pulling out a sticky note from my writing desk to add another check. I had to keep up with the search somehow, considering Mom gave up on the hunt after a week in favor of her rapidly growing wine habit. I figured she was enjoying the peace.

  It burned me up, but she was strangely contented that he went off with his new family: the dream chasers. She said he would soon decide to give up and return home. It was good enough for her, but it was in no way good enough for me.

  The few times I had brought the subject up, she hid her head in one of her books or quickly changed the subject. So, Detective Alan Quinn was left to investigate. Case in point, that investigation was going nowhere.

 

  Since we were new to the small town of Ashton, the police didn’t have the motivation or the resources to track Dad down. I spent the remaining days of fall hanging signs around town to no avail. There were a few townies who promised Mom and me they would keep an eye out, but my faith in them was dwindling.

  During the search was when I met Jessica LeCarre and her family. She was a girl about my age who I had taken a particular liking to, considering she was the prettiest girl I had ever met. She had fiery red hair and emerald green eyes and, as a bonus, she would help me put up fliers for my father whenever I would come to Main Street. She was a bright spot during what I considered a very dark time.


  Mom assured me I should let the search for my father go and tried anything in her power to distract me. She went as far as getting me a golden lab I jokingly named Peaches—to remind me of how peachy everything had become—from a local rescue to help me get over the loss.

  Extremely frustrated, I decided to make the most of the gesture and latched on to my new dog. She was a welcomed friend in a time when I desperately needed one—well, one that could be better company at home.

  Despite Mom’s attempts to slow me down, I pressed on, keeping an ever growing record of a man who was never 100% there for me to begin with. Besides the few times I would see him during a move, he made the most out of staying as far away from me as possible. In the time that I spent searching for him, it made me wonder why I even bothered. Then again, part of me hoped he would finally come around and act like a normal Dad. I had to find him first.

 

  One morning, I planned to take my search to the local bookstore. I put on some clothes with my favorite green jacket and grabbed my messenger bag, filled to capacity with fliers. Luckily, the store stood only a few blocks from my house, allowing me to take the other pity gift Mom got me for transport: a shiny new bicycle.

 

  It was a good thing, too. Mom sounded busy banging away on the keys of her newly purchased grand piano. Singing a few show tunes with another bottle of Chardonnay, there was no hope for her to drive me.

 

  I left my room and found Mom had redecorated the hallway while I slept. Like I had mentioned before, Mom used to be involved with theatre. She used to talk about it sparingly, but now every picture of my parents together had been replaced by a photograph of her time on the stage, switching the inside of the home to a Maggie Quinn shrine. To me, her attitude about all of it came off as childish and unfair, but she never asked me my opinion about that sort of thing.

  Down the stairs, I spotted her in the middle of the living room and waved goodbye, hoping she wouldn’t notice me leaving, but Peaches saw me and blew my cover.

 

  Peaches’ rough barks stopped Mom during a big number. Her eyes locked on to mine, sentencing me to death. She said, “What’s in the bag, Alan?”

 

  I tried to avoid eye contact and focused on the door, “Oh, some books. I’m going to check out Victor’s down the street.”

 

  Her tactic switched to playful, “Who is Victor and why is he more important than staying inside to listen to the great Margaret “Maggie” Quinn putting on a glorious revue of Sondheim classics?”

 

  “Victor’s is the local book shop. I’ll only be gone for the afternoon.”

 

  I was almost home free and out the door when she called out with the force of Hades, “Well, if I see any more pictures of your deadbeat father around this town, you’re grounded. Am I clear?” She laughed at her own words in between drunken hiccups.

  I couldn’t let her keep me away from the mission. I played along, came back to kiss her on the cheek, and left for the store. The search for Dad was hard enough without her nagging me. If I was the only one who cared about finding him, I had to do it without distractions.

  Otherwise, he was gone forever.

 

 

 

  CHAPTER TWO