The Marine

Walking down the hallway Bill turned around a corner entering a room which looked like any typical pre-K class.

Sitting behind a desk in the middle of the far wall of the room sat the same middle-aged woman who had been with Bill for his whole life.

?:”How are we doing today, little William?”

Bill: “I’m ok, Ms. Angie.”

This was the same routine six days a week. His nanny, or rather godmother, Angie would wake him, dress him, feed him, and then walk to a class where she would make him wait outside, seat herself, only then he could come into the class.

It had been three years since that day when he met his father. Although that man looked like a beast, it had been rather obvious how much he loved Bill and his mother from what he seen after waking up from his anxiety attack. What Bill firmly decided would be his last.

Since then, he had seen his father every day. For a period, perhaps a month but time was hard to judge, the family of three lived in the hospital room spending practically every waking moment together. Ms. Angie had been there too - since his father’s hands were too large to easily change a diaper - but seemed to have an ability to only be seen when needed. Bill had to give it to the woman, she was a professional, but had been a little stand-offish whenever his father was around.

After that period was over the family had moved into a larger apartment area still in the hospital, but now instead of one big room there were walls more suitable for cohabitation. Bill had never seen such a thing in a hospital, but there was an apartment with enough space for two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and a combination kitchen and dining room. The room his mother was in still had the same cartoonish scientific machines and was not much smaller than the original room they had been in, which was a good thing since it now had two massive beds taking up space.

During this time, he thought he had overcome his fear of giants. It had been one thing to see his roughly eight-foot-tall mother lying in bed or weakly walking around, but quite another to see his father who Bill guessed stood around nine and half foot tall walk around like it was nothing. At first, it looked so inhuman Bill had to stop himself was involuntarily freezing.

To put it in the best way, in seeing his father move, he had experienced some form of dread. His expectations conflicted with reality to such a point he had talk himself down from a ledge. The ledge would change, sometimes it was hard to remember breadth other times it was hard to just think clearly.

This dreadful feeling had come and gone over the course of nearly a year. Bill was thankful he was a baby because if not they would have sent him to a madhouse. The main reason was that every time he got over something, which took longer than the old soul was proud of, there was something else.

For example, his father was perfectly shaped. He had seen the large man only wearing shorts, and there was nothing outwardly wrong. His muscles were all well-defined and there didn’t seem to be any swelling on the man’s legs. This on one hand startled Bill, but on the other hand made him wonder if he would also grow to be so big.

Other than that, life as a baby was not as bad as he thought it would be in those initial days. He was practically just living day-to-day. He had never even really felt bored, and when he did, he just meditated.

Meditation had become surprisingly easy, in his past life Bill had done meditation and yoga in his elderly years, but never had the so-called ‘Zen’ moment. Back then, after his wife had passed, his meditation helped him clear his mind and think through things but now Bill had felt what he thought the ‘Zen’ was. It had something to do with ideas coming into his head seemingly without being prompted, and more than that, he could ‘feel’ when they did so. He wouldn’t go so far to say it was addicting, but it was a fascinating thing and had helped him better appreciate his rebirth.

During this time there was never a situation where he could stump his godmother or father with his ‘amazing’ cognitive skill. People typically treated babies like babies. So, when he was being fed, he just ate. When he was being changed, he just lifted his arms.

As far as being ‘amazing’ went, his largest accomplishments were being potty trained by his first birthday and wiping himself by his second.

While having his nanny wipe his butt wasn’t that embarrassing given his age. It was a skill that he wanted to master as soon as possible. Having baby arms and hands made his coordination terrible and just smoothly wading up some toilet paper took him months. Then it took months longer for his arms to wipe in the directions he wanted without there being unfortunate side-to-side movements.

But now, being just over three years old, those struggles were behind him. As amazing as his other feats were, one thing he had fell behind in was speech. After all, Bill wasn’t exactly a newly formed mind. He was learning a second language.

It was easier learning this language than he thought would be possible, still, unless he was being directly spoken to he still thought in English and that disconnect made him aware that he spoke like a child with a speech impediment.

Thinking of his speech as he walked into the classroom Bill could only shrug and think: ‘Well, it could be worse.’

Hearing his answer Ms. Angie replied with a smile: “I’m glad to hear it, little William. Now come here and pass these sheets out.”

Only half understanding, Bill could guess by her body language what he was supposed to do, and so walked to the desk and picked up large colorful papers.

Bill: ’Hmmm?’

To his mild surprise, these papers had English words on them. They read:

VALLIPO ARCHIPELAGO

The drawing underneath looked like a map, but if it were a map, it was not a landmass Bill could recognize. It was over a dozen islands of various sizes, the largest island had a picture of what looked like a castle and a dock, and each of the other islands all had pictures of trees.

At the bottom of the papers were various animals that needed to be cut out or colored in, although Bill thought they looked strange, he figured this was a pre-K and that was to be expected.

Ms. Angie: “Now go on and pass them out, we will get to color when your friends get here!”

Put into motion by the voice, Bill replied with a “yes ma’am” and did what he was told.

After sitting the papers on the desks Bill went to his seat, which was a round table next to a huge bay window. Outside the window was a rather large courtyard where the kids would play. So far in his life, besides the courtyard, Bill had never left the hospital.

As time passed on the other kids came to class, some accompanied by parents, but most were accompanied by men dressed in the white and blue outfits with “MARINE” written on their hats.

At first, he had wondered why English words were being used despite them not speaking in English, but that answer had been solved as soon as his pre-K classes had started. In whatever country this was they used two alphabets, one English and the other was some oriental script.

Bill had yet to ask his father or nanny about that or the uniforms. Firstly, his speech wasn’t good enough to put his question into the words he wanted to say. Secondly, because he had seen one of those same hats on one of his father’s coat hooks.

But unlike these men, his father never wore the white and blue uniform. Instead, he wore a green shirt with dark charcoal pants. Over his shirt he always wore a green-trimmed white overcoat that hung off his massive shoulders.

As the last kid arrived, everyone had taken their seats. There were only ten kids in total, and two kids per round desk.

The kid at Bills desk was a curly blond-headed boy with big cheeks and glasses. His name seemed to be Riccio Occhiali (pronounced: O-key-AH-li), but Bill just called him Ricky.

There wasn’t much to discuss with the boy. After all, Bill could barely keep up with his nanny when she was speaking, much less the speech of a small child.

It hadn’t been all bad in these months. Activities like singing songs, drawing with finger paints, and learning the two alphabets had been much better than the time spent in the apartment. He had probably gained seventy percent of his linguistic skills in just the last few months.

‘Hopefully I’ll be fluent in a year or so’ Bill thought to himself as Ms. Angie began explaining the page that he handed out with a wider than normal smile.

Ms. Angie: “Good morning class!”

((Class)) “~Good morning, Teacher~”

As the class spoke in unison, the teacher took a box from her desk and started to walk to each round table handing out crayons, speaking as she did so:

“Today I have something special planned for you all! But you must be good and listen in class. Does anyone want to raise their hand and tell us what was on their table when they came into class today?”

No sooner than she asked six hands shot up in the air.

Pointing to a sharp-eyed blonde headed girl Ms. Angie said: “Sasha.”

Sasha: “It’s paper.”

Bill had been listening intently, while people were talking around him, he always tried to understand. Fortunately, at this moment he had mostly understood everything and started grinning.

Hearing this the teacher looked around the class, out of the six students who had raised their hands now only two hands were still up, one of those was Ricky who seemed to be trying to touch the ceiling and was almost standing up.

Ms. Angie: “Good, it is paper… now, Ricky, can you tell the class what is on the paper?”

Jumping up like he had won a lottery the glasses-boy said: “It’s a map!”

Ms. Angie: “Absolutely right! This paper has a map of the surrounding islands and the animals that live here.”

Looking down at his paper, Bill tried to read the names under the animal pictures. They were written in the oriental script and thus he had very little to go by.

Ms. Angie: “So what we’re going to do today is color-in each animal and match that color with the spot that they can usually be found. Remember, if you do good today, there will be a surprise after lunch!”

And so, the day went on. Bill learned the names of these ‘animals’, there were Super Sparrows, and Super Worms. Heck, there were Super Sharks, Super Bunnies and Super Monkeys!

As Ms. Angie finished walking around the room to examine all the children’s work she said: “Good job everyone, now you can keep those maps and don’t forget what we learned today!”

Bill had to say his nanny was good with children. Kids wanted to be noticed and fed off the energy of the adults around them. She did both these things.

After the class had settled down, they left the classroom in a line, and walked to a cafeteria that Bill thought looked somewhat militaristic.

After lunch the class would go out to recess. Perhaps due to their ages the recess lasted longer than Bill would have expected, and they would play for at least two hours. He pretended not to notice when his nanny, or teacher, always made-up games revolving around him unless he was actively trying to play along with the other kids.

As they walked out in line to the large courtyard Ms. Angie had the kids stand beside the big windows beside their classroom.

Ms. Angie: “OK Class, now, out of the animals we learned about today which where your favorites?”

((Class))

“Super Monkey!”

“No! the Super Shark was the coolest!”

“I like the Super Bunnies!”

Listening to the kids replies Bill was half lost, but the excitement was infectious even for him.

Ms. Angie looked over the shouting kids and nodded, before turning to him and saying: “William, what was your favorite animal?”

As she asked the question the kids quieted down, Bill could understand better than he spoke, but tried his best: “The Supr Sprow Ms. Angie.”

Nodding her head at his answer she said: “Do you want to see a Super Sparrow?”

It was at about this time when realization began to dawn and Bills palms started to sweat, but nevertheless he played his role and said: “Yes.”

Ms. Angie looked like she predicted his answer, and even his next reaction when she said: “well, everyone, look up!”

Suddenly there was a gust of wind as the entire class looked upward.

Bill followed suit and saw a large fast-moving shadow. The creature swooped down beside the teacher and was being ridden by a small man with a weird head.

Dumbfounded, but not in panic, Bill stared at the young man and bird. As the rest of the class were in stitches trying to ask questions or touch the bird, Bill could only think one thing.

‘A Super Sparrow… what do you know.’