This Child Will

Once again Mayflow ordered the clairvoyant to close his eyes so that he could view her unyielding impression. As usual, she winced in the pain of her ailments, ailments almost impossible for any man or woman to endure, ailments caused by some disease that was a part of the air her captivity forced her to breathe in this wretched state of being, in this unfamiliar section of the earth that’s inhabitants were practically colorless, except for the slight blush of their cheek. How odd it was to see the variously colored heads of hair. Were they all of one tribe or several; some tribes poor and some not, some of them dressed in clothes of great splendor, women in cloaks and long, flowing dresses, then others in dresses that simply hung, lifelessly, off narrow shoulders, dingy and faded. The latter were obviously from the poor tribe. They were also the palest of the pale. Then there were the men in their hats with their brightly colored feathers, their long, multicolored scarves. And, yes, the clairvoyant could see through the eyes of the past. He saw what the specter saw that nineteenth century day as she looked down at the white sand burying her feet, where the world behind her was a world of water, and the world before her was a sea of enemies, a sea of white men with an unmistakable expression of lust in their eyes and of white women with an unmistakable look of jealousy

Donovan had yet to understand the kinship that existed between Mayflow and he, though it was more obvious now than ever before that an important kinship did exist. Now he wondered if the moment, the hour, the day she’d been preparing him for had finally arrived. Is this the reason for the words she’d whisper in his ear whenever a state of confusion intruded on his endeavors, if while writing a poem or an essay the words he last heard his mother say eased into the relevant thoughts bringing him to tears and within the realm of insanity. Was the wraith just trying to save him from the fate of the vagabond, barreling through crowds, wailing out his tangled web of theories for everyone

within earshot to hear and marvel at the vast confusion of it all? No, she could never allow this to happen, not when she’d guided his hand for so long, leading him through so many dangers of body mind and soul.

Donovan could, once again, smell her odors, the odors she released in concentrated blasts, as if in it was a kind of statement. But he was prepared, now. Mayflow had conditioned his mind for over a decade and the initial test was about to be administered.

He could see the test as he again closed his eyes to see the interior of a darkened room and a dark skinned black woman setting on a hearth besides a quiet fire. In her long, frail arms she’s cradling a mulatto baby. She weeps as she looks upwards the ceiling. She hears the door slam into the wall and the terror of the moment now registers on her face. She holds the infant closer to her chest as if the infant could save her from the demon soul now entering, slowly approaching with a staggering gait. Donovan’s heart pounded as she was snatched by the arm and dragged across the floor causing her to release the child and let it roll out of harms way.

Then in a flash the mind’s eye of the clairvoyant was witness to an onslaught of the elements, a violence of rain and hailstones falling on a blanket of Senegalese heads. He saw the drenched, black faces of men and women, their teeth clenched, their bodies trembling with a violence. In those faces were symbolic carvings, lines curled and angled  left and right. Their hands were lifted above their heads as they closed their eyes, their lips moving rapidly as if reciting prayers of desperation. He could see the men’s faces but he could not hear the painful howls of protest, the loud weeping of those driven insane by the hardship. He could see an enormous 18^th century vessel of the sea but could not hear the sounds it made under conditions such as these.

Soon the visual onslaught of the elements disappeared along with the faces of captive blacks. Now the clairvoyant could rise up from the bed where he had laid, paralyzed by the strange phenomenon, and walk through his apartment in a trance. It was finally here. The journey Mayflow had been planning for him had finally begun. It was apparent now that she had set out to do more than allow him to smell her odors, to do more than place her image before his mind’s eye when he dreamed. She had presented to him episodes of her life too frightening for Donovan to imagine without the aid of this spiritual being that had made an either permanent or temporary home in the clairvoyant’s mind. And it was a frightening journey that she wanted this teenage boy to be a part of for her own purpose, a purpose that she had yet to explain. But wherever the journey would lead him, Donovan was sure it was not a coveted place and that it was one best destroyed.

The clairvoyant had listened to the words of a certain spiritualist who claimed to have held a key to the supernatural. This particular man was a psychiatrist hosting a radio talk show and his topic at that mome