A Useful Skill

I boy discovers an unexpected talent.

Chapter 1

 

 

 

Stu Braddock frowned down at the drawing of a beaver he’d just completed, comparing it to the illustration in the book on drawing. The best he could call it was okay. But to that he had to add a reluctant, “For a six-year-old.” He was eight and should be able to do a lot better.

With a sigh, he reached for the bottom of the page, to flip to a new one and start over. But then, he stopped. On the right-hand bottom corner of the page was a small number four, sloppily drawn, and not all that dark--a number he hadn’t placed there.

Someone had been using his book, probably Kaylie. As a first grader, the crude workmanship was what he’d expect from her. But in the end it didn’t matter, and he hadn’t told her not to use it, so, he flipped to a new page and got to work.

 

Grinning, he touched the latest version of the beaver drawing, saying, “Stu, you finally did it. This is a beaver.” This one he would present to Mom. It was with a great deal of satisfaction that he turned to a new lesson in the book, this one labeled, Negative Space.

Pulling the page from the sketchpad he set it aside, glancing at it one last time before going on. But then he froze. At the bottom of the page, again, was the number four, which he hadn’t drawn, and which had not been on the page when he began the sketch.

With hesitation, he began to check the other pages in the book. Beyond where he was working, it was pristine white paper, unmarked by anything. But before, on the pages he’d been using, every one carried that same digit in the same spot--every page but the one he’d accidentally skipped. That one was blank. And it carried no digit in the corner.

That’s just not possible. It had to be a trick. And the one who had pulled it had to be his father. The question was, how?

Inspection showed that the number had been drawn with pencil, and it erased easily. But how had Mr. Trickster done it? The easiest explanation would be some kind of opaque paper colored, material that covered the number, but which turned clear when the page was exposed to light. So, he flipped the book to a new page, placed the book on the windowsill, where sunlight would hit it, and waited.

Nothing appeared.

Assuming that whatever it was had a film that needed to be broken by his drawing on it, to trigger the change, he next drew a tic-tac-toe figure, complete with X’s and O’s, then waited. When that produced nothing, she angled the pencil and scribbled, covering an area as large as the picture of the beaver had.

When he checked, there it was, as always, the number four at the bottom right corner.

With a loud “Ah-ha,” he headed for a closet to see if the paper being in light when drawn on was necessary. And, it wasn’t. After scribbling in the dark, when he opened the closet door the number was there, bringing a huge grin.

How his father had done it was, as yet, unknowable. But he definitely had, and was definitely going to explain how as soon as he got home. Tossing the pad on the table, he called, “Hey Kaylie, pause your game and take a look at this.”

 

°  °  °

 

“Take a look at what?” Kaylie said as she came into the dining room.

“Take a look at that page and tell me what you see,” he said, pointing at the bottom corner of the beaver drawing on the dining room table.

“It’s a beaver falling out of the sky,” she said, with a laugh. “You better draw some water for her to land in.”

“Not the beaver,” he said, waving away her comment, look at what I’m pointing at.”

“The four?”

“Yes the four. I didn’t draw it. And it wasn’t on the page when I started. In fact, I--” He leaned toward the drawing, jaw dropping. The picture was turned, so that what had been a beaver standing had been converted to one falling. That was irrelevant. What was, though, was that the number four was now in the bottom right corner of the new orientation. And the place where it had been was blank. And that was flatly impossible.

“Stu...are you okay? Kaylie was leaning toward him, her expression troubled.  He glanced down at the table, and at the sketch book that lay there, oriented as it had been, with the number at the bottom right. Afraid that he was not going to like what happened next, he rotated the tablet to match that of the beaver drawing, then jerked his hand back, just in case.

“Wow!” Kaylie had her hands spread wide in surprise as she said, “How did you make it do that? That was amazing!” Then, without asking, she rotated the picture another turn, clapping her hands in excitement as the number faded from the corner where it had been and appeared at the new bottom right of the page.

Stunned and unable to respond to her comment, he could only stand, mouth agape, unable to accept what had just happened, but at the same time unable to deny it. The thought occurred that he now understood what the term “freak out” truly meant.

Finally, regaining a bit of control, he told Kaylie to stand by the side of the table where, to her, the beaver drawing would look as intended. When she did, and the number remained in place, terribly afraid of what was about to happen, but unable to stop, he joined her, to watch the number again fade and reappear. He, it seemed, was both making it appear, and determining where it appeared.

Unable to even think about what was happening, he turned and headed into the living room to sit on the sofa, stunned.

After a long moment in which he tried, unsuccessfully, to convince himself that he was asleep and dreaming, Kaylie called, “It didn’t change when you left, and now, when I turn it, it just stays where it was.” A few seconds later, she was in front of him, saying, “Come on, Stu. It’s a really good magic trick. But you have to tell me how to do it.”

Without lifting his face from his hands he said, “I can’t Kaylie, it’s not a trick.” The thought came that he should go out back to where his mother was working on the garden, call her in, and show her. But he was unable to do more than sit, head in his hands, shaking in negation.

 

°  °  °  °

Author's Note

The opening sequence in this chapter came to me as part of a dream, and was so odd and unexpected that I had no choice but to sit down and write chapter 1

The question is if I should continue.

So comments on if it works, problems or issues needing clarification, and more are welcome.

Reviews

[Lara]

Jay, to me (a very inexperienced story writer i confess) it reads really well.
The opening is smooth in its steadiness forward, and I especially admire how you manage to use dialogue without effort.

There was a mis-spelling, though, for what its worth: "the though came ... " near the end.

[JayG]

Thank you. I've started on chapter two, and according to his mother, it's happening at least three years too early, but I've still not figured out what's happening, or, where it leads. I suspect that he's not quite human, though. 🤣

[nomoontea]

It seems to me your dream is telling you that you have a dillemna. What to do next. You turn the ideas around in your head but they always wind up the same. No matter what perspective you take the same thing happens.
In a Literature class I took for my MA called " The Literature of the Grotesque" we learned several elements of Grotesque Literature. One of which was called, "The Mallace of the Inanimant object" while you may argue that simple letter four holds no mallace, I would maintain that we dont know that for sure. The fact that we dont know what or why this is happening could be considered mallice.
I like this. Iam just now learning a bit about quantum entanglement and this brought that to mind.
I would ask you what significance the number four has for you. As I learned in a Dream Interpretation class I took, when numbers come up its important. Take a look at that. Do you have a list of tools, ingrediants, rules, strategies in which the number four stands for something youre forgetting. It could be anything.
Yes. By all means continue. It is mysterious and numinious and sublime.
What will happen next?

[JayG]

• I would ask you what significance the number four has for you.

None.

read more• I would ask you what significance the number four has for you.

None.

Always be careful about seeking deep meanings. Isaac Asimov’s wife reports that Isaac once visited a university classroom to attend a lecture on the motivation and meanings inherent to his novella, Nightfall.

After the lecture, the professor asked how he liked it. In response, Asimov said, in effect: “I found the way you identified and explained the connections between elements of the story and what I wanted to point out about our society fascinating. It was all bullshit, of course, but it was fascinating.”

We are the product of our society. And as Freud said to observe, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

In this case, it’s not actually a four, but a symbol that stands for knowledge, in the society he WOULD have grown up in, were it not for a mishap while he was being transported world-to-world. Instead, he’s the foundling of the title, and the number a way of getting his attention.

It was great fun to write, and ended up a 10K/word novella, which was just released, along with another, as volume 2 of, A Touch of Strange.

[JayG]

The site's "read more" seems not to be working, so I'll try again, beginning where the previous one left off. This may end up as a trail. 😆

Always be careful about seeking deep meanings. Isaac Asimov’s wife reports that Isaac once visited a university classroom to attend a lecture on the motivation and meanings inherent to his novella, Nightfall.

After the lecture, the professor asked how he liked it. In response Asimov said, in effect: “I found the way you identified and explained the connections between elements of the story and what I wanted to point out about our society fascinating. It was all bullshit, of course, but it was fascinating.”

We are the product of our society. And as Freud said to observe, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

In this case, it’s not actually a four, but a symbol that stands for knowledge, in the society he WOULD have grown up in, were it not for a mishap while he was being transported world-to-world. Instead, he’s the foundling of the title, and the number a way of getting his attention.

It ended up a 10K/word novella, which was just released, along with another, as volume 2 of, A Touch of Strange.

[nomoontea]

The new critics say the writer is no more equiped than the reader to interpret the meaning of a peice. I dont expect ro convince you of that, but to each his own.

[Andrew Golding]

You should definitely continue. I won't be able to offer the caliber of review or critique which I've seen from you on here. That is beyond my capacity and above my pay grade. I am fascinated by this tale of incursion, the kernel of a physics-bending dreamworld, into this beaver-drawing 8-year-old's reality. So many questions to ask and answer. Don't leave us hanging.

[JayG]

I'd post the rest, but at the moment it's out as a 1ok word magazine submission, and fingers are crossed.

But as a synopsis, his mother shows him what appears to be a pendant, one that has that odd figure on it. She tells him that he IS a foundling. And that while on a trip to the back country, she and her husband witnessed the crash and destruction of what turns out to be a vehicle that can travel to alternate realities. He, who appeared to be 3 months old, was in a capsule that survived the crash, along with that pendant.

So while it's been eleven years since the event, it's his twelfth birthday, and the pendant is actually a key that activates the capsule to act as an education device, giving him skills like levitation.

It was great fun to write.

[Andrew Golding]

Sounds like a fun read. I like watching how things unfold. I like to be introduced gradually to new concepts, as you've done in the sample given. At my age, I don't like to just be plopped into some new reality without a really good travel brochure or a tour guide who can give me the skinny as we go along.

[The Guneven]

A dialog driven story. For a writer that's written for as long as you, you seem to not write all that well and make a lot of mistakes an amateur would. I don't focus on dialog driven stories. I draw the whole scene out like it would play out in a movie, so my style is a bit different, but I digress.

You're using a lot of unnecessary words. My style of writing isn't like every other novelist or short story teller. I have a completely different take on writing and have invented my own writing techniques and styles, so not just one style, but many.

The reason I became a novelist was to write books that I want to read, so not the other way around. I do have my own agenda when it comes to the writing process, but your first paragraph and the scene wasn't clear to me as to what was taking place with the dialog, or story structure, and on and on, or the words being used, and you'd called my work bad and brought into question your own.

I don't write just any old way, because I use a trance technique to my writing and the way I use words. Writing is subjective, regardless, but the way I write is the way it is for a reason, believe it or not.

Writing like this, doesn't compute with my brain. I don't write like this for a reason. I'm a disabled artist, so I have a different take on things. I also have to write through my handicaps.

[The Guneven]

I'm a writing instructor. Self-taught. When we create art, we don't do it from the logical side of the brain,so what we do is create an illusion within our own mind, through trance, then write through the trance state, but the way you're doing art is the wrong way of thinking. It's through the logical side of the mind. There is right way of thinking and wrong way, and you're doing Wrong Way.

[JayG]

Interesting that you, someone who has sold not a word of their work, and are angry that I didn't praise your writing are mounted on such a high horse and so passionately insisting that a story that 7 other people likes is a bad one.

Perhaps, were there even one comment praising your posted work I might be inclined to take your screeds more seriously.

Want me to take you seriously? Sell something. How hard can it be. I've done it seven times. And given that you are so much smarter than I am, it should be a snap.

I'll wait.

[MarthaKlokke]

This is interesting JayG. Quite a dream. I don’t remember when I had such a big one last. Lol. But I think you got the interesting bits all done already and I don’t know if you can come up with an equally interesting sequel - whatever that means. I can’t think where it could go from here without sounding forced and unnecessary. I hope you can prove me wrong. I'll be happy if you do.

[Glen Weimann]

Hi. I'm sure you've seen that Stephen King novels always start gently and plausible and then start twisting, drawing us in. Too much wackiness too early has the reader thinking 'this is ridiculous'. So we have this number in the bottom right corner regardless of the orientation of the paper if its relative angle changes for Stu. It's bizarre but, hey, it's just a 4, no big deal. Yet ...

There's a bit about a film I didn't get. I understanding about experimenting to see when the effect happens or not, but the film bit lost me.

As for where to take it, well ... Options include messing inside Stu's head. Is 'he' the problem, and why might that be? If it's an external force. can it be blocked or shielded, and if so, is there a struggle or annoyance from whatever is applying the force? Will we go from two-dimensions to 3D with objects, inanimate or living? Might these objects cease to be passive but seek to control or coerce? Will others such as Stu's sister always see what Stu sees? And why? Something existential? Good luck trying to sort that lot out! BRs Glen aka Nigel

[JayG]

Thanks for the comment on the "film," I changed it to to:

"A coating on the paper," for more clarity...

The story is complete, and I'm querying sci-fi magazines.

[Neha agrawal]

This chapter is a **masterclass in subtle supernatural tension**, blending a child’s wonder with an adult’s creeping dread. The seemingly simple act of a **number shifting on a drawing** becomes a quiet, existential horror—not because of dramatic effects, but because it **defies logic in a way that feels unnervingly real**.

[Sharrumkin]

I have often written from dreams. They make great beginnings but you then have to build it into something.

If you are lucky a story will grow with as life of it's own.