| The Creative Expressions of... Bill Vivrett |
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| Updated 03.02.06 |
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| Page 4 of 8 |
| The Troll... "Loneliness is taking me apart. I've never felt this empty, before." "I am undone." In complete despair and feeling totally alone, he suffered. (PS 27:9) Every night train sounded the same mournful whistle as it rounded the slow curve over the bridge to enter the town from the north. It was a melancholy prophetic sound, like people were going to die afar off, somewhere and there was nothing Harry could do to stop it. "I hurt in my heart and I don't even know why," his monologue continued. After that, Harry thought of spending time down at the hobo camp, but they had all gone. He sensed changes in himself. His self-assurance and natural ease were disappearing. No longer was he someone people gravitated towards or wanted to be around. He felt diminished, as if he were becoming invisible. (PS 139:7-10) That may have been one reason why he started playing when Ole' Blue first brought the chess set and left it. Harry even took to reminiscing in his loneliness. He longed for the happy times when he played chess with dad and when their mother, an English teacher, read to them from great literature. In those times, he rode with Ivanhoe and improvised with Robinson Crusoe. But now, he saw himself as another Caliban, more morose than Browning's primeval creature or even Shakespeare's; trapped in the muck of his own thoughts and decisions. Out of loneliness Harry dressed up that Halloween. He first noticed appearance changes then. He had started wearing this long, oversized black overcoat and wide-brimmed floppy hat Bonnie had sent. That Halloween, Harry prowled at the peripheral with the last of the older kids, always at a distance, always stepping back in the dark as they approached each house. He noticed gray black hair had begun to grow everywhere-even on his face and head. Without sunlight he began to smell musky and there was a change in his voice; now deeper and rasping from non-use. With his broken mirror he noticed the color of his eyes seemed to have changed form azure blue to angry coal spots on his pale gaunt face. "What is happening to me?" Harry lamented in newly found rage and horror. His behavior too was changing. At first he only did acts of caring before daybreak like throwing papers up onto the porch. But gradually even his harmless pranks became mean spirited like hiding left out toys and tying tricycles up in trees. The idle loneliness and alienation of his lifestyle were closing in. For the first time Harry was becoming bitter as each long night merged into the next. There was no light for Harry. Young children throughout the north end became increasingly more fearful of the gray phantom lurking out there, somewhere in the woods. A group of draft-exempt neighborhood men formed a committee to talk about going into the woods on night watches. "Those gun crazy fools are talkin' about waylayin' our boy," Blue announced over dishes. (PS 59:1-2) "They'll shoot at any shadow of turnin'. Ther's even some talk he's a German spy here to count new freight cars." "Can't you coax him into comin' in to stay with us till Spring?" Bonnie pleaded, turning a page. "Coax 'im! I can't even talk to 'im! I never even seen 'im. Not once, just a shadow sometimes," Blue complained into his coffee cup. "Well, you take this warnin' note with supper for the next three nights," Bonnie insisted. She had stopped reading, showing increasingly grave concern. Later from the other room: "I thought we were finished with that white sheet bus'ness 'round here." Silence. |
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