Searching for the Fountain of Youth Read online

  Searching for the Fountain of Youth

  Curtis Picketts

  In case I never publish another:

  For Mum, Dad, Doug, Linds, Aunt Sis, and Dan; for being my fans regardless of the stage or sport.

  For Pamela; for encouraging rather than discouraging to evoke the courage in me to pursue writing.

  For Me; for realizing that it has to be for me before it can be for someone else.

  The Prologue: The Rants of An Aspiring Author

  “In a world full of folklore, myths, magic, and paranormal uncertainties, it becomes undeniably apparent to me that the observation lenses of the mind are universal while the panes of our interpretation windows could not be more unique. Contemplating which windows provide the clearest views has altered my dreams and stolen my independence.”

  I must confess that I rarely attended anthropology class when I was in university. I thought that it was easy enough that I wouldn’t have to attend lecture and I was never terribly interested. So perhaps what perplexes me has already been solved in considerable detail.

  I was staring up at the Caribbean sky two weeks ago as I was being driven home from school in an H-bus. I had been studying connective tissue in great depth all day. I had, in particular, been studying collagen synthesis to gain a better respect for how genetic mutations affecting collagen synthesis could result in many different diseases, one example being Marfan Syndrome. This syndrome is a manifestation of a mutation in the fibrillin-1 gene and it results in aneurysms, displacement of the lens of the eye, and long, skinny limb development. As boring as studying collagen synthesis was, its application was truly fascinating to me. An entire day of studying this was, however, extremely draining. I relished the opportunity to avert my thoughts to the night sky for once.

  I became immediately devoured by the fact that I could only make out one star in the clear night sky. There was only one star and it was unusually pale. Where in heaven’s name were the other, brighter stars? I searched the sky for other bodies of light and became delighted when I finally found another star lying extremely close to the first. It was even duller than the other, so I assumed that I had just missed it. But what most puzzled me, what truly perplexed me, was that the first star I had seen was now so magnificently bright! But why? Had it gotten exponentially brighter in just four minutes? Or was it that I could only truly perceive the magnitude of this brightness when I had something to compare it to, to contrast it with? Perhaps comparison and the ability to evaluate differences is a giant part of what the anthropologists mean when they talk about the evolution of self-awareness. Perhaps self and comparison are evolutionary inter-twined.

  I have always described my color-blindness to others as an inability to distinguish the contrast between adjacent colors. If I look at just one color alone, I can see it. However, if you put two colors beside each other, I am unable to distinguish one from another; I just see one color. This is due to a genetic mutation that has resulted in an alteration to the shape of the lenses of my eyes, causing light to be bent at incorrect angles and then displaced onto my retinas, displaying a picture unique to this particular mutation. Although I can still perceive brightness just fine, this mutation makes it very difficult for me to contrast and compare color. It becomes apparent to me that even our eyes rely almost entirely on their evolutionary ability to identify and compare differences. So is this also true of the mind?

  So much of my life would need to be re-examined if this is true. Do I only measure the happiness of a moment by ranking it against other happy moments? Is this why our only practical measurement of happiness is to say, “that was the happiest moment of my life” or “that was the maddest I’ve ever gotten” to provide another example? Do we truly only know how to determine relevance by applying relation? If so, it changes so much about the choices that I have made. Have I chosen an idea because it was a good idea, or because it was better than another? Why did it take me so long to fully appreciate this observation? Why did I skip those anthropology classes?

  “You’re stop! Airport View Apartments!”

  “Thanks,” I say. “See yas tomorrow guys.” I walk up my gravel driveway and onto my deck. My neighbor is sitting there smoking a cigarette before bed.

  “How was school man?” he asks as he flicks away his smoke.

  “Better than yesterday,” I mutter as I unlock the door and head for bed.

  I will always be present as the narrator of this story because this is a tale about me just as much as it is about our hero. This story is about his search and his discovery. This story is about my search and my discovery.

  “Alright Emily, you have to pick. You can have one chocolate-chip cookie (her favorite), or two oatmeal cookies,” Winston whispered softly to his niece. “If you pick your favorite, you’ll only be able to enjoy it for a moment. But, if you pick the oatmeal, you’ll be able to eat cookies for twice as long.” Winston was a friendly uncle for Emily to have, but his sociological experiments could be judged to be a bit crazy, perhaps even cruel. Emily had never consented to be a part of her uncle’s experiments, but what was actually that cruel about giving his niece a choice between two types of cookies?

  “ Chocly-chip!” exclaimed Emily in her baby voice. She had been speaking more and more like an adult every day, a tragic symptom of having to grow up too early. Winston cherished moments like this, moments where her innocence penetrated her burdens. “Uncle Winnie, I want the chocly-chip one!”

  “Are you sure Emily? If you pick the oatmeal, you’ll be able to eat cookies for longer.”

  “Chocly-chip!” she fired back. Within seconds, her rosy red cheeks grew chocolate moles. A portrait of her smile would be worthy of an art museum; Winston’s smile beamed a few photons also. It would have been useful to have had a prism on hand; a rainbow would have been seen jetting across the kitchen. The off-white, smoke-stained walls would be a cornucopia of yellow, indigo, red, and the rest. Something was off about Winston’s smile, however. An observant individual would notice that gears were turning.

  Part 1 – Winston the Boy

  Chapter 1 – Winston Re-visited

  “Maybe the old fellas got it right; love becomes more practical with every day that passes.”

  Love and affection are so straightforward when you’re young: you give it, you receive it, and you pant and drool over it. Winston’s feelings for his parents were just as a mutt’s are for the one who throws the stick: simple and unconditional. I’m a firm believer that the youth of today will forever be more intelligent than that of last Thursday. Unfortunately, however, the recombination frequency of weakness with this trait will forever be lower than the feeding flight of a bloated gannet. The evidence is in the soil.

  Winston’s father, Samuel, was the seed of a massive oak named Red. Samuel had worked all of his life as a farm and fish hand until, in his late teens, he discovered his true gift: being a fan. He became a social worker and was paid for the rest of his days for his relentless passion to root for others to succeed. He married a nurse named Martha and they gave birth to two boys, first Randy, and then Winston. As a family, they created one wonderful memory after another. They cherished these memories so much that Samuel had even built a sanctuary for them. He called it “The Man Cave.”

  “The Man Cave” was actually just the garage, but it was a particularly special garage nonetheless. Two couches and a yard-sale recliner stared at one another like players on the pitch while fishing rods, a beer fridge, a bait freezer, and an old cherry red motorcycle stood boldly around the seats. The true spectators, however, were the faces on the walls.

  Golden frames encasing memories inhabited every inch of rustic cedar wall, tr
ansporting the cave from the garage to the inside of a hallow tree full of living, breathing creatures. The creatures were shy, but their whispers were constant; Samuel made the most of every opportunity to tell the boys, loudly, what the creatures whispered. And on this night, with Winston and Randy both home from university for the weekend, every lost sock in the world would not be enough to shut the creatures up.

  “Cheers boys! To good health! To having everyone home! To ‘The Man Cave’ ha, ha!” Samuel toasted. The three smashed brown bottles together and sucked the contents down as joyously as an infomercial house-wife when shown a revolutionary new vacuum cleaner. “Right on boys. Right on!” Samuel stared at the boys for a moment, his eyes wide and curious, as if he were spell-bound by the fact that they were both now adults.

  “Hey, you framed my fish,” Winston exclaimed, his finger pointing to a picture on the wall. The picture was of Winston, standing proudly in front of a starless night sky, kissing a three foot long striped bass on the mouth. He had caught it two years prior in the Bay of Fundy.

  “That was some night man,” Samuel said while conducting with his beer bottle. “I have never, ever seen a night like that one. I mean, man, you wait your entire life for a night like that. You couldn’t see a god damn thing in the sky, and the water, oh man, I’ve never seen a tide that calm.” And he was right, you do wait your whole life for a night like that.

  The location had been the “Mud Hole”, a sandy point pierced with beach grass that thrived on the infamous Fundy tides. The time had been 11pm on the night of a full moon, hidden by a smoky sky and only known to exist by calendar. Samuel and Winston had been sitting in the mud sipping beer for a measly hour when the behemoth bass had bent Winston’s rod, causing him to leap to his feet, grab the reel, and begin to dance in motions best compared to those required to act out “wrestling a black bear” in a game of charades. Samuel had begun couching his son immediately after the fish had hit. ‘More slack, more slack, let him run, let him run. Alright, now tighten up a little. Alright, give it to her!’ If the night sky could have only sold tickets; every star in town would have wanted to see that performance.

  “Ha, ha, you shoulda seen this guy,” Samuel said, his eyes proudly on Randy. He played it like a little weasel, sayin, ‘oh I don’t think it’s a keeper, I don’t think it’s a keeper’.” Randy’s toothy grin formed a white canvas, making the top of his beer look like the last brown stump on a snowy Albertan oil-field.

  “Mr. Cool, eh?”

  “This guy, this little…. weasel,” Samuel said now, his large excited eyes on Winston. “He knew he had it the whole time. You shoulda seen him, just playin’ with it. He’d let it swim towards the grass, just puttin’ on a show. But man, when it came time to pull that tired sucker in, he guided that thing beautifully. Ha, ha, that little weasel man, he stopped yelling and hauled that fat bastard right onto his boots. I don’t even think the guy took a breath for ten minutes.”

  “God I was tuckered. Some fight.”

  “Ha, ha, his face was beat red. I mean, I’m talkin’ red,” Samuel repeated while leaning into Randy’s face. They all paused to gaze at the fish on the wall of their wooden shelter once again. “What a weasel,” he said again, but this time much slower and with seriousness. “It’s some life boys.” Beer bottles raised and chins protruded outwards. And in this fashion, minutes danced into hours and night gave rise to dawn.

  “And this guy right here,” Samuel drunkenly announced to Winston. “This dirty, rotten, smelly little skunk over here, he didn’t change his bait all day and caught two keepers. When the second one hit, the bugger was asleep in his chair. I mean, he was out cold. The friggin’ rod bent so far it hit him on the top of the head and woke him up, ha, ha. He shot straight up and was looking around to see if he could find the bird, ha, ha. He thought he got shit on eh. It was so damn funny man, this guy didn’t know what was going on. The dirty, dirty, stinking, skunk.”

  Randy was laughing foolishly by this point. “You just gotta know how to fish man, ha, ha. That’s how I always catch them.”

  “Filthy, filthy….”

  “Good morning boys!” The laughter stopped, and bright eyes and devils’ grins shone onto Martha. “How are we all this morning? I’m just coming in to do the morning laundry.” She paused for a brief moment and surveyed the scene. “Now, who wants breakfast?” The three generals, sitting in a field of fallen soldiers, all raised their hands.

  “Yes please.” Martha stood watching them for another moment, her shoulders loosening, her cheeks fattening, and her eyes sparkling a smile so warm that only a proud mother and a proud wife could produce it. She had met Samuel when he was still just a charming boy. She had watched him grow into a man, but what undoubtedly kept her heart inside of his was the fact that he always became that sweet and charming young boy again as soon as the man wasn’t needed. Oh how she loved that about him! And she could see it in both of her sons too, easing any doubt that she may have ever had about what kind of men they would grow into.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do with you fellas,” she said smiling, and then left for the kitchen. The sun beamed through the two small openings to the cave, illuminating the haze of smoke that had accumulated. Dust particles swayed like snowflakes in afternoon and the sounds of morning doves and sparrows filled the gap with sweet melody. Winston nudged the cave door open a crack and peered into the kitchen to spy his mother, dancing around a frying pan and singing along with the birds of morning, the smell of bacon filling the room. His face filled with joy upon seeing this.

  “So, you boys been getting any poon-tang over at university or what, ha, ha?” Samuel was finally ready to listen to the boys tell stories; he must have finally been out of breath.

  Chapter 2 – Winston Re-visited Once Again (Family Island)

  “When the mind is starved for inspiration, propaganda gets swallowed whole.”

  As a young man, like most adolescents, Winston sought acceptance amongst his peers. More than anything, he wanted to fit in. He wanted to be friends with the cool kids and to be envied by the others. Maybe he had a deep fear of rejection, or maybe he was just a confused, hormone-driven young man. Regardless of cause, this was a problem. It’s awful hard to enjoy watching the mirror when you allow your peers to operate the projector.

  Winston focused all of his energy towards creating his image and, eventually, he was cool. It took a lot of work, but he could not have been happier with the results. In Junior High, he had gelled his hair every morning before hopping onto the bus with silver astronaut pants on; they became an instant hit. In Senior High, he had traded those pants in for baggy jeans, a hoodie, and a skateboard. Within twelve months, he was jumping down stairs, sliding across rails, and flying in and out of a half-pipe. The girls followed and, in turn, the boys followed the girls. He was invited to all of the parties, crushed on by the cheerleaders, and envied by the fellas by the time he was sixteen.

  This would lead you to believe that everything was now just peachy in the world of Winston. But it wasn’t. As much as he found comfort in his popularity and in his place, he still feared. He still feared the uncertain; he still feared the unknown. Even if just one person hated Winston, life would be intolerable to him. He longed for everyone he had ever met to like him; to love him; to envy him. He wanted something that would be impossible to achieve; something that would tear at him for the rest of his life. Desiring the impossible is fine, in my opinion, but one must be able to accept defeat. His inability to do this would have devastating impacts on every subsequent encounter and romance he would ever have. How can you ever be close to someone if you’re not willing to let them hate you?

  Winston was the kind of young man who only knew how to make decisions one way: by diving straight in. It was quite a super-power to have; it was quite a super-power to manipulate. Imagine, being able to recruit a Victoria Cross recipient just by snapping your fingers. He would never be 100% certain of any decision he would ever make, but he would
always be all-in.

  Unlike the majority, he never grew out of this fear of rejection. When surrounded by peers and by people who looked up to him, he was capable of doing extraordinary things. When these people were not around, he was as scared as a groundhog after seeing its shadow; he ran from every eye that was on him. He dreamed of being famous, but was scared of the spotlight. I’m convinced that even Ferdinand Magellan would get lost trying to navigate through Winston’s mind; there were too many dead ends, too many circles. Mythology's greatest labyrinths would be no match for his mind's complexity. So naturally, Winston had been a boy-hood genius.

  He graduated as valedictorian from Charlottetown Rural High School after: finishing at the top of his class, being a star hockey player, and being the bed-partner of the hottest chick in town for two years running. That may seem a little rash to say, but isn’t that what makes people popular in high school?

  Now Winston may have been big stuff at Charlottetown Rural, but we first have to put into context the size of this place. To begin, Charlottetown is the capital city of Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island is the smallest province in Canada. If you had a large bowl of fruit on your kitchen table, Canada would be all of the fruit, and Prince Edward Island would be a single grape. Charlottetown would be the seed inside of that grape. Basically, Winston thought he was to life what trees are to the atmosphere, yet he knew nothing about the world. If, and this is if, he had have been respected by every single person on that island, he would have had the acceptance of 0.0026% of the world’s population. Big Whoop! But it was to Winston. As I said, he wanted to be liked and that was it. He felt no obligatory pressures; he just wanted to be popular. Some would say that he was just a dreamer; some would say that he was a people-pleaser; others would say that he was a heartless, lying bastard.