New Flowers on the Grave

I do not own the marvelous book "Flowers for Algernon"

Prologue

The greatest possession that William Kinnian had in the whole wide world was his lucky rabbit's foot.

It was something he'd fought with his class mates over, and it was something he'd hold onto until the day he was laid to rest as far as he was concerned.

His mother had asked him why he valued it so. She was not angry with him, but could not understand the childlike attachment he had towards it. Well, she did, but tried to keep the reason out of her head. It hurt her to think about it, and so it was difficult to get any answers from her.

"The last time I saw him,' She had said, 'I ran from the room in tears. I never told him about it."

William was astonished and intrigued at the time. What had possibly happened to drive them away from each other? What had happened in their relationship that broke them apart? He knew very little about the story of his mother's life. She guarded it like an elixir of life. Not even her son could penetrate through the protective shell she had set up for herself.

William wondered why she was so secretive. What had he been like? How had they met?

This had been going on for William's whole life. He had badgered his mother with questions, and she would either evade giving answers, she would give vague responses if pressed, and sometimes began to cry, which ended all persistence in William. He hated to see his mother cry, and she mostly did when he asked her about that part of her past.

She would ask him at times, "Why can't you just live your life and move on? Why are you so concerned with it?" William would stubbornly claim he had a right to know.

Of course, William thought too much about it. It was almost an obsession in his life. He had few really close friends at school, and his grades ranged from brilliant to downright failure. He was troublesome in some classes, commended in others. Teachers were puzzled by this seventeen-year old, and girls were either turned off or intrigued. William didn't seem to notice the attention he got from people most of the time.

His mother worked at a school for people with a disability. She taught a variety of people and was adored by her 'students'. She had a patient air about her, something welcoming and warm in her attitude. William had been in her class enough times to know that they were genuine feelings.

But there were times when she grew cold, even in the classroom. It was little things. Maybe if someone shouted out her name in a certain way, or if someone started talking about a certain topic, she would pause, and the hand of the past seemed to touch her in the class. Of course, she would normally recover instantly, but he had once seen her remain still for a full half minute before answering.

Now it was summer time, and when you live in New York City, that gives someone a lot of different things to do. And for William, it was a great time. He was six months away from his eighteenth birthday, and would be starting Grade 12 at high school. He would get on the bus with his friends and spend the afternoon at the pool, the library, the cinema, wherever they felt like going. He had dated girls once or twice, but the relationships never took flight from the first date. One girl had accused him of being too absorbed, and he had found that was partly true.

He loved to go to the movies. He loved to read books, and he had decided from an early age that he wanted to learn more languages. He studied the French language for a long time, then, when he was just entering high school, he heard of an after-school program teaching Mandarin. He knew about Chinese history and had been fascinated by the Chinese languages. He had chosen to learn Mandarin, and had been willing to throw away class time to get it right. It was easy to practice the language in New York: the variety of people allowed him to hear Mandarin spoken and get as used to the language as French.

Of course, languages didn't help him in mathematics or science. He failed miserably in those classes before. Teachers would sometimes complain of him being unable to sit still and would fidget. William knew he did, but he got bored easily in those classes, and he couldn't help but zone out of what was being discussed.

While the teacher would speak of cosine and sine laws or the difference between a quadratic and cubic function, William had different things on his mind. He was fascinated by the story of Charlie, the man that his mother had known for some time, but then had never seen again. He did not know why, but he knew for sure of one thing. It was the reason that he kept Charlie's lucky rabbit's foot with him.

It was because Charlie Gordon was his father.