Title: Map

Author: The Island Hopper

Summary: Being an heir changes everything. Even that which we believed was unchangeable.

Language Rating: I'm only warning you about the naughty words at the end of the chapter because if I don't (and I know this from experience) there are enough fragile/virginal/hypersensitive minds out there that will scream incessantly if I say nothing. So. Ahem. There are some naughty words at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimers: The respective excerpts of the works authored by Fletcher, Jung and Wilde are used wholly without permission, but since two of these three persons are dead, I doubt they'd care. And Fletcher? Well, I think he'd just be happy that someone is reading his works as fervently as I'm reading his. Way to historicize, Fletch.

The words were becoming blurred and incoherent. Exhausted, seventeen-year-old Charlie Bucket removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose gently, silently wishing the clock would slow its inevitable march towards the morning hour that would bring with it his end-of-year exam. Early British history had a way of tiring his mind quickly but the effect was even more exaggerated tonight, as his mind lay inextricably elsewhere and was not likely to leave any time in the near future. Sighing, Charlie reclined in his hard-backed seat, surrounded by the thousands of volumes in Mr. Wonka's library lit by the dying embers in the great fireplace.

Why did I wait? Charlie thought miserably to himself as he gazed upon the pile of books that seemed to tease him with the facts, dates, theories and people he had yet to learn before tomorrow's exam. More exactly, why did I let Mr. Wonka talk me into a private tutor? That question, at least, was relatively easy to answer. Though every attempt had been made to keep Charlie at his regular school, it became entirely implausible within a year of his inheriting the factory from Mr. Wonka. For one, his time in the factory gradually began to increase as Charlie grasped the basics of invention and began to concoct his own creations, much to Mr. Wonka's delight. Because of this, Charlie – by need, and not necessarily by want – learned how to manage his time so effectively that within a few short months, his mind became one that could absorb all written and spoken facts quite easily, so that he only had to read or hear something once to be able to recall it even months later; his mind evolved this way for the simple reason that he wanted more time doing what he'd recently come to love – invention – without having to waste too much time on his schoolwork.

The homework and readings assigned to him by the teacher soon became so easy that Charlie found he barely had to devote any time at all to them. When Mr. Wonka discovered this, he managed to persuade Charlie to let him hire a tutor, one that would challenge Charlie's mind instead of bore it. While Charlie felt his mind already had all the excitement it could take by living in the world of Willy Wonka, he eventually concurred with Mr. Wonka that a person who is only knowledgeable about one thing is not actually very knowledgeable at all. Charlie's real education had begun.

So now he sat a seventeen-year-old young man in the greatest factory in the world, surrounded by written knowledge of the best minds of the ages, his head filled with everything from quantum theories to the life philosophies of everyone from Plato to B.F. Skinner, and almost completely unable to relate to anyone his own age. It had first occurred to Charlie that he was inadvertently becoming a miniature version of his mentor as he sat across the table from his date, a lovely girl named Delaney Matthews, and found that he had nothing to say that could be understood by anyone who did not have his education. He was explaining how the Piri Reis Map, dated 1513 and copied from a much earlier though undocumented source, showed the un-iced land mass of Antarctica, which itself was not discovered until 1818, and cartographed the land in such exactness that the map making skills necessary to produce it wouldn't emerge from the scientific field for another two hundred years, not to mention the fact that the last recorded seceding of the ice caps of Antarctica was around 4000BC, meaning that the art of cartography was perfected then forgotten thousands of years earlier than presupposed, and wasn't that amazing? Judging from the blank stares he received from Delaney behind her large diet Coke and plate of nachos, she either didn't get it or didn't care. They managed about ten minutes of awkward small talk centering around the movie they'd just seen before calling it a night in bright, false tones. He hadn't seen her since then.

Charlie shook his head, trying to will the thoughts away. He threw aside the history book and picked up another one, opening it to a chapter he knew would be on the exam.

"The one goal of success that shone before the thinker was rhetorical victory in disputation, and not the visible transformation of reality. The subjects he thought about were often unbelievably fantastic; for instead, it was debated how many angels would stand on the point of a needle, whether Christ could have performed his work of redemption had he come into the world in the shape of a pea, etc., etc. The fact that these problems could be posed at all – and the stock of metaphysical problems could be posed at all – proves how peculiar the medieval mind must have been, that it could contrive questions which for us are the height of absurdity…"

Then there was the time that Charlie's childhood friend, Robert Carlyle, had come to the factory for a night. Charlie, who hadn't seen Robert for close to three years by the time the factory gates were thrown open to admit the first newcomer since The Tour (as Mr. Wonka scathingly referred to it), couldn't believe that the formerly scrawny, pale faced Robert was the same well-built, handsome teenager standing in front of him. After a few moments of painfully strained chit-chat with Mr. Wonka greeting Charlie's friend, Charlie and Robert had jogged to the back garden where they engaged in a short game of football until Charlie was physically reminded that it was now he, and not Robert, who was pale and scrawny. As Charlie nursed his knee, Robert gleefully recounted his dating experiences with "Cindy, you remember that curly haired blonde girl?" and "Melinda – now she's got some nice tits, Charlie," and also "Rose from science class with the nice butt," and who could forget "Laurel, who'll do about anything for you – and to you, if you know what I mean, man! Haw!" Charlie felt he had smiled, laughed or agreed in all the right places but it was a thin façade, for Robert had left shortly thereafter, unconvincingly apologizing about a school meeting he'd forgotten about. Charlie had waved goodbye to him from the gates and had a strong feeling he'd never see his friend again. He was right.

Sometimes as Charlie lay in the dark at night before falling asleep, he wondered that if he had it all to do again if he'd really accept Mr. Wonka's invitation to take the factory. He wondered what would have happened if he hadn't found the money in the street. If he'd bought bread or milk instead of chocolate. If the candy vendor had grabbed the candy bar just to the left or just to the right of the one which held the golden ticket. If he had just said no to Mr. Wonka.

As he would gaze out the window at the pretty girls his age as they passed the factory on their way home from school, sometimes he would sigh in a melancholy way that spoke volumes. Other times, he would sneak into the television room and switch the cables in the back of one of the old sets, and watch the news or perhaps a popular sitcom over the fuzzy airwaves (due to the lack of an antenna) until he heard footsteps that announced the arrival of someone who might find him out. While envying those in the outside world was not a crime in the Wonka factory, Charlie hated to see the look on Mr. Wonka's face whenever he would catch Charlie's sighs out the window or the longing look on his face as Charlie read the newspaper about a play, movie or concert in town. Though Mr. Wonka never forbade Charlie to leave the factory whenever he pleased, Charlie's visits to the other side of the Wonka gates were becoming less and less frequent as the years rolled by.

Distracted, Charlie fitfully turned back to his readings after selecting another book from the still-massive pile of books yet to be sifted through tonight.

"Dorian winced, and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lusterless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay…"

Almost for an excuse to stop, Charlie realized he was cold and jumped up to coax the embers in the fireplace back into fervent life by poking them savagely with the metal rod hanging off of a metal hook in the bricks. As warmth once again returned to the room, Charlie's eyes did not leave the flames as they licked the inside of the fireplace as a serpent would its prey. His hand fumbled blindly along the wall until he felt the scruffy green copy of Utilitarianism Liberty and Representative Government by J.S. Mill that he knew by texture. Charlie pulled it out and from deep inside the shelf he grasped a faded, folded piece of paper. Wandering slowly back over to the desk in the middle of the room which also held his textbooks, Charlie sat down softly, as if he felt guilty for holding onto such a precious remnant from his childhood. Like an ally reading a secret document of his brethren, Charlie unfolded the paper and read the words therein inscribed, which he knew by heart:

Charly! Ask yor Mom if you can com see the kartoons at the movy theeter tonite. My dad is the maniger and we can get in free. I will bring mony for popcorn and candi. Come to my hous at six. Jack.

Charlie bit his lip and found his eyes were watering. He swallowed a sob and folded the paper back into its worn grooves quickly, placing it gently down in front of him as a bishop might a holy relic. Jack had been the best friend from which separation had hurt the most. For about two years after Charlie began living in the factory, Jack and Charlie had tried to maintain their friendship, but as so often happens when two people begin to inhabit two different worlds, their friendship soon faded and fizzled out in an unspectacular, unspoken goodbye. Sometimes the sighs out the windows were not so much for a world now uninhabited by Charlie; they were for the lost best friend of childhood that every adult knows the pain of.

An idea suddenly struck Charlie: he would write a letter to Jack. Surely Jack would want to hear how Charlie was doing after all these years, and perhaps a sort of friendship could be struck up again. Charlie eagerly grabbed a sheaf of blank paper and wrote "Dear Jack," at the top, and then paused thoughtfully.

Where to start? "How are you?" "What have you been up to?" "I live in the most fantastic and strange place on earth"? Charlie scoffed. He had to be approachable. He couldn't come off as so changed as to not be relatable anymore, however true or untrue such a statement might be. Again he readied his pen and wrote tentatively, "I'm writing to you from the Wonka factory where, if you'll remember, we used to stare up at the smokestacks and wonder what lay inside."

Just as Charlie was about to tell him what exactly lay inside, he stopped. How pretentious he sounded! Like he was somehow better than Jack because he'd gotten in and not Jack, when it had only been luck which separated the ticket finders from the non-ticket finders. Charlie erased the first sentence hastily, feeling embarrassed that he'd even used those words as an opening line. He sat in contemplation for a moment and then wrote, "I've been thinking a lot about our schooldays and just wondered how you we – " No! That made Charlie sound like he was one to dwell on the past – no doubt Jack led a life that in many ways Charlie would envy; public school, friends, girlfriends, nights out and the like. No doubt the schooldays for which a part of Charlie secretly longed were ancient history to a plucky, outgoing person such as Jack. Charlie didn't want Jack to sense the desperation for human contact with his own age group that Charlie actually did feel. Loutish as though many of his teenage counterparts may be, there was still an indescribable pull towards them that Charlie couldn't quite explain, but was eager to dismiss. Again he scrubbed the eraser hard against the paper and wrote quickly, "How are you? I'm fine."

The words stared up at Charlie for a good five minutes as the teenager glared down at them as if he wished them to magically transform into something interesting, coherent, something someone like Jack would enjoy reading. Suddenly Charlie snatched up the mangled piece of paper and threw it fiercely into the fire, abhorring it with every fiber in his body. Breathing hard, Charlie began to pace in front of the fireplace, unaware of anything but his thoughts. He was a fool, he told himself, if he believed that he had anything in common with people like Jack anymore. Charlie's life had become winding interiors that smelled of chocolate, small servants from a far off land, companions with more imagination than common sense, and books – thousands of fucking books – and he couldn't even write a goddamned letter to someone who used to be his closest friend.

Seventeen years old. Seventeen fucking years old and he couldn't even force a conversation anymore. Is this what his whole life would be like? Would he be in this factory forever, not because he wanted to be, but because there was no where else on earth he could go? Is this what Mr. Wonka went through at one point in his life? Did he care when he did?

Charlie stormed back to the desk and grabbed Jack's note off the end of the table. He stood before the roaring fire, feeling the intense heat from the fire matching his own internal rage, staring at the crinkled, worn note which had survived much longer than its writer had meant it to, and felt ashamed that he could no longer be the person he once was. Too much had changed. Too much of him had changed. This is the way it had to be now.

Charlie threw the childhood note into pit and watched the flames hungrily devour one of the last remnants of his past that he'd allowed to remain under his sentiment. Watching the note become ashes, and then become nothing, Charlie felt both relief and grave sadness. He didn't know how long he stood there, but by the time he realized he was cold the fire had begun to die down once again. Charlie swallowed hard and turned back to the desk, sitting down gently in the old chair.

Despite childhood's end, despite change and distance, despite everything, there was still an exam in the morning.

"After the end of Roman rule in Britain in the early years of the fifth century the island was invaded by Germanic people from across the North Sea conventionally referred to as the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes…"