chapter four

Chapter Four

            When Maxwell woke up it was Saturday, his favorite day of the week.  This particular Saturday was a little different.  The day got off on the wrong foot almost immediately since the night before he forgot to turn off his alarm clock. After he shut his alarm off, it soon dawned on him that he wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep again, and of course this irritated him to no end.  If being awake early weren't bad enough, when he finally got out of his bed to look out the window, he was almost blinded by the intense glare of the sun reflecting off a fresh blanket of newly fallen snow.  The entire landscape was covered in snow, and the reflected sunlight was so bright that it actually gave Maxwell a headache.  (This headache, to his chagrin, would stay with him most of the morning and well into the afternoon.) 

Closing his curtains, he grumbled a few words to himself and put on a sweatshirt and an extra pair of socks.  'It's May for Christ's sake!  I should be able to go outside and ride my bike, not build a snowman!'

            "Water under the bridge, ... "

            For some reason or another, these strange words played over and over again in Maxwell's head.  These were not his words, per se.  They seemed more alien to him, as if spoken by someone else.  In fact, he'd never even heard of the expression of 'water under the bridge' before in his entire life, thus he didn’t even know what it meant. 

            Once he dressed himself, he went downstairs and made a straight course for the television, but when he tried to turn it on he was disappointed to find that nothing happened. He pressed a couple more buttons hoping for some magic, but still no television.  Frustrated, he began slapping and banging on the television as if he might be able to impose his will through the sheer brutality of his actions, but of course still, nothing happened. Water under the bridge.

           

            For Maxwell, there were only three crucial ingredients for a successful Saturday.  The first was to sleep in as long as possible, the second watch cartoons while eating, number three, a large bowl of cereal.  Any one of these things gets left out, and it would be considered a failure, for Maxwell is a creature of habit. 

            Maxwell was determined not to give up without a fight.  He examined the surge protector thinking maybe the television wasn't plugged in properly.  No, it definitely wasn't going to be that simple.  He checked to see if the surge protector was on, and it was.  Maybe, he postulated, there's just a bad connection between the television cord and the surge protector.  He jostled it around hoping and praying that it'd work, but still nothing.  "Son of a bitch," he murmured.  Again his mind said to him, Water under the bridge.

            Maxwell saw no conceivable solution to his current dilemma.  The heater was still functioning, and so too were the lights, even including the crazy light in Maxwell's room, which meant the house still had electricity.  He stormed away from the television, "Is it really so damn hard to have just one thing go right, just this once?"  He was so upset that he could feel a vein bulging out of his forehead.  And per usual the twitching eyelids intensified proportionately as his frustration level increased.

            Suddenly, the light in the room burned out.  How strange?  

Out of the confusion, Maxwell came up with an idea.  He was going to watch cartoons on this day.  He was going to watch cartoons or he was going to kill himself trying.  It was his will against the will of the universe, which seemed to be conspiring against him.  The time to hesitate is through.  It was time to put his plan into action.

            Maxwell went to the kitchen sink to fill up a cup with water.  He remembered a time when a friend of his had encouraged him to put his tongue against a battery.  He remembered how when he touched his tounge to the positive end, the battery would  send an electric current through his tongue, shocking the ever-living spit out of him.  Saliva, as it turns out, is a conductor of electricity.  This is due to the fact that water is a conductor, and saliva is primarily made of water.  Oftentimes he'd get extra use out of his 'AA' and 'AAA' batteries for his handheld video games or any of the other random gadgets and remotes that required a charged battery by licking the connections on the ends of them, then reinstalling them into their respective device.  So, Maxwell figured, this is a relatively new television.  It worked before, it should work again.  It hasn't gone anywhere, nor has it been moved from this exact location since the day it was placed there (so far as he was aware) and so nothing about it could possibly be physically damaged!

Maxwell unplugged the television that stood in front of him.  He then took the cord in his hand and carefully dipped it into the water.  No cartoons?, Maxwell thought, We'll just see about that!  Water under the bridge, eh?  He took the plug out of the glass, sending a little water to the floor  in the process, in spite of his mindfulness.  The prongs had a generous amount of fluid on them and the excess dribbled down the side of the cord and then onto the floor. 

            Somewhere from within the deepest recesses of Maxwell's reptilian cortex he found himself feeling like this was going to fail miserably.  His neocortex quickly brushed away this notion, however, and he took the cord and confidently plugged it into the surge protector.  He was used to the different cortices of his brain arguing.  It wasn’t a big deal. 

            'ZAP'! - 'POP'!

            In a brilliant flash of light, sparks shot out of the socket as if Independence Day had occurred a little early this year.  Maxwell's body seized up as electricity coursed through his flesh. 

            Though completely startled from what had just transpired, and half paralyzed from literal shock, he found himself somehow able to drop the cord as his body fell to the floor.  Dazed and slightly confused, he lay motionless for a moment until a wicked stench began wafting up into his nostrils.  He glanced up.  The television cord was on fire!  Thick black smoke began to fill the room.  Quickly, Maxwell took a pillow and slammed it against the blazing cord, but the damage had already been done.  The television was ruined, and the entire house reeked of burnt plastic.

            "Maxwell, honey, what's going on in there?  What's that awful, ... oh my Goodness!," she exclaimed as she entered the room, "What in the world is going on in here!?" 

            In his mind Maxwell recounted the night before when he desperately asked God to turn things around.  Good work God, nice looking out for me, buddy old pal, he muttered under his breath, Is there no justice in this cruel world?

            "What did you just say?," his mother inquired. "Why is there smoke coming from the television, and why is my grandmother's pillow covered in that black stuff?"

            "What black stuff?," Maxwell quickly responded, slightly confused.  He then looked down at the pillow.  It was a pillow that his great grandmother had made for his mother a couple of years ago before she'd passed away.  It was covered in 'black stuff' alright.  It was the plastic that had melted off the burning cable.  Maxwell wanted to curl up into the fetal position and die right there on the spot. 

            His mother was irate.  After freaking out for a moment or two, she gradually began to calm down.  Maxwell felt awful.  He explained to her what had happened, how he'd been trying to get the television to work so that he could watch cartoons.

            "What did you think was going to happen?  That was a terrible idea!  You could've been electrocuted!" 

"I was electrocuted."

 She looked at him incredulously, "Don't do that ever again, do you understand me?"  She was obviously glad that no harm had befallen her son. She wasn't, however, thrilled that he'd ruined their television which they wouldn't be able to replace anytime soon.  They were, after all, far from well off financially. 

Regardless of the fact that he had nuked the television and ruined a sentimental artifact left behind by someone near and dear to the family, Maxwell could tell that in his mother’s eyes he'd already been forgiven.  "Come on, buddy, don't look so glum.  Cheer up!  Hey, its all 'water under the bridge' by now, isn't it, so no more sulking."

            Maxwell was taken aback by this statement. "What did you just say?"  His face went ghost white.

            "I said cheer up, honey.  Don't worry about it, okay?  Can you believe this weather?  On the radio they said it's only snowed here once before in the month of May, ever!  It snowed over half a foot last night!  Unbelievable!  The world must be coming to an end or something, right?"  She chuckled to herself, "Global warming my foot!  Hey, maybe this is a sign from the heavens that you need to spend more time outside or something?  Why don't you go out and play in the snow, you know, take in some fresh air or something.  Life is too short to be spent watching television, anyway."

            Maxwell rolled his eyes.  God didn't care about him.  God was a cruel scientist and Maxwell was his unwilling test subject.  In fact, it seemed as though the only message God was trying to give to Maxwell was to 'watch out! I'm trying to kill you, or at least make your life a living hell!'  He wasn't even sure he even believed in God to begin with.  The jury was still out on that one, as nothing ever seemed to go right!

            His mother went back to what she'd been doing and Maxwell went to the kitchen.  The smell of burnt plastic still filled the air to the point where it was almost impossible to breathe without choking up a little bit.

            He reached into the cupboard to get a bowl.  Then he pulled out a spoon, some milk, and his favorite cereal and then sat down at the table to eat.  When he opened his cereal to begin pouring, nothing came out but a couple of flakes and a pile of worthless crumbs.  Maxwell shook his head, this is it, he thought, nothing else can possibly go wrong that hasn't already gone wrong!'  He started laughing hysterically at this thought.  The twitching quickened.  He put his bowl into the sink and the milk back into the fridge.  Clanging around in the kitchen out of sheer frustration, he ended up making some toast with some peanut butter spread on top, and then he left and went back to his room.  He wasn't going to come out unless he had to use the bathroom or if dinner was ready and waiting for him.  If God wanted to play like this, Maxwell was ready to tango, Bring it on, Big Fellah!, Give me your worst!  Maxwell walked into his room and turned on the light. 

            'POP' 

            Another lightbulb went out.  Maxwell had to admit it that at this point, things were so messed up that it was laughable, "At least you've got a sense of humor, right?"  He climbed into bed, and there he would stay for the much of the remainder of the day.  Water under the bridge, huh?  After this thought flashed through his head, something else came to mind, a word which Maxwell had never even heard of before.  Synchronicity.

Unknown to Maxwell, not even a quarter mile away, Premi Chrandrasekar was playing outside in the snow. 

 It was the first time she had ever done so for she had never before seen the cold white stuff.