Scenes of Verdant Heights:
"The Case of Riley Toews"

by
William H. Chang

ONE

Sometimes when I snap my fingers I see a spark, a flash of light that lingers on the tips of my nails – speaking of which, I need to repaint them – for a split second before dissipating into a puff of smoke. It only happens when I get really stressed out though, which happens kind of frequently these days with finals coming up and all. Not like it matters or anything since I don’t plan on going to college anyway. Sorry, I’m getting off track. We were talking about those super amazing powers I discovered.

You see, making sparks come out of my fingers isn’t the only thing I can do. There was this one time when I was out near the Omni building, that one at the top of the hill with the huge globe statue in front of it, and I was sitting at the edge of one of the cliffs that look down at the Heights. It’s really pretty up there at night with all the lights off and the stars out; you can see the City in the distance on a really, really clear day. Bet you’re wondering why I was up there all by myself, right? I can see that look on your face, trying to figure it out like the plot of some dramatic book. The truth is, I was just totally bored and went up there on a whim. Nothing but me, my water bottle and a pack of pink Dreams. Oh my god, they’re so good, you should try them.

So I’m walking along the edge of the cliff smoking a Dream, which is a bad idea considering there’s not a whole lot of light up there in the woods, and one of my heels break. Over a rock or something, I’m not too sure. Anyway, I realize that I’m falling off the cliff, head over heels – no pun intended there, seriously! – and back down towards the Heights. Obviously I’m screaming my lungs out, and in my head I’m seeing all these memories in third-person, like a movie of my life where I’m playing myself. Yeah, sounds kind of cheesy, but I swear to god it’s true. People don’t kid about that kind of thing – dying, I mean. When you think you’re about to die all the bullshit finally gets thrown out the window and people wise up, get all sincere and stuff for the first time in their life. I think it’s like, when you think you’re going to die you see everything for what it really is. That’s how I saw it at least.

Huh? What did I see? It doesn’t really matter much, but I guess most of what I saw had to do with my childhood: growing up in Oakland and Richmond after that, Sundays with my dad and step-mom – fucking bitch – at their place in the City, and coming home to an empty apartment day after day, with the dinner my mom left me sitting on the table. Did you know up until I moved to the Heights I never had a real home-cooked meal? Yeah, even on Thanksgiving we’d just up and go to Boston Market or some other shitty place like that. All because my mom’s stupid fucking job. I don’t even want to go into that right now though, as much as you probably want to ask about it.

There was some other stuff there too. Good memories, like my friend Kylie; she went off to Santa Cruz last fall for college so I haven’t seen her in awhile. We were always the odd ones out back in high school. Everyone said she was some sort of weird girl who claimed she used to see dead people, like that kid from The Sixth Sense, you know? I mean, she told me once that she did see a ghost before, but it was her fucking mom, man, watching over her like a guardian angel. How could you think that’s weird? I think it’s sweet. God, I miss her a lot right now.

Sorry, I get a little emotional sometimes. But getting back on track – all of these memories were floating through my head, see, and as I was falling time just kind of slowed down to a point where I was kind of saying to myself, “This is taking too long. Let’s just get it over with already!” So I stopped screaming and just shut my eyes and told myself it’d all be over in another second or two, and that once it happened it’d be too quick for me to feel anything. At that point I stopped being afraid. I was just like, really chill and relaxed. I accepted what was coming. And can you guess what happened next?

Obviously I’m still here, talking to you right now about all this, and I know you’re going to think I’m shitting you, but I swear to god, dude, it’s all true. Just hear me out for a minute. Like I said, I closed my eyes and just relaxed, knowing it’d be over soon, and this feeling just kind of came over me. It was like when you’re in bed and you drift off into a dream. It was like I fell asleep.

Wouldn’t you know it, when I opened my eyes I was on my back, in the middle of the forest a few blocks from Hillside Drive, close to where that one old guy Mr. Jones lives. At first I couldn’t move my body, and I thought for a minute that I was going to wind up paralyzed like those people who get into really bad accidents that fuck up their necks, but then I sat up just fine. I looked over myself, head to toe – not a scratch on me, man. I was totally fine. When I looked up I could still see the edge of the cliff where I fell off, like a hundred feet above me. It’s not like I was dreaming or something. It really happened. According to my watch it’d only been about three or four minutes since I had last checked it at the top of the cliff near the Omni building too.

You don’t believe me, do you? I see you writing all that stuff down but that look on your face just screams, “She’s full of shit.” That’s okay though, I don’t blame you. I’m used to people thinking that way about me, especially old people. Hell, my own mom doesn’t believe me when I tell her all I do at night is wander around the woods and watch the stars. She probably thinks I’m out with some jackass friends and giving handjobs for drugs, or something stupid. I don’t know. That’s not what I’m like though. I like to just go out and be alone for a few hours, to get away from it all, you know? When I’m out there in the woods surrounding by darkness I just completely disappear, like I’m in my own little world out there. Better than the shit I get at home, or at school.

But I’m telling you, man, that whole cliff experience was real. I fell off and survived a fall that should have killed me. Even better, I wasn’t hurt at all. Don’t you think that’s a goddamn miracle? I mean, if you’re the type to believe in miracles and stuff. Personally I think having superpowers makes a lot more sense, and the whole X-Men thing is just so much cooler. Miracle kind of has some religious implication, doesn’t it? Not my thing, dude. Give me superpowers any day.

Huh? Oh, are we done for this week? Damn, that time just flew by. That’s cool though, I’m kind of getting antsy – think I’ll head over to Vienna Place for a cup of coffee. I guess I’ll see you next time. You should do some research, see if anyone else has the same kind of powers I do, surviving death and all that jazz. Well, talk to you later.

Afterthought: Just a few notes worth mentioning. First off, the name Toews is actually pronounced "Taves". The inspiration for the name comes from Jonathan Toews, a Canadian-born hockey player for the Chicago Blackhawks, and Riley's first name, as well as her overall inspiration, comes mostly from Riley Mason, a former pornstar who's only a year older than me. The structure of the story is an experimentation in perspective, so if everything sounds a little colloquial just know it's my intention to have it as such. Lastly, the names and places mentioned are all references to other stories and films I'm working on that fall within the Verdant Heights world (see "Religious Coffee"), and are important in helping to create a seemingly realistic fictional world. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the first part.

Draft 1.0
November 27, 2008