Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:25:57 -0500
From: Timothy Stillman <comewinter@earthlink.net>
Subject: "The Miracle"

		       "The Miracle"
			    by
		     Timothy Stillman

(with thanks to all my friends who finally taught
me the true meaning of hello)


He felt dreamy, creamy and drifty. Masturbation always
did that for him. He was 10, his name was Paddy, and he
lay naked on his bed, door firmly locked, window shades
as firmly closed. He had his jeans, socks and shoes off. He
wore only his football jersey, knit style, number 33 on it in
big block yellow letters. Not really his of course. He was a
skinny breakable runt. It was his brother's, but Big Bro
was of to college, Joe, and so Paddy didn't have to
wonder whether he was being too loud, jacking, in the
house, his parents at work, but Joe there waiting to
embarrass the hell out of him at the most embarrassing
time.

So free and alone and stroking his four and one half
incher, and comfortably and mildly sweaty from the day at
school, he rubbed himself, and loved to lie with his legs
half off the bottom of the bed, the chenille bedspread
feeling nice and comfy in the cool air Autumn house. He
had been so happy all day long. He had been happy to
come home and do this, and he tickled his little balls in
pleasure. He stroked his tummy and rubbed his crotch and
put his hands to his face and sucked in the aroma of boy,
because that was what he was, and he would never be
anything else.

It had been a lovely jack, and he was on his second go
round, he was 10 after all, and though he had not learned
to shoot like all the other boys his age lied about, he was
pretty sure, in the locker room after gym, he still had lots
of fun at it. He had seen Joe shoot a couple of times, and
once Joe missed the Kleenex and shot all over his bed,
Joe's bed that is, and did he have some fun explaining that
to Mom, Joe did, while Paddy stood to the side and did
not laugh, cause Joe would clobber him if he laughed. He
didn't even laugh in secret. Just inside, which was okay.
Nobody, Paddy was learning, would know what was
going on inside you, no matter how smart they thought
they were, cause they really weren't as smart as they
thought.

And the miracle had helped, indeed, it had saved his life in
big capital letters, it explained everything, but everything,
and he stroked his circumcised penis that had a little bluish
band round it right under the top of the tiny mushroom
shaped head, and he felt if a penis could laugh, it would
laugh right now, cause the all of him was happy, and he
was happy he had so many friends, and he was happy that
he got practical jokes played on him, and took  `em like a
man, though he wasn't a man, and he was happy that he
got "the business" from the other boys who were stronger
and tougher than he, because they just laughed at him, and
that was all, and it didn't hurt anymore, because of the
miracle.

And Paddy came and his whole body went into a whoosh
of unload and his whole body streamed like a creek up in
the mountains on an autumn day, that God had sneezed
mightily on, and he wiggled his thin legs and he pretended
someone had something or other, he hadn't decided what,
just yet, up him. And his body was full of letters now that,
as he stroked the meshed football jersey, said "hello." And
he was a boy of hellos, he had finally figured it out today,
in the totality of it, and he lay in blue sky and he lay in soft
marshmallows and the wind was friendly and sweet and
said October is running out and Halloween is coming
close, and isn't it delicious what the hellos will be this
time?

 And he pushed his penis between his legs, still hard.  He
pushed his penis against his balls. And he pushed his dick
head, he had heard Timmy use that phrase, first time
Paddy had heard it, directly at him, then others used it for
him and for other boys and teachers and stuff, but Paddy
didn't mind, he let them, but it had been given personally
to him, and since he liked it, he took it home with him and
kept it with him like a little puppy..

..so they called him dick head and he pressed his dick head
to each of his legs, touching the slit of it to each leg and
he lay there with his heart beating out a nice tympana, and
he felt sweaty a little bit more, and he felt the hellos in his
body just go happily running up and down like little kids,
certainly littler than he, climbing up to swings and
swinging their feet high to the sky, and sliding down slides
of immense length and daring turns and curves and you
ain't seen nothin' yet. And if he was alone, Paddy had
decided, this morning at ten forty five while Mr. Roberts
was droning on about math and some such, then it was
because he had friends, and friends always said hello,
because they meant it, and gave a care if you were in this
world or not....how dumb he had been not to figure this
out already...

...and he loved being naked like this, in this crowd of
himself mirrors. He loved imagining Matty or Stew seeing
him like this and they would say hello and they would
mean it, because of course they had already said hello
before, and they had always meant it, and it didn't matter
if they said hello now, because in a little while he would
say hello to them, and they would be friends like they had
always been friends ever since they had said hello to him.

He looked down at himself and wished he could cum,
even on the bedspread, even if it did make Mom yell like it
did when Joe came on his own bedspread, because it
would mean he was doing it right, he was getting the right
stuff, like in the movie title, into him, but now it seemed
as though the hellos were coming out of his dick head, he
giggled and said the phrase, which always made him
giggle, it was such a nice present those nice boys had
given to him, and he looked at his penis still hard and held
it, coral pink, with the pink fingers of his left hand, and
looked so hard at it, that he could almost see white cloud
smoke signals coming from it, forming into the word hello
in the center of the air.

And he lay back and smiled goofily. And he lay back and
smiled happily. And he knew he was loved because Mom
loved him and he got neat phrases at school kids gave him
without making him pay for it, and he took them home
and they warmed him up when he went to sleep, and he
knew somewhere along the way, as he turned over on his
tummy and rubbed his tear drop shaped butt cheeks and
then in the crack itself, delicious giggle inserted here, that
words and people and things and seasons and days and
nights and comic books and horror movies and videos and
music from MTV and downloaded into IPods all meant
various things at the same time, and the thing to do was to
pick on one thing--not like he was made to feel warm and
friendly, for it was nice of them to notice him; some kids
never got noticed at all, and that saddened him
tremendously..

...and history and math and science and all his studies, you
hang onto one thing in the particular portion you are
reading hearing watching and that becomes the center
pole like in a big top circus that holds everything up, while
the lady in the white costume of sequins and heaven rides
around standing on bright white glittery gold horses, and
clowns do their laughs, and lion tamers tame lions in
cages, in the middle of all those roars and whip cracks,
right there in front of your eyes, there was no faking that,
and it was real and it was fun and that was how Paddy
was learning to see life...

...why he bet he was the only boy in the whole of Neblish,
NE. who had hellos coming out of his dick head, giggle,
and the hellos were like this:
H
E
L
L
O
S--right up to the ceiling...
...and sometimes they went across the room in happy little
puffs like from the smoke stack of a toy train HELLO
HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO and straight out the
opened window to comfort boys unluckier than he....he
hoped they had their tickets punched when the letters
arrived...it was a neat balancing act and Paddy was just
learning the ropes of that himself....

...and they meant what they said when they didn't mean
what they said at all, because that had always been the
trestle bending unexpectedly in Paddy's mind and he
would fall off it trip and fall badly down the mountain side
of his brain and if you've never fallen down the mountain
side of your brain, don't scoff at it, it hurts like hell...at
least it used to be that way..

...but hell was a curse word that got your mouth washed
out with soap, who was the sicko who devised that
punishment? Paddy often wondered, when he was getting
his mouth washed out with soap always for his own good
of course though it just made him sick and throw up and
his mom held his head when he did but she wouldn't stop
doing the thing that was for his own good, and if hell was
a curse word and had to be capitalized to boot, HELL
must have something sacred to it, like HEAVEN did, and
the Devil must be deserving of the same ardor as God,
they must all be the same?...you would think so anyway,
it's really the only way to look at it.

But if one thing meant the same, and different things
meant the same, then one thing could mean the utter
opposite and that could change your whole line of
thinking, and Paddy reviewed all he had learned, IS THIS
GOIN' TO BE ON THE TEST?, he laughed, as someone
in class always was a stupe and said that, and the answer
was always yes numskull and everybody would laugh and
Paddy would realize it was he who had said it, and he
would laugh too, cause laughter meant crying, and he
knew that now so he laughed a lot, he laughed a real
whole lot and it was true, laughter made him feel good
and he didn't feel like not laughing though sometimes it
gave him a headache.

And he stroked his little bluish almost not there nipples.
And he rocked himself on his tummy as though he was a
rocking horse and he felt his dick move up and down and
that was nice and made him feel really really
sexxxxxyyyyyyy. He wished he could be naked all the
time. He wished he didn't have to go into the living room
to make the calls. He wished he had a cell phone. But his
parents worked till late at night and there would be no
way anyone would catch him making the calls, and besides
it was giggly again to do something like this, which was
just saying hello, like his friends said hello to him, and
became his forever friends that way. Oh maybe they
wouldn't come to see him this Saturday and watch
cartoons, or maybe they wouldn't go ice skating with him
some winter weekend, or maybe they would not call him
up and ask how were tricks?, or maybe they would not
speak to him in school, but by not doing these things, by
never doing these things, they did these things.

Like mom often said to him, when he was blue, and he
thought of this as he tickled his penis and rubbed his balls
with his hand underneath his warm abdomen and drifted
off to restful sleep for a little while, all naked and all boy
and with friends to spare, his mother had said, he
remembered as he sleepily drifted off, they can't be with
you 24 hours a day, they can't be just your friends all the
time, you've got to get over being so selfish so much,
you've got to get over being the center of the world cause
you aren't that except in your own mind, and she would
sit on his bed with him at night and well, that was before
he learned that laughing meant crying and crying was for
the boids, and he was not a little boy anymore.

And now he dreamed that Matty and Stewy were with
him on the bed and they were all three naked, and they
were playing around and laughing and everybody was
giggling hello hello hello hello and the white smoky letters
in the air that were now big fat creamy marshmallows
spelled out HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO--and they
meant it, the letters and his two closest friends in the
whole world, except for the boy who gifted him
beribboned in a cheery Christmas box the phrase "dick
head" which he would wear till he was an old old man,
with the greatest of pride, and then the boys squeezed on
either side of him and grasped Paddy's penis and they
compared sizes, and  then Stewy, or maybe it was Matty
whispered something like..no not that..it would not fit
anymore..he could not stand that anymore..except from
himself..cause only Paddy knew what it really meant, and
then, forgetting that last part, Paddy woke up and wanked
yet again.

And felt good.

Then, courage betoked him, he got up and unlocked the
bedroom door, no need to lock it really, and he with some
fear looked out the space of the partly opened door and
then opened it some more and then stood there naked
vulnerable and so small and so confused and so alone but
he was not and he would not hear that from himself not
ever again and he walked as bravely as he could, feeling
slightly silly, to the phone on the other side of the living
room, on the stand in front of the full length mirror, and
he modeled himself in the mirror and got a hard on and
rubbed it and smiled dreamily and kissed each of his
shoulders, and took the jersey off, first time he had been
completely naked in this ritual since his brother left and
before his brother left there had been no ritual at all
anyway.

Paddy did not need the phone book. He picked up the
phone with his right hand. And with his left
hand--teachers had tried to make him right handed, as had
his mother, his father had always been somewhere else
pretty much all the time--he stroked his penis and looked
himself up and down in the mirror, and pressed the
buttons on the phone, and talked to Matty first. Then he
talked to Stew. Then he called. Jason. Then Terry. Then
Larry. And then, for it was Dave who had given him the
best phrase present yet, dick head, though he knew there
were more happy surprises waiting for him very soon, and
his dick throbbed in his hand in purple expectation, he
called Dave.

And to each of them, he said in a squeaky little girl voice,
not his real voice at all, so they'd never know it was him,
though lately he had had to say it fast or they hung up on
him--he phoned hello irregularly to them, so far they
hadn't picked up on a definite time pattern, but they knew
what it was about, the one second they thought about it,
as they gave him new phrases as gifts for his kindness in
remembering them, before they hung up in their carefree
manner, their own ha ha thank you way, because they
knew the miracle too, and the miracle was so simple; how
patient they had been in teaching it to him in their fashion..

..and he would never be alone again, though he seemed
alone, he was not, cause he had friends he could count on,
just as soon as he had figured it out, and as he said in the
hellos to his friends on the phone, then he raced his naked
flanks back to his bedroom and laughed himself silly and
masturbated yet again, remembering how smooth he was
with that love tap telephonic ritual, though he was sorry
they had to pay for the call.

Telling them in effect, I got it, and I will never forget you
for it, thank you. He reflected on tonight's remembrances
and put his arms round his chest and just felt so good and
perfect and loved, and went through each call again, and
how he had said it, what they had said, and the end of the
call, and pressing the buttons for his next friend, for how
warm they all were, and how caring and how considerate.
And he, undeservingly so, blushingly so, collecting their
thank yous in his brain like beautiful butterflies.

His hellos were said like this:
GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE.
GOOD BYE. GOOD BYE.

Sometime later, feeling the need not to be bare anymore,
he dressed and lay on the bed and he laughed himself to
sleep. He was in the Big Top again, sitting there with all
the other kids looking at the magic sawdust show
happening right before his wide eyes. He slept a long time.
Then he woke up and got himself something to eat.


Timothy Stillman
comewinter@earthlink.net