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Where Has Matthew Gone?

"By Crispian Michaels"

It's been forty years since Matthew disappeared--forty agonizing years since that fateful day I saw him last. Living the biggest part of my life in guilt from my failure to protect him; afraid and uncertain of what I had witnessed. An unexpected and unexplained occurrence that forced me to make a decision. A decision I have regretted with every waking moment for the remainder of my life!

Yet while I stare at the town square of Gainesville, it remains much the same. The way it did when Matthew and I played there. It has weathered the forty years far better than I. Even the Court House remains standing as a testament to an era long past. A finely crafted three story building of huge marble blocks, laid upon each other with the precision of a sculptured statue. There's a concrete road encircling the Court House now-- widened for diagonal parking on both sides and a single one-way lane down the center. The bordering stores rub their exterior walls like an old western fort from the Indian era.
Yet the buildings remain the same except for the occasional replacement of a Barber Shop with a Styling Salon. And the bank supporting a modernized upgrade and drive-thru window, while the Western Auto Store displays its original appearance. Just the signage another twenty years faded, and the windows another twenty years dirty.
But as I wander the town square, I can almost hear Matthew's laughter and silly giggling. Almost see him dashing from behind a corner of the Court House playing his unique version of tag and hide-and-seek. Two games he could never quite figure the difference between-- while I sat on a park bench across the street watching him search. Wondering with a tinge of excitement before he would find me hiding in plain sight.
And Matthew, flipping his long bangs of blond hair from his eyes as he smiled when he did. His squeal of delight an immediate tip-off he saw me.
Maybe he wasn't quite right, or a retard like the school kids called him. Or just maybe they were jealous because he was so happy; always courting a smile and 'glad to see you' gleam in his eye. The way they weren't. But if that made him strange-- then what a wonderful way to be.

Matthew and I were more than just brothers sharing a common birthday, two years separated. We were bonded in a very special way. When he was in trouble-- I knew it. When he was hurt-- I ached from his pain. And when his devious mind was conjuring up some new plan that would get us in trouble-- I could deduce it from his eyes. Yet I always went along, sorry most of the times I did.

But the worst days of my life was when Matthew wanted to play in Smitters cornfield next to our property. Matthew wanted to clear an interior section of the pre-harvest cornfield and shape it after a fort he studied in school. I never gave it much thought until our fort ended up being thirty rows across, and ten more deep. It left a space in the middle of that cornfield the size of a small house. The chopped down stalks became our fuzzy, shag carpet.
Come harvest time, Old Man Smitters nearly had a stroke when he found our private fort. And so did Dad when Mr. Smitters paid him an angry visit. I never discovered how he knew who it was. But I often wondered which of the kids ratted us out.
When Dad visited our bedroom later that evening with his beet red face, he left my butt blistered. He said I knew better and should have tended more to my brother. He was so mad he was still shaking when he left. Matthew just hid under the covers quivering from the sounds of belt leather striking flesh and the screaming promises I would never do it again.

To this day-- forty years passed, I can still vividly recall what happened the following morning....
It was early, as Matthew stood in the front yard listening with intent ears. He wasn't moving a muscle.
"Can you hear it?--Can you hear it?" He kept calling as I neared.
"Hear what, Matt?"
"Water running!" he said--"There's water running out in the cornfield!"
Matthew was prone to creating fantasies, so I didn't give it much thought. I humored him.
"Sure I hear it Matt. So what?"
"Where's it coming from?" Matthew said, his voice excited.
That's when Matthew started out into the cornfield. I tried to talk him out of it. To stop him. Especially since Dad strictly forbid us from ever going out there again. But the field was harvested now, with the stalks hacked and tattered from Smitters combine. Then, a few rows in, Matthew pointed towards the center.
"There John!--Can you see it?" His finger aimed where the morning sun was sparkling off something. It glistened like a bed of diamonds. Matthew started to walk closer.
"No Matthew!" I cried out. "Remember what Dad said."
"He'll understand John" Matthew replied.
But I knew he wouldn't. Dad was never much for extenuating circumstances. Still, Matt continued on. He stopped about a quarter of the way in. Maybe it was the distance, but he seemed shorter, like he was shrinking.
He turned and yelled. "Come on John!--Somethings out here!"
But I didn't go. My memory still fresh from last nights thrashing. So I watched Matthew move further out. And further. Until suddenly he disappeared. Vanished like a puff of smoke into thin air.
Then quickly, the sparkling bed of diamonds that appeared only inches from him a moment before started to recede. Back it went-- towards the center of the field. Back!--Back! Until a roar of gushing water burst through the air and abruptly faded into a chilling silence. The water was gone--the diamond field was gone-- and Matthew was gone!
Under a shroud of doom, I raced towards the center of the cornfield screaming at the top of my lungs.
"Matthew!--Matthew!"
But there was only silence. And more silence. The further I went in, the heavier my shroud of doom intensified. Matthew was nowhere in sight! Nowhere.
Then totally alone in the center of Smitters cornfield, I started to cry. I searched through tear soaked eyes in every direction--praying he would jump up and the whole ordeal would be over. But Matthew was gone. He was really gone!....

Mom and Dad never believed a word of what happened. They swore up and down something horrific had occurred and I was covering up the truth.
The Police, the Detectives; never found a clue. It was as if Matthew had never been there! And My recollection was pushed off like a kid in shock covering up the truth to ease whatever horror he had witnessed. To protect his mind however he could.

My parents passed away that Winter. They died within a month of each other. Still begging me on their deathbed to explain what really happened. Their grief as great as the day Matthew disappeared. I tried so hard to make them believe my truth. But when the explanation remained the same they would never let me finish. The pain in their eyes cut my heart wide open.
And the gruesome memory of that day has never left. It never will. No matter who doubts my truth....

The next forty years passed slowly with my troubled thoughts constantly returning to Matthew and my Folks, until suddenly an overwhelming urge mandated I had to return to Gainesville. To immediately return to my childhood home I had tried so hard to forget. To return with that overwhelming sense of guilt that needed vindication. A cry of existence that screamed for absolution. I had to ease the burden in my mind. To discover the truth. Or at least try to understand it. So when I left that afternoon for the drive to Gainesville, it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And later, as I strolled the town square again, my thoughts filled with memories of Matthew.

Later that evening in Haney's Motel, I starred in the mirror at my reflection and the crows feet snuggled tight around my eyes; the wrinkles on my face stretched like a desert of sand dunes. I wondered just how much grief one human heart could bear. How much torture one mind could endure. I didn't sleep much that night.

The next morning couldn't come soon enough. The drive to the old homestead was almost hypnotic until eyeing the house saddened my already depressed mood. The wood was rotting and the interior had become a harbor for the rats and a mall for the wasps. Then walking into the backyard, the cornfield had been freshly cut again, just like the day Matthew disappeared.
Standing on the edge of the cornfield, soberly staring towards the center, I thought I heard water running; just as Matt did. Listening more intently, I stepped into the first row. Abruptly, a flickering diamond field shone from the center, exactly as it did with Matthew. Again, I could hear Matthew calling.
John!--Come here. John!"
His words echoed in the dead calm of the morning. I began to shake. And sweat. But I had to step out farther. I had to!
About a quarter of the way in, I stopped like Matthew did and looked behind. As if time reversed, the old house appeared as it did forty years prior. Freshly painted by Dad during the Summer. Then a ghostly image of a woman dashed by the kitchen window. She was wearing the print dress Mom loved so much. Dad's push mower was back in the yard-- next to the oak tree.
For just a second I forgot all the horrible years that had passed between but then quickly returned to the creepy, eerie sensation hanging over my head like a dark cloud. I didn't know what to do! I wanted to rush back to the yard, to race into the house and hug my Mom and Dad again. To bring them outside before anything could happen to Matthew.
"Come on John!" Matthew's raised voice called yanking me back. "It's only a little further."
I snapped my head away from the house-- towards the glistening center of the cornfield as water rushed quickly around my shoes. The dirt rapidly changed to mud. Yet ahead, towards the center of the field, I could see him. It was Matthew! He was smiling and grinning as he always did. There was no doubt it was him. But more than that, there was no evidence of him aging. He looked the same! Exactly as he did the day he disappeared. Like the passing years forgot him.
So when he waved for me to come, a chill of goosebumps clung tight to my flesh and my neck broke out with hives. The staggering realization it could not be him stung my mind like a sharp knife slicing a fingertip. It just couldn't be him!

But I had to move closer. I had to be sure this time.
Stepping towards him, the mud oozed over the tops of my shoes and started to climb towards my ankles. Each step became a measure of endurance as the mud fought to keep me still. But I forged ahead. My feet sinking deeper with each step.
Finally, about a hundred yards from the field of diamonds in the center, Matthew was standing--still smiling-- and he began to wave his right arm in eager anticipation.
"Come on John. Just a little further!"
The suction of the mud ripped the shoes from my feet. The socks next. The mud gripped my ankles like a dying man with a death grip. Yet I strained to pull each foot from behind. To take one more step.
"Hurry John!" Matthew's voice quivered-- different this time. An inflection I recognized as uneasy. One he used when he was nervous.
But I stopped again-- something was happening. From behind him, a huge gaping hole burst from the center of the diamond field and a swirling mass of light exploded into a whirlpool of spinning colors. The sky turned from brilliant sunshine to a horrific blackness that devoured the kaleidoscope spectacle of color. My vision distorted. My arms reached forward but appeared twisted and grotesque. As if my entire field of vision was warped, compressed, and then reassembled. That light itself was bent and misshapen. Suddenly, from behind me, the water started to recede. My feet became less and less embedded in the mud.
"Hurry John!--Hurry!" Matthew's cry tinged with regret.
Then disappeared into the whirlpool of color, the water roared back into the hole taking Matthew with it. Seconds later, the mud was gone-- the hole disappeared-- and Matthew was nowhere in sight.
Yet as everything returned to normal, I thought I heard a faint whisper dance on the fingertips of the breeze.
"See ya in forty John."
Matthew's words faded in a breath as my ravaged emotions escalated to deny all I had just witnessed. I walked to the center of Smitters field ,where again, not a single shred of evidence remained. Not even a dab of mud to convince me I wasn't insane.

For years I questioned every detail of that incident and in a selfish, insensitive way, almost envied the youth Matthew had retained. Yet my heart told me I should of hurried and ran to him that day. To have hugged Matthew as I did when we were children....

Until now, with the passing of forty more years, I am again standing at the edge of that cornfield. An old man whose skin has cracked like weathered leather. An old man about to die and fade away like the fleeting memories of the house he was raised in. Crumbled into a small pile of termite eaten wood. But I pray I will get another chance. Just one more opportunity.
"Matthew!" I cry out with tears rolling off my cheeks. "If you can hear me;-- please come back. Please. I will hurry this time."
A slight glimmer of diamond begins to appear in the center of the cornfield. I hear a faint calling.
"Come John.--I'm waiting."
And with that, I move quickly into the cornfield.....

The End