FICTION
Every Zebra Wants to Run Free
Finding The Balance Between Autonomy and Commitment
Edward Magnolia sat quietly at a table in the dimly lit kitchen of his family’s mansion. Derrick, his son had finally departed with his wife Amanda to take her back to New York. He felt in his gut that this may have been the last time he would see his son and he couldn’t sleep. It was nearly midnight and he was struggling to put mayonnaise on another slice of white bread. Priscilla his cook, who could hear him from her room near the kitchen, came out to see what was going on.
“Mr Magnolia, are you hungry? I can make a sandwich.”
“I am not an invalid,” he answered.
“Why are you up so late?”
“I can’t sleep. I’ve had trouble sleeping for weeks now.”
“I know,” she spoke with anguish in her voice.
“He’s going to come back,” she told him. “He’s not going to stay away forever.”
“I was terrible his entire life, he has no reason to come back. I was terrible to everyone. I caused my beautiful wife to cry so many times. She’d go into her room and pray I would change. That boy showed me everything, every consequence of every moment of cruelty in my life and how this empire I thought I was building for my son was an empire of dirt. None of this will be left in the end.”
“You’re not the man who made those decisions anymore. We've all witnessed your transformation.” She paused. “Let me fix you something.”
She turned on the lights in the kitchen and went to the cabinet to find something to fix for him.
“I’ve been especially cruel to you the so many years.”
“I’ve forgiven you a long time ago for any cruelty you showed to me.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted this for him. He thinks I’m crazy now in a very different way.”
“I made a pecan pie. Would you like a slice?”
“I don’t want to put you through any trouble. Please go back to sleep.”
“It’s no trouble for me. I’ve known you for thirty years now. You’re family to me.”
“My wife always thought the world of you. We fought many times over the way I treated you. I’m sorry.”
“You have been given a special blessing, a chance to see the consequence of how we live, a small glimpse of judgment day. That can change a person.”
“So, you believe my crazy story about the boy?”
“We all believe your story. We’ve seen its consequence.”
“I don’t think my son believes me.”
“He is a lot like you. He’ll find his way. Let me get that piece of the pie.”
She went to the refrigerator and brought him a slice of pecan pie on a plate with a railroad train on its edges.
“Is this a message?” he asked, as she set the plate in front of him. “My wife bought those plates. I hated them. Thought she was trying to say I was a five-year-old boy playing with my toy trains on the floor. My dad took my trains away when I was seven. Told me it was time that I become a man. I wanted to be a little boy and play with my train, but he made me give it up.”
She smiled.
“You have your trains now, Mr Magnolia,” she responded, thinking of the huge train set that filled the house’s basement.
“Yea, I do.” He laughed. “I do have my trains.” He paused. “It was at a train trestle that this vision of my life came to me. I was on a horse called Destiny.”
“Destiny?” she responded.
“Yes, as ridiculous as it sounds the horse’s name was Destiny.”
“This boy has a sense of humour, whoever he is. I love him already.”
“I’m an old fool in senile dementia.” He took a bite of the pecan pie and savoured the blend of the slightly bitter pecans with the sweetness of the maple syrup and he remembered the pies his mother used to bake for him.
“I used to sit here at this same table when I was seven or eight years old and my mother would serve me her pecan pie. She couldn't bake, just didn’t have the gift. But she tried.” He paused. “It’s a pity she died so young.” He took a deep breath. “I became the man my daddy wanted and look what a mess I made of things.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, Mr Magnolia. You were a scoundrel and a tyrant and we forgave you.”
“I shouldn’t have been forgiven. Didn’t deserve the kindness of the people.”
“He’s coming back, Mr Magnolia. Your son is coming back. I know in my heart.” She placed her fist to her heart. “Give him time. Go outside, and take a walk. See our friend the zebra.”
He laughed. “What was I thinking when I bought that zebra? What in the hell am I going to do with a zebra?”
He began to cough for a few moments.
“Are you OK?” she asked him.
“I’m fine. I think I will go outside a few minutes and pay a visit to my zebra.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Priscilla asked him.
“No, go back to bed. I still have a little bit of life in me and there is a nice cool breeze outside.”
He pushed himself to his feet and stood rigidly a moment in front of the table.
“There’s one more thing I have to do before you go to bed.” He hesitated a moment. “I’m Sorry! I’m sorry for every terrible thing I said or did for the last 30 years! I will do whatever I can in the time I have left to make it up to you.”
“Thank you. But as I said before. I have forgiven you.”
He sighed a deep breath.
“I’m out to see the zebra?”
He walked out the rear door of the kitchen, taking slow careful steps, limping slightly on his left leg. He followed the rising path toward the field where he had put Derrick’s zebra. When he reached the wooden gate, he was a little winded, but he gathered his strength and opened the gate. The full moon shone brightly in the eastern sky and he looked carefully in all directions to see if he could find the zebra. When the zebra saw Edward standing at the gates, he began to run in circles counterclockwise around the fence line. Edward watched him run the perimeter a half dozen times.
“You’re so like us,” he said to himself, “running in circles, coming back to where we started, carrying is us both black and white, light and darkness, good and evil. We run and don’t even know why we’re running and do we ever realize we’re running in circles?”
Edward watched the zebra slowing down until he stood about ten yards away and then stood motionless just looking at Edward. Both of them seemed like statues, immovable, watching each other. The zebra came a little closer but seemed restless. Then without warning, he turned his head both left and right and ran away, back behind the shed in the centre of the field. Edward stood a moment in the moonlit field staring at the field in front of him. Then he turned around and prepared to open the gate. To his surprise, the zebra came right up close to him and nudged his right arm with his head, as if to announce his presence. Then the zebra ran back toward the shed. Edward turned around and opened the gate. He sighed a second time as he began the slow walk back to the house.
He was hopeful, just as the zebra had come back to him, that Derrick would soon return.