Franklin

Franklin was an unusual person since he was a child. A friend since grade school, he always had a starry gaze in his eyes, like everything around him astonished him, like a newborn fawn, even the most mundane and everyday events seemed new and curious. Usually left alone to his own accords, I approached him one day at school to ask him if he wanted to play and he bobbed his head slightly, followed me to the playground, and started what was a quirky friendship from the start.

We remained friends all throughout elementary school, went to different junior high schools, and met once again in high school. We often ate lunch together. He would bring a sacked lunch which often came with a note scribbled in multiple languages. A mix of European, Asiatic, even random symbols, I always just peeked at the notes, never asked much about them. It seemed like a forbidden topic. Or that may have just been me. Looking back, I probably always wanted to keep the mysterious air around him as long as I could. I did not want my own meddling to change his behavior. The relationship remained almost one based my curiosity on his strange behavior.

He was often absent from school, sometimes taking only a day off, sometimes taking entire weeks, eventually coming back like a gossamer aberration that flicked in and out of existence. Most people did not pay too much notice. Or they did, but were completely apathetic or fearful of pushing the issue. His mother would come by the school to pick up schoolwork for him, giving the teachers a notice that he might be out of school again. The teachers did not seem to mind it too much, as he seemed to do meticulous work on all his assignments. He also showed no sign of physical abuse, and, despite his peculiar behavior, showed no sign of mental distress. He was just a weird, quiet kid. I always wondered what happened to him during those days or weeks he was gone.

During our junior year, I was called to the principals office. The principal, a plump woman with an authoritative demeanor, sat me down and told me the situation. “Franklin's mother called saying she could not come by to pick up the schoolwork he needed to do. She wondered if he had any friends who could deliver the assignments to their house. Most of the teachers have said you're practically the only person whose around him when he is at school. So we would like you to go drop off the schoolwork.” I pondered the situation, weighing my options. I was definitely interested in seeing where Franklin lived, but the act of going conflicted with my own restriction to be as noninvasive as possible. But my curiosity ended up getting the best of me. I answered cheerfully, “Sure, I will be glad to. But I actually don't know his address.” “No problem, we have his address on file and his mother gave us the approval to provide it.” And just like that, I was set to visit Franklin at his house for the first time.

I found that Franklin's house was not too far from school. He apparently lived in a quaint 2 story house with a picturesque green front yard. Dotting it were some saplings that I could not identify. It was quite unsettling considering how normal his house looked but how eccentric he was. I walked up and I rang the door bell.

A flutter of footsteps tumbled towards the door. Opening the door was Franklin's mother. A tall woman with silky black hair and bright brown eyes, she either had Franklin when she was very young or she hid her age very well. She was in a flowery white summer dress which showed her slender figure. I slightly blushed since I was struck by her beauty. “You must be Franklin's friend. The school had contacted me about you. Please come in.” She moved aside to let me in. “If you don't mind, please take off your shoes” she instructed me as she delicately closed the door with both her hands. I took off my sneakers and I saw a maple shoerack in the doorway. I put my shoes away, as it seemed to be the protocol.

“Franklin is upstairs and will be down later on, so if you would like to see him, you can wait in the living room.” She stretched her arm out towards the open room from the doorway. Not knowing what to say to her, I quietly said “thank you” and walked in the direction her arm steered me towards, and she followed suit. “Make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink? We have juice, some sodas, maybe some tea?” “Some tea would be nice, if it would alright” I replied. She walked through a doorway covered in long threads of beads into a modern looking kitchen, covered in shiny stainless steel. She came back quickly with a teapot, some lemon slices, a bowl of sugar cubes, and two sets of teacups. Sitting down on a sofa perpendicular to where I was sitting, she set the teapot down on the coffee table, made of thick, opaque glass, and poured out the tea. “Put sugar in it as much as you like. There are some lemons here also.” Her voice was gentle and kind. Even after coming into Franklin's house and receiving tea, I was still struck by Franklin's mother. I grabbed the tea cup daintly in my fingers to find a proper response. Again, words only could sputter out of my mouth. “Thank you” I sloppily said, as I silenced myself with the tea. The tea's fragrance and bittersweet taste filled my mouth, still hot. I did not mind.

“I must thank you. I do know that Franklin does not have many friends. He has mentioned you before though. He speaks very kindly of you.” She smiled sweetly as she sipped her own cup of tea. I was not quite sure what to say at the moment. I probably should have just praised Franklin. But I sat there drinking the tea. After a moment passed, she set down her teacup and poignantly asked me “What do you find interesting about him?”

The question affected me a lot more than I realized it might. I never revealed to another person why I enjoyed Franklin's company at school. I definitely had the ideas but I never formed the literal words about it before. I set down my own teacup. I thought for a good five seconds, which Franklin's mother waited through patiently. I answered the only reasonable answer I had: “He is a curious individual. I want to know more about him.”

Her gaze sharpened as she looked me over. It seemed as though she was analyzing me, reading my physical appearance. After a while, her eyes softened and she lied more comfortably on her seat. “Would you like to know more about him?” she asked me, her eyes fixed on mine. I answered with a terse “yes.”

Her head rolled back slightly, as she closed her eyes. She seemed to be deep in thought. She lifted her head back and opened her eyes. “Very well, ask me anything you like, I'll try to answer as fully as I can.”

I was amazed at the sincere offer in front of me. Here was an opportunity to finally know the forces behind Franklin's curious behavior. But do I dare open the schrodinger box? I risked losing the mystery that I loved about Franklin, but once again, my curiosity got the better hold of me. “Why is he absent so often? And what is the deal with those notes in his bag?” The mother pursed her lips into a small grin, which I found slightly off. She then began to tell me all about Franklin, more than I wanted to know.

I slowly crept up to Franklin's room at his mother's insistence. I could not believe the unbelievable story she had told me, so she allowed me to verify her story with my own eyes. She simply made me promise and took my word that I would not try to disturb what Franklin was doing, but that he would come down on his own accord soon enough. I passed a decadent wooden corridor lined with shelves filled with trinkets and strange objects from many different parts of the world. I passed two doors before I came upon the last door at the end of the hall, a big wooden door, painted white with no indication of what was inside. I heard some murmuring inside and I falsely wondered to myself if Franklin had some other guests over or if he had the radio on. The normality of the door definitely did not help me prepare for what I was to see inside.

As I jarred the door open slightly, it made no sound, the door made to give no indication to those inside of outside presence. As I scanned the room, the walls were adorned with books, ceiling to floor some new and still wrapped in plastic, some incredibly archaic and dusty, the types of books you would expect in the basement of a castle. In the back, a computer with a wide flat screen sat at an ornate, Victorian style table, both a little too anachronistic for each other. Finally, to the right was a bed wrapped in light blue sheets, with Franklin on top.

His hands splayed wide across the bed, his head staring directly at the ceiling. From the door, I thought that he was babbling nonsensically, perhaps just talking in his sleep. But as I walked closer to him, I noticed that what he was babbling was some sort of Spanish. As I closed in on him, he started speaking Chinese. Next to his bed, I sat on the floor, staring incredulously at the phenomenon I was witnessing. Franklin eyes were wide open as he spoke in several voices, all in different languages. He went through them in different paces, with his face displaying a wide array of emotions I had never seen on Franklin's face. He was surprisingly very expressive, his big eyes showing an incredible amount of passion with his speeches. Every time he briefly stopped before he switched languages, he would blink.

I sat there, looking befuddled, not sure what to make of the situation. I observed Franklin quietly and with great intensity for I don't know how long, as I had lost my sense of time in the room. I noticed that his eyes, after each blink, would shift colors, which corresponded with whatever language he was speaking at the time. There seemed to be about six different languages Franklin was capable of, all of them with different personalities. Sometimes, Franklin would be shouting, sometimes he would be singing. He sometimes talked in a methodical way. But during this whole ordeal, his body did not move.

After listening to Franklin and unable to decipher any part of the conversation, I walked out of the room quickly and I went down the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room where Franklin's mother was waiting. I sat down on my spot on the couch and, struck by what I had just seen, I put my head in my hands.

Franklin, his mother had explained to me before, was a vessel to hold the spirits of several men from the past, all of them some sort of intellectuals or scholars. They had passed themselves off to Franklin from their previous host, who was Franklin's father, who were passed their souls from his father, and so on, since the beginning of time. Franklin's own free will, was slightly maintained, but he shared his body with several others. They came alive when Franklin was at home and in bed, often having arguments and debates about the world amongst themselves. They could control Franklin to some extent in his awake form, but largely used his body to observe the outside world. While they did not interfere with Franklin in the public life, Franklin apparently agreed to be largely an observer of the world around him for them, more interested in the discussions they had within himself.

I sat with my head in my hands for a while. I looked back up to see Franklin's mother, who had not moved at all. I asked her incisively, “Why?” She did not answer for a while. She stood up and walked around the coffee table and got in front of me. Putting out her hand, she said, “Please, stand.” I stood as she instructed and took her hand. We walked to across the living room and went deeper into the house. We stopped at a door, just like the one in front of Franklin's room. “Open it” she said gently. I did. The door creaked incessantly until it swung completely open. Franklin's mother clicked the lights on from the side. Inside the room were piles and piles of papers, books, and drawings. They seemed to span the ages, with papyrus, wax paper, and computer paper filed in the same shelves next to each other. “These are the works of those men, who refused to see their own deaths discontinue their life works. They have produced some of the greatest works in the world, which have been passed onto others who take the credit.” I stood their completely stupefied. Franklin's mother, perhaps noticing how overwhelming all this was for me, turned off the lights and led me away, closing the door as we walked back. “Do not worry for Franklin, he is fine. He is privileged to share a lifetime with some of the best minds the world has ever known.”

Soon we were at the door. She grabbed my shoes and put them down for me to wear. “Why did you let me know and see all this? How do you know I won't tell anybody about this? Won't me telling the world about Franklin ruin them?” I questioned abrasively. Franklin's mother just smiled back at me. “You must know because you're one of the only friends the real Franklin has. And you won't tell because you realize how awe-inspiring and grand this is, for both Franklin and the world.” And with that, she opened the door and led me out. I stared at Franklin's mother, then into the house, then up towards where the stairs and Franklin's room were. Then I stared back at Franklin's mother. She stood there with a gaze in her eyes that reminded me of Franklin's. After a moment, I turned around and started to walk away. “Come back again. I'm sure they would love to speak to you someday.” she said to me as I headed away from the house. I looked back once more at the house, before I went straight back home.