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Seven
The Balance of the Whole
Okay, so how did Angeline know all the things that she knew, the stuff she knew before she was born? Was she a genius? A freak? Those are each a kind of explanation. Here is another kind of explanation:
A pretty girl picks a flower. A bee returns to where the flower used to be, sees that it’s gone, gets mad, and stings a man with a red beard. The man with the red beard doesn’t look where he’s going and bumps into a lady in curlers holding two bags of groceries. The groceries fall all over the sidewalk and the man with the red beard and several friendly neighbors all help the lady in curlers pick everything up.
Angeline might see everybody picking up the groceries and say, “Look, a pretty girl with a flower.”
She was in balance with the whole.
The whole is everything and everything is part of the whole. Before everybody’s born they are in balance with the whole. After they’re born, most people lose their balance. Angeline didn’t.
In one of the smelly books that her father gave her, there was a question that the writer of the book seemed to consider a very important question: “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?” The writer said the question didn’t have an answer. The truth was that the writer just didn’t know the answer, but writers never like to admit that there is something they don’t know. Every question has an answer, otherwise it wouldn’t be a question.
Angeline knew the tree makes a sound. It is part of the whole. And everyone will eventually hear it in one way or another because everything affects everything else. You just have to know how to listen.
Angeline knew how to listen, not with just her ears but also her eyes, and nose, and mouth, and elbows,
and hair, and toenails, and knees too.
She stared at Mr. Bone’s saltwater fish. She hardly paid attention to the freshwater ones. Miss Turbone had gotten two kinds of saltwater fish, an angelfish and a rainbow fish. The rainbow fish was multicolored, like a rainbow. All the colors blended into one another so she couldn’t tell, for instance, where the red stopped and the blue began. The angelfish was a pale pinkish blue and looked soft and feathery.
“They remind me of the ocean,” Angeline said.
“Do you like the ocean?” asked Miss Turbone.
“I’ve never seen it,” said Angeline.
“Not even on television?” asked Gary.
“We don’t have a TV,” said Angeline.
“What about the beach?” asked Gary. “Haven’t you ever been to Mitchell Beach? It isn’t far.”
“No,” said Angeline as she watched the fish swim about their tank.
“We go there a lot,” said Gary. “How come your father has never taken you?”
“I don’t know,” said Angeline. “He just hasn’t.”
“Do you like the beach, Mr. Bone?” Gary asked.
Miss Turbone was still puzzled about how the fish could remind Angeline of the ocean if she’d never been there. “What? Oh, yes, I love the beach.”
“Me too,” said Gary.
“So do I,” said Angeline.
“Do you like to lie in the sun at the beach or go in the water?” Gary asked Miss Turbone.
“Both.”
“Do you wear a bikini?” he asked.
Miss Turbone laughed. “Sometimes.”
“Have you ever seen a whale at the beach, Mr. Bone?” Angeline asked.
