A Magic Moment

Photo By Chris Meadows

A Magic Moment

By John Atkinson

 

"Touch The Door, Johnnyboy!"

A picture taken in 2001 was magical. In the photo, I was sitting between two of my grade school teachers. One was 91, the other up in age. I hadn’t seen either of them since I dropped out of school at 14 as an illiterate. After 42 years we could see what drew us back together one last time. I’d just completed writing a novella, and they were proud of me. My teachers have gone on to the spirit world but I wish my fifth-grade teacher had been at that gathering. She read classics to our class, like “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. I connected with the sadness, the depth the writer entered to find the picture he wanted to share. I couldn’t read Poe’s writings but, through her voice, I felt the profound suffering of a man who worked with letters. I marveled over Poe’s poems, his heart and soul and would ask my teacher to read them again and again.

In the mid 1950s I was helping my father on a construction job on Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia. We were restoring pre-Civil War houses and needed a window sash that wasn’t manufactured any longer. We went to a salvage yard not far from Market Street to buy a window. Across Main Street was a little stone house with three dormers. My father was illiterate, too, but he knew Poe had once lived there. Because of my teacher reading Poe’s works, I got excited about the house. It was old and unusual, the only stone house around. Even I, who couldn’t read, understood why a writer would want to live there. No doubt the little house held magic. I had to touch it. Maybe Earth Maker would see that the magic would come to me and I could learn to read.

I headed across the street. My father, with no tolerance for foolishness, yelled at me to, “Stop at once!” But I picked up my gait and sprinted to Poe’s door. I knew I’d be punished but, no matter, I’d heard Poe’s Raven call in my head, “Touch the door, Johnnyboy and know my heart forever more.” With my father threatening to do me harm, I clasped the doorknob, twisted it with a snap and heard a familiar voice, my teacher’s, saying “…forevermore.” Poe’s spirit was stored in the stones of the little house. Electricity shot through my mind like a bolt of lightening. Did I have a dream, or was it just a magical moment? In the back of my mind I heard my teacher use an expression that could only come from one who love letters, “Oh, Johnnyboy, now you’ll never be the same. Nevermore, young Johnny. Nevermore!”

John Atkinson is the author of TIMEKEEPER, a magnificent book about a young boy who fights to overcome illiteracy. Timeekeeper, ISBN 978-0-9776076-5-5, is available in hardcover or paperback .To order your copy call 1-800-228-9316. International orders call: 00-1-831-238-7799 or visit: www.fisherkingpress.com