Chas woke up and immediately reached for his drawing pad. He quickly began sketching a picture, before the images in his mind faded.
Chas Turner was a typical teenager. He was sixteen years old and lived with his parents and his two younger sisters, in Dallas, Texas. Julie was thirteen and Mindy was six.
After Breakfast, while Chas was brushing his teeth, he heard someone go into his bedroom. He quietly approached the room, and he caught Julie looking at his drawings. “Get out of my room,” he shouted. “Mom told you to stay out of here. “Fine, I’m going,” said Julie.
After Julie left the room, Chas quickly hid the pad in his closet with the others and then ran downstairs to complain to his mother. “Mom, I caught Julie in my room again, going through my private things.”
Mrs. Turner gave Julie one of her ‘I’m fed up’ looks and said, “Give me your cell phone, Julie. When you do not follow the rules of this house, then you don’t get privileges.”
As Julie handed her cell phone to her mother, Mrs. Turner told her; “You’ll get this back in one month.”
“One month?” asked Julie, “That is so, not fair. I was just looking at Chas’s stupid drawings. He really draws some weird pictures. He is such a freak. No wonder the kids at school call him ‘Chas the spas.’”
“That’s enough, Julie,” said Mrs. Turner. “Do you want to try for two months?” Julie stomped up the stairs, to get ready for school.
Mrs. Turner was concerned that her son was having problems at school. “Is everything okay at school?” she asked Chas.
“Everything is just fine,” he replied unconvincingly.
“Why do the other kids call you that Name?” she asked, not letting it go.
Chas was embarrassed to be having the conversation with his mother, but he knew that she would keep bugging until he told her the truth. “A lot of kids at school think that I’m weird, because I am so smart, and have a photographic memory,” said Chas. “Then, to make things worse, I had a few clumsy moments at school a few weeks ago, where I tripped and dropped my books. It’s no big deal, Mom.” Then, he asked; “Can I get a lock for my door, so that I can have some privacy?”
“I’ll talk to your father about it tonight,” said his mother. “We’ll discuss it and I’ll let you know.”
That afternoon, after school, Chas was in his bedroom doing his homework when he overheard Julie talking to two of her friends in her room. She was telling them that her phone was taken away because of her stupid brother. Then, Julie told them about the strange pictures that Chas had drawn. “They are like science fiction, with aliens and other planets,” said Julie. “Sometimes, I think that Chas is from another planet. If he is, I’d wish he’d go back. He is such a pain.”
Chas was used to kids at school thinking that he was weird, but it hurt him more that his own sister thought so too. Chas took a huge stack of drawing pads from his secret hiding spot in his closet, and began leafing through them. They were all pictures that he had sketched from his dreams that he began having shortly after he turned fifteen. As he looked at the drawings, he felt calm and peaceful. The drawings were pictures of strange buildings, landscapes and people wearing unusual clothing. He could not figure where he had seen them before. Science fiction books and movies had always fascinated him, and he figured that the images must have come from his deep subconscious memories.
Suddenly, Chas was intrigued by what his sister had said to her friends. He decided to talk to his parents. Years earlier, they told him that he was adopted, and that if he ever wanted to find out about his past, they would help him in any way they could.
Mr. and Mrs. Turner were in the living room reading the newspaper, when Chas walked into the room. When Chas just stood there, his father asked, “Do you need something, Chas?”
Chas searched for the right words, and finally, he replied; “I need to know everything that you can tell me about my adoption.”
Both of his parents put down their newspapers and asked Chas to sit down. “Why the sudden interest?” asked his father.
“Does this have anything to do with Julie?” asked his mother.
“Yes, in a way,” said Chas, “but mainly, it’s about a feeling in the pit of my stomach, that there’s something missing in my life. I want to know who I am, and where I came from.” After a pause, he added; “And why my parents didn’t want me.”
“Well, there’s not a lot that we can tell you,” said Mrs. Turner. We adopted you when you were about four years old. The adoption agency told us that you were found abandoned in an empty field outside of town. You could not talk, so they had no way of knowing what happened or where your parents were. They suspected that something happened, that traumatized you and that’s why you wouldn’t or couldn’t talk.”
“When we first saw you, we fell in love with you immediately. We adopted you, and we are glad that we did. Julie was one year old at the time, and could not talk either, so both of you bonded immediately and you both learned to talk at the same time.”
“You never mentioned anything about your life before we adopted you,” said Mr. Turner, “So we decided that it was best if we left it alone. We did not want to force you to remember something that might bring back bad memories, so we just went forward and never looked back.”
“Could you take me back to that field?” asked Chas. “Maybe, it will trigger a memory”