Coming Soon: The Day Charlie Lost His Weirdness

Chapter 1 - A dark day

Charlie Brindle was a weird kid, as most Brindle boys were. Charlie's father had been a weird kid, just as his father had been, and even his father before that. It was just a fact of life-Brindle boys were weird. Charlie Brindle, however, was the weirdest of them all, which made him feel very proud. He liked being weird. It was what made Charlie. . . well. . . Charlie. Unfortunately, that all changed one day when Charlie somehow lost his weirdness. Now, he knew he had it with him when he woke up on Monday morning and set off for school. He even remembered bringing it to the kitchen table that night when he had his favorite meal-chicken fingers and mashed potatoes. On Tuesday, he felt it with him as he carried out the trash after helping his mom clean up. Wednesday, however, felt a little vague to him, and Thursday and Friday were just a blur. By Sunday, though, he was sure it was missing; he just wasn't sure where it had gone.

Now to know what Charlie had lost, one must first understand what it was that made Charlie weird. The dictionary defines the word weird as: odd, \ unusual, \ magical-which Charlie was, and then some. It is not to be mistaken with the word, "Weirdo," which means: a person who is extraordinarily strange or eccentric. For Charlie was none of these. He was just a 12-yr-old boy who stood four feet-eight inches tall, and had pitch-black hair and deep brown eyes, who displayed a face that some would say portrayed gentleness. No, Charlie was not a weirdo, but there was no doubt his actions were a bit strange.

Take for instance the "odd" way he tied his shoes. Just as a mountain climber would secure his rope to a safety point, Charlie would tie the laces of his shoes as tight as he could. So tight, in fact, that even if a nuclear bomb went off, they would remain tied. One knot, two knots, then one more made three. He wouldn't have it any other way. His father had taught him the correct way to tie them of course, but Charlie had preferred his own twist, tying them for hours until he had it just right. He was proud of how they didn't budge an inch as he ran across the courtyard or when he jumped off the curb, or even when he raced his bike down the street. Come snow, rain or shine, they remain tied, and that was how he liked it. The next item that some would describe as "unusual," was the way he ate his dinner. With the precision of a chemist separating material for research, Charlie would divide each individual food group into perfect little piles. He would then proceed to eat each group one at a time, not moving to the next until he was done with the first. This particular oddity sometimes made for a very long dinner.

Nevertheless, the part of the definition of weird that best defined Charlie was "magical." Now Charlie's magic was not like that of a magician. No, he couldn't pull a rabbit from a hat, or saw a woman in half, at least without ruining her day; his magic was different than that. Unlike a magician's wave of the hand or mumbling of mystical words, Charlie instead used something more powerful-his heart. From the day he was born, his mother had known he had possessed the gift. All you had to do was to look deep into his eyes. There, one would see all the magic in the world reflecting back at them. For when Charlie looked at you, he only saw the good. Somehow, he managed to overlook everything else; having the special ability to disregard the things that we all wished weren't part of us: the anger, the hatred, the jealousy, they didn't exist in his world. That all began to change, though, with the predicament of Charlie losing his weirdness. Without the magic, Charlie was starting to see the truth. He was beginning to see the world as it really was.