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June 24th, 1971
Stories that start at the end try everything they can in their hand to try to trick you—to sweep you under their preconceptions. I know you must be so confused, little one. It is unfair to start you with anything but the very beginning. Let me start by telling you that the monster is very real, but, you can choose to keep listening or you can stop this tape and choose to fear the monster outside. Once our time is through you will know who the true monster is.
Let us begin.
1971, the fifth birthday of a young brown haired boy just like yourself—only a year younger than you now, right? The boy's name was Larry George—Lawrence is what was written on his birth certificate—but only one person ever called him Lawrence and that was his mother, Theresa. She only called him that whenever he neglected to do his homework in school—an issue which we'll touch on soon enough. But for now we need to start back at the beginning.
Larry lived in Greenbush, New York with his older sister, Heather, twin brother, Steven, and his parents, Theresa and Gilbert. They were a moderately sized family for their time, but such came at a price. The family lived in a very small home on the west end of the suburb—the impoverished part of town. Presents for birthdays were very...modest to put it lightly. "It's the thought that counts" was a lesson that the George children learned early on.
On Steven and Larry's fifth birthday (that was how they were referred to early in their life, always Steven and Larry) they each received a present from their father. Steven would receive a baseball and a ratty glove that had looked like it had been fished out of the dumpster—however it still looked usable. Larry, on the other hand, got a cassette player and an old tape with the label rubbed off.
Now wait! You may be saying, I'm listening to a ratty old cassette player with a tape that has the label rubbed off! Well, congratulations for putting two and two together, I wrote that line especially for you, but I can assure you the tape you are listening to and the tape Larry received on his birthday back in 1971 are two wholly different tapes. Don't believe me? The tape Larry had is long gone, nobody knows where it is now. (Do you hear that? It's me being witty. I know perfectly well where the tape is, but we're going off on a tangent now...)
Steven and Larry thanked their father and Theresa silently scolded her husband.
"It's the thought that counts, dear," Gilbert George told his wife, looking down at his children, smiling through his bushy brown mustache. Steven had always wanted to grow a mustache—he admired his father and anything that would put him closer to his level was something he wanted. Larry, on the other hand, didn't care much for facial hair. His interest laid squarely on the little black box in his hands.
Later that night after the special day was celebrated Larry would finally get the chance to listen to his new tape. He cuddled up cozy in his bed—directly opposite of Steven's in their room. He look over at his brother, playing one handed catch with his ball and glove before sliding the old pair of headphones over his head and clicking PLAY. Silence filled Larry's ears for the first ten seconds, and just before he was about to press STOP, a voice spoke out to him.
"hello?"
Larry's eyes ballooned wide as the voice, little more than a whisper called out to him. There...there was no way a person was talking to him on the other line, right? No, unless...what if he was stuck inside? Like a bug or...what if it was a ghost? Millions of possibilities sped through Larry's mind. As soon as he settled on one possibility another one came to replace it. What even was he supposed to do in this situation?
"H...Hello?" Larry asked out loud.
Steven turned to face Larry, a confused look on his face. "What?"
"No, I didn't mean you," Larry said. I was talking to...uh…"
"Talking to who? Got an imaginary friend?"
"I...think?" Larry said, equally confused.
"Huh, that's cool," Steven said, and was instantly bored of the topic.
"there is no need to speak out loud. i can hear you just fine from in here," said the voice. It had an airy quality like it were uttered by a spirit of the wind. "i am here for a very important purpose. i am here to be your guide."
"Guide?" Larry thought, looking back out to Steven to judge if the sound was spilling out from his headphones. It still sounded so surreal that he were talking to someone trapped inside his tape. Steven, lost in his own world, surely wasn't making any sounds. He would pull a prank like this, but he really isn't doing it. He pulled the blanket over his knees and crawls into the darkness. "Who are you?"
"i am not sure. i just know that i am supposed to be a guide. will you help me? can i help you?"
"Help me? I don't think I need help," Larry thought back to the voice. And then he thought on it more. Was there anything he needed help with? He closed his eyes and thought up to the starry sky, and he knew sometimes that his mom and dad were sad. They never told the boys what they were sad about, but sometimes he saw the looks when they tried to hide them. He wasn't sure what they were so sad over.
"Are you a friend?"
"i want to be. i want to help."
"Okay. I'll be your friend. I guess I could use some help. What do I have to do?" Larry thought that it was odd at first, but came to understand that this must have been the reason his father had given him this present. Maybe...this was his father's way of telling him that he and his mom were sad?
Like an offering to help them out...but if that were the case, why couldn't they speak to the guide and help themselves? It wasn't that he wouldn't do it, he was just confused on a great many things. Fortunately, since Larry was only five years old, those concerns lasted the entirety of twelve seconds.
When he was downstairs he was initially jealous of Steven's present. He thought it was a lot more practical. You could do a lot of things with a ball and glove—lots of outside activities could be played with a ball and a glove. By comparison, the cassette player seemed...dull. But now, just like the concerns that bore over him, those feelings washed away as if they had never existed. He can play ball all he wants, but he didn't get a friend for his birthday.
"i need just one thing, i need to make a bond. i don't want to lose you."
"Why would you lose me?"
"i'm scared. i had a friend once before and i lost them. it makes me so sad."
"Well, I don't want to lose you either. What do I need to do?"
"i want to know your name. once i know your name i'll tell you mine and then we'll be all set."
That was it? Larry was almost scared over the word bond. In truth he hadn't known what it meant. It almost sounded scary. But if they were just exchanging names, then he'd definitely want to bond with other kids as well.
"Oh, well my name's Larry."
"larry. do you accept me as your friend—your guide to life?"
"Uh, sure. What's your name?"
"call me kappy."
"Kappy? All right, that's a bit of a strange name. I like it, though! Reminds me of a baseball cap."
"there's one more thing, larry, that i need to ask of you."
Larry struck up another confused look. He looked around his mini-blanket fort, waiting for the rumbling sounds of the cars outside to cease. They were always so loud. I wish mom could just go turn them off.
"What is that?"
"i need you to listen to my advice. if i'm going to be your guide, that comes with giving advice. sound fair?"
"Yeah, sounds fair to me."
"good. the first piece of advice is to get some sleep, nothing good comes from staying up all night."
"Aww...but it's not even all that late, and the cars outside are still so loud."
"larry, the cars outside will not bother you once you fall asleep. i promise you that. it will be very…" Kappy seemed to hesitate on the word choice. "you need to be able to listen when i give you advice. i am only looking out for what is best for you."
"...but if I sleep early I'm not going to get to talk to you until tomorrow."
"i am going to be going to sleep too, larry, so even if you did stay up i would not be up to talk. i highly recommend going to sleep, larry."
Larry heaved a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. He knew that if he wanted to help his parents he'd have to listen. He hoped his dad would be proud that he was going to bed early. Maybe he can ask if they can go get ice cream since he's being so good.
"Okay, Kappy. I'll do it."
"good night, larry."
Larry slid the headphones off of his head and shuffled the entire ensemble to the small wooden table beside his bed. He slipped his tiny head out from underneath the blankets and turned to his side, slowly letting the rhythms of his breath take his mind away. It took a little effort to focus his mind away from the cars outside.
The truth was there was no posted speed limit outside, so the drivers of his suburb tended to let loose with how fast they went down the street. Unbeknownst to Larry his parents have petitioned the town hall to post a sign to slow down the traffic nearby. Unfortunately, their requests have been thus ignored, as city council have doubts over the actual effect a sign would pose for their road, specifically.
Back in Larry's bed, his eyes closed shut and his breaths got heavier. As his train of thought changed tracks to his unconscious mind he started to see a sprawling environment construct itself before his eyes. On both ends he saw the world originate one patch of grass at a time. Large cows bigger than the trees nearby trotted and sheep of various colors flew in from above.
Stars lit the sky above him even though it was a bright and sunny day. One in particular shone brighter than any sun, and it seemed to streak faster than any shooting star. It came closer, closer, and even closer still until Larry could construct a telescope with his hands to see the glowing marvel up close.
At the end of the track lay a single house that reminded him of a television show he had seen a few days prior. He wasn't sure what the name of the program was, but something about the house felt familiar. It felt like home.
It was nice.
Larry woke up before Steven did the next morning. The sun was only barely in the sky. Larry thought it was the first time he was up this early and wasn't absolutely exhausted. He slowly turned to take in how his room looked in the low-light. This was...weird. He kind of liked it. It was so interesting to see everything so early.
He looked over to Steven's bed and saw his brother sleeping soundly. It was such a weird sight he had to laugh. Steven had his baseball glove around his hand and over his heart. It rose slowly and fell just as much.
He then turned to his bedside table and grabbed the headphones and pulled them over his ears. "Kappy! Are you there?" He asked without speaking.
"hello larry. good morning. how was your sleep?"
"I slept really nice! You were right about going to sleep early, I had the coolest dream!"
"oh?"
"It was this big field with all these farm animals! It sounded like all those stories that my Dad tells me about. Oh, and then they started glowing all these cool colors."
"farm...animals?"
"Yeah, they're these cool things called cows and sheeps! And then at the end of the track...oh, we were on a train...uh, I guess you weren't there, so I was on a train. And we made it to this big old house at the end of the tracks."
"..."
"Kappy?"
"its nothing. anyway, we should talk about my next piece of advice."
"What would that be, Kappy?"
"respect your parents. this next piece of advice entails you to do an action i ask of you, which in this case would be to go downstairs and thank your parents for your birthday present."
"Thank them? But I already did that yesterday!"
"yes, but everyone thanks their parents for their present on their birthday. very few show their thanks afterward, and keeping a healthy relationship with your parents is very important."
"relation...ship? What kind of boat is that? We don't have a boat," Larry replied, out loud.
"What are you talking about?" Steven sat up in his bed.
Larry almost jumped as he looked out toward Steven who was now turned toward him. "Wh...What?"
"You were talking. Who were you talking to? Oh," he said, remembering. "Your imaginary friend, right? What's his name, anyway?"
"Oh, uh, sorry." Larry said, embarrassed. "His name is Kappy."
"Kappy, huh? Why's he named that?" Steven turned around in his bed to face Larry.
"i'm afraid that the others won't understand me, larry. they can't hear my voice like you can."
"What? What do you mean?" Larry asked in his mind.
"Larry?" asked Steven, "You're just staring."
Larry shook his head and slid the headphones off onto the blanket. He rubbed his temples where the faint signs of a headache crept in. "Too many voices speaking at once," he said.
"Too many voices?" Steven sat up and rubbed his eyes with balled fists. "Is he talking real loud?"
"No," Larry shook his head. "You were just talking at the same time. It was really confusing."
"You know you don't actually hear your imaginary friend, Larry," Steven said. "That's why he's imaginary."
"Well, I do."
Larry swung his legs over the edge of the bed, bounced up and ran over to Steven's bed. "Here, put this over your ears and talk to Kappy. You'll understand what I mean. Oh! But you talk in your mind, not out loud, that was what I was saying earlier, I messed up."
Steven's brow furrowed a confused look toward his brother for a moment but then placed the headphones over his ears. "I thought these things played music," he said as he closed his eyes. After a few seconds he bobbed his head.
"What's he saying?" Larry asked, scratching his head.
Steven kept bobbing his head, opens an eye, "Oh, you could have told me you were listening to the singer. I didn't know his name was Kappy, though. He sounds like that guy that Dad plays downstairs."
"What? But there isn't any music, it is Kappy...oh, I guess that's what he meant when he said nobody else would hear him."
Steven shook his head, handing the headphones back over to Larry. "Now you're just talking weird. I'm gonna go down and have breakfast, you wanna come and play catch after?"
Larry held the cassette close to his chest, shaking his head. "No, I'm going to go thank Mom and Dad for my present."
Steven puckered his lips and turned his head to one side, "Why's that? We already thanked them yesterday."
He shrugged his shoulders, "Kappy said that it was good to thank your parents. I dunno."
"Okay, well after?"
"Maybe." Larry said.
Steven stepped out of his bed and traveled down the stairs, leaving Larry still sitting on the bed. He slowly put the headphones over his ears and thought out to Kappy, "Why is it he couldn't hear you?"
"i tried to tell you before you took the headphones off. i can only be heard by my friends. we have a bond, so you can hear me."
"But I could hear you before we had a bond," Larry argued. "What about then?"
"sometimes, life works in mysterious ways, and sometimes we don't have all the answers. i don't really know much. i do know that i just had to..."
"Had to...what?" Larry asked.
"i just had to ask you to be my friend. i had doubts about asking...i was nervous you wouldn't like me. but then...today when you told me about your dream...that's when i knew that we would be good friends."
"Why's that?"
"...nobody's ever told me their dream before. i thought it was really special."
Larry smiled, feeling a warm feeling inside of his chest. "Well, thank you, Kappy. You're really nice. I'm happy to be your friend."
"you're very welcome, larry. now, go on and enjoy your day, and don't forget what i told you."
Larry nodded as he took off the headphones and wrapped the cord around the cassette player and placed it down onto the table beside his bed. Turning, he stepped out of his room into the narrow hallway—it could only fit a Larry and a half across, so whenever someone would be passing through the hallway as him he'd have to scrunch up against the wall as if he were made of paper. Part of it made him laugh, he often imagined that he were made of paper.
Larry would feel that feeling a lot later in life, but he'd seldom draw it back to this hallway as its origin point. I'm only pointing it out so that you, listener, may revel in knowing that all things are related—start to finish—beginning to end—middle to beginning.
Everything we do—have done—will do—began at one point as something that someone else had done. We live our lives as creatures who interact with our world around us—pebbles being tossed into a riverside, never truly knowing where we're going to land. Of course, we aren't being tossed into our own separate rivers, we're tossed—skipped sometimes, even, into one communal riverside that continually moves forward.
Always forward.
Each toss created a tiny ripple which spiraled outward, and when many pebbles are tossed in, each ripple has that much chance to change how the others react inside the water. That river was our very existence, everything we knew. Imagining outside of what we know as the forest in which that river resides, almost a million acres of everything that we do not know. Multiply that by ten for the entire country resides in, for every planet that country exists on, for every galaxy that planet orbits in. What we know as that tiny river now seems microscopic. Larry would never grasp the concept of how small he was in comparison to the rest of the galaxy, nor would he tell his mother that his feeling like paper was similar to feeling small in the universe.
Larry instead walked downstairs to his mother already having made breakfast, taking her moment of solace before the day fully began. She would soon go to work in the local laundromat—Gilbert had already left at the break of dawn to collect trash. Larry reached the bottom of the stairs and saw his mother sitting in her chair—a purple floral design imprinted all throughout the peach color. "Hey Mommy, good morning!" Larry smiled as he passed by..
She looked down to her son and smiled—the kind of smile that made her bright eyes gleam, "Good morning Lare-Bear. You seem excited."
He smiles and nods his head, "I really wanted to come down and thank you for my present again. Can you tell Dad that I said thanks, too?"
She has a surprised sort of look that she quickly masked and nodded, "Oh...of course." She looked happy, almost as a weight was lifted off of her shoulders. Larry liked that look.
"And thank you also for all my old presents. I know I didn't say it too much, but thank you."
Her smile grew bigger, "Why, that is very nice of you, dear. You've just gone and made my day," she chuckled. "Thank you very much, Larry."
He smiled as he went to the kitchen to join his brother for breakfast. Who would have thought that Kappy would have been right about that? He didn't at first, he thought it was a bit silly, but now he thinks he understood. This feeling inside of him was worth the initial confusion, and he wanted to feel it more often. He would listen to Kappy more often.
Larry and Steven both headed outside after breakfast has finished. Steven grabbed his baseball glove. The sun climbs its way up toward the peak in the sky—the day was only just beginning. The two boys stood at each end of their front yard—a small space that seemed much larger a year ago—that in fact was larger a year ago before a section of their front yard was reclaimed by the state and added to the street in which they had lived on. Now, the grass only stretched out a few feet before the pavement cut it off. Steven turned to Larry and tossed the ball into the glove and imitated the motions of chewing gum. "So, you ready to try and catch it?"
"I don't have a glove like yours is, though. I don't know if I can catch it."
"Sure you can! Just hold out your hands like this," He made the motion with the glove and nodded for Larry to repeat.
"I don't know...I'll try."
Steven took in a deep breath and threw the ball to Larry. He flinched as the ball beaned him in the stomach. "Ow!" He called out, rubbing his stomach. "That really hurt."
"Oh, come on. Here, throw the ball back to me and we can try it again."
"Can I try with the glove?"
"It's my glove." Steven held it close to his chest, protectively.
Larry sighed and shook his head, stepping forward and bending down to grab the ball by his foot.
"Okay, here you go," Larry lobbed the ball underhanded as it flew into the air.
"No! You have to throw overhanded! That's how the pros do it!"
"I don't want to be a pro," Larry said.
Steven stuck out his tongue as he attempted to mimic the signature pitching pose and he threw the ball, faster than the first time. Larry tried to catch the ball—he made contact at the very least—but the ball slammed his hand and he screamed out and shook it to distract him from the pain. "OWWWWWWWW!" Hot tears streamed down his face as he turned toward the door. "This is why I didn't want to play!" He ran up toward his room and shut his door, throwing himself on his bed. His bedroom light flickered as the slam shook the room. He didn't care, he was focused on the big red welt on the side of his hand—it burned with a stinging pain that he had to inhale sharply to help alleviate the sensation.
With his other hand he grabbed for the cassette player on his bedside table and placed the headphones on. "Kappy...are you there?" Larry asked.
"of course, larry. what is wrong?"
"I'm no good at sports. I never have been and it always hurts! Steven's way better than me and he's always gonna be better than me!"
"sometimes people are better than you at other things."
"That isn't fair! Steven's better at sports and Heather's so much smarter than I am!"
"heather?"
"My older sister. She's already in the second grade, but she's so smart. I don't think I'll ever be as smart as she is," Larry teared up even more, it streaked down his face. "It just isn't fair."
"larry, i am sorry it has caused you to be sad, but you are going to have to accept that your siblings are better than you at some things, but not everything. there will be things that you are better at, too."
"Really?" He wiped his tear with his sleeve.
"of course."
"Like what?"
"i do not have the answer for you yet. that will come in time i am most certain. i can however help you find the answer when the time is right."
Larry nodded and laid his head back against his pillow. "Thank you, Kappy. That means a lot to me."
"you're welcome, larry."