Jay Saurusing!

Charlie sends me a lot of worried texts when I’m out walking, until I finally have to turn my phone off because there’s only so many ways you can say you’re fine and I’m totally Jaycumber cool fine, like a Jay! Because that’s my name, and it’s kind of what I am sometimes. The thing about an adventure that Charlie doesn’t get is really simple: if you know what’s going to happen, it’s not an adventure – and definitely not an adventure! So I go all a-wandering like anyone can, and totally wait to find out what happens.

(I almost said I’d see what happens, but I can’t see. I can sense bindings and I learn a lot from that. Plus I’m really tough and can be fast but that makes is hard to sense bindings as well – like, I can run fast as a Jay but I sometimes get hit by cars because I don’t sense them quick enough when they bind to me even if I do hear the horns go off and Charlie says it’s pretty mean to scare humans into thinking they hit a normal eleven year old boy when really they can’t hurt me with just a small car. Which was all a huge and long way of saying I’m not human even if I look human but! I’m totally cute and a Jayboss :))

The city is pretty big but I like walking because cities are full of lots of near sounds and smells. I miss not being able to see but Honcho promised he and Dana would fix me all up so I’m all waiting on that and on Honcho travelling with Charlie and me again and not being sad when I don’t want to be, which is most of the time. A few people ask if I’m OK because I kind of wander into not-safe streets but I say I’m find even if I have to bind a couple of them into believing me because they are pretty concerned about a human child on their own.

One old lady tells me that white kids shouldn’t be on a street and I’m confused about that because I’m not a vampire (which is a really long story but a true one!) and she explains it’s all about skin and I point out I have skin and she gets a little cross and says life isn’t a comedy and even a blind kid should know about skin tones and I say I do but human is human so it’s not important, because a few days ago Charlie said personal isn’t the same as important and she was all quoting someone who died and was all sad about that but it struck me as a pretty true thing to say. But I also think that humans get way too confusled over male and female when it’s all human and they have tons of options about what human is for them anyway. Sometimes humans are pretty confusing about lots of things!

So I keep wandering, and offer a huge Jay-hugging to people who try and be mean and it mostly worked even if someone does try and hurt me so I have to avoid being hurt but kinda scare them a little and one angry human says white people don’t dance like that and definitely don’t move like a Jay so I explain that I was avoiding fighting and I don’t dance because Charlie won’t let me and the last time I tried I had way too many arms for a little while and Charlie had to go sit down and people might have been a little scared and I don’t like being being scared of me.

“You think I’m scared of you?” he asks, and I say yes, because he has a gun and I heard it get loaded and that’s not smart because it might go off too early and he says he doesn’t have that problem but! I say I’m sure the safety is off and his friends all laugh a lot even if I’m not sure why! But it’s really hard to be mean when people are laughing and sometimes laughter can be like a hug when it isn’t mean.

So I keep on going and wander more and end up in the centre of the city with huge buildings with mean dragons inside them. They’re the kind that have companies and hoards of invisible money – Charlie tried to explain economics to me once but it seemed way too weird to make sense at all and was mostly about making bindings that didn’t even exist and using those to hurt ones that did. I kind of avoid dragons like this cuz destroying them hurts a lot of things and they try and make themelves so big that no one can destroy them without doing even worse things because of that.

Plus, boring dragons never fly at all! I think most of them even forget they are dragons, but Charlie says they probably do this for tax reasons. Which was probably a joke I didn’t get. Anyway, I keep wandering all morning, making friends by being all Jaysome, helping lots of bindings when I can and it’s really nifty what you can do for bindings with just hugs alone. So I totally make lots of friends until I find a really sour binding, like a rotten apple that ruins other apples.

He is all human, because often a lot of monsters are even if it makes me pretty sad to know that. He is wearing a suit that fits him like dreams do so it probably cost lots of money and having people kicked out of a building he plans to tear down just because he can. Sometimes people that don’t need money at all seem to find a lot of joy in destroying people who do. So I march over like a Jay and explain that, and he tells his people to get rid of me and I could vanish like a Jay but then they’d hurt all these people.

And his people aren’t bad people and don’t like what they’re doing a little but they still do it like lots of humans do jobs and If I bind them Charlie might get mad over it and they might get scared if I hurt them, so I speak like a Jaysaurus and tell them to take a break. And it’s totally not a binding because it’s a suggesting and they do it. Only the man doesn’t and he has lots of bindings to important humans and all the people living here are really scared and being Jay can’t fix that.

So I Saurus. Which I’d never thought of a not being Jay, but is a really good term for it! I open my eyes, and open them again and I don’t even know what to say for all that at all. Like for a moment I’m really big, and even bigger though I still look just like Jay and I make him change, but it’s not a binding since it’s totally a change he’ll do to himself and I don’t even know how I do it because I close my eyes – they aren’t even eyes, but I call it that – and I’m cold all over and shivering and I move sideways from the world a little to rest.

I hurt in deep inside-places and I’m pretty sure I broke things that aren’t rules because no one can break them, but I am friends with a magician, and Charlie and I am a Jay so I kind of did anyway and I rest, and sleep a little with really weird dreams and go back to visit Charlie back at our room. And I say I’m all fine and had an adventure but I don’t fool her at all even if she just gets us pizza and then hugs me, and doesn’t even tickle-attack at all! The hug is really nice, and I maybe fall asleep even before pizza arrives which I never do it at all but Charlie just wakes me and we eat and she doesn’t ask about what it was like to Saurus at all.

Because sometimes, I think, friendship is about not-bindings as well, and that’s pretty important too.