the Book Report

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 17187

Friday Night in the warm southwestern desert: Some miles south of Albuquerque, within the reservation of Isleta, one of the 2,915.1 residents (and don't ask about the .1) was laying on a bed and crying.

"I had a nightmare last night, and this morning, after I woke up, I free-associated the way Dr. Strauss told me to do when I remember my dreams."

He wasn't crying because of the terrible burnings in Wichita Falls, Texas, nor the fitness riots of Bend, Oregon, not even the carpentor's strikes in Bangor, Maine. He was crying because of a book report.

"Today I found a furnished apartment. Ninety-five dollars a month is more than I planned to spend, but it's on Forty-third and Tenth Avenue and I can get to the library in ten minutes to keep up with my reading and study."

The report was due on Monday and he just finished the book, but the emotional toll of the paperback was extreme; William was a sensitive boy, you see.

"I won't have her come home from school crying every day like this because the children tease her."

William rummaged about his bed looking for his pen. He couldn't find it under the folds of the blanket, nor the twist of the sheet, nor his lump of a pillow. He couldn't remember where he put it.

"It's odd to have forgotten your parent's names."

William finally did find it, though. It had rolled off the bed as he finished the last page of the assigned book and had landed on the floor and then rolled under his bed.

"Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping and dropping things."

William Bonney Chavez (his parents had considered calling him Poncho Villa but felt that living in the U.S. called for an anglo name) wrote his name on the first page of his report. He hated that the teacher made him spell out his complete name, all nineteen letters and two empty spaces. He asked if he could just write his nickname, but his teacher had said no. He had grumbled, he had fussed, he had explained that his friends called him Anasazi for short, but all to no avail. And so there he was on this Friday night writing all nineteen letters and two empty spaces.

"Professor Nemur finally agreed with Dr. Strauss and me that it will be impossible for me to write down everything if I know it's immediately read by people at the lab."

William wondered if anyone read this book anymore, it was first copyrighted 1959, then he shrugged and began to write his first sentence. He stopped, put his pen down, and looked back to the last page of the book, a tear rolled down his cheek.

"...I bet Im the frist dumb person in the world who found out some thing inportent for sience. I did somthing but I dont remembir what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me in Warren and all over the world..."

William picked up his pen again and wrote: My report is on 'Flowers for Algernon' and I think it is a very sad story.

  1. follow the next few days of William Bonney Chavez
  2. follow the next few days of Charles Herschel of New Mexico Tech
  3. follow the next few days of Betty Ragan in whatever reality she has found herself
  4. follow the next few days of Carl Kolchak
  5. follow the next few days of Bob, the car rental guy

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9/28/2001 10:25:28 PM

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