Pernell stole a glance towards the phenomenon; the others didn’t stop the
conversation.
"Yeah, let’s go to the dance," agreed Hoss.
"See?", Joe smiled. "Everyone’s agreed."
"Adam?", Ben gazed at his eldest son.
Pernell noticed with irritation that the lines again didn’t come to his
memory as quickly as they should.
"You know, Pa," Adam scratched his nose sheepishly. "I wanted to see Mary
Johnson."
Hoss scowled, and Joe glared at him with a bad grimace. They were supposed
to be interested in the same girl.
Pernell noticed they wanted him to act more convincingly, but his heart
wasn’t in it. Dan sent him a friendly wink beyond the eye of the camera, encouraging
him to go on, but Pernell
stole another glance at the twisting whirl of wild disarray of bright light
and all shades of shadow. It intrigued him.
He noticed the annoyed expression of the director and heavy-hearted returned
to the script.
"Come on, Pa, surely you could spare us," Adam smiled as endearingly as
the script required, but Pernell couldn’t keep the edge of annoyance out of
his voice.
"Cut!"
Pernell glanced at the whirl, and thought to touch it. That would be interesting.
In the same room he noticed three more. They weren’t the same, they weren’t
whirls even. There was a
depth in the space, something he couldn’t quite get his grasp on, but it
was some… depth. There was a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours, a few paces
away, mingling and dancing like a
ray of light on a bead of morning dew. Further away, he spotted an emanation
of warmth. He wouldn’t be able to say if he spotted it more or rather felt.
But it was the whirl that beckoned him. He almost reached out to grasp
it.
"Pernell, would you focus on the script!"
He glared at the pages in front of him.
"Here," the director tapped on the paper. "Here it is said Adam ASKS to
go, not DEMANDS. It would be easier on everybody if you stuck to the script."
"Adam’s thirty years old, for goodness’ sake!" Pernell planted his hands
on his hips. "He doesn’t have to ask permission to go a stupid dance!"
The whirl twisted almost on his back. He felt it. He wanted to grasp it.
"Just go along with the script, Pernell, is this so difficult?"
"Yes," he said. "I quit. I’m not taking this anymore."
Ignoring all the voices telling him to stop, he crossed the frame boundaries.
At the very border of it, Adam was brutally yanked back, and he knocked
into the whirl. It still pulled.
Pernell never looked back; he never noticed the whirl was gone somewhere,
and all of a sudden Adam seemed… three-dimensional? He had all that had
been given to him by Pernell, and
something… something more in him.
Adam looked around slowly. He noticed new people, but everything was foggy.
He was still a bit unstable, and everything was in a kind of haze. He could
see the depth in the space
closing upon Hoss. It was strange. For the first time in ages, he saw his
brother looking straight at him.
"Hey, Adam, how are ya?"
Adam blinked, then smiled.
"I’m fine, Hoss. I… How do you feel? I mean… you look… somehow… different…
better."
Hoss chuckled at that, then noticed the strange phenomena around.
"What’s all that, Adam?"
The elder one gazed at the vapours of delicate colours, so different from
the merry rainbow kaleidoscope, then at the refraction of air beside. It
felt like somebody close. A friend.
"Uhm… I guess you’ve never met Candy before," Hoss hurried to introduce
the two. So the shape in the air was Candy’s.
"Hi."
"Hi."
They shook hands.
"Good to see you two meet each other at last," Ben gazed at them warmly.
"It’s so hard to believe you’ve never met before."
The warmth. The emanation of warmth was missing from around them, noticed
Adam.
"Hi, Pa."
"Mr Cartwright," Candy nodded respectfully, then suddenly they noticed
Hop Sing shuffle busily around the table.
"Supper ready," announced the cook authoritatively. Now, one couldn’t grasp
the difference, but he seemed more – himself, too.
They watched the vapours of colours rest on the red-haired Jamie. He glanced
curiously at Adam, and nodded questioningly towards the table.
"Let’s eat," Ben took his place at the head of the table, and everybody
moved to their seats.
Adam thought Joe looked… old. Yet, he seemed to be growing younger every
moment. The colours settled around him, and he suddenly was a teenager again,
the merry rainbow flashes
all about him.
Nobody noticed the only light came from the fireplace and the window. Nobody
noticed there was nobody else at the house but them.
Adam crossed the border of the frame for the hundredth time, and again
nothing stopped him. There was no frame. He had just stepped over to the
next page.
……………
Should I really write it’s the end? SOME end? ANY end?
Note: If I missed mentioning anybody else from the series, then they either
are in town, or are late doing chores.
Note II: If anybody still has questions, this is how the Cartwrights came
to exist independently of the actors and the screen. They live on in their
fans’ hearts and fiction!