You know how moms always save your childhood drawings even though they all suck? People with no torsos, skewed houses with gigantic windows, scribbles that you can’t believe might have once represented something to your underdeveloped brain? Moms just can’t get rid of these priceless relics. And I’ve found out that you can learn some pretty interesting stuff about people just from the works of nonart that they produced when they were kids.
It should come as no surprise to you that I recently paid a visit to Trey Burke’s mom to do some investigating. I just told her that I was doing a research project for my Ph.D., she lapped it right up. I was given a folder containing roughly fifty works, the medium being crayon and pencil on notebook paper.
Let me tell you guys, I’m kinda wishing that I had never seen that folder.
The first few drawings I looked at were pretty normal for a five-year-old. There were a lot of crudely-drawn basketballs, some self-portraiture of the lowest degree, and a lot of very poor handwriting attempting to explain the drawings, as if Trey himself knew that they weren’t exactly clear to the viewer. In his world, basketball was spelled “Baskit bal.”
Then things got weird. I came across a piece of paper completely colored with black crayon on both sides. The white of the paper was totally absent. Picking up the work meant blackening my fingers with greasy crayon. I set it aside and looked at the next one. It was an outdoor scene, rendered entirely in grey pencil. The trees were typical of a young child; a big piece of popcorn for the leaves and a straight, thick trunk. But in the center, among the trees, was a very realistically drawn figure: a waiflike female, mouth frozen into a terrible scream. As I looked, her eyes seemed to widen with the exquisite agony that wracked her body.
That one was a little disturbing, so I moved on. The next drawing was of a mountain range. Now there was no indication that it had been drawn by other than the most seasoned of artists; the craggy peaks were almost photorealistic. Perched on top of each mountain was a lidless eye. Some kind of symbolism, but what it symbolized, I couldn’t ascertain.
Looking at my watch to check the time, I noticed in my peripheral vision what seemed to be movement upon the page. When I looked back, nothing about the drawing had changed, so I continued to inspect it. At the bottom of the mountains was a pile of dying bodies, their myriad injuries rendered in horrific detail, confident pencil strokes outlining their dismal demises. Severed limbs, skinned faces, crushed bodies, all of them seeming to writhe in their last painful moments on earth.
Obviously Trey was feeling some strong emotions when creating this demented artwork. I decided that I didn’t wish to see any more of what he had come up with. I went to put the papers back in the folder when the eyes on the mountains began to ooze red.
Dropping the piece with a yelp, what appeared to be blood began to stain the carpet of Mrs. Burke’s living room. A faint wailing issued forth. Actually, many wailings, associated with each of the damned persons in the drawing (which I now suspected was much more than a drawing). Soon, the screams loudened into an unbearable screeching racket.
Mrs. Burke, noticing my distress, bustled in to check on me. “Is there something wrong, my dear?” she asked, not even noticing the expanding pool of blood upon her floor. I could barely hear her over the demonic cacophony.
I turned to answer, but my voice was silenced by her appearance. Mouth and eyes, replaced by blank voids; hands unnaturally long; skin hanging off in grotesque tatters. Her body floated several inches above the floor.
“I really have to go now.” I said, hurrying to the door. To my relief, it opened upon a sane Ohio afternoon. Walking to my car in the lowering sunlight, I chastised myself for my irrationality. I had been working hard on highlights, and the long hours were getting to my head. So I told myself.
Then, taking one last look at the house, to reassure myself of its normality, I saw the most terrible sight. A large, grey series of mountains had appeared where previously had been a quiet residential neighborhood. At each peak stood a wide-open eye, unblinking, but turning this way and that. I wanted to run, but below my feet was nothing but a perilous, rocky path. Then, the screams began…