ANN WILLIS - LAWRENCE HUNT
1
Larry Hunt remained in the hospital for two weeks before the doctors let him go home. He had a respiratory problem that they assured his parents was quite typical for premature babies. Barbara really had her hands full taking care of an infant along with a jealous three-year-old. Brad had been the center of attention for three whole years, and then this new interloper, Larry, was stealing all the attention away from him. Even though Barb had planned to go back to work within six months, she decided by the fifth month that it would be better to give up her career for the time being. She and Art discussed it, and it seemed the best way to go. Larry was really having some problems, and little Brad wasn’t helping matters any.
The baby was extremely slow to gain weight, and his mental development was slow. Art and Barb assumed that it was partly because of the way Brad pushed and shoved Larry every chance he got, but there was obviously some contribution on the baby’s part also. Barbara was reading every book she could get her hands on about child development and sibling rivalry. But, as Larry approached a year old, it was pretty obvious that he had some serious problems.
Art and Barb not only consulted routinely with their pediatrician, but they followed up on a referral to a psychologist who specialized in infant development. Larry went through test after test, and the conclusion was that he was autistic. The Hunts were given every assurance that many autistic children turned out to be just fine, but somehow Barb didn’t believe it.
To make matters worse, the level of attention they paid Larry also contributed to a regression in Bradley’s development. At four years old, he was wetting himself again, throwing tantrums and talking baby talk. This was all too much for Barb to handle, and her mother and father ended up spending week after week at the house just to help take care of the children.
Larry wasn’t even crawling at one. They could barely hold his attention for thirty seconds. Most of the time he sat there staring into space. He wasn’t a crier, and he didn’t seem to have any major physical problems, but he was pathetic to watch. Even Bradley lost interest in pushing and shoving his baby brother. It didn’t seem to get the response anymore that Brad wanted to see.
Larry’s weight was dangerously low, and he just didn’t seem to want to eat. The pediatrician put him on special diets and prescribed medicines to enhance his appetite, but nothing worked. All, including the doctors and psychologists, were at their wit’s ends.
Then, by accident, something happened that changed everything. Barb was cooking supper and Larry was in his highchair. Some grease caught fire in a frying pan. Barb grabbed a larger pan, placed it over the smaller one, and snuffed out the fire. Larry burst out screaming and hollering like nothing Barb had ever seen. She picked him up and tried everything she could think of to calm him down. He writhed and twisted his little body so hard that she thought he was going to hurt himself. It took an entire half hour to calm him down. Then, as if by magic, he put his arms around Barbara’s neck and hugged her close. From that moment forward, his autism ceased as if it had never existed.
He began to eat ravenously and his weight caught up to the norm within five weeks. Nobody had an explanation for the change.
.....
Ann Willis had great difficulty in the new body. Almost immediately she lost most of the memories of her life. She was confused and she went into a state of withdrawal. She became a passive observer in this body called Larry, and she saw Larry get shoved and abused by the one called Bradley. All of this frightened her. She tried as hard as she could to stay out of Larry’s way in the body they shared. But somehow she was always in the way. Eventually Larry didn’t do anything at all. He wouldn’t play or make sounds. He wouldn’t even eat. He watched Ann, and watching Ann became his only purpose in life. She was frightened, and she didn’t know what to do. He intimidated her and she knew that what he was doing was wrong.
Mommy and Daddy were always picking them up and talking to them, but Larry wouldn’t respond, and Ann was too scared to respond. And there were Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop around all the time, too. No matter what anyone did, Larry wouldn’t stop staring at Ann.
Ann was always hungry, too. And dumb Larry wouldn’t drink the milk and juice, and he wouldn’t eat the oatmeal or the applesauce. He just stared at her. It got to the point that she wished he would just go away and let her be the baby.
Then one day they were in the highchair and the flames jumped out at them. Ann went berserk. She suddenly saw images of flames all around her, and Ann threw Larry out of the way and tried to run as fast as she could from the fire. But the stupid body wouldn’t do anything she wanted it to. That dumb Larry hadn’t even learned to crawl. He almost got them both killed. She managed somehow to get their mother to rescue them, but she would never let Larry be in charge again. She felt her own identity that afternoon in a way she had never felt it before. She suddenly felt a right to be in this body, and a right to take control of it. Larry was timid and it would take somebody strong like her to run this body from now on.
Once she seized control, she really showed Larry her stuff. She ate all the food, learned to crawl, and even walked with the help of the furniture. She paid attention to her mother and father and learned all the things that they taught her. She really loved them too, and knew how to show it. Larry was just a lump that didn’t know how to do anything right. Life was going to be wonderful now, and there would be lots of laughing and learning and loving. Larry now sat inside them and watched her run things. If he so much as tried to come near her, she gave him a look that backed him right down.
2
The change in Larry was wonderful. He was normal in every way. Even the doctors who said the autism might disappear were amazed that it had done so overnight. He learned quickly and he was such a cheerful baby. Even Bradley started to come around. Larry began to punch and shove back whenever Brad started with him. Barb and Art hated to see the kids fight, but it was almost humorous to see Larry hold his ground against Brad. It was such a delightful contrast to the way things had been.
Larry’s development went well. He learned to walk at nineteen months, and he was climbing stairs and furniture whenever nobody was watching him. He became more aggressive whenever Brad teased him, and his incredible physical strength became a match for Brad’s by the time Larry was two.
The only disappointment was that Larry was just not as smart as Brad was. He seemed to have learning problems when it came to speech and certain recognition problems. He couldn’t seem to figure out how to put the colorful shapes into their correct holes, or the way to get the jack-in-the-box crank to turn and make the music. At first these seemed like minor things to Barb, but Art kept harping on it and she soon began to feel as he did.
They began having him watch Sesame Street and other educational television shows, hoping that he would catch on to things that way. He loved the shows, and they kept his attention, but he just wasn’t learning as fast as other children learned.
Then there was a setback. It happened at about thirty months. It appeared that the autism was coming back. It broke Barbara’s heart, and she desperately sought the help of psychologists and therapists.
.....
Life was a ball for Ann. She was all over the house exploring and learning. Bradley didn’t intimidate her. She loved to eat. And best of all, she adored the affection her parents gave her, and she returned it in spades. The only problem she seemed to have was that this new body was really hard to work when it came to figuring out certain things. It was a little frustrating to her, and she really tried to apply herself so she could master these elusive skills. She could figure out how to defeat the best devices they put in the doorways to keep her inside, and she could figure out how to climb over the cleverest obstructions they threw in the way of the cookie jar. She just couldn’t understand this counting stuff or the alphabet. And she couldn’t remember the way to do things like pop goes the weasel, even if mother showed her over and over again. What was wrong with her?
One day she was taking a nap, and the flames came to get her again. This had happened before, but this time was different. This time the flames came and killed her. She awoke in a fit of screaming, and her mother was right there to hug her and calm her down. But she knew what death was. How did she know? She remembered!
The sudden knowledge of what death meant was overwhelming for her. She couldn’t just dismiss it, like she had done with the other flame dreams. This understanding of death came also with an understanding that she was not Larry Hunt. The meaning of the entity called Ann wasn’t clear in her mind, but she knew it was an entity nevertheless. For the first time she knew that Larry and Ann were different people. She needed to know more and she was determined to find out. She learned about memory. She learned how to access it and search through it. She wasn’t good at it, though, and had to spend lots of time working on it. Mother and Dad and Brad were always trying to distract her, but she learned how to ignore them so they would go away. Ann had to know everything she could find out about just who Ann really was.
Then Mom and Dad started taking her to all these doctors again. They poked and probed and asked her questions. They shouted and touched and hugged and played. They just wouldn’t leave her alone, and they were impeding her search for information about Ann.
But one day these pushy people did something wonderful for her. They gave her crayons and paper. They showed her how to make pictures all by herself. And the first time she tried it, she unlocked the secret of accessing memory. She could spill the memories right out on the paper with the help of her crayons.
3
The autism lasted about six months. Barb and Art tried everything to break Larry out of it. They had psychologists testing him, and doing all kinds of therapy. He had stopped eating again and was losing weight. He was lethargic again. It was almost too much for Barb to go through again. Art was afraid Barb would have a breakdown if it continued. They both prayed for God to help their poor little son.
It was almost too insane to believe, but the moment the therapist gave Larry the crayons and showed him how to draw, the world changed. He came back to them. He was normal again. He was eating and laughing and playing. And how he loved to draw. His pictures certainly pleased him, even if nobody else could tell what the heck they were. He was Picasso. It didn’t even seem important to him that anyone else should appreciate his work. Brad used to want his pictures to be posted on the refrigerator, and he wanted his parents to see every picture he did. Larry seemed to appreciate art from within himself. He was so engrossed in his art, that he sometimes did fifty or sixty drawings a day.
.....
To Ann it was as if someone else was drawing the pictures for her. She just held the crayons to the paper and this incredible force took over and whipped her hand around like lightning. Then it would drop the green crayon and grab the red one. Sometimes the pictures needed ten or twelve colors, but usually one or two was all that was necessary.
And the drawings were magnificent. Each one was a portrait of a piece of Ann Willis’ life. They took on life right before Ann’s very eyes. The crayons dragged the story-pictures out of her mind and onto the paper. She was overwhelmed by the things she began to know and understand. And she knew that these story-pictures were for her and her alone. Luckily, Mom and Dad didn’t seem to see what she was able to see in them. It was like magic. She could see it all, and they couldn’t. What a delightful secret world she had, and she didn’t even have to hide the pictures from them.
Mom and Dad were a problem at first, though. The first time she used up all the paper they gave her, she couldn’t seem to get them to understand how important it was to get more right away. They wanted to wait until tomorrow, and Ann knew that wasn’t acceptable. She had to scream and carry on to get Dad to finally go get more paper that night. But the problem happened again when the red crayon was used up. They kept telling her to use another color. They were so stupid. How could you use another color? They didn’t understand anything about story-pictures. It took several days before they finally understood that it was their job to keep her supplied with endless boxes of crayons, and pads of drawing paper.
Then one day a story-picture showed her Ann’s four children. And it showed all their names. There was Debbie, Paul, Joseph and Betty. Ann was shocked and became very emotional. In sadness she drew another story-picture and this one showed God. It enraged her for some reason, and she grabbed a black crayon and slashed back and forth over God’s picture until it was obliterated and unrecognizable.
Over the next few days she drew pictures of her husband, Ted, and all seven of her grandchildren. She gathered up all the family pictures and spread them side-by-side on the floor. When she looked at them as a group, all of the people looked like dolls to her; Barbie dolls.
The concept of reincarnation was beyond her mental capacity, but she intuitively knew that Ann was from someplace else, and Larry was from here. And she was filled with a sadness that she could not yet understand.
4
Larry’s learning problems continued, so Barb and Art decided to send him for special therapy just before he turned four. If he didn’t master verbal communication skills soon, he would not be able to be mainstreamed in the school system. That was a scary thought to the two of them, mainly because they were afraid it would traumatize Larry. He also was continuing to have difficulty learning the alphabet and understanding shapes and forms. They thought that he might possibly have dyslexia, and the therapists were skilled in working with that also.
The therapy program was intensive, from nine to four, five days a week. Larry was not comfortable with it, even though his mother was right there with him the whole time, either in the room or just next door.
At four years old a child should be making friends, playing with toys, watching television, and blabbering incessantly to his parents or anyone else who was willing to listen. Larry only drew pictures. Larry only wanted to draw pictures. He was perfectly content doing no more than that, and that was unnatural.
Despite his initial objections, a psychologist saw him every day and started to build up a relationship with him. She was a young woman, around thirty, and extremely adept at bringing children out of their shells. She was simply referred to as Miss Toby. The sessions with Miss Toby never involved Barbara. That was not permitted. Larry had to be able to develop a sense of trust and privacy for the therapy to work. Through Miss Toby’s remarkable skills, that trust was built in about three weeks.
The therapy revealed that Larry had an obsession with death. When Miss Toby tried to talk about it, she approached it from a child’s perspective. She talked about it as if it were just people going away. But Larry shocked her and spoke of death in terms of souls and God and Heaven.
Through a brief interview with Barbara, Miss Toby established that Larry hadn’t been taught anything about death. Without betraying the therapist-patient trust, she obtained Barbara’s permission to use a form of hypnosis on Larry. Barbara had no idea what Toby was looking for, but she trusted that she knew what was best for Larry.
It took several sessions to finally put Larry under hypnosis. It was a dangerous procedure for a child, and a careless mistake could have serious emotional consequences. Miss Toby arranged for a psychiatrist to be present at these hypnosis sessions. This provided the extra margin of safety in the handling of a child under hypnosis.
The first successful hypnosis session revealed a lot more than Toby expected. She had read about cases like this, but had never taken part in one. Larry told her that there was no such thing as Heaven, and that souls don’t feel any pain. That was all she could get out of him before he started fidgeting too much, and she thought it best to awaken him.
In subsequent sessions, Larry revealed himself to be a reborn soul named Ann Willis. But when Toby tried to get more details, even Larry’s subconscious clammed up. Toby thought that there must be some kind of safety mechanism at work protecting Larry from some horrible memory he had from childhood. She never even remotely believed that Larry was reincarnated, so her subsequent questioning led her completely away from the truth.
What Toby did however accomplish was to determine that Larry’s fear of death had nothing to do with his slowness to learn. This in itself was important for Larry’s sake, because it expedited the discovery of his basic learning problem.
They discovered that Larry suffered from a rather unique form of dyslexia. The communications problems could probably be overcome with a sleep-teach method of learning. It was still experimental, but it had worked to some degree in almost every patient that tried it. Larry was a particularly good candidate because of his youth.
The hypnosis was discontinued, and the dyslexia became the main focus of the therapy. Barb set up the sleep-teach apparatus and followed the instructions that she had been given. The sound mechanism was a speaker imbedded in a pillow, so it was totally innocuous in nature. Larry responded very well to the program. He learned the alphabet letter names and their sounds. This enabled him to learn speech easier, but it would do nothing to overcome his inevitable reading problems.
Barb and Art had done what they could to prepare Larry for school, but mainstreaming was starting to look unlikely. They began to look at private schools as a possible alternative.
.....
Ann hated the therapy, and was glad when it was finally over. She was just over four years old, and she was aware enough of her learning problems to feel ashamed. But one morning she was drawing her story-pictures and the answer appeared right in front of her in green, red, blue, orange and black. It was so simple. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before, especially with all the therapy she had undergone.
She went to her mother and asked if her mother would try one more time to teach her to read. Her mother seemed shocked at the request, but she humored her child and went through the motions.
Ann was reading at a third grade level by the time she was four-and-a-half. She was so proud of herself, and her mom and dad were so proud also. But it didn’t stop there. She mastered shapes and sizes and numbers in no time flat. She even drew the first picture that her parents could understand. It was a picture of a little boy sitting in a chair reading a book. She wanted to draw a little girl, but she knew that would not be wise.
5
Arthur and Barbara Hunt were true believers in miracles. They had prayed for their darling son to be all right and their prayers were answered. Larry had proven all those psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists to be wrong. It looked like he was going to be mainstreamed after all.
But the strangest part about it all was how he had drawn that one picture of the little boy reading. It was like the work of an adult; crisp sharp lines, perspective, proportion, and even coloration. It was the work of a real artist. And it was the last piece of art that Larry did for another year that they could understand. He went right back to his crayons and pads drawing those unrecognizable scribbles, and admiring every one as if it were a work of art.
.....
The answer had been so simple. Ann knew how to read and write and draw from her other life. She was smart, too. She simply figured out how to use Larry’s mind in a way that would keep it from mixing things up. Once Ann did that, there were no more problems. Now her life could be wonderful in every way. Her mom and dad were so proud of her, and she loved them very much.
When she first showed her mom and dad that she could read, that made her feel like a real princess. She had achieved that feeling of self-appreciation and self-respect that she wanted so desperately for so long. Her whole body tingled, and she felt a response in her groin. For the first time ever, she felt at her crotch, and understood that she was in a boy’s body. That made her feel very happy indeed, but she wasn’t sure why.
She would be starting school soon. Kindergarten. It would really be fun. But there was still a while before school started, and she had many more pictures to draw. She knew that the pictures were about to tell her some very special things about herself. And she also knew that the pictures would start telling her about something else. She had just recently started wondering about it. She wanted to know all about God.
