Who is Oliver Lee?

Below is the first entry made by Oliver Lee in the diary he is using to chronicle his life. This is where his story begins and the audience learns of his abilities to Stream stories and connect to nature. Enjoy the read. And if you find anything interesting or have a question feel free to leave a comment.
Later days,
Kenny

There are no other Liturians.

I have looked and found none. I am the only I know to have this abnormality, however, let me assure, I am just as human as you. The only difference being I was born with a purpose I could not escape, while others must search for theirs. I am not sure which is more frustrating.

Before I continue I would like to extend my apologies and beg your forgiveness at having to suffer through my shaky handwriting. These old hands have written enough lines to extend from this galaxy to the next. They have traveled from the past to the future and back again, to the depths of human consciousness to expose their hopes, despair, love, and fear so excuse me if they shiver a little in the cold when I am not Streaming. Time has taken its toll on my limbs and the miles they have traveled.

Very little has been explained, but all will be in time. Patience, this is just the beginning.

My name, the one many have come to know me by, is Oliver Lee. If you have not heard it whispered on the back of a stray breeze, or lightly in your ear like the secret of a playground playmate, you may be wondering why an old man such as myself is outside in the cold air on a night such as this. The reason is simply, because it is beautiful. The stars shine down rays of distant sunlight through an unfiltered sky, the old fashioned street lights guard against the night surrounding this park bench in this quant town of gnarled, intertwined roots beneath solid trunks existent in a state I know only to be in the Midwest.

All are asleep and silent. Come the morning I will be gone. The ability to vanish with the coming dawn like the memory of a fleeting dream is not beyond my realm of ability; not yet at least. Until the first rays of the sun begin to brighten the clouds and the sky into two distinguishable objects I will sit beneath the artificial light of these illuminating orbs and listen to the thoughts of this town’s oldest denizens, the ever growing limbs and leaves; they store secrets few would believe.

The trees are pleasant here. Their thoughts are calm, kind, silent, and old, but still retain a hint of youth from when they were saplings so many winters ago. The only tragedies they have seen are the harsh storms of Mother Nature that they can never avoid, only endure. They grow tall and spread their roots wide without seeing the flaws of human nature. Unlike other trees in a park very distant from this one, these limbs have only seen young lovers kiss beneath their branches, not the act of it being ripped away. Few trees have, but word, like roots, spread.

The thoughts and stories of these trees are the only medicines that now calm my nerves. I will sit for a while longer and listen to them speak with one another as their leaves silently maneuver through cycles invisible to the human eye.
They are very talkative tonight. They always get this way when they feel the seasons begin to change from summer to fall. For them it’s like getting ready for Christmas as each prepares to have the best decorated branches of the year. I love to listen to them around this time as they move from constant excitement into a slow slumber that will carry them through the winter and into spring. If there is one thing I am sorry about it is the fact that this will be my last autumn among them. Pity, I would have liked to return to this park one day. It is soothing for an old soul.
I wish you could hear what they are like. Their voices are just as elegant as their exteriors; rough sometimes, but perfect in their imperfections. They speak to one another, carrying messages from one place to another, and they harbor memories both good and bad. They all have distinct voices, just like any human. Each species has its own personality, its own style. Some whisper, while others have voices that cannot be ignored. After all my years of writing the stories of others I have never been able to properly describe what they sound like. The oldest of them speak the rarest, but when they do I hear them no matter how far away, or what season.
I apologize. At my age rambling becomes a way of life. Let me begin.

Everything and everyone has a story. This is one of the few things I have come to know over the years. The trick is learning how to listen. This story is mine, but it is one I share with many characters; people I have never met, but know better than their most intimate lover; and objects that have existed for so long they have their own tales to weave; places that were believed to be hidden, fake, or lost to the world. However, above all others it is about a couple. A couple that has changed my life more than they will ever know.

I was born with no abnormalities. There were no complications with my mother’s pregnancy. I am not from another planet as some may believe, or the last of an ancient race that has been forgotten and has now died out as the centuries have passed. The only reason I mention this is because I know what rumors have begun to circulate about my origin. The reading of my stories over the years by the young that have progressed into old age have caused some imaginations to wonder who the author is behind the words. Few if any now know.

The only characteristic that set my childhood apart from that of other children is my refusal to speak until nearly the age of four. The only logical explanation I could come up with over the years, to somewhat explain the development of my abilities, is my absence of voice allowed me the time needed to understand the people around me. Not only know what lay on the surface of their personalities with what they said, but understand what set them apart from others by what their mouths did not say, and what their bodies could not hide. I understood what made people tick before they said a single word. It is a talent I have learned to prize and covet above all others. This may have been the beginning of the link from my brain to theirs. However, of this, I cannot be certain.

One of the earliest memories I can recall is sitting in the kitchen of my childhood home, staring at my mother and father as they moved with calculated and memorized movements, each preparing for the day that lay ahead. Their small voices in my head grew stronger and weaker as they would enter and leave my presence as if they were each separate, but distinct radio stations, and I was the receiver going in and out of range.

I didn’t know what the voices were then. How could I? I was too young to know what I was hearing was technically impossible. Because no one else seemed to hear them, and they appeared to be the voices of my parents, I believed it was all part of the active imagination of a know nothing child. Sometimes I wish I was right.

As I grew older the voices did not go away. Instead they did just the opposite; they grew stronger. The thoughts of others in close range to our country home who were passing, or camping in the nearby woods would creep in through the floor boards and windows, into my mind, telling me who they were and what thoughts kept their mind from being at ease. These individuals were always excited, worried, or stressed as they intruded on my stray thoughts like an unwanted relative showing up unexpectedly to visit. It occurred few and far times apart at first, but as the months and years passed I began to hear them more. And like an unwanted relative I could not force them to leave the confines of my brain until they saw fit, no matter how hard I tried; and I did try.

When this did occur, more often than not, I found that my hand moved freely of its own will, moving from left to right. It only happened with my left hand, my writing hand. It took all my effort to keep it under my control and not its own. It was not until the age of thirteen I realized my hand was not only moving of its own accord, but writing words, sentences, paragraphs, entire stories of the images I was seeing in my mind. The amazing thing is they were not in my handwriting, and none of them resembled one another in style or print, except three.

I still have the first few stories from when I was a boy. This was before I began to block them out. It’s just coincidence I had them stuffed between the pages of my Bible the night Oliver Lee was born.