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Gregg Williard​

Paper Play*

                                                                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember that film, The Andromeda Strain? Scientists are racing to find a cure for a deadly virus from space. One of them is viewing flashing displays of microscopic samples and misses a critical match with an antidote because the lights have triggered an epileptic fugue. I’m not epileptic but might as well be. No stories or art to tell this empty park. Can’t save myself or anyone from loneliness, despair, unmooring. I go into a trance and don't know if I can come out. If I want to come out. Now ghosts are circling the park chanting, Come Out Come Out Wherever you are Come Out…I’ve got to do something, do it even though I don’t know what it is.


In a pandemic summer, Tom bungees a picture box to the back of his bike. He rides to a neighborhood pocket park: benches, a checkerboard table, a ragged willow, a catalpa in bloom. He leans the bike against the willow where the box will face the benches, takes off his mask and fishes a scrap of paper from his pocket to read aloud:


1.    GO TO PARK.
2.    SET UP BOX.
3.    PUT DRAWING IN BOX.
4.    OPEN THE DOORS.
5.    TALK. 
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                             
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Two Volcanoes


He takes the top off the box and pulls a random drawing from the file inside, drops it in the front slot and opens the doors. Talk. Talk. But he can’t talk. No words. No story of community and endurance. No vision and redemption. No nothing. Nobody. He hasn't noticed the woman in the catalpa's shadow. She says, “I think this is called The Two Volcanoes. Two volcanoes tenderize buttons, soften glasses, stretch sneaker soles like licorice in a skillet…” Her black high-top sneakers are off her feet, and her aqua toenails bob out of the shadows and catch the sun.  She takes off her blue mask and comes slow to the box, lifting cat woman shades and brushing silver-fuchsia bangs off her eyes. She asks Tom, “What’s going on here?” His answer is squeaky with disuse. “I dream and draw in chairs. There’s always a pile of pictures on the floor when I wake up.  I need to get out and say something. To somebody.”  “Oh for shit’s sake.” Iuri laughs. She finally looks at him. He's there and not there. She fist bumps the air without looking at his face. “I’m Iuri.” “Tom.” Tom puts in another drawing and opens the doors. 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                           

 

Head for the Interstate


   Iuri goes to the box. Now Tom can see her upper lip is split to her nose. “This is called Head for the Interstate. The power strip can take nine plugs. Only four are being used. The floor lamp, table lamp, TV/DVD player and CD player are all off. I press the off switch on the strip. The light goes out. I pulled out the plugs. I go to the kitchen and get a roll of tinfoil. I tear off small pieces and tuck them into the outlets, deep enough to be hidden. I wiggle the plugs back into the outlets. I use a butter knife to wedge tinfoil behind the power switch. Maybe when he turns the strip back on it will just trip the breakers and blow out the power. Piss him off real bad and give me a little head start.  If it kills him I'll be in the clear for good, but he’ll never know it was me.  I pull out the driveway and head for the interstate.” "What happens next?"  " I do Hip Hop. Krumping. Finger tutting." Her fingers form L's that join and rotate into a box. They slide together, and she closes the box. “Now you tell me a story about how your drawing knows about me before you do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                

 

 

The Room with the Locked Box and the Octopus Doorknob


     His answer is another drawing in the box and opened doors. By now more people have wandered in: an older man on a far bench, and a boy swinging his legs and sucking a straw from an oversize cup. Both silent. A woman with a buzz cut enters the park with a limping pug on a leash. She keeps her distance. No mask. She says, "What's this about?" Iuri says, "Welcome to the picture play. I'm Iuri, this is Tom.” The new arrival says, "Picture play?” She settles on the nearer bench and points to the already sleeping dog at her feet. "This is Vertigo. I'm Justice." Iuri points to the drawing. "This is called The Room with the Locked Box and the Octopus Doorknob. This is Lizzie Borden's house. Built by her father. It had no hallways." Tom gapes at her. Justice says, "She was innocent." Iuri nods. "Mr. Borden said hallways were 'wasted spaces.' The doors just opened into another room. And another." Tom stares at both of them.  Justice says, "And there is a voice from the metal box. A message for the octopus." Tom says, "Yeah..?”  Iuri sits on the grass. "Hallways give you time to think before you act." Justice tugs Vertigo awake. "Turn an octopus to enter. I like that. I like their ink thing when they're pissed." She asks Tom, "You ever ink?" "I like pencils." Iuri stretches out in the sun. "They give you time to think. Sketch and erase and smear and sketch and erase and sketch again. Like pacing the halls with an axe."
      

                                    
Vertigo


     Tom puts another drawing in the story box slot and opens the doors. The woman named Justice studies the drawing and nods. “Doors again. This is called Vertigo. A man marries and has no hobbies. But he keeps a private space, waiting in the basement. His wife knows better than to ask and has certainly never been allowed to see it. Still, to be certain, he has installed multiple locks and doors in the back of the basement. These will have to be passed through to get to the work room. The first door is cheap wood with a simple combination lock. Behind that is a sliding metal fire door with a pass code and a thumb print reader. Next is a steel blast door with a retinal scan, and a voice identification box. Next a tiny door, like in Alice in Wonderland, to crawl through. Then a swaying curtain of ceramic beads that analyze skin particles off your hand, sprouting poison barbs if they register any DNA but his own. This opens into a blank white room, the work room. It is softly lit with a stretch of indirect lighting behind one wall’s baseboard. A single armchair sits in the middle, on wood rockers instead of legs. He rocks. On the floor facing the chair is a framed black and white photograph of his wife. She is looking directly back at the camera, wearing no expression and no makeup, her hair pulled back and fastened into a bun. It is a new photo. He is always careful to keep it up to date. The rocker bumps like a slow heart. The glass in the picture frame shivers." Tom, Iuri, the older man and the boy with soda are silent. "This is why I live only with Vertigo.” Tom closes the doors. The older man with white hair moves to the closer bench. Like Vertigo, he has a limp. Tom says, "Welcome to the picture play. I'm Tom." The man says, "I'm Ballard." Tom puts in a new drawing and opens the doors. Ballard says, "Ah. The chair thing."

 


The Chair Thing

 

 

     

     

Ballard says, "This is called The Chair Thing. This story reminds me of a conference. The conference guests are two pairs of twins, the famous physicist brothers Pitolać, and the poet-sisters Dyndolić, speaking on the Entanglement of History, Poetry and Science. The siblings sit together, separated by a five-foot space. As the presentation progresses, one of the Dyndolić sisters scoots her chair discretely away from her sister, and toward one of the Pitolać brothers. The unmoving sister grabs at the other and rips off her glasses, crushing them in her fist with a snap that sends a snake of blood twining down her arm to spot the dusty floor. One of the Pitolać brothers mirrors the act, throwing his arm out in the same gesture, closing his fist over empty air because, in mirroring the Dyndolić sister from the left side of his brother instead of from the right (like the wandering Dyndolić sister), his trembling fist closes on empty air, yet bleeds anyway to drip on the dusty floor. The conference is thrown into chaos, and the audience flees. All over Warsaw, those with phantom limbs cry in the middle of their “mirror box” therapy*. Late that night on the stage of the silent and emptied Auditorium Maximum, (rescued and rebuilt after its use as a weapons depot by the Nazis throughout the Warsaw Uprising in WWII), a Dyndolić chair scoots across the floor on its own power.   


*The mirror box is a novel therapy for phantom limb syndrome. The box, which does not have a roof, contains a mirror in the center and usually has two holes, one through which a patient inserts his or her intact limb, and the other through which the patient “inserts” the phantom limb. When the patient views the reflection of the intact limb in the mirror, the brain is tricked into “seeing” the phantom limb. By moving the intact limb and watching its reflection in the mirror, a patient can train the brain to “move” the phantom limb and thus relieve the learned associated pain."

     Ballard pats his leg and says, " I too know of Phantom Limb. Lost it to a tumor as a kid. My father was with the occupying forces in Hiroshima. Irradiated, they think, and passed on to me. He told me about 'Gaito Kamishibai' boxes. That means, ‘Street Corner Paper Play.’ In Japan from the 1930’s through the war and after they were everywhere. Then in the rubble and ruin of post-war, demobbed Japanese soldiers turned kiddie storytellers. Monster mystery stories. Stories from nothing. Anything. My inheritance was shadows on my X-Rays. Theirs the shadows X-Rayed into Hiroshima brick. And, I suppose, ours as well. What to do with those black bricks? Mortar and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lay? Throw and bash? Drop down a well of dreams to wait, breathless, for the plunk?" Tom closes the door. There is a pattering of applause this time. He puts in another drawing and opens the doors. Justice stands. "I have a story for this one. This is called Swank. We meet at the office. She has two bricks on her desk. I ask her what for.  She says one is real, and one is paper mache. 'Go ahead, which one is heavy, which one light?'  They look the same. We start dating after that. We stay together for thirty years. After she dies I keep the bricks. I still can't tell them apart." Tom closes the doors. There is silence, then clapping. It goes on. Two older women in brightly mismatched skirts, hoodies and scarves take seats on a far bench. They have missed the story but applaud enthusiastically. One of them wears a cap with a pom pon and the local football mascot, a swaggering badger, or mole. Tom puts another drawing in the slot and opens the doors.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                         

 

Woman at the Kitchen Table


    “Woman at the kitchen table,” says one of the women in skirts, maybe fifty, shelling a boiled egg on her lap. The older is short and stooped and bobs her sandaled feet over the ground, grinning and chattering to her companion in Hindi, or Nepali.  Their phone goes off with a Wah-Wah, "Failure" jingle. Neither answer. Iuri says, "This is a woman having a birthday party of one. The older woman laughs. "One year old." Iuri says, "I mean, she is alone.” "No," the younger woman says, "No year. No candle in the cake." The other says, "Candle on the table."  "She's a baby."  “She's before baby. She's waiting for her number one birthday. Ballard asks, "She's waiting to be born?"
   They laugh. They shriek. Ballard says, "Where do you wait to be born?" The older woman shrugs. "At the kitchen table." She laughs and says, "I'm Ratna. She is Pabi." Ballard says, "Are you sisters?" They laugh harder. Tom closes the doors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                           

 

The Smart Refrigerator

     Ballard has begun calling out to the street, "Gaito Kamishibai! . “Gaito Kamishibai! Street-Corner Paper Play!" Across the street a guy carrying giant garbage bags yells, "Right on!" Ballard calls back, "During WWII, war propaganda! 1945-1952, U.S. occupation propaganda! Today, still cheap! Still street! Fight your loneliness! Fight the lockdown! Gaito Kamishibai!" Over time more people drift by, linger, fill the benches, sprawl on the grass, leave and return. Justice is back with Vertigo in a plaid vest, carried limp from a handle like a suitcase. Tom drops a picture in the story box slot and opens the doors.  A short muscular woman in a Fed Ex uniform takes an empty bench. She raises her hand. "I'm Meg. I got a story. This is called Smart Refrigerator. A couple’s refrigerator gets hot. At the appliance store the wife heads to a row of 'smart refrigerators.' As the salesman talks, she takes her husband’s hand and passed a small object, a rubber boy, metallic red. The salesman was saying, 'These smart refrigerators display messages, show their insides on your phone. The husband says, 'Why in the world would I want to do that?'  He grips the tiny boy. The wife says, 'If there is a child who has gone inside to play or hide, and becomes trapped, this feature could find them and save its life.' The salesman is freaked. 'That could never, ever happen today! No home refrigerators on the market latch from the outside. But say for example you are in the store and can’t remember if you are out of milk. You could ‘call’ your refrigerator and see what’s inside. Here. Let me demonstrate.' He takes out his phone. A video screen appears with a gulp sound. He hands the phone to the couple. The husband looks at the white interior. 'What’s that?' On the top shelf is a little figure. The salesman says, 'Huh.' He opens the refrigerator, and inside is the red rubber boy. 'Some kid must have been playing around.' The wife nods with satisfaction. The husband opens his hand. It is empty and releases a puff of chilled air."  The park goes silent, then fills with applause. Tom closes the doors. The Fed Ex woman Meg says, "…and smart stuff is always watching."
       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                 

 

 

 

 

Return to Sender


      A pre-teen girl joins Meg on the bench. Tom puts in a new drawing and opens the doors. The girl's pale eyes glisten behind thick glasses. "Look Mom, Rapunzel." "What?"  The girl asks Tom, "Is this Rapunzel, like, let down your golden hair?" "I don't know.”  Meg says, "I know that one." She imitates Elvis: "Return to sender/Add-dress unknown! / No such number/ No such zone!" "That happens to you in your truck, right mom?" "That happens to me in my life."  She squints at the drawing. "You can see the mailbox is open. Rapunzel answers his call and lets down her golden hair before he can check the mail, so he leaves it open and climbs her hair. But it's a wig and comes loose. He plunges to his death. The End." 
     The girl shakes her head. "That's not what happened." “No? OK, he saw the address unknown and thought, what the hell, I’ll call blondie. Then he broke his neck.”  The girl says, "That's the wizard's tower. He's sad. He can't spell anymore. And nobody sent him a letter today." Tom closes the doors.


                                       

 

Secret of the Old Cave


     Tom puts in a new drawing as a TV van pulls up to the park entrance. A reporter with bronze makeup and a suit and tie approaches Tom and Iuri. Behind them a camera operator in t-shirt and jeans sets up a tripod and camera. The reporter shows teeth. "How are you folks today? My name is Doug Semple and this is my colleague Brendan.  I do the evening news on Fox 47? We'd love to do a feature on your story group for the news! Could we film your box in action? Are you the coordinator?"
     Tom opens and closes his mouth. Iuri nods solemnly. "He is uncoordinated." She explodes in laughter. Doug joins her, but she goes silent and dead-faced.  Doug looks confused. Tom nods toward the people in the park. At this point there is Justice and her dog Vertigo in the plaid suit, the ten-year-old boy drinking more soda, the pre-teen girl and her FED EX driver mother Meg, Ballard the man with white hair, the women Ratna and Pabi, and new arrivals, two young men with long black hair, death metal tats and sweet smiles. They are squeezed into the tiny seats of the game table, laying out chess pieces from a plastic sandwich bag. One nods, waves and says, "Ernesto." The other says, "Not Ernesto." Behind them on the last bench is a small woman with a round face wearing a hijab. Tom says to the group, "Do you want to be on Fox 47?" Ballard says no, Justice says no, Pabi and Ratna laugh, Ernesto and Not mutter ni hablar! and the others shrug, roll their eyes or look blank.  Iuri says to Doug, "But you're welcome to sit with us and hear a story." Doug and Brendan sigh and sit on a bench. Tom opens the doors on the new picture. There is silence, and then the girl with thick glasses stands.  "My name is Anne and I have a story for this one. This is called 'Secret of the Old Cave.' This is when I was younger. I had to have a bad tooth pulled and the anesthetic made me see snakes and she dreamed of snakes for three nights. In an old cave. I used to be afraid of snakes, but now she I like snakes, and I asked my mom to buy me a tank and now I have not one, but three pet snakes in it.” The group applauds. Tom closes the doors.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            
                                  

 

 

Books and Malteds


     Doug the TV anchor raises his hand. "That was really something, Anne! I understand you folks don't want to be on TV or online. I get it! But, strictly off the record, now, I have to ask: how did you folks all get together to make these picture stories? They're just wonderful! I know it would give so many hope in this difficult time to know there are people like you out here, who have the courage to come together and…" A stolid silence opens to let in the rustle of leaves in the wind. Pabi and Harka chatter in Nepali. Seconds pass and Ballard, the older man, says, "Doug, my name is Ballard.  Really, we all met by accident. " Doug nods. "Isn't that the truth, Mr. Ballard? We all meet by accident! But not everyone can create such a beautiful collaboration out of chance meetings!" Justice says, "I don't think you understand, Mr. …?" "Semple."
     "Yeah, well, Ballard here is saying we really don't know each other, and we're not 'collaborating', exactly. We just wandered into the park separately. Found this guy," pointing to Tom, "doing a thing with this box of drawings. He pulls them out and…"  Doug's smile is fixed, and hard. "Of course! But… you know the stories, about the pictures first, and then…Or do you mean you just make up things on the spot? That's even more extraordinary!" Justice says, "We have never seen these pictures before. Our stories aren't 'made up.' They just fit. Tom picks the right ones." Tom manages,  " I pull them out randomly. See?" He tips the box to show the file inside. "Anne? Why don't you take the next one?" Anne reaches in. Her fingers go to the center. Tom says, "from anywhere." "From anywhere." She moves left and right and comes to rest near one end. Without seeing her choice she drops it in the front slot. She sits down. Tom turns the box and opens the doors. The woman in the hijab stands up from her bench. Her voice is quiet and cool. "My name is Noor. This is called 'Books and Malteds.' When I get here from Syria I don't have any English. One of my first teachers shows me how to get a library card. What am I supposed to take out? Start with kids' books, he says. Then, anything. Go to yard sales. Used bookstores. Buy cheap paperbacks with nice covers. I like the cover of a science fiction paperback from the 1950's called Slan by A.E. Van Vogt. It is a future story about a race of different people who have tendrils hidden in their hair. They are very smart and are hunted and killed. In this picture, here I am at the counter of a diner, waiting for my vanilla malted, and the mixer is whining and stirring and gurgling like my brain, and this is the moment my English gets made in my head and pours out, just like the malted." There is applause and she blushes and sits down. Tom closes the doors. Doug the reporter stands and says, "But that was a picture of you, wasn't it? Reading Slan? Did you do this drawing?  "I can't draw." "I saw Anne take this picture out of the pile. You must be all working together. That's fine! That's great! I just want…" Brendan touches Doug's arm and shakes 

 

 


                                                 
Set Design for the Tempest


his head. Doug ignores him. "Look. I'm a reporter. OK. Not a reporter. A TV news reader. But I still want to understand what it is I'm reporting. Reading." Ballard says, "But we don't want to be news." Doug shows teeth. "Of course! I just mean, if we were able to do a feature, whatever you want, on how this works…or, hey, we could do your story as a kind of mystery! Everyone loves a mystery! The mystery of the magic story box!" One of the chess players snarls, "Ain't no fuckin' mystery." He takes a pawn, his friend a rook, and a square of light drops on the grass, and Iuri. She says,  "Why don't you tell a story, Mr. Semple?' "I'd love to!" He springs to the box, pulls out a drawing without looking and drops it in the slot. He sits and Tom opens the doors. His smile hardens to a grimace. His voice catches. "This is called, 'My Set Design for The Tempest.'" He walks to Tom and speaks low and tense. "This is. How did you know this? Do this? Why?" Tom says, "Do what?" “My Set Design for the Tempest.” Everyone is still. He hisses, "What's the trick?" Someone calls from the audience, "What's the story?" Doug turns to the others and says, "You want the story? OK. This is my set design for a college production of The Tempest. I also played Prospero. But that's not the story. The story is that I wanted to be an actor, a set designer, anything in the theater. It was the last time I was ever happy. I couldn't do it. The poverty, the failure, the loneliness. I wasn't any good. I couldn't…" Doug takes off his jacket and loosens his tie under the sun. Brenden’s phone buzzes. "The station wants the story." "There's no story. Take the truck." "What do I tell them?” "Tell them you couldn't find me. I quit." Iuri points to her face and gives Doug a Kleenex. He wipes at the makeup and studies the bronze smear on the tissue. Brendan says, "You’re throwing it all away, for this? " Tom opens the door to another drawing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                 
Brendan shuts the box and glares at Tom. "That was cheap. Mean. Why hurt him like that?" He gathers his tripod and camera and leaves. Tom gulps to whisper, “I never…” Everyone is talking about what has just happened or not happened with the cameraman. Tom says to Iuri, “No more pictures.” The other people approach in a covid-distance circle that reminds Tom of the Howard Hawks' The Thing, where the arctic scientists and soldiers gather arm-length to outline the flying saucer visible under the ice. Tom says to them, "I just draw dreams." Noor says, "You had a dream about me. That's ok. Somehow that one got picked out of the pile. That's ok." The two chess players nod in unison. Ernesto points to the box. "We're all in there somewhere." Tom says, "I have no idea how that could possibly be true." Justice says, "It just is." Ballard says, "True?" Justice says, "Is." Iuri takes another drawing out of the box and puts it in the slot. She waits until everyone is seated again. She opens the doors. 

     

 

 


Special Clave


     "This is called Special Clave. When I was little, I had no idea we were homeless. I just thought I came from a family that liked to hang out at the library a lot. With my family, it was stories to eat, stories to heat. Anyway, Yesterday I'm in line at the check cashing place. A lady ahead of me trying to get a money order from Honduras. The dude behind the bulletproof glass keeps yelling at her, you need the password! The special clave! She's all dressed up but drunk or stoned. She turns to look at me and says, 'No tengo ilave especial. No clave.' She keeps flipping through her keychain. She could be sinking through the earth." Iuri closes the doors and Brendan the cameraman comes back from the street with blood covering his face and shirt. Tom helps him to a bench. The cameraman presses a bloody key into Tom's hand. His face is torn like a sheet. His voices pops blood bubbles. "I tripped on my tripod." One of the chess players takes off his hoodie and uses it to staunch blood. Justice calls 911. They are close to the police station and Holy Cross Hospital. A police car and ambulance wail up the street. Brenden passes out. EMT's put him on a gurney and into the ambulance. One of them and a policeman ask Tom questions he can't answer. A policewoman says to Iuri, "Everything OK, Iuri? " Iuri says, "Hi Danny." The policewoman asks what all the people are doing in the park. Iuri says, "We tell stories." Danny the policewoman sees the boy on the bench and goes to him. "Hi. I'm officer Danielewski. Are your parents here?" He studies her with big eyes. "Don't you go to Lincoln Elementary?" "I can’t go to school right now.” “Let me take you home.” “I can’t go home now.” He gets up and walks away. Officer Danielewski says something in her mic and follows him out of the park.  Tom turns away and opens his hand. The bloody key sticks to his palm. He stumbles over an overturned brick spotted with blood, engraved with SWANK. The reporter Doug is standing by the TV van. He asks Tom, "Where's Brendan?"  A Good Humor truck goes down the street. It is playing "The Entertainer." Tom offers Doug the bloody key. Doug backs away. Tom tries to wipe it clean and holds it out again. Doug says, "What the hell?" "I'm sorry." "Another trick?" "I don't know anything." "How could you do it and not know it?" "Take the truck. Brendan fell and cut his face. They took him to Holy Cross." Doug takes the key. His thumb traces the blood in the grooves, then he climbs in the TV van and drives away. Minutes later Iuri and Tom watch the police leave. "You called that cop Danny." "Officer Danielewski. She helped me find a shelter." "From the guy you electrocuted.     
     "Maybe electrocuted."
    
    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fire Eaters


Days later Justice returns without her dog Vertigo. Tom pulls a drawing from the box, drops it in the slot, and opens the doors. Justice stands and says, " This is called Fire-Eaters. On Tuesday Vertigo died in my lap. We were watching a TV show about the history of circus fire eaters. I tried to swallow fire. It was going to be a Viking's Funeral, you know, I'd burn up with a dead dog at my feet. But I had this idea from somewhere that if I could eat that fire, then I'd go on. I used a Click n' Flick and lighter fluid like they showed on TV, but I dropped the lighter and set the couch on fire." She shows them the side of her singed hair. "Got Vertigo's body out. Gave him a traditional burial in the earth."  She sits down. The chess players sit on either side of her and touched her shoulder and hand. The boy with the soda goes to her and says, "I'm sorry about your dog," and then drops his soda in a wire mesh trash can. Ice cubes clatter through the wire and he leaves. Tom closes the doors and then joins Ballard and Meg to sit with Justice. Her eyes wobble with tears. "OK. Time for the next story. Tom nods and goes to the box, puts in another picture and opens the doors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                             

 

 

 

 

 

Azure Profundo


       Back at the chess table Ernesto stoops and Not sprawls, both with fresh hoodies for Mexican Metal Bands Brujeria and Cacofonia. Ernesto is setting up the board with black. Not Ernesto goes to the box and talks about the picture.  "This is called Azure Profundo. I'm not Not Ernesto. I'm Hector. That was just smart mouth stuff. Sorry. Here's the story: In the mid-twentieth century, most neighborhoods have a street ending in an electrical substation. On those streets there is always one family with twin girls or identical triplets. The buzzing insulating coils make the girls' braces into radios. Implanted I-Pods are born.” Ernesto says, “This is the North America Twentieth Century. In Mexico, every neighborhood has a maquiladora. Every street an asthmatic girl with a cleft lip. The coil thing looks like a pawn. I am a pawn man. My friends say when that computer, Azure Profundo, that Deep Blue, beat Kasparov in the ’97 rematch, it was the end of chess, but I don’t believe that." Hector nods vigorously and returns to take a rook. "You know what I think? I think that thing looks like a pile of poop. Poop with a light on top. Ernesto captures a pawn. "Dude ate a light bulb and shit it out." Tom closes the doors.  The masks are off by now and Tom tries but fails to just glance at Iuri's hair lip. His stare draws her eyes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Atomic Rulers of the World


      Tom closes the doors and the boy returns. "Got anything in space? "Ernesto says, "He doesn't do requests," but Tom pulls out a picture, drops it in and opens the doors. "This is called, 'Atomic Rulers of the World.'" Ballard claps. "Ah, I know this well! It was dubbed and repackaged for American TV from a Japanese movie serial in the late '50's. We called it Star Man. The cardboard Saturn gently sways on piano wire. I saw it when home from school with a bad fever, rubber ice pack on my forehead that hurt with cold and seemed to drive the fever into the TV, Twonky style. The Star Man actor, Ken Utsui, went on to a distinguished film career. After a Japanese boy wearing a Star Man cape died jumping from a window, Utsui quit the role, and never spoke about it again." "Dumb fucking kid." The boy hops off the bench and leaves the park. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                    
La Bestia


Iuri put a drawing in the story box and opened the doors. "This is called La Bestia. I worked at Dairy Queen with a kid from Guatemala. He thought the white rubber gloves he wore looked like a mummy's hands. That’s what they say about the trains. La Bestia. You get on as a person, get off as a mummy.' I just can't help trying to unwrap those bandages. "Ernesto says, "I know that kid." Hector says, "I am that kid." 
                           
                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonora


      Tom closed the doors, put a drawing in the story box and opened the doors again.  Iuri said, "This is called Sonora. When my family was homeless and hanging out in the library, I used to wander through the shelves and hear all the books talking to me, but I could never quite hear my mother clear. I'd go to certain sections, turn a corner, go up and down the shelves and she'd get a little closer, closer, then I'd lose her again. For a long time I thought I heard which book was her voice: Virginia Woolf, then Toni Morrison, Elizabeth Hardwick, Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, but after a while I couldn't hear her anymore, and I just stopped reading, anything." Ernesto said, "We've seen a book like that in the sky over the Sonoran Desert. That's the kind of shit you see out there. Go for the hidden water jugs and you see burning bushes. Secret machines. Giant operating manuals and such. Or, excuse me, that's maybe your mother's book?" Iuri said, "Well, yeah. Both. Maybe." The FedEx delivery truck pulls up to the corner. Meg and her daughter Anne jump out. They unload small boxes and hand them out to the people in the park. Everyone gets a sandwich and a bag of chips. The boy eats like he's starving, then runs away. Tom closed the doors. 
               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                
The Strabismus Express


The Fed Ex driver Meg puts a drawing in the story box and opens the doors. "This is called The Strabismus Express. It's me driving. Usually, an angry customer is tired waiting for me to get their package from our hubs to deliver. They order a duplicate shipment only to receive both the same day and not home to receive either when I get to the stop, so I get an on-call pup in my device by the time I've delivered three towns over hours later and impossible for me to make it back fifty miles in twenty minutes before the window closes and I'm at fault for not prioritizing my pickups over deliveries. like this train looking sideways or the Rapunzel story I throw down my hair for and end up breaking someone's back trying to fix Anne's eyes." Meg shrugs and says, "Anyway…" and then closes the doors. There is applause. She tries not to smile and sits down. Iuri calls out to the street, "Gaito Kamishibai! Street Corner Paper Play! Still cheap! Still street! Monster mystery stories! Our inheritance the shadows! Seared into brick! What to do with those black bricks, black books? Throw and bash? Write and draw? Drop down a well of dreams to listen, breathless, for the plunk?" It's late. Tom puts the top panel on the box, closes the front doors, straps it down with bungees, and flips the kickstand. He gazes at the setting sun and puts back the kick stand. He gets a sandwich box and a bag of chips from Meg and Anne as Iuri calls out to the street, "Gaito Kamishibai! Street Corner Picture Play! Still Cheap! Still Street!" When she turns again Tom is dropping the sandwich box and bag in the garbage can and crossing the street. Iuri yells, " You left your damn box!" He doesn't answer. Iuri runs after him, but he's gone through a hole in a chain-link fence, down a hill of weeds and behind the liquor store. Gone. It's late. Iuri takes the bike and box and waves goodbyes. At the corner she thinks she sees the boy. She calls out, but he is as gone as Tom. She rides through the streets looking for the boy, then for Tom, then both. Cricket sounds rise and fall in the dusk and she rides to her apartment house and parks it in the lobby. She takes the box upstairs. In the middle of the night she wakes and clears the table by her bed. She sets the box by her lead unicorn lamp. In its light the box looks diminished, a shop class reject, homemade and untrue. She takes off the top to expose the ream of upright drawings. The heavy paper stock pulls free easily, and She tugs and returns, tugs and returns, randomizing before her pick. Like the people in the park, she doesn't peek. She puts it in the slot, sits back on the bed and opens the doors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                       
     That fucker Tom must have followed her home, broken into her place and done a drawing of her lamp…but a drawing of exactly what she is seeing, at this moment? 
     …and a drawing she chooses herself--a random pick from three or four hundred others--that turns out to be this drawing, now?
     …and a drawing he had done and inserted into the box when he had no way of knowing that she would bring the box home, put it on this table, look at it from this angle…

     She picks another drawing, drops it in and opens the doors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Her mother. She closes the doors, takes out the drawings from the front and returns them to the file. She drops back onto the couch and half sleeps. This place might be small and lonely, but it is quiet. After a long time she opens the doors again. There is no picture revealed. She tuts her fingers together and twists them into a square. She peers through it, framing the blank stage like a cellphone capturing a QR code. Here vision snaps. A glowing chyron crawls across the box. She can't quite read it. It's news of something that's happened, is happening, is going to happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                
I'm Toast


     Later Iuri gets some to-go coffees at the coffee shop and returns to the park, and the story box. She puts in a drawing and opens the doors. Tom is coming in the park and says, “Sorry. I burned the toast." Iuri  gives him some coffee. "I hate you." He looks and closes the doors, sips and winces. Still too hot. They go to a bench and he removes the lid to cool off the coffee. The mask mandate is over. The cut in Iuri’s mouth is not a cleft lip, but a scar. She says, "Are you every going to tell me what's going on?" He says, "Are you?" He spills the too-hot coffee on his lap and the Mexican guys hunkered for chess ask if he is ok when he screams. She says, “Jesus, would you be careful?” He sees a baby crawling on the grass                   four legs
She sees a young mother walking behind                          two legs
He sees Ballard with a cane                                              three legs 

She sees lights like fireflies in the sun

He sees every syllable spell out sparkles


                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The Bottles


     Tom puts in a drawing and opens the doors. This morning he has a story. “A life of Jesus infests the little free library box down the street with ants. I dump all the books. The box is also jammed with religious pamphlets. All infested.  I douse the box with killer vinegar and dish soap. The vinegar smell follows me, and even some ants that got on my pants from the broken spine of Christ’s life. You see, I was on my way to the bar at the labor temple on Park Street. I was going to get a drink. I started drinking when I was a kid. My parent’s liquor cabinet. But I can’t go to bars, even at the labor temple. So I stopped by the little library, saw the ants, and went home to make the ant killer instead. I know about that place inside yourself where you could just as well drink down the ant killer to stave off the whisky idea. Or to do darker deeds on the gut…” He trails off. There is a silence that lets in the scented rustle of flowers from the catalpa tree above. Tom closes the doors.
             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    
The Log


     Tom puts a drawing in the slot and opens the doors. Pabi and Harka have returned, laughing and chatting in Nepali as before. The older woman, Ratna, says, "My husband had to carry the tree in Bhutan." The reporter Doug has returned. He says, "Bhutan! I have always wanted to go there! The Land of Smiles! Their economy is Buddhist. They measure it in terms of Domestic Gross Happiness. That's why you are always so happy!" The women are both silent for a moment, and Ratna's younger companion Pabi translates in Nepali. Ratna looks confused and asks a flurry of questions, Pabi answers, and then they both explode into uncontrollable hysterics. Pabi manages to gasp out an explanation over her laughter. "Ratna says her husband was ordered to carry the trees---giant logs----by the army and police. The Buddhist government took away our farms and kicked us out of the country in 1985. They made us live in camps in Nepal without running water or electricity for twenty years. If we said no the soldiers made us lay down and they dropped and rolled the giant trees over our backs. Sometimes the backs got broken. That is The Bhutan Land of Smiles!" They laugh again, and don't. stop.
     
                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The Ceiling Fan


     After a time Justice goes to the box. She puts a drawing in the story box, opens the doors and says, I was sick
Under the ceiling fan
And saw an old rotary phone turning slow, coming around 
                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Does This Thing Work?


     Doug goes to Justice to speak in hushed tones no one can hear. She is crying and he touches her shoulder with pandemic care. He bows and puts his hands together in blessing, and she does the same.  She sits and Doug return to the box. He puts a picture in the slot and opens the doors. "I did a human interest story one night on the news: some young brash kids were given the challenge to see if they could use an old rotary phone in a suburban kitchen. The young cocky guy picking up the big receiver with a timid touch. A fearful quiet hello, buzzing dial tone. The older, bigger guy pushing the little button in a rapid tap. A third, jittery guy, poking at the ring of the white numbers, letters, jerking his hand away when it rotated back." He closes the doors and sits down. There is applause and cheers. Brendan the cameraman has come back. He has a bandage across his face. Doug gives him a sideways squeeze and they laugh. Brendan says, "You look good. Different." "How's your face?" "Different. And not good. That's OK. There seem to be a lot of scars here. Still won't reconsider coming back to work? There's a great story here." "Not for TV." Brendan looks around. "It's weird. You know, all of this kind of looks like how people used to sit around radios, or TV's.” Ballard overhears. “Do you know what the Japanese kids called TV in 1953? ‘Denki Kamishibai.’ That means, ‘electric paper story.’” Ballard walks to the picture box, takes out the picture, puts it in the slot and opens the doors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     
     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmie's


      "Talking about phones. This is from Jimmie's drug store. First you see magazines, comics and newspapers: Green Lantern, The Flash, Mystery in Space, Our Army at War, Tales of Suspense, House of Mystery, Challengers of the Unknown. In the "adult" magazine sections are Famous Monsters of Filmland, Spacemen, Amazing, Fantastic, Analog, Sir! Stag, or All Man. Just beyond the front door is a book rack with paperbacks. The turning rack squeals.  A Separate Reality, Further Conversations with Don Juan, Games People Play, Man's Search for Meaning, Exodus, Profiles in Courage, A Separate Peace, How to Make Friends and Influence People, The Hidden Persuaders, Valley of the Dolls, Doctor No, From Russia with Love, various Mickey Spillane/Mike Hammer titles, Ace Science Fiction doubles like Empire of the Atom/Clans of the Alphane Moon and “adult” books like Lord of the Flies and Peyton Place. Then two narrow aisles of pharmacy/drugstore items, like a pastel-aqua enema/douche bag, its hangdog droop and black tubes and fittings strange as the boyhood sight of Dali's gooey clock in Persistence of Memory. Across from the register a small lunch counter: grill, soda fountains and mixers. At the back a dark phone booth. Numbers and names are carved into the walls and shelf under the phone. The whole store is tiny, quiet, and infinite. The phone rings, and rings." The man closed the doors. "My sister was sent away. I didn’t know why. I think she was calling me. Won’t anyone answer the phone?”  Ballard turns white. His eyes are startled, busy with something far away. No one claps or speaks. From behind the trees the boy appears. "I've never been in a phone booth. Is it small?"
     Ballard seems to wake. "I used to think it was infinite. An entrance to a forever maze."
     The boy says, "I was in a maze."
                                                     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Maize Maze


     The doors are open to a drawing of the boy in a corn maze. The boy goes to the box and tells Ballard, "My class took a trip to the maze. I just ran into the maze. It was stupid. If nobody could find me they'd just keep looking and we'd never go back to school. There were people all around calling, ‘Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are Come Out’. And when I did, I found everybody here. " Everyone claps. This time he doesn't leave the park. He looks around at the others in the park, and smiles.  Iuri puts a drawing in the slot but doesn't open the doors. She faces the people in the park and says, "This is called, What is Happening in this Moment. This is called, What Almost Happened but Didn't. This is called, What I Wish I had Done but Didn't. This is called, There Are No Second Chances. This is called But there are First and Third Chances. This is called, When Everything Changed. This is called, When I Had a Bad Fever But Got Better, I think. This is called, I Should Have Answered the Phone. This is called, I Looked at the Phone and Had No Idea How to Use It. This is called, I Answered It but It wasn't for Me. This is called, I Answered it and it was for Me and I Hung Up. This is called, Don't Be Afraid, You Can Come Home Now."
   Iuri opens the doors. 

The Investigation

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

   Officer Danielewski can't find Iuri, Tom, or anyone else from the story box circle. Now that the covid emergency has officially ended, the little park has been overrun with kids, seniors, and refugees from Centro Hispano across the street. The story box has been left behind, unnoticed behind a clump of tree root and grass. Officer Danielewski takes it for evidence, back to the station's interrogation room. All their leads have dried up, and she tries one more idea. Volunteers from the neighborhood with no knowledge of the story circle are brought in to look at the drawings, and tell stories about what they see. She watches from the other side of a one-way mirror.  After the pictures and viewed and the stories recorded, she listens to the recordings. Even though the pictures can be interpreted in many different ways, the volunteers tell the same stories Iuri recounted to officer Danielewski.
     The same stories. 
     Late at night, after the volunteers are gone and the station is quiet, Officer Danielewski returns to the observation room. She sits and watches the box from the other side of the one-way mirror. After a long time, she seems to see the door of the picture box open on its own. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


     

 

 

 The doors open wider. A light pours out. 

 

 

 

 

 


    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The light is bright. She can't keep looking. She keeps looking. 

Williard_Paper_Play1.jpg
williard paper play 7.jpg
williard paper play 8.jpg
I'm Toast.jpg
The bottles.jpg
The log.jpg
ceiling fan.jpg
how does this work.jpg
phone booth.jpg
Sean Ewing Crimson_Elegance.jpg

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THE COURTSHIP OF WINDS

© 2015 by William Ray

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