Beside a Red Fire Box
You are standing on the cracked sidewalk, staring as a small regiment of ants makes their way from one side of a great crevassed divide to another.
The sun is casting greys into the golds at your feet.
Behind you is The Box.
The sussurance (of what you will come to learn, in the curl of falling pages, is the whispering of Zeus) drifts to you from a stand of forest across the street.
You musn't cross the street, you know. It is A Rule.
Turn and examine [[The Box]]
Walk [[along a cracked sidewalk ->Along a Cracked Sidewalk]]
You begin walking along the sidewalk in a direction that feels smooth and warm, like leaves beneath your palms when the sun shines concentric circles down through the trees.
(if: $firebox is true)[ Go on, [[in sunlight]].]
(else:)[ You feel the pull of the smooth white bar on red. Go back to stand [[beside a Red Box->Beside a Red Fire Box]].]
Iconic.
Red.
Touchstone.
It is there, and yet it isn't.
You know this to be true, just as you know onions to contain worlds within their skins.
You can touch it.
You can.
You really, really can.
But it may not be there, when your fingers reach the thick, cracked paint.
You have certainly tried before. (Oh, how you have tried).
But maybe... maybe try again? Now? ... For this is a liminal space.
[[Touch the box]].
Your fingers feel the weight of time, and air, and the heat of so very many days that have been sipped away.
They feel the pressure of memory, the deep want of desire.
They feel erasers, concrete, chalk, smooth aluminum, soft fur, the taste of viridian, the thrumming energy of pink sounds, the explosive curve of pearls of liquid beneath faucets.
These things, your fingers feel as they approach the box.
And then...
just this once...
JUST this once
They touch it.
Your fingertips connect with the Fire Box - And now you have NAMED it, you can OWN it, you are touching it, in THIS NOW.
It is baked warm by the late summer sun.
You have entered the THEN.
Walk [[along the cracked sidewalk->Along a Cracked Sidewalk]]
(set: $firebox to true)
The trees are bigger in the THEN.
Arcing, making tunnels of themselves and the street. Breathing cool and green through the tips of your hair.
(I say you, but we are really together here, you know. [Who is the second who walks always beside you.])
Ahead is a tiny strip of grass (and it is not 1972, however the date may buzz between your ears, because that is not our THEN, that is another WHATWHERE that we dip our fingers in and twirl our hands through).
No, it is still the THEN.
A white van is parked, all Timeless Comfortable on the strip of concrete, along the strip of grass.
Ants dance in complicated movements, arrayed in teals, and blues, and buttercream, and pink.
I would ask you to make a choice here, ask you, "what should we do here?" but there is only one answer, for this is the THEN and all things we have longed to do are possible.
We will return to the other choices later once the desperate frantic longing has unfolded.
We will return to explore the other spaces,
Once we have -
Dashed [[up the stairs to the house-> The Front Stairs]].
The railroad ties are rounded, wobbly beneath your feet.
Surge.
Fly.
Ascend.
The milk box is here, crosshatched silver scattering a throw of glare onto the step.
The mailbox is here, leaning, an arm's reach and a half, tantalus in the postal system.
The door.
The door is here.
The door is here as well.
...
But which door?
Let us contemplate [[the door-> The Front Door]].
Portals.
Rounded glimpses through the hull, perhaps.
Here we are looking inward.
Or through.
[[Blink-> FrontDoor1]].
Varnished panels running up and down.
Sleek rivulents to run your pinky nail along.
Glass, glass made of color, trapped in the sharp prisim corners where the light collects.
A latch of wrought iron, snitching into place with just the slightest drag of the darkness of its paint.
[[Bink again-> FrontDoor2]]
Yellow.
Xanthe.
Buttermilk.
Sunlight or
Daisys or
Sunflowers or
Yellow latex paint.
The storm front will not surge through the metal thickness here.
[[Blink again-> FrontDoor3]]. Be careful. Your vision cannot be trusted. Or maybe. It can be trusted more than anything else.
A clear door.
Glass. Sheets of it.
The curling snail of gold of the handle.
These things I have remembered for us.
Or created.
Or made up.
Or by making them up made them so.
Do you remember now, the sheet glass door with the golden handle?
And if you do, is it so?
Or have I eased it through your skull to nestle inside your own personal THEN?
Is the THEN untouchable?
Perhaps... Perhaps it is best not to think so through, so in, so tearing apart and rending at all of this.
Let us dwell on touchstones.
[[Creak the mailbox->The Mailbox]].
[[Pry the lid off of the milkbox->The Milkbox]].
Letters.
F's and T's and tiny g's hugging each other through the tails come cascading out.
You catch some.
A large red A.
A tiny purple t.
Again, we could snap these in two and seek the truth within their broken pieces, like the Swiss do with their Hadronic circles.
Best to ease them into our pockets.
Keep them safe.
Perhaps we can snick them, magnetic and magic to the fridge.
Let us return to the [[The Contemplation of the Door]].
We put things here.
Things we wanted to remember.
Things we wanted to forget.
I've found things in here.
Things I wanted to remember.
Things I've wanted to forget.
Stuffed animals.
Memories.
Forgotteries.
...
What have you placed in The Milkbox?
Return to the [[The Contemplation of the Door]].
Here we are, thresh-held.
Boxes, and bins around us.
Plumb their depths or shake through them, shake them out of your eyes and fingers, and grasp shaky hands for the door handle.
Our hands were made to open doors.
Let us, once again, dwell on touchstones.
[[Creak the mailbox->The Mailbox]].
[[Pry the lid off of the milkbox->The Milkbox]].
Let hands grip what hands are made for - [[grasp the handle->The Front Entry]].
Everything opening into white.
Basebord and flip up and down, it still makes the shape of a passage.
Honeypinecomb light spills from the ceiling, touchsmooth.
Would you like to play with the [[outside windows]]?
Or wrestle with the [[inside windows-> portals to within]]?
(if: $bicycle is true and $sofa is true and $rockingchair is true and $poster is true)[ Or perhaps we could just go in, [[ to stand beneath->Under The PassThrough]] the Ceilingcircle.]
(else:)[ We could, of course, just step through the foyer, but where is the tactile fun in that?]
Painted shut.
Slide a fingernail absently beneath a chip and pull the long latex leaf away from the sill.
Sit there.
Stare at the people who are not there.
[[Chant]] the names beneath your breath.
Through the glass darkly... your reflection makes it hard to see the room beyond.
You remember these.
Opening them up, putting a leg to each side, traversing the sill.
[[Still your hands-> portals take 2]] - aren't we more grown up than that?
[[Lift the sill-> The Living Room]] - wrestle with entropy and inertia and the resistance of memory and mind to turn a knob. For old time's sake.
Jim.
Pat.
O'Ryan and O'Sean.
Mikey.
The paint chips and sodden storm wood catch beneath your nails.
There are still other windows in the house of reflections.
[[Duck back into the foyer->The Front Entry]].
[[Spin-> Bicycle]] the bicycle.
[[Rock-> Rocking Chair]] the rocking chair.
[[Touch-> Poster]] the poster.
[[Pick apart->The sofa]] the sofa.
This is modular.
This is components.
Play with the pieces.
(if: $bicycle is true and $sofa is true and $rockingchair is true and $poster is true)[ [[Explore->Under The PassThrough]] the passage beneath the Pass Through.]
Or [[craw->The Front Entry]] back through interior liminations and explore the front entry again.
It doesn't really work like that here.
Touch.
Sink.
Dig in.
Oh dig so deeply.
There is no edge of the map to stop you (there is an edge of the map).
There is no force to stop you (I am stopping you).
Let's.
Let's lift the sill.
Let's be sisters.
[[Lift the sill-> The Living Room]] - wrestle with entropy and inertia and the resistance of memory to turn a knob. Not for "old time's sake" or any nonsense like that.
Grasp it, grapple, wrestle, because it is pure and free. Because we wouldn't be us if we could NOT.
The pink ribbon is frayed.
The red ribbon is faded pink.
The cycle is transformed into structure.
[[Touch-> The Pink Ribbon]] the ribbon.
[[Sit-> Exercise Bike]] on the seat.
[[Spin-> Pedals]] the pedals.
(set: $bicycle to true)
I am 6.
Self insertion, I am sorry, but I am here.
I am here, and we are not just watching 6 year old me.
Perhaps you are.
I cannot guess if you will slip into my skull for this.
I am not observing, guardianesque from over my shoulder.
No.
I am 6.
I rock in the rocking chair.
You know the one.
It is faded.
Just like the band on the exercise bike.
Pink.
Pink.
Not pink though.
Mauve.
or
Dusty Rose.
or
The Color That is What Red Things Fade To.
That is the one.
I rock in the rocking chair and I cry.
The afternoon is stretching, elastic, or Hitchcockian, without the malice.
It stretches in the way that the time then becomes like the Now - endless. Without beginning or conceivable end.
I would like to have you push the rocking chair and ask me why I am crying, but that is a degree of self insertion, of wheels in wheels, of rockers off theirs, that I don't want to engage in.
Remember, I am I and You are You and We are We.
Hold hands.
Things are slippery here.
Six year old me is crying because school is out for summer.
Laugh if you want.
That is what memory is steeped into the cushion of the rocking chair that is The Color That is What Red Things Fade To.
I only report the truth.
I only report my truth.
I only report what I can recall.
I only recall what I can recall.
I only recall what might be my truth.
I report something.
There. That can be said.
I say it, and I report something.
Do you agree?
Let us shake our heads and pull back from the elastic, taffy pull of the memory of the cushion of the rocking chair that is The Color That is What Red Things Fade To and [[refocus-> The Living Room]] again on the rest of the living room.
(set: $rockingchair to true)
Glossy.
The edges curl under transfixed by pushpins.
Pardon my mixed measures of time (my anachronistic aphorisms), but this is also a bedroom.
The THEN is a friendly device to the creative individual unwilling to be pinned down.
As this poster is pinned.
The women by the Nile will wait.
Their time is always the THEN.
[[Think]] on what you will.
[[Refocus-> The Living Room]] on the living room.
(set: $poster to true)
Two things to do here, to the sofa.
Only two.
[[Smooth->Gold Piping]] the heels of your palm along the gold piping.
[[Pull->The Threads]] the threads out.
If you think of a third, of course, be sure to do that as well.
(set: $sofa to true)
(if: $sofa1 is true and $sofa2 is true)[ Let us [[refocus on the living room-> The Living Room]]]
DONT TOUCH IT YOUR FINGER WILL GET CAUGHT IN THE MECHANISM< DO YOU WANT TO LOSE A FINGER LIKE RICH BERGERON< NO< LIKE RUNNING WITH SCISSORS< YOULL POKE YOUR EYE OUT< NO LIKE WEARING A SCARF ON AN ELEVATOR OR AN ESCALATOR OR ANY OTHER OF THE DANGEROUS MACHINES< YOULL GET STRANGLED BY IT< NO< DONT TOUCH IT YOUR FINGER WILL GET CAUGHT IN THE MECHANISM.
We touch it anyway.
Duh.
It is braided, flat, smoothed out to the fine sheen of pearl cotton now.
Abraided at the edges, flaired out to the fine fuzz of flyaway threads now.
It is decidedly The Color That is What Red Things Fade To.
Pleasing.
[[Sit-> Exercise Bike]] on the seat.
[[Spin-> Pedals]] the pedals.
Or, if the intense tactile workings of this prize of machinery and Ed!Memory bore you, we can [[look again-> The Living Room]] at the living room.
Wobble.
Don't fall.
We are too short for it.
That is what makes it thrilling.
Don't even try to stretch you feet to the pedals.
...
Okay, you can [[try-> Stretching To The Pedals]].
Let's kneel on the floor.
Just the two of us.
You first.
[[Flick the pedal->Spin The Pedal]].
Tippy toes stretched, the ends of our jelly shoes can't even tip the bendover of the pedals.
Wait!
We just tipped it.
It revolves lazily, spinning half arcs and semi-circles around the piston.
Pleasing.
[[Touch-> The Pink Ribbon]] the ribbon.
[[Spin-> Pedals]] the pedals.
Or, if this artefact of aerodynamic excitement is no longer interesting, we can [[look again-> The Living Room]] at the living room.
It twirls, tumbles, rightwards and backwards and widdershins and deasil.
Except we didn't know those words.
We didn't know the word I just NOW (not this now you are experiencing, not the THEN that I am building, but my NOW, as I make these and set them under the resin dome, that will soon be A then, but not THE THEN,) learned for a widdershins antonym, sunwise. Widdershins and sunwise. All around the dial.
We didn't know those words, for in the THEN, they are rightsides and backsides and forward roll and backwards roll (feel the gym mats beneath your forearms), and simpler than that they are a pretty tumble, an exercise in centers of gravity.
The pedal tumbles around seeimingly with a will and agency of its own.
Pleasing.
[[Touch-> The Pink Ribbon]] the ribbon.
[[Sit-> Exercise Bike]] on the seat.
Or, if you have plumbed the depths of this wellspring in the memory holes and want to explore the concept of LIVING ROOM further, we can [[refocus-> The Living Room]].
Flights of fancy
Travel agencies.
Spreads of clocks with the deep blue dip of sunlight and of shadow.
The southern hemisphere is under water.
Exodi, the boatman, pickup Styx
and the rivers and sands of time.
Birds named for the Plutonian Shore in our NOW, flitting through the THEN, as birds are wont to do.
Bunkbeds and boomboxes and speakers set in cabinets with stuffed cats perched on top.
Perhaps you think of none of this.
That is CORRECT.
That is your THEN-given right.
Whatever you thought of, think of, have pondered, let's [[refocus-> The Living Room]] on the living room.
Tracing around the wooden fin shapes.
We were leaing in a car on an adventure in WINTER.
We were opening our gifts on another adventure in WINTER.
The gold piping is so roundly, tubularly smooth.
[[The sofa]] waits expectantly.
(set: $sofa1 to true)
Deep purplebrown.
Very much NOT The Color That is What Red Things Fade To.
Browngoldblue.
Redburgundyrose.
One thread sticks out a touch from the rest.
We pull it. It pebbles out under the weft, each hump of texture softly threading up pillows against the rest.
It is short.
And perfect.
And it comes out in our palm.
We should name it.
Put it in a glass dish on a shelf.
[[The sofa]] waits to see what we will do.
Let us [[refocus-> The Living Room]] on the living room before we become attached.
(set: $sofa2 to true)
(set: $bicycle to false)
(set: $sofa to false)
(set: $poster to false)
(set: $rockingchair to false)
(set: $firebox to false)
(set: $sofa1 to false)
(set: $sofa2 to false)
(set: $slipofpaper to false)
(set: $pinkpony to false)
(set: $holographicsticker to false)
(set: $wallpaper to false)
(set: $trapdoor to false)
(set: $diningroomcabinet to false)
(set: $SkyDancer to false)
(set: $drum to false)
A circle wrought from iron rings.
Crane your neck.
A [[slip of paper]]
or
A [[tiny pink pony]]
or
A [[holographic sticker]]
falls through.
It is a message.
From one of us
To you.
(if: $slipofpaper is true and $pinkpony is true and $holographicsticker is true)[ [[The hummingbirds are calling to us->The Dining Room]].]
.. ... . .
. .. .. .. . .
... .. . . . .
. . ... .
.. . . . [[...]]
Does it mean something?
Are we meant to connect the dots with lines like rays of light tracing alien trade routes from star to lonely star?
Are you reaching out and touching me?
Am I reaching out and touching you?
Is it a dialogue with the self, from the past?
Perhaps it's only [[calculated random->Under The PassThrough]].
(set: $slipofpaper to true)
not eraser no way to take back mistakes tiniest littlest not in your pocket or hidden in a cuff sleeve rolled back but smallest from the shop that sells the pets we cling to when night breathes up the porch
She is small.
And beautiful.
And perfect.
Littlest pony, sized by the divine hand of Matel to fit perfectly through the gaps in the [[wrought iron grate->Under The PassThrough]].
(set: $pinkpony to true)
<center>Because it's
Halfway Between
Being
</center>
A cat.       you still cannot make it out.
crouched.      recurve your mind until.
back humped.             twist it, wring it.
beneath bushes.              justoutofview.
justoutofview.              over something.
tip it, turn it.                      trunk curled.
cant your head until.                  curved.
you still cannot make it out.       A tree.
Be [[halfway->Under The PassThrough]] again.
(set: $holographicsticker to true)
The hummingbirds are calling
flitting
swooping still
and singing static
singing smoother songs than static
but stationary, still.
Ringing round the room
their silent thrumming wingbeats
ringing around the room
Plethora of options - drift through them slowly. Once we have exhausted the dining room, made it tired and drowsy through our explorations, once the room is sated and sedated, we can look to other rooms.
[[Fall into a dream-> Textured Wallpaper]] of creamy texture.
or
[[Enter the fantasy-> Trap Door]] of the trap door.
or
[[Plumb the backs-> Dining Room Cabinet]] of the kitchen's spine through the cabinetry.
(if: $wallpaper is true and $trapdoor is true and $diningroomcabinet is true)[ [[The jungle room is breathing green->The Playroom]] between the birds.
[[The hollows of cat's greeting hello-> The Bathroom]] are hushing out.
[[The humming of the kitchen going about its life-> The Kitchen]] comes from further back.
]
Hollows and furrows and back and fore-ground
Measured out divets are swirling around
Finger them softly and remember the track
You will have to recall how to follow it back.
It rises and falls with a soft texturesque
Above and below the thrumming wing's nest
Remember, remember, the call of the thrush
And so you recall, at your fingers' first brush.
[[Remember->The Dining Room]] the dining room.
(set: $wallpaper to true)
I wonder what we used to imagine.
Putting down the hatch.
Was it a pirate ship? (We never played at pirate ships)
Was it a haunted house? (We never played at haunted houses).
Perhaps it was just where the basement breathed out,
a vent, of sorts
to release the hellsmokes and the sdnomaidvapours.
I do wish that it had opened, don't you?
Is this the real life
Or is this fantasy
The humingbirds are singing Freddy Mercury, and if they are off pitch we will not tell them.
This is both.
And neither.
And to be sure, it could open if we brute-forced it.
If I added an extra strut, a stretched out fillament of imagination,
and
If I added several simple lines of code and linked two rooms together
and
we
Broke
the truth of it all.
It doesn't open.
We trace the outline gritty with our fingertips and remain [[in the dining room->The Dining Room]].
(set: $trapdoor to true)
The paint sticks.
It always does in this house.
Thick pullable paint that is married to the damp and knows viscerally when it is around and sticks sympathetic.
The door sticks when we pull on it.
A soft rush of dark air breathes out.
Let us [[stick our heads-> InsideTheDiningRoomCabinet]] into the cabinet.
(set: $diningroomcabinet to true)
Tropical birds are watching us play.
Toucans peek out from behind umbrella leaves.
Somehwhere in the distance, a small feathered form flits from tree to tree.
Shelves.
So many [[shelves]].
Zip.
Sly.
Bluey.
Maui.
Igloo.
And look! Confluence of time and space has pushed my bed into this room, up against the [[window-> playroom window]].
Of course...
there is always...
...
(Have I given enough pause here?)
....
A bit more, then.
...
There is always...
[[the closet-> Playroom Closet]].
The cats will be here soon.
The Hello will greet you soon.
But since you are reading this now, and you are likely in the CHRISTMAS DAY NOW (Not the dawn before the day of christmas now, or the spirit of Christmas past, or any other variation thereof), and I have to tell you I have not finished the repairs.
The reconstructions are incomplete.
So, for now, this room is a shadow of light, shimmering just out of view.
Let it coalesce and it will call to you when it is complete.
Merry Christmas, Kyla.
Quiet.
Safe.
Lined with contact paper.
Just a bit of light leaking in.
The perfect archetype of what we look for in hiding places.
Of course, we never hid in here.
The shelves are too close together.
The cabinet itself too above-waist-height to really be a viable spot.
The contact paper too wanting-to-curl-back on itself if we pressed in.
Still.
The cool dust limning the colored cats on the vinyl...
Is quite nice.
The kitchen is living, just on the other side of these cabinets.
But to get there, and anywhere else, we will have to first [[leave->The Dining Room]] the
Soft
Dark
Dustness
of the cabinet.
The Treachery of Links.
Ceci n'est pas une œuf de Pâques.
It is merely incomplete, as yet.
The shelves of our playroom.
([[.-> Barbie Pool]]) ([[.-> Eagle Figurine]]) ([[.-> Molly Doll]]) ([[.-> Cat Dominoes]])
([[.->Littlest Petshop Pond]]) ([[.-> Sky Dancers]]) ([[.-> Eraser Cat Silo]]) ([[.-> Secret Attic Doll]])
([[.-> Walking Horse]]) ([[.-> Tiny Corral]]) ([[.-> Beanie Babies]]) ([[.-> Ribbon Dancer]])
Or, if you have had enough with rummaging through toy shelves (can anyone ever <i>really</i> have enough of rummaging through toy shelves?), then we can return to the whole of [[The Playroom]].
Lets jump on the bed!
Remember how I locked you in here?
I suck.
Or was that in the bathroom?
Well, we'll get there eventually too.
But let's just jump on the bed for now.
Remember when I had my bed in here? Briefly?
Here - look here on the window, the big, one paned window.
What is this [[sticker]]?
Looming.
The door is tall.
Taller than Dad.
Taller than a person.
Tall enough for a monster.
[[Thump]].
Barbie's Pool!
So blue.
So sparkle.
So curvepoints.
Squeeze the happy happy whale who is of course pink of course that is the color that whales are made of.
Wheezy happy squeezy whale squirts water.
Squirt
Squirt
Squirt.
Back to the [[shelves]].
An Eagle Figurine!!
Caw caw!
Or is that what crows say?
The plastic eagle says the sound that stuffed Eagley makes as he swoops down the stairs, except with an extra plastic thunk at the end.
Eagley sound!
Soar!
Thunk.
Back to the [[shelves]].
Molly Doll!
Plaid, so very plaid!
Accessories, so many accessories!
Her tiny violin, her tiny flute.
Her tiny bunk bed, which we did not have but spent enough time smoothing the pages of the Sears Christmas catalogue to know what it would be like.
Molly, Molly, Molly.
Molly wouldn't eat her Victory Garden turnips, do you remember?
Somthing too about Halloween.
And of course, infamously chased by the rogue piano while hoping desperately, that phrase that lingers of old -
"I hope I get a part in the school play."
And we did hope, Molly. And made sure to make one ourselves. Piano Jangle, out.
Back to the [[shelves]].
Cat Dominoes!
Tick Tack.
Click Clack.
In the whatfores and the onezalls
Between the pips and the ringpops,
we would sometimes pause to play
The Cat Dominoes game.
Peacefully matching Orange Tabbies to Orange Tabbies.
Tail to tail.
Top to top.
Anti-Beatlesesque.
Like to like.
And we did like.
Back to the [[shelves]].
A Littlest Petshop Pond!
Slinglith starblue silent shelterpads dip songthfully through the deepquiet tingles.
Push a tiny turtle through the sliphatch.
Slip.
Slip.
Skid.
It swirls and spins to stop, its little stomach magnet tracing its path.
We are the turtle, looking out through the starsilent blue.
The world is crystaline, plastiline, safe, and still.
Back to the [[shelves]].
Sky Dancers!
Pull the cord and SLITH they go!
June bug sheened in pearlescent perfection, we will watch them spin higher and higher, coming down softly on improbably heavy pinkplastic and blueplastic wings.
The next step, of course, is always to take them to the deck.
Perhaps we will do this.
Let's put this in our proverbial, hypothetical, hyperbolically deep infinite mental pockets.
We now have a Sky Dancer.
(set: $SkyDancer to true)
Back to the [[shelves]].
The Eraser Cat House!!
This explains our childhood.
Two parts.
The house.
Tiny steps of bent paper up to a shoebox on its side.
Mini-cupcake rustly liners with a cottonball inside.
A television, carefully, meticulously constructed, for the cats who we never forced to correct our errors.
(Do you recall what was on the television screen? I don't.)
A silo.
Elevator.
Orange juice container.
Somehow.
Improbably.
There is a working elevator.
We were immersed in sunlight of freely given perfection.
Back to the [[shelves]].
Your Secret Attic Doll!!
And her hair
was
<i>perfect</i>.
And I fell
in love
<i>instantly</i>.
In this reality, of course, her arm has not been torn off.
In this reality, of course, she is the doll you wanted initially.
I can do that.
I work here.
They know me here.
Nudge nudge, wink wink.
And so presto-restore-o, your doll lies here on the shelf.
The ice queen.
And we say that with childish teeth, without the presumptions of Resting Bitch Face™
or
Slogans of "Just Smile!".
She is an ice queen and she is magnificent.
Her dress is lace and tulle, white froth against her dark skin.
And, what's this?
A silver woven chromed basket, held in her left hand.
[[Look inside-> DollBasket]].
A Walking Barbie Horse!!
A self contained Rube Goldberg for our delight.
Flick the switch beneath where the saddle cinches.
Watch how all four precisely formed legs spring into motion!
Marvel at her as she traverses the floor!
Anticipate as she approaches the jump!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Jumps it so easily, a true mark of class there!
Oops, and she sticks, like Pickle Dave when caught on a floating carpet.
^
|
That there is the phrase, you know. The phrase we can always use to make sure we are, in fact us.
If we were to not recognize that phrase, the jig would be up.
And is that jig, like the Highland Fling of legend Great Grandmother was supposed to dance? Or is it gig, signifying the end of a set?
At any rate,
as you might have guessed,
The horse does <b>not</b> jump it so easily.
She does not even jump it at all.
She had approached a slight crack between the floorboards and had folded.
But look!
Exault!
Wonder at how the legs still move!
Thrill at how the motion winds on still, even when she is on her side!
Celebrate expansively at the marvelous way the machinations continue!
Perhaps it is best to simply turn the horse off and go back to the [[shelves]].
A Tiny Wooden Corral!
You could put anything in here!
Sheep,
Ken dolls,
Be- uh, soda!
Anything you want to keep cool, son.
Ahem.
I mean, any type of barnyard creature or doll you want to keep temporarily contained.
Let's heft it off the shelf and ease it onto the floor.
Check it out!
Remember how it was divided?
Like this:
_______________
|                   |                 |
|_______|                 |
|                   |                 |
|_______|                 |
|                                     |
|______________|
                 x
With the little stalls for the little dragons. Er, eraser cats. Er, horses.
Horses, obviously.
And the little perfect sliding wooden gate at the x in the diagram!
Of course, here again we are playing pretend.
I remember the paddock so well. I can see all of the pieces in my mind's eye. But I would be lying if I said I remembered it perfectly.
I would be false if I said that it lay as the diagram says.
At any rate, it was at least something like the pixels say...
Lets put a sparkly-maned hard plastic small Littlest Pet Shop orange pony in here, shall we?
There.
That's nice.
Back to the [[shelves]].
Beanie Babies!!
Zip!
Flip!
Nip!
Sly!
Others!
More!
Penguiney!
Roarer..?
Sanguine the Bat?..??
So some of those might be incorect.
But!
Remember Zip? And Nip? And Flip?
Oh and Chip!
See? It's a cascading pile of soft velvety plush goodness.
Unless you get them wet.
Then they stew and become wet garbage.
Back to the [[shelves]].
A Ribbon Dancer!!
Swirly, twirly, pearly, the silky sheen sundazzles us.
The watertealblues and the plasticponybellypurplepink and the frontdooryellow strands always somehow come out untangled.
Back to the [[shelves]].
Facetinating.
Shardenous.
Refractioning.
Kaleidinous.
Glass made silky warm.
Crystal made light.
Rainbows made homes for, they curl and tuck themselves away into the corners.
A delighters stone, made from the alchemical process of mixing memory and desire.
<i>[[You now have 1 Cut Diamond->shelves]]</i>
Rainbow.
DOUBLE rainbow.
Just kidding, it's just a single rainbow.
But what a rainbow it is!!
The edges are curling and slightly stickless.
The bands of metallic
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Purple
arc over the edging of holographic silver speckle rainbowdancing shimmer.
It is pretty kickass.
Funny story.
Got this sticker from something to do with baseball, or something, at the baseball diamond...
They were giving out prizes for something like spinning your forehead around the bat, or something. Of course I was no good at that.
I still got a prize :)
Wanted that sticker soooo bad.
Oh!
Look at this!
A trick of the light through the [[rainbow-> moonstruck]].
<i>Moonstruck
That's what mom called it.
And so I lay awake far into the deep silvery slivers of night
Gazing up at the face of the satellite white disk
Hoping for a mild touch of lunarcy.
Come away, o' human child
To the waters and the wild
And come away, away, and we won't, we will not stop coming
Away away, lets come away, we'll come again to linger, lay
Back in the [[play room->The Playroom]].
</i>
Deep thuds sound through the wood of the door.
It rattles and shakes, the frame just humid-soaked enough to keep it shut.
[[Thump Thump]].
Impending doom,
You know it's bad
Don't open
Please don't open
Don't open
Don't
Don't
Don't
Don't
Don't
Don't
Please don't
[[OPEN]].
She rears out.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Like Neville's boggart, but without the comedy.
I put a nightmare into here.
And I can take it out.
Ridiculous?
No.
[[Ridikulus!-> PlayroomCloset2]]
Empty of monsters.
Phew.
What a relief!
Let's look and see what is really here.
Mind the [[plaster]] - it falls off of the walls in chunks.
Gritty and smoothsoft,
oft
picked at
and pulled at
Pressed on whole with the palm of our hands
Until an entire piece falls away and breaks up on the floorboards.
[[Peer behind]]
The ribs of the house run behind the plaster skin.
Rough, hidden,
But starkly beautiful.
There is something a bit comforting about knowing what underlies the house, don't you agree?
Or...
Is it disquieting to see the literal facade pulled back,
to see the struts and bars in all of the stark and bold
reality?
At any rate, it is REAL.
The structure of the house holds it together.
We remember together, in this [[reconstruction]] of memory.
In Japan, there are wooden buildings hundreds, no, thousands of years old.
Still standing.
This is true.
When a beam would grow rotten,
Or when fire annexed a wing
Or when bugs consumed the boards and bones,
These pieces were patched
Mended
Reconstructed and Reconstituted
Re-paired,
Slipped into the places to which they belong,
Placed into peaks and eased into eaves.
And time swam on delightfully curling around the cupolas and twining through the terraces.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
But something there always is that seeks to rebuild.
Here, we patiently reconstruct the house from blocks of working memory
Allocated forever to hold the feel and location of This Wall
or That Floorboard.
If palaces in which not one single nail remains from the original are still the same building, then isn't this,
perhaps,
just perhaps,
...
still the same house?
Let us recollect and [[re-collect-> PlayroomClosetTreasures]] some pieces.
Today we have words
So many words
Like Cultural Appropriation
and
Problematic.
Then, we only had [[gifts]].
Red rubber, laced on.
(if: $drum is true)[ [[Thump it]].]
(else:)[ [[Invert it]].]
OrangeYellow rubber, laced onto it.
[[Spin it sideways]].
False birch, the birdseye patterning running around it.
(set: $drum to true)
[[Let's turn it back upright->gifts]].
If I had all that money to burn
(A hole in my pocket)
If I had all that money to burn...
If I had all that money to burn
I'd buy myself a little drum, thumpabumpathumpabump.
That's what I would do.
What would you do?
(This is a lie. I would not buy a drum. I am terrible with drums.
You might buy a drum.
But not this one.)
And yet, here it is, ionic, iconic - cradle it in your lap, pieta style, as the regret for this moment seeps away and relaxes along your leg.
But look here - [[something else-> CowboyClothes]].
The box [[is-> fragile]]
fragile
The pattern [[is->cows]]
cows
and inside it [[are->clothes]]
clothes
a costume
couture of
cowgirls
caught up in
cardboard and
carried by dad to our
closet.
[[Let's Lilliput]].
Shhh.
And we shrink.
Shorter.
Shorter.
No, shorter even than that.
We must have been 9 and 5,
Before we knew about 9 to 5,
(and before we would judge me now for how trite and pat that is
[Do we judge me now?])
Down to diminuitive shortness,
Our calves compressing
Our vocal chords singing with a high buzzing range
We slip into these outoftime sheathes.
Softly.
Softly.
Say "ride-em"
Say "git along, lil' dogie"
But sift the sounds through muffled sibilance
So as not to
Shatter
the
Spell.
[[The Spell is Shattered]].
We cannot linger here.
The soft sounds of sighing children is being overshadowed by the sad songs of the hummingbirds.
[[They call us back->The Dining Room]].
(set: $wallpaper to true)
(set: $trapdoor to true)
(set: $diningroomcabinet to true)