The Final Story

The team that created the final story consisted of fourteen semiologists, two renowned critical theorists, three seismologists, a sculptor who deals mainly in small carvings of public figures out of soap, a Sigma-Six blackbelt and a Sigma-Six greenbelt. The process for the final story was as follows: 1. Collect Data. 2. Analyze Data. 3. Lunch. 4. Initiate Parameters Seventeen, Alpha, Green, and Twenty. 5. A Great Many Squirrels. 6. Squabble, Briefly. 7. A New Paradigm Will Be Sighted, There, over the Horizon! 8. Afternoon Snack. 9. Etc. The content of the final story can be mathematically reduced to a number composed of too many digits to accurately reproduce using any current numerical scheme. The equation used to produce such a number burns brighter than the sun.

Geese

This week dozens of geese descended on our lawn. At first we thought we might be able to use them, the geese, as some sort of a valuable educational experience for our kids, who over the summer have become slack-jawed and more than a little out-of-shape. Vicki looked up facts about geese on the internet and took the kids outside and tried to point out the geese’s feeding habits and social networking and so forth. It turned out that the geese were pretty territorial, which I guess was something the website didn’t mention. Four screaming geese chased after Tanya, our youngest, biting at her legs. Vicki and I chased after the geese and tried to fight them off our daughter. Edward, our older child, stood staring the entire time, slack-jawed and drenched in sweat. The geese finally gave up their attack against Tanya and squawked off. “There, there, baby,” my wife said. Tanya was screaming. We tried to quiet her down. The geese were regrouping, and they didn’t seem happy about all the noise. One of the geese, larger than the rest, approached us and bowed. From this we understood that he was the king. He nodded to indicate that we might present our case to him. Our family stood before him on what was once our lawn, and we understood that we were lacking. Even the children had the sense to understand this.

Initial Observations

1. I walked through each room of my house, stooping through the doors. Nothing in the house was the right size.

2. The picture of my aunt Merle covered nearly half the living-room wall.

3. The picture of my uncle William had shrunk to the size of a thumbprint.

4. I had to get a magnifying glass to be sure that it was the picture of my uncle William.

5. The magnifying glass was as large as the couch.

6. The couch barely accommodated my feet.

7. A corner of the bed frame had forced its way through the bedroom wall.

8. The ceiling was the size of a postage stamp.

9. The floor as far and wide as a desert.

10. By skillful manipulation of an oversized toothpick I managed to dial the police.

11. The police informed me that the sizes of things wasn’t any of their business.

12. “Though, to be honest, sir, I’m surprised you were able to get back inside your house at all. Our records indicate that many a brave officer has turned back rather than die of heat and thirst, answering a call on your block…”

13. Workmen are working on the streets outside. They are stretching the streets, pulling my block further and further from the city. I can barely see the city’s skyline, just over the horizon. Soon it will disappear completely. In the distance, a man on a horse. The horse rears, and turns, and gallops away.

The Original Child

We had a child but it seemed kind of fragile so we had a backup child. After a while Addison admitted that she’d grown to prefer the backup child to our original one. She felt terribly guilty about this. Of course she went to great lengths to conceal her true feelings. No matter what the backup child did, Allison would find something to criticize. If it drew a picture the colors weren’t quite right. If it tied its shoes it should’ve helped tie everyone else’s shoes. If it helped an old lady across the street, it was the wrong old lady, or the wrong street. And so on. On the Fourth of July, at a barbeque we were holding for some friends, the backup child presented a dance it had choreographed, involving some really beautiful work with sparklers and, at one point, a back flip. Allison told it that it might as well give up trying to impress anyone. I know it must’ve killed her to say that, right in front of everybody, but she said it anyway, for the sake of motherhood. The backup child, still breathing hard from his dance, told her that it hated her, and that neither of us would ever see it again. It ran off. “Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” I told Allison. “It seemed serious. I suppose it’s running off to join the circus, or some kind of backwoods militia.” Allison bit her lip and stared up at the sky in despair. Throughout the barbeque our original child kept crawling into the pool. Fortunately there was always someone or another nearby to fish it out and administer CPR.

The Judgment

We gave our daughter a set of Illustrated Children’s Great Books, which are these comic-strip versions of books by Earnest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, Homer, etc. The idea is that she can read these now, so that she can grow up to be cultured without having to read so much literature later. I remember having to read all that literature, piles of it, and all I can say is that I’m glad society has progressed to the point of the Illustrated Children’s Great Books. Our daughter’s current favorite is the Children’s Macbeth. She toddles from room to room with the Children’s Macbeth in one hand, and her doll (blond, missing a leg) in the other. She’s getting pretty damn well cultured, at least as far as Macbeth goes. A few days ago she stared at me and my wife and said, “Out out, damned spot.” I told her that was very nice, that it was a quotation and therefore an acceptable circumstance to use the word damned, a word which she, our daughter, should be careful not to use in other circumstances. I asked her what else she’d learned. “Out out damned spot,” she said. “Out out damned spot.” Something about her tone gave me the creeps. “I don’t like the way she keeps repeating that, staring at us as though pronouncing a judgment,” I told my wife. “Jeffrey, don’t be absurd,” my wife said. “Children have to repeat things. It’s how they learn. There’s no judgment. Children don’t judge. That’s one of the things that makes them marvelous and innocent, as compared to adults.” This was all true, I suppose. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me to get to sleep at night. Beyond the walls of our house the forest rises up against me.