Barbara

Those silver eyes - so round, so blank. Yet, the right eye has an arched brow. Why? What kind of creature is this? It stares without blinking but always it's winking. At me? Is there something funny about me? Its cute, copper nose misleading me into believing it's benign. Oh, no, this is no friend of mine.

Wendy

DANNY BOY###

The ordeal was over. Emily felt faint as she watched the last of the mourners depart the funeral home. She collapsed on a red, plush, folding chair in front of the small coffin. Taking deep breaths, and expelling huge amounts of air, Emily attempted to stop the nausea. ###
There had been plenty of time to prepare for the inevitable. But the barrage of well-meaning people offering the same meaningless phrases had been worse to bear than his death. ###
Emily felt the light touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. Without turning, Emily closed her eyes, raised her own hand and laid it to rest on top of her mother’s. She whispered, “Mom, I want to sit here alone for awhile.” She felt her mother’s soft kiss on her check, heard light footsteps on the tile floor, and the slight click of the door. Silence enveloped her. ###
Emily was unaware of how much time passed. It didn’t matter. Finally, she rose and approached the casket. She looked down, full into his face—the misshapen, beautiful face. The scars on his forehead, from repeated accidents, showed visibly. She wouldn’t let them be covered with heavy makeup. She continued to stare just as she had done every night while he slept. ###
Emily’s eyes followed the white satin lining down to her son’s chubby hand. His fingers loosely held the strange wooden object that he made, that he carried everywhere, and that he died clutching. ###
He had been born on the first of April. Emily’s husband, Dan, was ecstatic and proud beyond belief. They named him Daniel Matthew Greene, Jr. ###
From the very beginning Emily knew something was wrong, but it didn’t make a difference. When the nurse first brought Danny to her, she saw beyond his deformed face, and instantly and completely fell in love. The diagnosis came quickly—severe Down syndrome with congenital heart disease. ###
Dan was crushed and disoriented. Emily embraced the challenge. She researched every website, read every book, talked to every doctor, took every course, and joined every support group. ###
Every aspect of their lives revolved around Danny. Through the operations, anguish, anger, and tears, Emily became stronger—more efficient. The more she became a good mother, the less she became a wife. ###
Dan took a job traveling, rarely coming home, until he moved out. Emily didn’t blame him. He was a good man. He tried; he just couldn’t cope. She was the one who filed for divorce, not out of resentment, but out of understanding. ###
As Danny grew, Emily needed help, so she moved in with her retired parents. Danny couldn’t pronounce more than one syllable. He called his grandparents “Ma and Pa.” He called his mother “La,” which was his word for love. ###
Danny idolized his grandfather, following him everywhere. Pa liked to tinker around in his woodshop and build things. He helped Danny make his wooden toy out of scrapes. Danny decided it was a car because he loved to ride in the family car, with the windows open, so he could feel the breeze blowing on his face. He liked to watch objects go by fast. He would smile and giggle, demanding, “Fast—More.” ###
While opening and closing the pivotal, pointy piece of wood attached to his car, displaying his widest grin, Danny would shout, “Me in car.” ###
Emily reached down and removed Danny’s car from the casket. A slight, sad smile creased the corners of her mouth, and then she pressed the toy back into his waiting hand. ###
For seven years—much longer than the doctors predicted—they had been each other’s world. No one had as sweet a disposition, could make her laugh, or give hugs like her Danny Boy. ###
She bent and kissed his cheek. The stone coldness against her warm lips confirmed that Danny’s wondrous spirit was not there. As Emily straightened, there were tears in her eyes, but they did not spill onto her face. ###
She wasn’t sure what she would do from this point forward. There would be time to decide. She only knew her experience had prepared her to do something important. Emily turned and walked away, without looking back. ###

Tom

RS-5
###
I was 5 years old the night lightning struck Mrs. McClacken’s tree. A chunk of it fell onto our side of the fence. The next morning, my father picked it up and took it to his workshop. He said Mrs. McClacken was an evil witch and she ate the fingers of little boys to stay alive. He said I needed something special to protect myself from her witch powers.
###
Mrs. McClacken was very old and she had yellow teeth that looked like fat pieces of corn. Her house was as old as she. The neighborhood kids would tell stories about how she had a family and kids. And then one day, she snapped and killed them all. But I knew better, she was a witch with a taste for little boy fingers.
###
The next morning, I woke up and found a little rounded wooden object on my nightstand. It had my initials and age written on it; RS 5. I took it to my father and he told me this was my enchantment and that if I held onto it, it would forever protect me from Mrs. McClacken. I took the enchantment and tucked it between my belt and pants and it never left my side again.
###
I spent that summer fighting hordes of 10-foot tall, bug-eyed monsters in the wasteland city of Maljeton. Giant mounds of garbage were processed in machines that ground the waste and churned out monster after monster. They carried little sliding pieces of metal that looked like cigar cutters and had coin-sized holes in them. The monsters walked around collecting little boy fingers for their witch queen.
###
One day, I was looking out my window and into Mrs. McClacken’s yard. I needed to know when she was coming and going. I had fingers to protect. That day I watched her come of out her house. She was dragging a burlap sack that looked too heavy for her frail frame. She dragged the sack to the tool shed in her backyard. I had to know what was in that bag. I waited until nighttime.
###
I jumped the fence and carefully made my way to the shed. It seemed darker than usual outside. The grass was waist high and everything in Mrs. McClacken’s backyard looked like a shadow figure waiting to grab me. I held tightly to my enchantment and opened the door to the dilapidated tool shed. The bag was sitting in the middle of the room. I bent down and opened it. Inside there were hundreds of little boy fingers. All cleanly cut with blood drying bright red. The door closed. Mrs. McClacken was standing there with a cutter like the monsters had on Maljeton. She smiled and I saw her teeth and they were glowing bright, bright yellow. The last thought I had was… my dad is a fucking liar.

Jack

EVIDENCE TAG #RS51-13-040712###

The "Rs 5/" piece was finally located after a near exhaustive search, thanks to its inclusion, oddly enough, in a national public radio contest. With the aid of a show producer this piece of the "Carnality Contraption" (named by its creator) was taken into evidence. The contest winner cooperated fully with my authority, and their connection with the device is currently under review.###

Upon my examination of the object there were several elements that could be used to positively identify the man currently referred to as "The Grand Inquisitor" (GI). After eliminating prints from the show’s host, members of his production staff, and the operators of the Vintage Thrift shop, there were still two unidentified prints from the pointer and middle finger under the hinged lip, along with a full print of the thumb from the left hand on the top of the hinged portion. There also appeared to be fluid spatter under the lip. Key to this investigation though was a 4-inch blonde hair caught around the screw. This part was only observable once the hinged portion was removed. Crucial to the investigation will be to determine if this device matches bruising and injury anomalies associated with all twelve recovered bodies.###

It's obvious that GI allowed this device full of physical evidence out of his control as a way to test police. He believes that by sending the evidence of his deeds out into the world, it becomes the police's fault if they can't catch him.###

Authorities believe that this item was of personal importance to GI. According to published reports this was possibly a souvenir of childhood trauma. Some have supposed that this was the remnant of either a toy or other device associated with his early home and family. He brings it along as a kind of "witness" to his crimes.###

Instead, my examination shows that this was actually a formative tool. This was the killer's first attempt at constructing a device for his work. It’s a kind of primitive clamp. Since the bodies are exposed to a variety of torture devices (rack, Judas cradle, pear of anguish), it is only logical to assume that this is an early attempt at making a simple tool that inflicts pain.###

When he was a boy he would sit in public and keep this device safety and secretly hidden in his pocket. Gently he would squeeze tiny folds of skin into the crack. It would leave the palms of his hands full of small, linear, blood blisters. Marks of his work. This small, simple, easy to overlook, device is a reminder of his journey.###

Now, by secretly leaving it in out in the open for a truly random body to select, it aids in the discovery of who is next. That person who finds it must know its true purpose, or why would they claim it? This device can only belong to GI, the person who created the device, and who now meticulously records each journey of the "Rs 5/" (properly titled "RS 51") takes.###

I will update further when the device's latest body has their case reviewed in full.###

Michelle

Wednesday, May 18, 1994
###
Today was my birthday. I turned 8. We had a big party at Mimi and Pop’s house. My mom made carrot cake with raisins and cream cheese icing. It was so good. I opened all my presents and played with my cousins. Then Pop took me out into the garage. I love how it smells in there. I was 8 he said so I needed to start learning things. He showed me the band saw and gave me a block of wood. We practiced straight cuts and curved cuts and diagonal ones too. Then he taught me about screws and we attached the pieces together. He picked a pencil out of the pot and began to write my initials and the date, but he fell over before he could finish. I don’t know what happened. It was like he fell asleep and I couldn’t wake him. I got my mom and told her and then everything went all crazy. She said it was something called a heart attack. The big van with flashing lights came and took Pop away. I hope he’s ok. I love him very much.
###
###
My vision blurs at my naiveté. Forty years later, that day remains vividly projected onto my memory. The words within my journal don’t do the smells and the sounds and the feelings justice. I finger the wooden creation. Why did I decide to clean my attic? Every death I’ve encountered since then comes to the forefront of my conscience. I remember his funeral. The wet of the tears sliding down my face. The dry of the ashes slipping through my fingers. Everything was falling that day.
###
I don’t light candles on a birthday cake that night. The wooden screen door slams behind me as I step onto the porch. I flick my lighter and hold it to the last Marlboro in the carton. The bright red ember dangles in front of my face, the brightest spot in the black of night. I fondle object in the dark. I know its curves by heart.
###
My cigarette burns out. I take the lighter to the object next. I light a corner and watch it burn on a ceramic dinner plate. It smolders. I can feel the R and the S disintegrate before my eyes.
###
In the morning I scoop up the ashes and the two screws. They slip through my fingers into a Ball jar that now sits on the window sill over my kitchen sink.

Dalila

This used to be my toy car—the toy car I would take when visiting my grandmother so I wouldn’t have to play with her ceramic clowns, the toy car I would slide along the concrete ledge of the pier as I ignored the sailing boats floating along the lake in summer, the toy car that always joined me under the dinner table at Thanksgiving as we hid behind the white damask table cloth to shield our minds from sleepy conversations.
###
I think I loved that car.
###
What is it now? I don’t know. It always transformed before my eyes in that magical, child-hope filled imaginative process where toys become mystical beings capable of materializing one’s wildest, unconscious fantasies. My thought-creations regularly fragmented my gentle car’s appearance; sending it off into space, past time-warps into battles with legions of droids and six-armed goblins, and into the nebulous depths of a blue-green forest to fend off the fauns that tormented my dreams. My car absorbed and manifested every memory, every adventure, every mission…until I dropped it in my room and never returned to it again.
###
There, it remained frozen, stuck in its current state for whose purpose I can no longer recall. I barely recognize it.
###
The car is now a violent reminder of my abandonment. It slices the air, slices my past, slices my childhood— there is no comforting memory of youthful pleasures when I encounter it. All I see is its anger, its resentment, its threatening face. It is no longer mine. I left and didn’t return.

Ben

I was asked to say a few words today, at Alton’s memorial service. I was both honored and a bit concerned. I really didn’t know what to say about him, that you all don’t already know. He was a mediocre student during his early years of primary school who seemed to ‘find his spark’ somewhere around seventh or 8th grade.
###
Accepted into MIT, but ended up doing his undergraduate work close to home, at Case Western Reserve University due to his parent’s poor health.
###
He earned his PhD. from MIT and then founded the international conglomerate known as ‘the robotics group’ shortly thereafter.
###
Revolutionized what medicine was able do for the disabled, through brain wave controlled multi-articulating prosthetics.
###
Saw what the military was doing with his inventions and after a 5 year fight sold the company to those military contractors and set up the charity that I believe he will longest be remembered for.
###
Hands On, Heads Up!
###
Hands On, Heads Up! Has a relentless focus on youth education that was designed to bring thinking and hands on doing together in every subject. Science experiments out in the community where the kids live, language arts that combined speaking, reading and the theatre arts, again out in the community for an audience of many people, to perhaps a few half interested pigeons.
###
In addition to the traditional college preparatory courses, there were the old fashioned industrial arts, such as metal shop and wood working.
###
Alton never talked specifically about why those seemingly anachronistic courses were a part of every student’s schedule. No matter what the student’s expressed career interest, they had to take the courses often derided as ‘the industrials’.
###
Well I am going to share something about my friend that few people know. In my pocket is the reason for ‘the industrials’ and the thing that he told me many times, was the seed of confidence for all his future success.
###
This little wooded thing.
###
It has no purpose. It does not do anything, other than have this little arm that swings out and around. And it was the first thing that Alton ever made with his own two hands in a wood working class we were both in during 8th grade.
###
Now you know why a picture of this thing is the logo for Hands On, Heads Up!
###
He was fascinated with how a he was able cut, shave and shape the block of wood down and then add the metal pins that, as he often said, ‘Give the little arm life’.
###
He carried this with him and he would think about how he had made it. He had control over how the arm was attached, how it could swing one way and not the other. This was such a dramatic contrast to his home life, where the constant health problems of both of his parents kept him feeling like a tree limb in a frothing and frightening current.
###
He carried this with him each and every day, from the moment it was completed in that wood working class over 47 years ago, and now he is gone, but this ‘spark’ that he created remains. In my hand and in every life he has touched.

Frank

Laurence was getting weaker by the day. He could feel it in his hand through the vibrations of the wood. He again triggered the saw with his foot, starting the familiar whine of the blade, but the atrophied muscles in his now skinny arms would not budge the walnut into the singing blade. Worse, the impotent attempt left him struggling for breath.###
He stepped off the switch, staggered to the gray metal stool, almost falling on Cindi. She had not moved and did not look up from the chunks of scrap wood from failed projects her grandfather had left on the floor for her to play with. The girl was almost thirteen, but still with the mind of a one-year-old. Laurence felt the sadness like tears in him again. He wanted to finish at least one last project before he died. A year before the doctors had said he had about a year left to live. Looked like they would be proven right, after all. They would probably be right about Cindi, as well. Some legacy he was leaving. His only daughter dead of a drug overdose. He would be dead and dust, And his only grandchild would continue to stay a toddler forever.###
Laurence panted, leaning heavily on the now-silent saw. He blinked to clear his vision when Cindi scooted across the floor, her attention on something he couldn’t see. She reached under the workbench, pulled out a handful of dust bunnies. She raised her hand to her mouth.###
Before the old man could call out, the dust bunnies were on the floor, screws and bolts in her hands and mouth. She was looking closely at the pieces of wood in her hand.###
Laurence stood, but lost his balance. He scattered tools and landed on the floor next to her. Her squinted eyes were focused on the wood and screws. He reached out to take the screws before she could swallow them, then pulled his hand back in shock. He felt as if he were looking in a mirror. Her expression, with the squinted eyes and tip of tongue sticking from the corner or her mouth, was the same one on his face with working on a difficult project in his shop. She maneuvered the pieces, awkwardly pushing the screws first in one way and then another. Unsuccessful, she started crying.###
Laurence felt his eyes growing heavy, and his hand no longer seemed to work. Still, he tried, groping in the darkness until he found the screwdriver. He scooted closer to the girl and wrapped his hands around hers - as large as a teenager’s and as trusting as a toddler’s. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the tip of one of the screws to stick in the wood.###
Together, they slowly turned the screws with satisfaction.

Todd

The Magic Block.###

What is this little block of wood?###
Is its purpose sundry or malicious###
Or is it charitable and good?###
###
This I have heard many ponder###
Oh look at that!###
The side swings open there’s more to wonder.###

How could this block of wood be of use?###
Perhaps it came from a plan###
Found in a book by Dr Seuss?###
###
No matter what this block is for###
It is unique and###
Not to be found in just any store.###
###
To own this block would be a treat###
Even though its size is small###
To possess it would be quite neat.###
###
Maybe hang the block to make it a locket###
Or better yet###
Go ahead and just slip it in your pocket.###
###
There the block could mingle###
With coins, pocket lint and###
A George Washington single.###
###
You could take it out to amaze your friends at a party###
They would oh and ah###
And lift you on their shoulders as the top smarty.###

Oh how this block would enhance your social life###
A springboard to riches###
And a super model husband or wife.###
###
All this could be yours it is true###
You just need to give this block of wood###
A home and the Love that it is due.###
###
END

Lisa

The wooden rabbit was always in his hand. He used to joke that if he ever got hit by a car, he'd probably end up using it to teach the EMTs about rabbits in the back of the ambulance. ###

Mostly, though, he just taught whomever happened to be sitting near him at the counter that morning. He ate at the diner every day, and when there weren't any customers, he'd talk to me. I know a lot about rabbits now. If a rabbit ever wandered in and asked -- in rabbit speak -- for two eggs over easy, I have a feeling I'd serve his breakfast up just right.###

"When a rabbit's ears are like this," he'd say, opening it to about 90 degrees, "it means something has caught his attention." ###

"If he kind of nudges you with his nose," he'd say, pushing the small wooden rabbit gently against your shoulder, "it means he's begging." ###

As he talked, he'd stroke the rabbit's back with his forefinger, as if it were alive.###

"Do you know how a happy rabbit sounds?" he'd ask, and click his teeth together, grinding them a little, waiting for you to nod.###

Once, he asked, "You know the worst thing you can hear from a rabbit?" ###

I giggled and said, "What?" expecting a joke. ###

Instead of a punch line, he emitted a short high-pitched shriek, and explained that it's the sound a rabbit makes when it's been mortally wounded. ###

I hope I live the rest of my life without hearing that sound again.

Christine

Word Count (without title): 615

The Knife

I knew instinctively this was the day they would charge me again. With a dry throat, I watched them from the shallow depth of the schoolyard at PS 130. My predators screamed and scored hoops.
“You will turn into a jellyfish,” my mother groused every time I asked for water. “Why are you always thirsty?” She had this look on her face, as if I already were a jellyfish.
If I were a deep see jellyfish, I would become invisible to my tormentors, I reasoned wondering how much of me was visible in this shaded corner. I looked down at my pale freckled arms sticking out of the oversized black shirt, the only light spot in the dark cloud around me.
“Eat and grow, but avoid being eaten,” my father had said matter-of-factly and helped me construct a wooden toy knife, as if he knew they called me “Pee-Peter”.
Ten more minutes and I had to surface in front of the other 5th graders in class. My stomach tightened. I had to pee but blocked the urge. Escape would fail. The never-ceasing cycle of ignorance and humiliation had been going on for months. Kai had started with “Pee-Peter” which had inspired “Pee-Baby” or the more generic “Pisser”. They wrote the names on the board, on my books, all over me. Trying to erase them was like pouring gasoline over a flame: more insults, more snickering. Even Adam, my long-time best friend, afraid of being bullied himself, now slapped hands with iron Kai. To see them band made me squirm.
“Hey Peee--, gotta pee?”
I startled. Kai had leaned in close to my ear. I felt his breath on my neck. My fingers tightened around the smooth edges of the folded knife in my pocket.
“Leave him alone before he wets himself,” Adam snarled.
“Ooh,” Kai screeched, “I think he did already.” He sniffed as if following a trace down to my crotch, “Eeooh.” He laughed at me flagging his square teeth, like a trap left ajar. I relied on the pointy tip of my knife. I took it out, unfolded the blade. Kai moved back an inch. The snickering halted. There was a buzzing sound in my ear and a shaking that did not stop.
“Take it easy,” Adam said with a still, small voice. It was the shift toward friendliness that sent me over the edge.
“You shut up,” I roared. “Who are you? A fake. A nothing.”
My face broke out in flames. I thrust my fist forward into Adam’s chest right above the heart. Later on they would say, I could have killed him, even though I could not. But the wooden blade entered Adam’s body by one inch. His high-pitched scream reached the principal’s office and made five teachers whoosh across toward him.
Nobody paid attention to me. I had sunk to the ground like a lost gym bag, with urine running down my legs. Nobody at first noticed I was unconscious.
The closest hospital was The New York Downtown Hospital. We got to ride on a stretcher. They gave me a can of soda and taped down Adam’s bleeding. Then we waited in the triage line for what seemed like forever. I felt beaten but happy to spend the time with Adam alone.
“Severe hypoglycemia,” the doctor said upon inspecting me, “With a risk of damage to the brain, if untreated.”
Both of us were released the same day. They made me apologize to Adam, but he was the one who felt sorry. Suspension was lifted when they found out I had diabetes. How could anybody have known? All they knew was that I was different and peed too often.

Chris

‘So where is it?’ ## ‘It’s escaped again; there’s teabags all over the kitchen.’ ## ‘Again?’ ## ‘It found the bloody spare key.’ ## ‘I’m devastated, like something’s broken inside me.’ ## ‘I hid it right at the bottom of the jar.’ ##
‘There’s an invisible monster punching me in the stomach; I’m going to throw up.’ ## ‘That’s the cocktails, you’re being dramatic. Get off the floor.’ ## ‘I can’t cope with the disappointment; it’s really gone?’ ## ‘Don’t worry, the mischievous bastard’s always escaping.’ ## ‘Oh! You didn’t say.’ ## ‘Would you have come if I had?’ ## ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ ####<<<<<<<<<<<<<<#### ‘Not without your seatbelt on.’ ## ‘I’m too excited.’ ## ‘Sit back at least.’ ## ‘How far is your place?’ ## ‘It might be sleeping you know.’ ## ‘Not for long.’ ## ‘And it doesn’t like being woken up.’ ## ‘Is it big?’ ## ‘You sure you’ve never seen one before?’ ## ‘Never! I think it’s unique. Where did you say you found it?’ ## ‘I didn’t. Do you mind keeping your head inside.’ ###<<<<<<<<<<<<<<### ‘Inside? As in you never let it out?’ ## ‘It can be a bit wild.’ ## ‘I like wild. Don’t just look at it, neck it. It’s my round.’ ## ‘If I drink another I’ll drown.’ ## ‘We’ve only had three.’ ## ‘Aren’t you drunk?’ ## ‘I’m really trying but I still can’t picture it.’ ## ‘Well it’s kind of, you know, it’s hard to describe.’ ## ‘Do you have a photo?’ ## ‘The little swine wont stay still. Camera shy I think.’ ## ‘It sounds adorable.’ ## ‘I really got mad at it before I came out.’ ## ‘It must be hard, just the two of you.’ ## ‘That’s why I was sad.’ ###<<<<<<<<<<<<<<### ‘Sad face for the lonely race?’ ## ‘Are you drunk?’ ## ‘Glass of wine tipsy, Scouts Promise.’ ## ‘No one ever starts a conversation with me.’ ## ‘The blue outfit caught my eye. Charlie.’ ## 'Danny.’ ## ‘Your hand is freezing.’
‘I’ve been cold for a month.’ ## ‘It’s August?’ ##
‘Can’t shake the chill.’ ## ‘You need Sex on the Beach.’ ## ‘In Scunthorpe?’ ## ‘One large Sex on the Beach, two straws, the big curly ones please.’ ###<<<<<<<<<<<<<<### ‘Please, I’m begging you- Four weeks now and nada-
Don’t look at me like that. That didn’t count- All you’ve done is eat cheese. There was a whole ball of mozzarella in the fridge yesterday; I was going to make a pizza- Listen, I’m giving you one more chance and then I’m googling wood chippers- Knew that’d get your attention. So, red or blue?- Roll forward for yes and backwards for no- My bad, should I wear the blue one?- Was that forward or backwards, I can’t tell if you’re even looking at me- Bloody hell, just roll towards me for yes- Blue? Really, I’ve always liked the red.'

PJ

This is a Christmas card holder, formerly owned by a devout Catholic who has lost their faith. The previous owner is convinced that if God isn’t fixing the world, then he is dead.
You can see this owner’s other religious collections of crosses, rosaries and religious statuary for sale on Aisle Six. Thank you.

Travis

Things we found in the girl’s backpack:###
1. Pack of cigarettes: American Spirits###
2. Leather Journal: “from Mark,” empty###
3. Weird piece of wood###
4. Bible###
5. Pair of athletic socks: Nike, pink###
6. 3 hair bands###
7. 27 cents: 2 pennies and a quarter###
###
We started with the cigarettes. Justin had a lighter he had found underneath a bench at the Summit stop. We went through the pack, lighting new ones by pressing the burning points into the old. The tips crinkled in the flame like cracking leaves. Justin showed me the different ways to hold a cigarette. “Like this, hanging off your lip: Paul Newman.” “Now, hold it like a pencil. From the side. John Steinbeck.”###
###
He was always talking about guys who sounded dead.###
###
We agreed the socks would go to his girlfriend, Stacey. I thought she sucked, but I didn’t need pink socks.###
###
The quarter bought us a soda from the generic machine. Mountain Orange Blast, a cornucopia of corn syrup to wash out our burning throats. Justin chucked the empty at the busker who kept playing Dave Matthews songs. As if anyone wanted to hear “Crash Into Me” outside of a university dorm room. The can hit him in the dreads and landed in the guitar case. Dude kept on playing—a real soldier.###
###
The Bible changed things a bit. I ripped some pages out and put them in my mouth, but Justin wasn’t laughing. He traded me for the journal. I quoted Aladdin at him. “Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, otherwise we’d get along.” Usually that would be good for a giggle, at least until the work crowds and more lifting. He wasn’t laughing.###
###
“C’mon, she had a Bible and she smoked. Two vices. We helped her.” I said.###
###
“You shouldn’t have ripped the pages out.”###
###
“I didn’t swallow.”###
###
“It’s weird.”###
###
The wooden thing was too strange, which made it great. It was dark and smooth, two screws allowing a random piece to pivot. Justin turned the piece back and forth, but we couldn’t figure it out. He was the first one to notice something etched on its side in pencil. Rs 5.###
###
“Rolling Stones,” I guessed.###
###
“5 rupees,” Justin said.###
###
“Hey, just like Aladdin.”###
###
The station started to fill up with the work crowds. Everyone was silent and seemed strained, as if they were slowly being stretched out like the hair bands. Justin pocketed the wooden piece.###
###
“We don’t even know what it does,” I said.###
###
“It’s gotta be a souvenir. From India.”###
###
“It’s trash.”###
###
“We just don’t get it yet.”###
###
I could tell I wasn’t going to win. It’s like when he talks about the guys who sound dead. There’s no bend to his voice.###
###
He seemed better with the wooden crap in his pocket. I saw him pat it twice in that reassuring way people touch their wallets after climbing off the train. The crowd snaked between us as my lungs started to burn. I dropped the journal in front of him in the fake way, and he stooped to pick it up. Then I did the only thing I could think of to keep hanging on.###
###
I stole the wooden thing.

Dan

Once upon a time, I belonged.###
I had substance. I had purpose. I had...a head and string.###
You could pull me, and my head would bob back and forth as I'd glide across the house's stone floor. At least that's how it went, every day, for years.### I was a Madrigal toy - it was my birthright. I'd been given to the oldest, Byron, to quiet him upon the family's first visit to the Museum of Folk Art. Despite the odds, and amidst fierce competition from QBerts and Rubix Cubes, I persevered as a favorite. I like to think that it was my simplicity.###
I was passed from Byron to Sondra, and again from Sondra to the youngest, Edward. I was always there - dragging me, my head would nod. It was like that. It always was. Until it wasn't.###
After awhile, the spot repairs stopped holding. There were no more places for wood screws, and the glue stopped sticking. I lost my string, and then my head.###
Mother Madrigal couldn't bear to throw me away. The years crept by, and the kids grew older, and one by one they left the house for their own little lives. The remaining scraps of my wood, which she'd occasionally pause to glance at, reminded her of the impatient days of their childhood, long since past.###
In retrospect, my remaining three pieces should have been thrown or given away. However, it seemed like the least Mother Madrigal could have gotten for me was a dollar. That, and the chance to read my story. I hope she's reading.###
If she is, I want her to know this: every second meant the world to me, too.

Evan

Wooden Thing
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By Evan Johnston
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I never really fit in with the other kids in wood shop class. While everyone else made candle holders and baseball bats, and slingshots that were forbidden but encouraged, I went to each class with the hope of making marionettes for my own retelling of The Magic Flute.
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This idea came to me in a very old book about activities for children, called Entertainments for Children! which included pantomimes, a chapter on speeches, and rules for a game called mumblety-peg. Actually, it was listed in the table of contents, but the page had been cut out. After consulting a dictionary, I realized why.
###
Of course I knew that all of the activities were out of date, but I liked the crosshatched illustrations and the author’s overconfident tone, which assured the reader that oration and pantomime were a valuable skills, whittling articulated puppet limbs was an easy easy, and that carving detailed, emotive faces could be learned in short order.
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The instructor took half a glance at the instructions for how to make Papageno and his bird cage, and shook his head. “That’s going to take a lot of time,” he would say, “Ask Chris over there to show you how to make a bat, and come back with something simpler.”
###
Each week, the cast of The Magic Flute became more reduced, and my collection of small baseball bats piled up. But I refused to believe that the book had failed me. I kept leafing through it for some kind of project that would be more scalable, and that’s when I found the illusions.
###
In any other book, they would be called magic tricks, but these were Illusions to Astound and Confuse. Along with the obligatory coin-behind-the-ear business, and the cups and balls, I came across a picture of a very simple box - - about the size of a small book. You put something in it - - a coin, a small pine cone, your expectations for wood shop class - - closed it, and then when you opened it again, that object disappeared.
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But just as clearly as I could see the crosshatched illustration on the page, I could see another equally detailed illustration in my mind: one of my shop teacher frowning. So I took a few sheets of paper, and sketched until I created a new, simpler version of the box. One so small and elegant that it could easily fit into my pocket.
###
I imagined impressing my peers at recess with this novelty, although the book suggested that mirth and merriment were also suitable reactions. And when I finished drawing it was clear to me that here, finally, was a project that could be completed in the scant amount of time allotted for woodshop class, so much of which was spent sweeping up sawdust.
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My shop teacher looked over his half-glasses at the drawing, “Well, it looks fine, but what is it?”
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Knowing his disdain for the performing arts, I decided not to reveal exactly what it was. “It’s a hinged enclosure,” I said. All right, I doubt I said that, I was twelve. I think I said that I didn’t know what it was, and this sentiment was probably just fine with someone who was comfortable arming an entire sixth grade class with wooden bats.
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Whatever I said, we made it, and then I was left with my own Box of Confusion and Mystery, a slim and elegant illusion that could easily fit into the pocket of my jeans as if it were a gentlemen’s wallet - - a phrase which I must have picked up from being around old books. There was only one problem.
###
After racing to redesign and create the box, I had forgotten to actually read how the illusion worked. And so I was left with a small, hinged piece of wood that didn’t really serve any purpose. I didn’t want to throw it away. I wanted to have just one thing from shop class that was my own. At first it was a shocking disappointment to think that I’d made something so totally useless, but I remind myself now and then that I did actually succeed in making something that managed to astound and confuse people. Even if that person was just me.

Vicki

Years ago when my grandfather was an Admiral's Aide in the Spanish-American War, he was assigned the task of creating an object upon which paper clips could be placed. Magnetic containers were not in use, and paperclips were extremely rare. The Admiral was adamant about developing a holder for paperclips which, when not in use, could be folded up. Because paper clips were so scarce, the Admiral wanted to be able to quickly see if he actually had paperclips on his desk when he walked into his tent--without actually having to go to the desk itself. When the top was unfolded ('open'), paperclips were neatly put on the wood, between the two screws, parallel to the open wood flap. The Admiral could glance from across the room and see that he had clips. If the clips were gone, the top would be folded back over the wood. Woe to the person who took paperclips and didn't fold the wood !
###My grandfather was actually in three wars (Spanish-American, WWI, and WWII), but he is best known for his invention of the paperclip holder. It was easy to make, and stored neatly on desks. Paperclips became far more common in the next wars, and this unit was not nearly large enough to hold all that were needed. It went out of use by WWI, but a few are still around--as you have discovered!

Mariah

"You know what your problem is?" Paul told me once. "You get offended too easily." He said this while sitting in the window, one leg dangling 4 stories above the earth. His apartment was covered in the evidence of his inability to stick to one idea. A trumpet behind the couch. A few lack-luster paintings by the door. Half-baked business schemes tacked to the walls. He wasn't so vain as to call himself the last true dreamer, but I'm sure he thought it.
###
He was a fixture at the cafés. In heavily accented French, he’d argue useless points about Proust. “Thing is,” he’d tell me. “I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to remember.” He’d come to Paris after the war, but some things were still lost. He preferred them that way.
###
Paul had a habit of picking up knick-knacks. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted them, and he certainly didn’t need them, but he liked the way they felt in his pockets. At the end of a long day, he’d empty them, displaying bottle cap necklaces, old keys, a blue marble, and unidentifiable things. He’d tell stories about each one, wild stories without an end—stories like the summers of our childhoods on opposite sides of earth. “Let me tell you ‘bout this guy I knew” they all inevitably started. They all stopped when he started laughing to hard or crying too heavily. But that was Paul, only ever laughing or crying.
###
When we heard about Jim Morrison, he did neither. He just got quiet; it was as if he’d just realized his own mortality. He disappeared for a few days. When I found him again, he’d found something too big for his pockets. Paul set it in the middle of the table and stared at it. This strange wooden thing was just that, a thing. More thing than all the other things. Something about it terrified me. “Mais, qu’est-ce que c’est?” I asked him, pointing.
###
“This is what I was supposed to remember,” he whispered. “Life just doesn’t make any sense.”
###
After that, I never saw Paul again. On the best days, I imagine that he’s found some way to keep dreaming. Other days, I imagine the worst. I tried not to read too much into his disappearance; we were bound to drift apart. I like to think that we knew each other in our best days, but now those were over. Maybe he wouldn’t have liked the person I am now. Maybe I just get offended too easily.

James

So Mr. Walker haughtily declares that I have no obvious function. Does he also scorn the sun for shining too warmly or sneer at the sea for being too wet? I am a child’s toy. My gift, my friends, is that I have no obvious function. ### Our youngest generations are withering under the iron tyranny of obvious function. They’ve seen recess eliminated in their schools because it has no obvious function. Art classes are dismissed as a posh luxury because they lack an obvious function. Hard, sober men in gray flannel suits lambaste the liberal arts for their absence of obvious function. ### But in some ways, it starts with you. You compel your babies to listen to Bach so someday they’ll be branded as gifted. You hand them a ball and put them on a team, where coaches take the innocent joy of play and grind it into a grim will to win. You dispatch them to soup kitchens and homeless shelters not to open their ears to the cry of the poor, but to provide them a juicy theme for their application essay. Every blessed thing, it seems, must have its obvious function. ### Are we smothering their yearning to imagine? Do they still have the power to dream? Can their well-meaning elders just let them be rather than endlessly driving them to do? Or is it all about victory and achievement and moving on up and filling in the bubbles of a Scantron sheet? ### In my 60 years, I have lived in toy chests all over this land. I’ve been a head chopper, an earth mover, and an alien invader from Mars. I’ve been a puzzle piece, a pirate ship, and a dizzying amusement park ride. They’ve rolled me, slammed me, dropped me, and thrown me. They’ve dunked me in the bathtub and scribbled on my face. ### It is true -- I am homely, humble and old. I have no obvious function. So throw down a dollar, take me home from this thrift shop, and hand me over to your child. She won’t require instructions. She’ll know exactly what I can do.

Nancy

Wooden Thing###
I recently won a "Mystery Box" at a Halloween party which turned out to be somewhat of a treat instead of a trick. At first glance as I opened it I was very disappointed. It was some sort of thing made of wood that made no sense at all. It had wheels of a sort and a piece of wood that opened to nothing or so it seemed. It was round on both ends and looked really old. Some kind of screws had been used and it was the size of small loaf of bread.###I shook my head and threw it back in the "mystery box", aptly named! But I could not get the thing out of my mind, it just kept tugging at my curiosity nerve.
When I got home I took it out again and began manipulating "the thing" (also aptly named). There seemed to be some kind of writing on it in pencil that made no sense "Rs5/. I pushed and I pulled on the sort of wheel and lifted the piece of wood several times and would you believe it! The wheel fell off and there it was, a tiny piece of paper stuffed in an opening that read "I made this when I was five years old and gave it to my Mom." It was signed by a famous 17th century sculptor!! I googled it and sure enough RS5/ were his initials. I now have it listed on ebay.