PART 1.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If so it is the very first story. So, let’s say story 1 of 6. This is a younger girl than the Lisa in “Lisa and her reflection.” Back then obstacles were puzzles to solve. Like last time, I’m going to chunk this across a few posts. Bear with me! There are some more meditations on emotions out there… But right now I’m trying to listen to something a little different.
Once upon a time in the Land of Not there was a boy named Sebastian and a girl named Lisa. This was long before they were grownups – before the days of rain that turned the streets into rivers and before the dragon came that dreamt their dreams. Back then baked ducks, glazed brown, still hung in the windows of the restaurants, and packed in the lots between city buildings, teenagers clustered on the handball and basketball courts. Planes passed far, far overhead and cars honked on the roads, and out by the river that flowed into the wide bay, in the spring time, the frogs whirred out “Here?Here?Here?Here?” among the reeds while worms worked to freshen the soil.
Now, as is well known, the Land of Not is like a stained glass window – all blues and reds and greens – broken bits of rainbow each and every one, like polka dots on a pair of rain boots or triangles on the fabric of a dress that ripples back and forth with each step. At least that is how the nights were worn in the Land of Not. Days contained their own color more like the settle of a blanket that has been lifted, shaken and floated back down on to the picnic grass; and it was the job of the King, of course, to keep the colors – night and day – assembled just so. From the yellow sun flowers bunched with purple irises in the buckets at the street corners, to the yellow taxies slipping through the streets, to the purple, white and blue graffiti bubble-lettered and arched across the train tracks, to the pink flip-flops flung by the door, it was the King’s job to keep each color in its proper place.
Well one day the trolls came and took Sebastian away. They left behind some doll clothes stuffed with straw and an apple for a head, but Lisa wasn’t fooled, and not long after this there was a loud crash, like a glass accidentally knocked from a table and shattered on a hard floor, and the colors of Not began to quiver, and then they began to peel up and zig this way and that, like grasshoppers startled from the tall grass. Grey lifted up from the streets, and drifted in long ribbons across the sky. The purples and yellows (and oranges and greens) of the flower stalls flitted away like flies down to the river where they were gobbled up by the frogs. And then slowly, ever so slowly, like water emptying from a tub, all of the colors began to become lost in a glare that hurt the eyes. You see, the light of the sun had no where to go, so it crazily bounced – off of mailboxes and windows and the backs of cars, and people wore sunglasses that were so dark that they walked with their hands out-stretched to feel their way around. All except the children. They squinted and did their best to really look at things the way they are. But doing so made their eyes water so that it looked like they were crying, even though they were not.
It was Lisa who set out to see what could be done. “I’m on it,” she said to herself as she stepped out of her door and on to the street. “I’ll find Sebastian and set things right.” She pulled behind her a suitcase on wheels that was filled with words that she had packed like spools of thread, and in her right shoe she kept a lucky penny that was dated with her birth year. Far away down the long street that sloped to the bay, so small as to be like a pea, the Queen of Not spun on her pedestal. She longed for the sea, the Queen did, and all on journeys, whether by sail or by foot, blew her kisses. Lisa stopped to squint and to waive to her for good luck before turning and disappearing around the corner deli. It wasn’t the Queen that Lisa needed to see, but the King, and he lived in a tower that was in the very middle of the city.
As Lisa hopped from one curb to the next, pulling her suitcase of words behind her, she sang a song from her collection that went like this:
There’s color in the sky.
There’s color at my feet.
There’s color in music!
And it’s the King of Not I’m off to meet.
There’s color in my should that makes me, me.
There’s color in play that won’t go away.
There’s color in words, ya’ better believe
‘Cause its’ the King of Not I’m off to meet.
Now, as Lisa was singing and skipping along the sidewalk, pulling her suitcase behind her, she happened to pass a storefront window for a wine shop that made her stop and stare. Inside the window was a stack of bottles next to an igloo that was made of styrofoam. Cotton was spread to look like snow, and the window had been frosted to look like winter. But it wasn’t the winter scene that caught her attention, although winter in spring was very strange. No, it was the walrus that was propped up beside the bottles. It was made out of plastic and stuffing, and was the saddest walrus that Lisa had ever seen. It had one button for an eye and a patch of dried glue where the other button had once been, and its mouth was a frown made with a black marker. Lopsided, it lay beside the igloo.
Poor walrus. Lisa stood and stared with pity, and the walrus stared sadly back. Finally, taKing a deep breath Lisa said, “O.k. I’m on it,” and walked into the shop, and moments later when she left, her suitcase contained fewer words, but more walrus – a walrus that Lisa had named Willy.
Willy and Lisa continued on their way to the King’s tower. At cross streets Willy would mumble out from the suitcase, “Look both ways,” and Lisa looked both ways before crossing. Sometimes she had to make a detour around a tipped trash can, and sometimes she had to give her suitcase an extra tug in order to lift it over a curb, and when she did so, she would hear Willy give a grunt. Overhead the sun beat down, and the glare beat up, and the colors darted and floated about ever more, and Lisa wondered at how the city stretched and stretched in all directions.
Just then Lisa happened to pass a small park with a bench, and since she was tired she sat down to rest and to think things through a bit. And this is how her thinking went:
If I had wings
I would fly from here to there
And if I had tires
I would roll from here to there
And if I were a troll
I would stomp from here to there
And if I were Sebastian
I would disappear from here to there.
But I’m not. I’m Lisa
While Lisa thought these thoughts, she was looking at her feet and wiggling her toes in her shoes, which is a very pleasant thing to do after a lot of walking, and while she was wiggling her toes and thinking her thoughts she heard a sound. It was a strange sound that went with a strange sight.
Across the park was a small playground, and sitting on a swing was a little girl. She had shoulder length hair and a sticky face and she was holding on to the chains of the swing with both of her hands, and looking at her feet which were kicking this way and that. After kicking for a few minutes the girl would get very still, bunch up her face and yell, “Weeeeeee!” That was the sound that Lisa had caught her attention, and after watching the girl for a moment, Lisa got up from her bench and walked over
“My name is Lisa,” said Lisa. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Zixuan,” huffed the girl before scrunching up her face tight and shouting, “Weeeeeeee!”
Lisa took her fingers out of her ears. “What are you doing, Zixuan?” asked Lisa.
“Swinging.”
“Ah,” said Lisa.
She stepped back to watch the flailing little girl and after waiting through another yell she said, “Would you like me to give you a tip?
“Sure,” said Zixuan. She slid down off of the swing and walked dizzily over to Lisa.
“Woa!” said Zixuan, “I’m dizzy!” and this made her laugh
Meanwhile Lisa had knelt down and opened up her suitcase.
“That’s Willy,” said Lisa, “He is a Walrus that I rescued,” and moving her hands through her spools she strung together a phrase that she hung around Zixuan’s neck like a garland.
“Do you like it?”
“I do,” said Zixuan, who was now looKing down shyly and twisting one of her feet in the dirt.
“Go try it, and see if it helps,” said Lisa.
So Zixuan ran to the swing, and scooted herself back on to its seat. And this time when her legs moved, the swing began to sway back and forth. It rocked higher and higher with each pass.
“I’m doing it! Look Lisa! I’m doing it!”
But Lisa had realized that it was getting late, and so she packed up her bag and walked away from the park with Zixuan sailing into the sky behind her
“You were born pumping,” said Willy, and Lisa thought to herself, “Yes, I was.”
