Part 6: Investigation

[Once again, this is part of a larger story I wrote many years ago and am just now illustrating. Tell me it's stupid, tell me it's boring, tell me I should be on medication... just tell me something in the comments, please!]

VI: Investigation

The Queen of the Plants, upon discovery of the theft, burst promptly into tears, and no one could console her. After 45 full minutes of red-faced, runny-nosed, painful, gasping sobbing, the Queen of the Plants was allowed to call home. After 2 hours of repeated calls, attempted consolations, maniacal screaming and no end to the crying, the Queen of the Plants was sent home. Shuffling, head down, along the sidewalk, the Queen stopped for no greetings, salutations or otherwise. She contemplated her loss, reliving the past three weeks of incomparable bliss. Her plant subjects were crushed by her slights and drooped their branches in disbelief.

When the Queen reached her home, she sat despondently upon the porch and began to sing to herself. Eventually, the Queen’s mother came out to greet the Queen, handed her a mug of chocolate milk, and said, “There, there, don’t cry anymore. We’ll find your little lunchbox,” then exited again, satisfied with her attempts at comfort.

The Queen of the Plants was very displeased. Knocking the milk into the garden, she put on a powerful pout and stomped into the castle, up the winding staircase, and into her chambers.

*****

And still Karen slept. She unplugged the phone and the clocks, pulled both blinds and curtains, locked all the doors and slept.

Part 5: The Queen of the Plants

[Once again, this is part of a larger story I wrote many years ago and am just now illustrating. Tell me it's stupid, tell me it's boring, tell me I should be on medication... just tell me something in the comments, please! I mean, no pressure or whatever.]

V: The Queen of the Plants

The Queen of the Plants had a brand new lunchbox. It was pink and yellow with a big picture of Malibu Barbie on the front, and it was plastic so if she dropped it, it would not dent. She swung this lunch box from her left hand on her way to school. This lunchbox did not hide inside her backpack. And this lunchbox had been safely emptied of any lunch.

The old Oak tree bowed to her on the path from her house, and the mulberry bush gave her a (sufficiently humble if a bit too quiet) "Good Day." The Queen was careful to touch every branch within her reach of every plant along her walk.

She whispered encouraging words to them and gave them each a (condescending, but really very sweet) smile. Every wilting petal or brown-edged leaf was carefully plucked and deposited into her (brand-brand-new) lunch box. And Barbie seemed happy to have them.

The Queen's old lunchbox had been made of cheap tin, handed down from her 10-year-old cousin, with a picture of GI Joe on the front. That lunchbox she'd kicked from her home to school and back every day. That lunchbox carried bruised bananas and bleeding jelly and peanut butter sandwiches. And, finally, that lunchbox had been stolen by a (kinder than he knew) bully on the playground.

But now the Queen of the Plants had a beautiful pink plastic Barbie lunchbox. And now that lunchbox held the offerings of all her adoring subjects (the sweating milk and crushed crackers were stored in her backpack). For three full weeks the Queen of the Plants was the Envy of the School, and for three full weeks her life was an 8-year-old's heaven. She slept with the lunchbox, bathed with the lunchbox, even watched TV with the lunchbox, and it became her closest friend. She named it Head of the Cabinet and Advisor to the Queen, and the lunchbox was next in line for the throne, should she fail to produce any heirs.

Then, after three happy weeks, the lunchbox disappeared. The Queen of the Plants had taken to keeping the lunchbox at her side at all times, more out of comfort and love than fear of it being stolen. But Sir Brownbottom, Lord of Gymnasium, requested that she leave it in her locker during Track and Field day. As he was a dear old friend of the King, the Queen assented.

The Queen of the Plants performed poorly on the long jump out of worry for her friend, alone and lonely. She could not reach on the sit and reach, lest the lunchbox be hurt or sad in her absence. And when she returned to the locker at the end of the ordeal, her worst fears were confirmed; the Barbie lunchbox was nowhere to be found.

*****

This was too much. Karen had slept for 36 hours. When she awoke, the light on her answering machine was blinking. She pressed “Play” and there was 1.5 seconds of silence, followed by a rustling, and then a click. She pressed “Delete” and a red “0” winked at her three times. Karen couldn’t remember if David was one of her bosses or not. She couldn’t remember if she had a daughter who was the Queen of Plants whom she sold to an ice cream man for baby stew or not. Karen’s head hurt. She pulled the curtains and went to bed.

Part 4: The Elf

David finally left the apartment the next morning, carrying the elf beneath his arm. He returned to the Warehouse Thrift Shop, and slammed the cardboard cookie man down on the wide wood counter. "It’s defective,' he growled, his voice unused to speaking, 'I want my money back.'

The elderly clerk stared at him, her folding jowls wobbling in disbelief. "We don’t do refun’s" she warbled. When David opened his mouth, she pointed nonchalantly to a sign at her elbow that read, "This is a class ESTABLISHMENT: Please conduct yourself Accordinly"

David stalked out of the store, elf in tow, and tromped back to his apartment.

That night, David cleared out a section of the bedroom floor and curled up amidst the piles of thrift store rubbish. He slept only fitfully, rolling back and forth between the precarious walls until a relic finally came crashing down upon his head. With a terrified scream, David threw the Keebler elf across the room, and sat down in the corner to rock himself and cry.

As his sobs subsided, David heard a gurgling murmur from the other corner of the room. Stifling his sniffling, he cocked his head to one side and listened. Through the smothering heaps of trash, he heard the sounds of a wee elf’s wails of misery. Suddenly, David felt guilty for hurting the poor thing, and he crawled over to where the cookieman lay.

"Don’t… uh… don’t cry… little man,” stuttered David, “I’m sorry…"

"Fat Bastard!" cried the elf, and smashed David in the nose.

"OW!! Fuck!" whined David, recoiling into a toaster oven and a Barbie lunchbox. "What the hell’d you do that for?"

"Fat bastard…" whimpered the Keebler Elf.

"Why do you keep saying that??"

The elf sat up, wiped his eyes and shot a glare at David. "I’m just trying to point out that you are fat, and you’re a bastard."

David was silent.

*****

On the morning after the third night of these new and awful dreams, Karen did not get out of bed. Karen lay and stared at the blank white ceiling or the blank white walls or her blank white comforter (which brought her no comfort). She ate neither breakfast nor lunch that day, and no one at the small café on the office building’s second floor missed her. For dinner she ate a bowl of Cap’n Crunch before returning to her bed. At 9 p.m., Karen went to sleep.

Dreams, Part 3: Roger

When Karen woke up she was an hour late for work. She did not shower, she did not eat breakfast, and she drove faster than usual in the end-of-rush-hour traffic. When she got to work, she did not pour her cup of coffee; she went straight to her cubicle, slid off her shoes and went to work. She entered data for two hours, then went to lunch at the small café on the office building’s second floor (egg salad sandwich on white bread with pickles, Lay’s potato chips and a diet Pepsi), then returned to work. After work she went home, microwaved a frozen dinner, opened a can of beer and watched television until 9 p.m. At 9 p.m., Karen went to bed.

III. Roger

On morning of the fourth month, Roger woke up and realized that he was tired of the Day Care biz, and even the babysicles were not what they used to be. So, that day he took his leave of the other ice cream men and their burgeoning business, and went on the road, wearing his polyester suit, white suede shoes and SweetMan hat. He traveled on foot, eager to explore the far reaches of the country, seeing sights he had never seen.

But he when he reached the heart of the city it was dark and he was tired, and Roger soon realized that these streets were nowhere for a retired ice cream man to wander unprotected. As the night closed in, so did the walls of the buildings; from doorway to doorway, the former SweetMan bounced like a lost rubber ball. Finally, sometime after 10pm, he collapsed on the stoop of a tumbling down apartment building and fell asleep.

Part 2: David

Just a reminder: for the next month I will be sharing with you a story I wrote more than a decade ago, but am just now trying to illustrate. Please yell at me about it in the comments!

Part 2: David

In a claustrophobic building in a tight little neighborhood of a large and angry city, David Alexander found his first apartment. It had three rooms: a bathroom, a living room and a bedroom. In each room there was a round, yellow overhead light powered by a 60-watt bulb. In the living room it flickered. The walls were papered yellow with dusty orange flowers, and the floors were warped wood. David dropped his solitary suitcase on the stained green rug and muttered, “Furnished my ass.”

The living room held a sunken foldout couch, the rug and a plastic wood end table. In the bedroom was a matching chest of drawers and lamp stand, and the bathroom was empty except for the toilet and a shower head protruding from the opposite wall. “Great,” growled David, “I can take a shower while I piss. How efficient.”

That night David slept on the foldout couch, his belongings still unpacked. The next morning he left the apartment to look for a job. For three days straight he left his home to explore the angry city, and for three days straight it turned its back on him. Every morning he opened the neatly packed suitcase, dressed, folded his pajamas and placed them inside. Then he reached into the inside pocket, removed a plastic pencil box, and counted out his money for the day. Finally, he replaced the box in the suitcase, and latched the case shut.

On the fourth day, David quit his job search at 1pm. He entered a warehouse-sized thrift store and wandered the aisles. With the 20 dollars in his pocket, David bought a poorly matched 3-piece suit, platform shoes and a Barbie lunchbox. That night he put the lunchbox in the empty bedroom, and the next morning he wore the suit to look for jobs. With his platform shoes, David reached the height of 5’5”, and he felt much more confident.

For three more days David Alexander looked for a job. He entered every shop, restaurant and bowling alley with a “Help Wanted” sign in the window, filled out an application, and never heard back. The three days stretched to nine, fourteen, twenty-three… David took to visiting the Warehouse thrift shop every day. He bought a plastic flamingo, three plastic roman-style pillars, nine broken vacuum cleaners, several dirty blenders, a Roto Rooter, innumerable flowerpots and six Slinkies. He stored all these things in the tiny bedroom until, soon, he could not open the door.

On that day he visited the thrift shop and used his last two dollars to buy a life-sized cardboard cutout of the Keebler Elf. This he placed on the fake wood table next to the couch. It was 3 feet tall and supported by a length of half inch dowel. When David stood next to it, the Elf standing on the table, and David standing in his platform shoes, the two were nearly the same height.

The next day David Alexander did not go out to look for work. That day David did not get off the couch. He did not get dressed, he did not fold his pajamas or take out the empty pencil box or latch the pitiful suitcase. That day David stared at the wall. The next day, David stared at the wall as well. On the third day, David stared at the Elf. And on the fourth day, the Elf spoke to him.

"Fat bastard," the Elf said.