By Michael John Grist
Michael John Grist is an English teacher living, working,
and writing in Tokyo, Japan. He's been writing since he was 10 years old
and his 'tripod' story - a total rip-off of War of the Worlds though he
didn't know it at the time- pulled in about 10 housepoints (WOW!) for
his school house. It's probably the best return on a story he's had yet.
He finished his first book Jethro's Fall a few
years ago and sent it out to a flurry of agents, but nobody wanted it,
unsurprisingly, since it wasn't any good. Since then he tried his hand
at short stories, and has had about 10 publications on the web (all
non-paying - DOH!) and a few reprints in the past year, in such
magazines as quantummuse.com,
twilighttimes.com, with
forthcomings in
demensionszine.com,
lostinthedark.net, and
house-of-pain.com.
In his free time he plays ultimate Frisbee, does
martial arts and occasionally gives break dancing a shot.
|
Dray is slumped at the edge of his desk, doodling. It's Saturday
again. Another business studies class. Four low level Japanese students talking
about their companies in broken English. No matter what he does, it's always
boring. You'd think, you're the teacher of a class, it's going to be
interesting. You'd think, you're the teacher, you shouldn't be the one falling
asleep.
But it happens. He spends longer every time, planning, brings in CDs,
newspapers, games, but somehow it always comes down to this. Just, dull.
Dray's eyes creep shut. His classroom has always been too warm. The fan
merely pumps in hot air from the study room next door. The windows won't open,
fire regulations. Crazy. He fights the urge, but soon enough his head is against
the wall and the soft mutter of Japanese accented English sends him to sleep.
#
Dray wakes and the classroom is empty. He blinks. No students. He
wonders if the class has ended, if they just kept on talking right through, left
him snoozing on his desk, and edged out the door, closing it behind them.
He looks across his homework wall, barren white space mostly filled out
with multi-colored English assignments, maps and cartoons and schedules and
advertisements, and takes in the clock. It says 5:00. Only halfway through the
lesson, they must be on a break.
He shakes his head, rubs the sleep from his eyes. He's going to catch
serious hassle from his manager for this. They'll be back in a minute, and on
their tails she'll come riding in, beautiful, imperious and smiley, mentioning
she wants to talk to him after class. She'll bow to the students, add ‘have a
good lesson', as if she didn't know the meaning of saying that in front of a
teacher who just fell asleep in class, and short-skirt-step her way outta there.
He shuffles papers around on the desk behind him, delaying the moment, then gets
up, opens the door.
The corridor outside is filled with an eerie white light. It glints weirdly
off the yellow and pink post-it notes stuck to the student goals sheet on the
wall. He looks left and right, but the corridor is empty, spaces washed out and
bleak with the sanitized white light.
A sudden scream shatters the stillness. Dray freezes, watches flurried
movement whip by the end of the corridor, something huge and black, the blurred
shape of a stick-limbed body stampeding for the exit. He sees the manager tossed
over its shoulder, her skirt askew and hair awry, and her panicked eyes pick out
Dray for a second. Then she is gone. He hears her cry of "HELP!" echo back down
through the lobby. There is a crash as the outer door flies from its hinges and
slams into the coffee machine. He hears the crunch of glass and the slosh of
liquid. Then he starts running.
He vaults the lobby coffee spill, darts out the door, and stops so fast he
almost falls. He cannot believe his eyes. He is outside the school, he should be
in the corridor, but there is no corridor, there is only a white void, white in
every direction as far as he can see. Behind him the lobby door stands open, but
there is no school around it. No posters or umbrella stand or pamphlet rack,
only white.
He shakes off the shock, scans the alien landscape for sign of the manager
and sees her still thrashing faintly in the stick man's grip, fading into the
distance. He starts to sprint but feels no sensation of motion, no wind in his
hair, no ground beneath his feet, and soon the black stick scrawl runs out of
sight, swallowed up in a cotton wool world, and even the raucous wails of the
manager die to nothing.
He sprints on blindly for as long as he can, until he's wheezing,
exhausted, and totally lost. He drops to his knees and punches the floor,
feeling nothing. He turns his head and searches out the school behind him, but
there's only horizon-less white, endless and empty. He looks down at his feet,
judges the angle, then reverses it. Sighs. Starts to jog slowly back along his
path.
#
It feels longer, going back. When he finally sees color, it is way off
in the distance, far to his right, and he changes direction, jogs on.
Coming back to the school is like coming back to a memory. Everything is
washing out of life. The doorway is expanding and filled with white light.
Inside the lobby the coffee spill has been leached of color and aroma. The red
and black checkered floor is muddling to gray. The fish tank sat on the
reception desk is sloshing with dead fish, the air pump silent in the corner,
and there is only a de-tuned ‘fzzt' coming from the stereo system.
He runs back to his classroom, sees the same thing. The window frame has
dissolved completely and light gushes in like a flooding river, cutting a swath
into the opposite wall and his giant map of the world, blurring countries and
oceans into dim mush. He rounds the table and rifles the second drawer of his
desk, pulls out his mobile phone, flicks it open. The screen lights up for a
second, then sputters out in a blink of red.
He grabs his Jeep bag and starts to cram it full of whatever junk he can
find. Pens and pencils, his Sprint workbooks, stacks of paper from the filing
cabinet, Yen coins, department store discount cards from his wallet, all the
holiday souvenirs from past students lined up on his window shelf. As he's
picking magnets off the whiteboard, that's when he hears the voice.
"Hey there!" it calls, piping and tiny, and Dray spins, searching it out.
"Yeah you!" it peeps. "Down here, on the table."
Dray's eyes sweep the table and see the lesson plan for his business
studies class, fading now on a dull piece of yellow paper, all of his penciled
notes leaking off the page, all except a little stick man drawn in the corner.
He is tiny, barely room in his off-circular face for a smiley mouth, with no
hair, no fingers or toes, no joints and no clothes. A man in 8 strokes.
"Yes!" squeaks the little man, cheerful, big grin spreading over his tiny
face. "You got me."
Dray blinks, rubs his eyes, then blinks again. The stick man is still
there, waving at him with one stumpy hand. "Name's Bob," he calls cheerfully.
"And you are?"
Dray looks round the classroom, back down at the stick man.
"That's right, over here," encourages the stick man. "Name's Bob, what's
yours."
"Um," says Dray. "Dray."
"Nice to meet you Dray. Wanna play a game?"
"What?"
"I don't know," says the little man, hopping from foot to foot happily.
"Tag? You know how to play tag?"
"What's going on?"
"Tag's a great game, I love it."
"Who are you?"
"Bob, now, you wanna be it or shall I?"
"Hold it," says Dray. "Look, I'm a bit confused."
The little man waves his hands dismissively and starts to caper round the
piece of paper. "That's fine," he peeps, "it's an easy game, we just chase each
other around, it's loads of fun!"
"No, I mean this place, what's happening?"
"This place is boring!" cries the little man. "White white white, but it's
OK now, we can play tag, and tag is fun!"
"No," says Dray. "I can't, I have to find my friend."
"More friends?" asks the little man, his eyes wide with excitement. "We
could play jump rope with more friends!"
"But she's gone, something took her and I couldn't catch it."
The little man snorts. "Course not, that'll be the giant. How're you gonna
outrun a giant?"
"You know him?"
"Pshaw," says the little man, "everyone knows him. Big fella, all in black,
got weird hands, you can't miss him."
"Can you help me find him?"
"Can you catch me?"
"What?"
The little man grins, jumps up and down a few times, then starts sprinting
round the page calling "tag tag tag!"
"Where is she?" asks Dray, but the little man only blows him a raspberry.
Dray sighs, looks up as if to check no-one is looking, then pokes at the little
man's tumbling form. His fingers touch paper, but the little man runs on anyway.
He pokes again, calls "tag", but the little man keeps going, giggling. Dray
begins to feel embarrassed. He pulls a pencil from his bag, its octagonal shape
dimming into a thin brown tube in the white light, and draws a quick box round
the little man.
The little man runs slam straight into the wall of the box. He stops
giggling, turns, and runs 3 steps right into the other wall. He jumps, and he
squats, but he can't get out. Dray watches in fascination. Eventually he sits
down in the middle of his new cell and starts to cry.
"Huh?" says Dray. "Don't so that."
"I can't help it," wails the little man, his pointy shoulders hunching up
and down like a fly buzzing its wings. "I'm a prisoner!"
"No you're not," says Dray, "This is just how I play tag. Now will you help
me?"
The little man looks up at him with his sad little eyes, and Dray feels
bad. He feels like he's just kicked a puppy. "Alright," says the little man,
snuffling. "I'm sorry. I won't play anymore. I was just so bored, and lonely,
and I saw you, and I was so happy!" He breaks down into wild sobbing. "I'm bad.
I'm a bad stick man." He starts to bang his head against the wall of his box
cell. It makes a tinny CHOK-ing sound. Dray watches and feels guilty. CHOK CHOK
CHOK.
"Stop it," says Dray. "Don't do that."
The little man stops, turns to him, and hangs his head. "I'm sorry," he
says, "I'm stupid. I'm so stupid. Rub me out. Please. End it for me."
Dray glances over at the blocky white eraser. Compared to the little man,
it is immense. It is a 3-story building. It is death. "Don't talk like that,"
says Dray, feeling worse. "I'm sorry I put you in a box, OK? Look, I'll get rid
of it."
He takes up the eraser and lifts it to the box. The little man screams.
"Close your eyes," says Dray gently. "Hide against the wall." The little man
glowers at him, then blinks his eyes shut to flat lines, huddling up against the
wall. Dray can see his arms trembling.
He cuts the box in half with one stroke. The little man opens his eyes,
looks out of the box, and a huge grin spreads over his face. "YES!" he cries,
and sprints out, starts turning cartwheels all over the place, crying "FREEDOM!"
as he goes.
Dray smiles, waits as the stick man comes to a dizzy halt, resting on the
bottom of the page, his eyes turned to spirals and confusion lines jutting like
stalks of cress from his head, then asks "So where is she?"
"In the palace of joy!" cries the stick man, jumps to his feet (stumps,
anyhow), and sprints gamely across the page. "I can take you there, it'll be
fun!" He tries to vault the paper's edge, but only bounces off.
"Ah," says Dray. "Problem."
"I wanna go!" cries the little man, jumping up and down with excitement.
"Let's go!"
"Hang on," says Dray, "let me try something," and picks up the sheet of
paper, little man jumping up and down happily, and walks out of the school with
it. He sets it down on the white nothing where the welcome mat should be.
"Now try," he says, pointing at the edge of the page. "Jump really high."
"Alright!" says the little man, pacing out a lengthy run-up. He sprints,
jumps up from the page, and tumbles free and onto the white.
"HOORAY!" he cries, and starts capering on the ground by Dray's feet.
"HURRAH! THREE CHEERS FOR ME!"
"Good job," says Dray, and feels some pride at the achievement. "Well done.
Now, wait here. I'll be back in a minute." The little man scarcely notices him
leave.
Dray grabs his bulging Jeep bag from the classroom, stuffs goal sheets
plucked from the corridor wall into the last few nooks of space, and runs back
out into the white, where the little man is standing before him proudly.
"Watch this," he pipes. "It's really neat." Then he disappears. There's a
faint popping sound, like a tiny bubble bursting. Dray looks around, but sees no
sign of the little man.
"Wow," says Dray. "Great."
The little man pops back into sight, beaming. "Neat, isn't it?" he asks.
"How'd you do that?"
"I don't know," he says. "I just twist like this---" pop, invisible, voice
disembodied "---and I'm gone."
"That is neat," says Dray, speaking to nothing. "Maybe because you're only
two dimensional?"
Pop. "Maybe," says the stickman. Pop.
"Really neat."
Pop. "I know." Pop.
Dray waits.
Pop. "Let's go then," says the little man impatiently. Dray shakes his
head. The little man makes an engine revving noise, then takes off in a blur of
tangled lines. Dray falls into step behind him.
The little man sets a near impossible pace. His little legs spin like
Catherine wheels as he darts from left to right, zigzagging wildly. Dray starts
dropping items from his bag behind him, watching the dim color of the school
door thinning into the distance, marking out their path.
"You sure you know where you're going?" he calls ahead to the little man,
who pops faintly out of existence leaving Dray standing alone. A second later he
pops back, grinning, and points boldly almost directly back along their trail.
"This way!" he cries.
"That's back to the school," says Dray, but the little man shakes his head
resolutely.
"No!" he cries. "This is definitely the right way!" and races off. Dray
looks around, totally lost, smiles at his predicament, then follows.
#
He is setting down the last few pieces of junk, two orange gel pens,
when he hears the scream. He recognizes it immediately.
The little man stops, looks up at Dray.
"There she is," he says breathily. "Phew. Can we go home now?"
"Home?" asks Dray. "Not yet. We have to get her."
"Get her?" asks the little man, mouth wide open in shock. "You never said
anything about getting her!"
"Well, you know," says Dray, taken back by the little man's strong
reaction. "That's the point of a rescue, isn't it?"
"Rescue!" wails the little man, distress lines radiating from his head. "I
thought it was just find and seek! You can't save her! He's got her now."
"He who?"
"The other one, I told you, giant with funny hands. He'll never let her go.
That's what he does."
"What is he, just a big stick man?" says Dray, sounding more confident than
he feels. "No big deal."
"No no no," says the little man, furrowing his brows. "You don't
understand. He's different. He's a monster. He's been here longer than either of
us."
Dray shrugs, feels cruel doing it. "I haven't got any choice."
The little man looks at the floor.
"Please," he says in a voice quiet even for him. "Don't go. Don't leave me
alone again."
"I'm sorry," says Dray. "I have to."
The little man winks back a tear. "OK then," he says, "I understand, bye
bye," and turns to follow the trail back to the school.
Dray watches him go, then hears another scream and tears off at a sprint
following it. Within 5 paces he hits an invisible wall. Slams his forehead and
knee, bounces off and hits the deck. A door opens from nowhere and red light
pours out. Something dark and massive steps clear. Dray's eyes blow wide open
and his jaw falls slack.
It is a giant jagged stick man. He is grinning a giant jagged grin. He is
easily 8 feet tall, drawn in thick scratchy lines, all jagged edges and angles.
He is a child's Crayola scrawl, magnified. His left hand has 5 fingers and a
thumb as long and sharp as a sword. His right has 7 fingers, each narrowing to
daggers at the end. His eyes are small black dots, eyebrows slanted in
menacingly above. His teeth are broken glass crammed into black gums.
"No way," says Dray, putting a hand out before him reflexively.
The giant jagged stick man speaks, spreading his arms wide. "WELCOME TO THE
PALACE OF JOY," he booms, his voice the rough sound of nails on a chalkboard,
scratching through Dray's brain. Then he begins to laugh, staccato barks from
his lip-less mouth.
Dray gulps. "Who are you?" he asks, high waver in his voice.
"OLDER THAN TIME," booms the giant, "AND SICK OF IT ALL."
"Where's the manager?"
"WITH ME. SHE ENTERTAINS ME."
"Let her go," says Dray, the command sounding feeble in the empty white,
set next to the giant jagged stick man's massive boom.
"NO. I TIRE OF THE VOID. SHE IS COLOR."
"She isn't yours."
The giant twists his head. "ISN'T SHE?"
There is another scream. Dray's eyes lock on the giant jagged stick man's
grin. Then he charges.
The giant disappears. Dray runs right through where he was. Stops, puzzled,
and something explodes against his back. He sprawls through the air, thuds into
the invisible white wall headfirst. The wind bursts from his body and he drops
to the floor, his back stinging. He sees the giant jagged stick man reach up and
lick its 7 fingered dagger hand. Blood drips from the tips. The fire begins to
burn in Dray.
He lurches to his feet, unsteady, and charges again.
The giant stays visible this time, swats at him with his sword finger, but
Dray ducks beneath it and rugby tackles the giant's midriff. He feels the ridged
contours of its body dig into his shoulder and neck. He squeezes as hard as he
can, links his arms round the giant's oaken black body, its jagged skin tearing
at his clothes like splintered bark, and drives it forward through the white.
The giant lets out an "OOMPH." Dray squeezes harder. He feels stabbing
blows rain down in his back, charges faster, and knocks the giant off balance,
comes crashing down on top of nothing. The giant has flicked out from
underneath.
Dray rolls quickly, sees the giant looming above him, holding its sword
finger before it and ready to strike. "WELCOME TO ETERNAL JOY," it whispers,
boomy voice lowered and grating. Dray feels sudden nausea. It raises its sword
finger high.
There is a little pop, the tinny cry of "hurrah!" and Bob the little man
sails out of nothing. He lands on the giant's head and spins into a cartoon
whirl of action, flickering in and out of existence, popping wildly, raining
tiny blows on the giant's mountainous nose and eyes and lips. The giant tries to
swat him, batting at his face, but the little man is too fast, so the giant
starts to flicker himself, in and out of the dimensions, faster and faster,
until there is nothing but a faint blur where they both should be. The little
man's single form fades to a charcoal wash of clouded movement round the giant's
transparent head. At last they both vanish completely.
Dray is left alone again. He reaches a hand to his back, feels the pulsing
warmth, and it comes back slick with blood. He rolls over, sees the puddle he's
lying in, and thinks he might bleed to death.
There's a sudden BANG and the giant is back. His eyes are tiny dots and
bleeding. His sword finger is broken. But he is smiling. There is something in
his hand, a mess of lines. He tosses it on the ground, stomps on it, then kicks
it over to Dray.
It is the little man. He is broken. His eyes are X's. He is dead. Dray
feels like he wants to scream and throw up at the same time. He does neither.
The giant speaks. "ETERNITY WILL BE SLOW," he booms, and starts towards Dray,
hobbling. One of his legs is splintered, a line cracking it down the middle as
if the paper it was drawn on was cut and spread apart.
Dray gets to his feet, scrabbles in the bag still hanging round his neck
for his address book, tears free a page, and staggers over to the last gel pen.
Picks it up, draws a quick circle with a line through on the little flap of
paper, then shakes it loose. The circle slips free, and he snatches it from the
air. The giant stops and watches him.
"This is a grenade," says Dray, pretty sure that he's bluffing. "I pull
this pin, we both die."
"I NEVER DIE," booms the giant.
"Alright," says Dray, pulls the single line through the circle, then tosses
it at the giant jagged stick man's feet, who calmly watches it roll to a stop by
his cracked foot. Dray notices the line is already knitting together. The sword
finger is reconnecting to the hand.
"YOU WILL JOIN ME SOON," booms the giant. Then the grenade explodes. There
is a flash of fire and Dray is thrown from his feet by the hot blast. He
struggles to rise, sees the giant jagged stick man still standing though thinned
and cracked, and turns to run.
"ETERNITY AWAITS," calls the giant, his voice soft and distant. Dray does
not turn to look. He is weak already, and thinks he might be dying. He picks up
the trail, fading now, flashing along its length like an airport landing strip
as the pieces of junk wink out of existence.
#
By the time the door's dim contours emerge from the white, there is
nothing left of the trail. Wisps of color which fade like noon-shadows. The
school is pastel. It is bleaching out. The doorway is almost as wide as the
lobby, and the white is rushing in to fill out the space. The red and black
checks on the floor have muddled to an off-white cream. The shraplets of glass
from the broken coffee jug are specks of glinting sand. The coffee stain is
gone.
He is weak. He wants to collapse on the bench and wake up back in his
business studies class, boring students around him, but he doesn't. He staggers
down the corridor, fearful that at any minute his hands will pass right through
the gossamer walls. He throws open the cellophane door to the advertising room
and picks up a once heavy roll of poster paper, now whittled down to 20 or 30
tracing paper sheets, a roll of tape and a box of colored pens.
In the lobby he lays out 10 sheets edge to edge and tapes them together,
begins to draw. He draws a giant stick man, filling out the paper. He makes him
thick and wide and strong. He gives him fingers and thumbs, and a smile. He uses
up the green pen on him. When he's done, he drags the huge poster out into the
white, and waits.
The green giant begins to move. He blinks his saucer eyes. He flexes his
jointed fingers. Then he climbs up out of the paper, stands tall, and looks down
at Dray. Dray's eyes are swimming and he can barely concentrate on the green
giant before him.
"Help me," he says weakly. "Please."
The green man nods.
Dray collapses on his side. Before his eyes close he sees the green man
dragging the paper back into the lobby, picking out a new pen, and starting to
draw.
#
He comes to with a conversation. He can hear but all he sees is white.
It sounds like an argument.
"I don't want to complain," says a voice. "It's just, Mr. Pink? Kind of a
girly name, isn't it? Like, if we get into a fight, and I have to say, ‘watch
out, I'm Mr. Pink, don't mess with me,' they're just going to laugh at me,
aren't they? Why not Mr. Purple or something like that?"
Dray manages to roll, to see the speakers. The green man and a pink man,
with many more colorful shapes spread around. "Because you're pink," says the
green man flatly, pointing a fat green finger at the pink man's chest. "That's
why."
Mr. Pink looks down at himself, seems surprised. "Oh right," he says,
laughing. "Fair enough."
"He's awake!" cries another, looks like Mr. Orange, and all eyes swivel to
Dray.
"Hey," he says, voice a croaky whisper the giant stick men have to lean in
to hear. "How's it going?"
"We're ready," says Mr. Green, glowering sideways at Mr. Pink.
"Everything's ready."
Dray coughs. Blood spatters up and onto the white.
"Ah, man," he mumbles.
Mr Pink holds out a tissue and wipes Dray's mouth.
"I'm in no shape for this."
"We're here to help," says Mr. Green.
"I can't ask you to---"
"We're here to help," repeats Mr. Green, cutting him off, voice soft but
strong. "It's why we came. Just tell us what to do."
Dray looks around the group. Every eye is on him. Every face is full of
concern.
"Thanks," he says, figures vague and blurring before him. "Thanks, guys."
#
The giant jagged stick man is leaning over the manager in her display
case cage and blowing happy bubbles through his broken mirror mouth when the
first volley hits his palace of joy. The palace shakes and he falls to his
knees. The manager's pale face lights up, and she starts screaming again. The
giant jagged stick man leaps to his feet, slaps the gag back over her mouth, and
runs off to the ramparts to check.
He looks out on a rainbow army.
There is a purple tank with a red cannon and violet treads rumbling towards
him. There is a brown helicopter with yellow blades buzzing in the air. There
are red and yellow men on blue and purple motorbikes roaring round his palace.
As he watches, a hot-pink missile is loaded into the tank's cannon and launched
with a fiery red BOOM and flash of firework color. The missile arcs through the
air and crashes into his palace wall. It explodes with a deafening BOOOOOOM and
a shower of orange-gold sparks.
He cannot believe what he is seeing, and there, propped up in a Day-Glo
green Jeep with red and yellow flame trails up the bonnet, sits the other one,
the one that threw the grenade.
The giant jagged stick man runs back into his palace as another shell rains
in. He watches a hole burst through the white of his palace wall in disbelief.
He panics. He yanks the manager from the display cage and holds her before him,
dagger fingers at her throat, waiting for them to breach the door.
A hole appears in the ceiling, and he looks up into a giant pink face, a
stick man leaning over the controls of his helicopter.
"I got him!" cries Mr. Pink, yelling back to the others. "He's here!"
The tank bursts through the wall in a shower of white dust. Slabs of
invisible brick and mortar crash onto the palace's bone mosaic floor. The tank's
lid pops open and a turquoise face springs up. "What ho, you psychopath," says
Mr. Turquoise pleasantly.
The tank rotates on its treads and brings down another huge section of
palace wall. Plaster rains and thunders down. The men on motorcycles flash in
through the gap, and the Jeep pulls up at the edge. The colored men dismount and
approach.
"THAT'S ENOUGH," booms the giant jagged stick man, his dagger fingers
pressing in close to the manager's skin, drawing bright beads of blood against
her shock whitened flesh. "CLOSER AND SHE DIES!"
"Now that's no way to talk to the good guys," says Mr. Turquoise, jumping
up and out of the tank. "Is it, Mr. Orange?"
Mr. Orange pops out of nowhere, right next to the giant jagged stick man,
his hand already clutching the daggers, and tugs them clear. Mr. Royal Blue
appears at the other side and pulls the manager free.
"It certainly isn't, Mr. Turquoise," says Mr. Orange, smiling. "And in the
presence of a lady!"
The other stick men pile in. They hold the giant jagged stick man down as
he tries to flail free, blistering in and out of the dimensions. He roars in
anger and pain, thrashes madly, curses them all, but all that stops when he sees
Dray approaching, and he sees what Dray is carrying.
It's a single piece of A4 paper. It has four lines drawn in simple gray
pencil strokes. He lays it down before the giant jagged stick man and says two
words.
"Get in."
The giant jagged stick man goes berserk. He turns into a frenzied whirlwind
of stick body strokes, spiraling inside a tightening knot of color. Dray can see
Mr. Green hanging on, and Mr. Turquoise, and Mr. Pink, whirling like bright
fence-posts in a hurricane. They bring the giant jagged stick man to a halt, and
he stands before the paper. Dray says it again.
"Get in."
The colored stick men let go. The giant jagged stick man looks around, sees
no pity in their faces, and turns back to Dray.
"I can't help it," he says, gravelly voice weak and pathetic. "I was made
this way." He holds up his hands. The freshly broken sword finger sways on a
thin black tendril. The daggers are coated in blood.
"No one drew your choices for you," says Dray, steady. "You made those
yourself."
A big limpid tear swells in the giant jagged stick man's pinhole black
eyes. "I didn't want to be a monster," he says, voice that of a whining child.
Dray shakes his head. Points at the manager. "She didn't want to be stolen.
The little man didn't want to die. But did you listen to them?"
The tear falls down the giant jagged stick man's face. "I'm sorry," he
says. "I'm sorry, I'll be good, please, let me go."
Dray looks round at the colored men. He sees them all, bleeding and torn in
places. He sees the manager, white and terrified, and he sees the palace, and he
sees the faces of his stick men, looking to him. "Get in," he says, and points
to the box.
The giant jagged stick man grimaces, then lunges for Dray, his dagger hand
poised, but Dray is faster. He snatches up the paper and holds it before him
like a shield. The giant jagged stick man is sucked inside, shrinking until he's
nothing but a child's scrawl batting around noisily in a box. Dray folds up the
paper, and gives it to Mr. Green.
"Hang onto this," he says. Mr. Green nods.
"Are you OK?" he asks the manager. She steps into his arms and kisses him
full on the lips.
"I'm OK now," she says, pulling back, and Dray blushes.
"Alright then," he says, grinning like a fool, her hand finding its way
into his. He looks round at the stick men. "Thanks guys," he says. They smile
down on him. He takes another piece of paper from his pocket and lays it down on
the floor. Four lines with a small circle and a word, HOME.
He kneels beside it, reaches in, turns the handle, and opens it up. Color
flashes out, and he looks down on himself, dozing at his desk with 4 students
spread around him. Mr. Green rests his gentle arm on Dray's shoulder.
"Whenever you need us," he says, image blurring as Dray's eyes swamp with
happy sad tears. Dray nods, looks around one final time at his army of stick
men, then steps through the door home, manager by his side.
#
The lesson ends with him blearily pointing to the door. The students
file out. He's pretty sure they didn't notice. They were busy enough describing
the unique selling points of their companies not to notice.
As he clears up his desk, readying for the next class, he notices his piece
of yellow planning paper, all the words restored. In the corner lies the little
man. Frozen. His eyes are still X's and his smile has fallen flat. His limbs are
a tangle of twisted lines. There are smudges of red around him.
Dray takes up a pencil and draws a grave over the little man's body. He
colors it in black, and the little man's figure dissolves under the line strokes
of the earth. He sets a head stone in back of it, with these words written in
tiny little letters.
BOB
A LITTLE MAN OF GREAT COURAGE
5:00 – 5:30
Then he draws a statue next to the grave. It is the little man again,
frozen in action, flying through the air to save his friend. He adds some
flowers, daffodils and roses, and a few sprigs of grass. He imagines the flowers
all have notes from the colored men, describing Bob the little man's life and
deeds in great and glowing detail. He doesn't need to write it for them. He sets
down the pencil and smiles.
"Dray-sensei!" calls the manager from down the corridor, and for a second
he wonders what would happen if he walked right up and kissed her, in front of
the students. He chuckles. He wonders if he will, someday. Then he gets up,
drops the scribble-filled lesson plan into the trash, and goes to see what she
wants.
© 2004 Michael John Grist
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