Let Her Eat Cake

During Christmas, Gracie crawled into my lap and announced that we were going to play a game.

“Great. What’s the game?” I asked.
“I don’t know, silly,” she said. “You have to think of one.”

Fortunately, I once taught a class at How to be a Great Uncle School about impromptu stories and games-on-the-fly. Halfway up my sleeve I found exactly what we needed.

“Gracie,” I asked, “if you could open MiMi’s magic oven and find any treat baked inside, what treat would you find?”
Without thinking, she said “Chocolate Cake.”
“Not peanut butter cookies or a roasted buffalo?”
“No, Uncle Bryan, (smiling) Chocolate Cake!”

MiMi is what Gracie calls my mother, her grandmother. MiMi didn’t invent chocolate cake, but she might have perfected it. She bakes chocolate cake well and often – especially when her grandchildren are spending the night.

“Gracie, if you could open the magic closet in MiMi’s bedroom and find an exciting something hidden behind her clothes, what would you find?”
“Chocolate Cake!”
“Not a house for your Barbies or a dress made of diamonds?”
“No, Uncle Bryan, (with a giggle) Chocolate Cake!”

Other than pizza and peanut butter with honey sandwiches, chocolate cake is the only thing Gracie eats voluntarily. Everything else is consumed under duress and only to earn a reward, often of chocolate cake.

“Gracie, If you could open MiMi’s magic backdoor and go anywhere in the universe – even if it’s an imaginary place nobody has ever been to – where would you go?”
“Somewhere that has lots and lots of Chocolate Cake!”
“Not Sesame Street or a pineapple under the sea?”
“No, Uncle Bryan (losing control), somewhere with Chocolate Cake!”

Squirming with laughter and lost in her own silliness, Gracie begged for more. “Ask another one, Uncle Bryan, ask another one!” How could an uncle resist?

“If you could pick up MiMi’s magic telephone and talk to anyone – even someone who’s not real – who would you talk to?”
“Somebody who knows how to make Chocolate Cake!”

“If you could dig a magic hole in MiMi’s backyard and fill it with anything you can imagine, what would you fill it with?”
“A whole ton of Chocolate Cake!”

“If you could climb into MiMi’s magic bed and dream about anything in the world, what would you dream about?”
“Eating Chocolate Cake!”

Every time Gracie said “Chocolate Cake,” a smile spread across her face and into her eyes. The letters of her words were all mixed with laughter. Her love for the cake is loyal and strong.

***

Gracie is a creative, clever, and genuinely funny girl whose six-year-old imagination skips across ideas like a rock across water. That’s why, when our game started, I expected her to travel through space, talk to the tooth fairy, and swim in a pool of marshmallows.

Apparently, I underestimated Gracie’s imagination. It takes a very powerful love – and a very clever girl – to find cake in every question.

One day, however, Gracie will discover the beauty of things like new books, old movies, the sound of her mother’s voice, the touch of her lover’s hands, cold lemonade, and fresh snow. All these things will eventually find homes in Gracie’s heart – but she will always love chocolate cake.

When stupid boys make fun of her glasses, Gracie’s mother will sit with her on the couch and there will be chocolate cake.

When boys stop being stupid and one finds the nerve to ask Gracie on her first date, her best friend will squeal with delight and there will be chocolate cake.

When she graduates from high school, and college, and feels hope in her future, there will be chocolate cake.

When the economy plummets and she can’t find a job, there will be chocolate cake.

When a man asks her to marry him, there will be chocolate cake.

When she fights with the man and they say hurtful things to each other and she thinks about leaving, there will be chocolate cake.

When she sells her first painting or gets a promotion, there will be chocolate cake.

When her babies have birthdays, there will be chocolate cake.

When the biopsy comes back negative, there will be chocolate cake.

And finally, after enjoying a life full of flour, sugar, and cocoa powder, Gracie will sit at a kitchen table with her grandchildren… and there will still be chocolate cake.

**

If Gracie is as clever as I think she is, she will eventually realize that Chocolate Cake doesn’t really answer every question. The most important questions are better answered with words like “love,” “my family,” “God,” and “I don’t know.”

And if Gracie is as smart as I hope she is, she will also learn to exercise. Otherwise, her love for chocolate cake is going to make her very, very fat.*


__________________________

* For the record, “fat” is a terrible word and is used here only because Uncle Bryan suffers from an adolescent infection to his sense of humor. Gracie is a perfectly sized six-year-old, and unless her doctors tell her differently, whatever size she grows into will always be exactly the right size.

** Gracie, if the internet is still alive when you’re old enough to read archives of your uncle’s blog, give me a call. I'll tell you silly stories about your brother, we’ll eat cake, and together we can laugh at my receding hairline.

Santa is a Fraud

When the batteries snapped into his back, Capt. Awesome suddenly became aware of flashing lights and Christmas music in the living room. His tiny AAA heart beat faster.

And then a middle aged woman set him on a coffee table – a COFFEE TABLE! – and took a huge bite from the cookie.

“What the ****,” he thought. “You’re not Santa!”

As the woman stuffed him into a red felt stocking, the reality of Capt. Awesome’s situation set in.

He wasn’t built in Santa’s workshop... he was bought in a store! He was a bastard toy! And like all bastard toys, his life expectancy would be that of a house-fly. Even if he didn’t break before his batteries ran out, Capt. Awesome knew that no self-respecting child was going to choose him over a genuine North Pole toy.

He was doomed to life under the bed.

Eventually, the woman turned off the lights and went to bed. After working for hours to build a bicycle and set up something called a “Barbie Tropical Water Park,” she looked exhausted.

“Why would she go to that much trouble,” Capt. Awesome wondered. “Santa will be here any minute.”

Capt. Awesome spent a sleepless night peering over the white-furred edge of his stocking, waiting. To pass the time, he counted the presents under the tree. There were thirty-four. Four red boxes had gold bows. Two red boxes had green bows. Three blue boxes had silver ribbons. Eight boxes didn’t have bows or ribbons. Six boxes were wrapped in green, five had paper with pictures on it, and one little box was silver and shiny. Most of the presents were square-ish, but three were strange shapes that crumpled the paper. Tucked in a corner were two gift bags with white tissue paper erupting from their tops.

Shortly before 6:00am, Capt. Awesome heard tiny voices telling sleepy parents it was time to wake up. An old man, probably the grandfather, scooped coffee into a pot and made noises that sounded like they belonged outside. A few minutes later, a little boy ran down the stairs and shouted when he saw a shiny blue bicycle.

Capt. Awesome was exhausted. He stayed awake the whole night. Santa never came.

It was the parents. It was the parents the whole time. Every box. Every bow. Every toy and foil wrapped chocolate was a fraud. It was all carried home in a sack. None of it rode in a sleigh.

And the parents let it happen. No, they didn’t just let it happen. They made it happen. Every year they filled their poor, empty-headed children with stories about a fat man – a stranger – who loved them so much and thought they were such good little boys and girls that they deserved presents.

Capt. Awesome was furious. “Wrapping a lie in red velvet,” he thought, “doesn’t make it right.”

Three weeks later, Capt. Awesome sat on the kitchen table while the mother wrote checks to pay credit card companies for the Christmas presents they had bought. Capt. Awesome thought she should forward the bills to the North Pole for reimbursement, but he decided not to mention it. At the moment, the mother looked too fragile to take suggestions, even from a superhero.

Capt. Awesome was sure that before Christmas both the boy and the girl had written letters to the North Pole asking the non-existent Santa for everything they wanted, including a bicycle and a Barbie water park. To their credit, the boy still rode his bicycle and the girl hadn’t yet forgotten about the pink water park in the corner of her room – not that she could. On December 26, however, their markers suddenly went dry. Every day they played, but they never said thank you.

Ungrateful kids.

During the months that followed, Capt. Awesome spent most of his time in the van. He went to soccer practices and swim lessons. He waited in the backseat during dance recitals and birthday parties. He endured the agony of family vacations and once almost won his freedom in a Burger King parking lot. He probably would have gotten away – or at least might have been picked up by a new boy in a new van – if the boy hadn’t shouted for the mother to stop. Apparently, bastard toys aren’t as expendable as Capt. Awesome once thought. Damn.

Capt. Awesome eventually overcame his nausea from the van's stale french-fry smell. He also learned to ignore the endless repetitions of something called “Finding Nemo.” He even taught himself how to mentally dissociate when the boy forced his head through the van’s cracked window as they rushed down the interstate. Capt. Awesome couldn’t tolerate it, however, when he got wedged between the back seats. The horrors he saw in the depths of that dark and sticky hell were more than even the bravest toy could endure.

Capt. Awesome soon learned that the boy’s name was Daniel. The girl was Kris. The mother was usually called Mom or Mommy, except when one of the men was in the van. Then she was called Susan. Capt. Awesome got nervous when the mother became “Susan,” especially if the boy and the girl were staying with a babysitter or sleeping at their grandparents’ house. On those nights, when the mother was in the van alone with one of the men, he sometimes heard things that made him wonder if Susan might be the reason Santa didn’t stop at the Cooper house.

In November, the mood in the van began to change. The boy and the girl, who seldom sang along with the radio, started requesting songs about Frosty the snowman and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. Finding Nemo was replaced by a movie that referenced a disturbing place called the “Island of Misfit Toys.” The mother also began asking the boy and the girl awkward questions about elves and what kind of cookies Santa likes.

Soon it would be Christmas, the most dishonest time of the year.

Early one morning, the family piled into the van already arguing about their day.

“I get to go first,” said the boy. “I’m older so I get to go first.”
“But it’s my turn,” the girl protested. “Daniel got to go first last year. It’s not fair!”
“I told you, it doesn’t matter who goes first. You’ll both get a turn,” said the mother. “Kris, what are you going to ask Santa for?”

The girl didn’t even have to think about her answer. “I want an American Girl doll, a bike like Daniel’s with a pink helmet and a white seat, and a white fairy princess dress.”

The boy also had his list memorized. He wanted a chemistry set and a microscope like Brendon’s “so we can do experiments together.” He also said he was going to ask Santa for a remote controlled car and something called a DM3.

The rest of the way to the mall, the mother was obviously working to keep her lips from moving while she rehearsed their lists. Capt. Awesome couldn’t believe the boy and the girl didn’t see it. Sure, they were only kids, but how weak did your batteries have to be to not see the mother memorizing every word they said?

American Girl. Pink Helmet. White seat. Princess dress. Chemistry set. Microscope. Car. DMSomething.

A week later, the mother drove back to the mall without the boy and the girl. She stayed inside for several hours. When she came back to the van, Capt. Awesome could see a chemistry set in one of her bags and the white sequence of a fairy princess dress in another.

“Christmas,” he thought, “when deception disguises itself as goodwill.”

After last Christmas - his first Christmas - Capt. Awesome was convinced that Santa was a great manipulation, and nothing more. He was a fraud built by the collective imaginations of adults who regularly spanked their children for lying. Capt. Awesome was sure that by perpetuating the Santa story, the parents were digging their own graves.

Did parents really think the world leaders these parents were raising would find solutions for the fossil fuel crisis when they honestly believed magic elves spent twelve months a year making everything people asked for?

Had the parents actually convinced themselves that the global economy would be stabilized by a generation who thought an overweight saint slid down their chimneys to deliver toys?

And who did the parents think would care for them in their old age? What possible motivation would their children have for giving selflessly to another person when they believed a 1400 year-old fat man existed for no other reason than to give them presents?

It was all so absurd.

After the kids sat on Santa’s lap, the van was filled and emptied four different times. The mother brought home rolls of paper and hid department store bags under her bed. At the grocery store, she bought two bags of the candy she used to help fill the kids’ stockings. Capt. Awesome remembered it from the year before when he stood on it through that horrible sleepless night. At the toy store, the mother asked a handsome young man wearing a blue vest to help her load a bike-sized box into the van. The young man smiled weakly when the mother handed him a dollar and wished him Merry Christmas.

Long before Christmas morning, Capt. Awesome knew that not only was the boy getting a chemistry set and a microscope from “Santa,” he was also getting a basketball and two new shirts.

The girl would love her fairy dress and would probably spend most of Christmas afternoon riding her new bicycle. But Capt. Awesome knew that “Santa” was also going to surprise her with a shiny chrome bell for her handlebars.

The kids had no idea what was happening behind the Christmas scenes. Every afternoon they rode home in the backseat of a grey Astro-Van that secretly doubled as Santa’s sleigh. If they knew that Santa poured their cereal and drove them to school every morning, they would go absolutely mental.

On the Saturday night before Christmas, the mother dropped the kids off at their grandparents’ house and picked up the man who was her current favorite. On their way to dinner, the mother and the man talked about Christmas and which child would like which present the best. “Susan,” the man said, “You’ve kinda gone overboard this year, haven’t you? Can you afford all this?”

“Not really,” said the mother.

And then she started to cry.

After Christmas, the man helped the mother tie a brittled Christmas tree onto the top of the van. After they dumped the tree in a pile near the playground in their favorite park, the man announced he was taking everyone out for pizza to celebrate the new year.

On the way, he turned to ask the boy and the girl if they had a good Christmas.

“Sure did,” said the boy. “Santa got me a microscope and a cool chemistry set and a DM3!”
“I got a silver princess dress and a pink bicycle with a bell on the handles,” said the girl.
“That’s great,” said the man. “What did your mom get you?”

The boy and the girl looked at each other blankly.

“I don’t remember,” the boy answered. “Mom, what did you get me?”

Capt. Awesome couldn’t believe his ears. If he had any muscle control – if he had any muscles at all – he would kick the boy in the lap.

“Santa,” he wanted to scream, “is just a front man your parents use to launder their own generosity. He’s a puppet crafted to give you the clothes you need and the toys you want and let somebody else get the credit. I can’t believe your mom sits in the shadows while an overstuffed fairy tale steals her glory.”

Ungrateful kids.

Super? Human.

Michael

Michael discovered he could become invisible when he was a teenager – that glandular time when the other boys were also discovering their own secret and hidden abilities. When he realized he could become invisible, Michael dreamed of using his power for the ultimate good: surveillance missions… gaining important intelligence… and infiltrating the girls’ locker room.

Visibility happens when light bounces off an object and gets caught in the camera of an animal’s eye, making a picture in the brain and immortalizing the object as “visible.” Invisibility happens when light doesn’t bounce – when it passes through an object, frictionless. Clean glass. Clear air. Calm water. These things are “invisible” because light shines through them in a straight line, never bounced back to report the shapes and colors of where it’s been.

Michael could turn invisible. He could allow light to pass straight through his body, keeping him a secret. But becoming invisible meant light passed through his body. All of it. It didn’t bounce off his shoulders, stomach, and feet, showing his size, shape, and location to everyone around him. But it also didn’t get caught in his eyes.

Instead, when he was invisible, light passed through his lenses, ignored his retinas, and shot straight out the back of his head, never telling his brain anything about where it had been.

Michael could turn invisible. But when he was invisible, he was also blind… which made the girl’s locker room much less interesting.

Susan

When Susan won $500 in the lottery, she wasn’t even excited. Oscar could fly, and that was so much better.

If she could fly, Susan knew she wouldn’t need the lottery. She wouldn’t have a car payment, or auto insurance, or rising gas prices to worry about. She could even earn extra money as one of those traffic reporters on the radio that tells everybody where all the wrecks are on the highway.

Her stupid brother had the power to fly, and he never used it – not even if he woke up late and there wasn’t any coffee and rush-hour traffic was a mess. He said it was too slow. He said he could spit faster than he could fly.

When they were kids, Oscar occasionally took off in the front yard to show off for his friends. But when his friends started crawling under him to untie his shoes and tickle his feet while he lifted off, Oscar had an important revelation. Unless a neighbor’s cat was stuck in a tree and they weren’t in a hurry to get it down, his power was neither very useful nor very impressive.

What’s the point of flying, Oscar thought, if it’s not fast?

As he got older, his opinion didn’t change. Once, when he got caught in traffic on the way to an emergency surgery, Oscar took his chances and took off. Four blocks later, he was passed by a butterfly.

Now, unless the puddles were unbearably deep, Oscar usually walked. And Susan hated him for it.

Oscar knew his sister was jealous of his ability, but he was thankful Susan couldn’t fly. His logic? There’s a reason animals in the wild walk on all fours, hiding their underparts. There’s a reason birds, who fly so unashamedly, don’t have external genitals. It’s the same reason women who only wear short skirts, women like his sister, shouldn’t have the power of flight:

Decency.

Nobody wants to look up and see that, especially in slow motion.

Paul

Like a Bible character he barely remembered, Paul got his strength form his hair.

In 1967 he and his flower children friends – his botanical brothers and sisters – all grew their hair long in protest of a war they didn’t believe in. But as his friends grew shaggy, Paul grew strong. Very Strong.

The first time his mother hinted that he needed a haircut, Paul already knew to be careful when he tied his sneakers before a protest. He was so strong that sometimes he got over-zealous and bruised his feet before the laces broke.

When his bangs had to be parted to keep the hair out of his eyes, Paul was regularly entertaining his friends at sit-ins by bending gun barrels into balloon animals while singing “Give Peace a Chance.”

By the time Paul’s muddy locks covered the tour dates on the backs of his tee-shirts, he spent every fourth Saturday holding his family’s El Camino in the air while his dad changed the oil. His dad wanted him to get a job that “took full advantage of his talent.” Unfortunately, when you’re a super-strong hippie pacifist, there isn't much work that fits your skill set.

When the boys in Washington heard about his extraordinary strength, they "randomly" drew Paul’s draft number. Like it or not, they said, he was going to Vietnam.

“Don’t you want to be a star soldier,” they asked. “Don’t you want to serve your country?”

He didn’t.

The first day of boot camp, the Army shaved Paul’s head and gave him a pair of green pants. His commanding officers wouldn’t listen when Paul told them not to cut his hair. They said it was “regulation.”

Nine months later, Paul ran through the jungle with a new haircut, sweating under the weight of his backpack. Unable to keep up with his company, Paul never saw his home again.

Heather

Heather spent her life as a quiet prisoner to her inside voice.

Heather’s “inside voice” wasn’t anything like her “inner voice,” that whispering conscience that gives paranoid advice and warns people of impending doom. Heather’s “inside voice” was the contrast to her “outside voice,” a sound that froze everything that moves.

Every time Heather shouted or screamed, her raised voice pressed a pause button that stopped time.

Usually when a woman shouts, one of several things happen: 1) people run to her aid, 2) a child is sent to its room, or 3) everyone rolls their eyes and wonders why that horrible woman is being so mean to the poor waiter. These things happen because a shout is meant to be heard. A shout, by nature, elicits a response.

Heather’s shout, however, was terribly counter-productive. People who heard it, strictly speaking, couldn’t respond to it. They were too busy being immobilized. Frozen. Instead of turning in alarm, people who heard Heather shout were temporarily petrified, stuck in an involuntary game of freeze tag.

Because Heather had colic as a baby, her father was constantly late for work. Several times a week, he woke up early, sat down for breakfast, and was then turned to a statue while his carpool left without him.

“Shit,” he thought. “If that kid doesn’t stop crying, I’m going to loose my job.”

Heather was six months old when her unemployed parents sent her to live with a deaf couple.

In the 8th grade, all the girls in Heather’s class were required to take woodshop with the boys. The school said it taught them to be well-rounded. One day Heather told the shop teacher that “the needless butchering of trees for poorly made book cases and bird houses violates my principals as a vegetarian.”

Mr. Reinheart explained to Heather that she apparently misunderstood what “vegetarian” meant. When Heather yelled a defiant “BUT…,” all the drills stopped drilling, all the saws stopped sawing, and everyone in the woodshop froze. It was SO embarrassing.

By the time she got to high school, Heather was already one of the prettiest girl in her class. When she tried out for the cheerleading squad, her gymnastic routine was great, but her cheers left the judges silent and still. She didn’t make the squad.

The day Heather rode a roller coaster at Six Flags was an absolute disaster.

Heather hated being quiet while her friends were being crazy. She hated using her “inside voice” when her inner bitch wanted out. Most afternoons, when she got home from school, Heather was so frustrated that she slammed the door and shouted as loud as she could.

When her deaf foster parents saw the cat frozen with one leg in the air, wishing its bath hadn’t been so rudely interrupted, they signaled each other and spoke in their sign-language shorthand, “Heather must be home.”

Martin

Martin sat in his favorite coffee shop, bemoaning his fate.

He had been fired earlier that day after an unfortunate incident at school. Martin (or Mr. Smithson as he was known to his students), was walking down the hall just outside the girl’s bathroom, when a kid pushed past him in a rush to get to class. Martin stumbled and tried to catch himself, but with no luck. He fell through the wall and straight into the girl’s bathroom.

Since he was a child, Martin had been able to pass through things. He could reach his hand through ceramic cookie jars and walk through solid walls. Unfortunately, none of his wardrobe shared his super-ability. Just because Martin could walk through walls didn’t mean his clothes could come with him.

When Martin fell (literally) through the solid wall outside the girl’s bathroom, he landed on the other side unscathed, uninjured… and unclothed. Now, thanks to the several shrieking sophomores who had seen his “biology lesson,” he was also unemployed.

The school board said Martin was a danger to the kids. They claimed he was a liability. They paid no attention to his defensive argument. "At least I'm not turning invisible and intentionally stalking through the locker rooms," he said. "This was just an honest mistake." Twenty minutes later, they fired him.

Martin hated his super dis-ability.

Superman. Wonder-Woman. The Green Lantern. They all did what came naturally and the world embraced them for it.

“For the rest of us,” Martin thought, “life’s a little more complicated.”

The End.

Orbit

The Earth took his training wheels off only a few billion years ago. Before then, he obediently followed the other planets through their frenzied orbits, barely keeping out from under their feet. He wasn't the typical middle child, quiet and demure. The Earth was curious and inquisitive, constantly asking questions like:

Why do I have to wear sunscreen?
What if I don't want to eat my vegetables?
and
Are we there yet?

Despite the endless questions, the other planets liked the Earth. He was innocent, green, and good-natured. He never even made fun of Uranus... which was hard not to do. There were a few years during puberty, when his face erupted in a volcanic mess, that the Earth was a little moody, but that was all behind him now.

The Earth was settling - reluctantly - into middle-age. He was none too happy that his formerly tight pangaea was giving way to urban expansion. His rainforests were receding. His doctor was even nagging that his rising sea levels "might be cause for concern."

In other words, the Earth wasn’t happy.

He worried that his life was moving in circles, never really getting anywhere. Parts of him felt like the days went on forever and the night would never end. He enjoyed his yearly commute around the sun, but how many times could he smile and make small talk with Venus as they passed? Sure, she was attractive. Saturn was dying to get his rings around her. Even Pluto, a shy planet with an obvious identity crisis, wanted to talk to her. But for all her charms, Venus wasn’t much of a conversationalist. The Earth needed more.

He wanted adventure.

One day, shortly after putting the finishing touches on an amazing sunset, the Earth heard some unsettling news. An asteroid was coming. The Earth wasn’t eavesdropping, of course, but it’s hard to ignore a few billion voices whispering in your ear. As soon as the asteroid was sighted, television reporters across the world began talking about "the catastrophic event," "our pending extinction," and "the violent end of life as we know it."

And the Earth was listening.

News of the asteroid’s approach rocked the Earth to his core. The dinosaurs hadn't done a very good job of warning him about the last asteroid, a surprise from the black that hit him like a cosmic car accident. One day he just turned around, saw the asteroid swerve into his orbit, and thought, "shit, this is going to hurt." And it did. Bad.

"Whoever's out there throwing rocks needs to stop," he thought. "I'm too old for this."

Unfortunately, the asteroid that was on its way wasn't just a medium-sized rock meandering through the universe. It was bigger. Much bigger. A rock several times the size of Earth, the asteroid was technically a small planet that had broken free from its own solar system and achieved geologic independence. Apparently, when planets stop orbiting a single sun and start freelancing through the universe, they earn the slightly more sinister title of “asteroid.” Unencumbered by the obligations of orbit, the “asteroid” went wherever it wanted, aggressively barging its way through an otherwise orderly universe.

The asteroid was sighted on a Tuesday. Within a few weeks, it would become visible as a small speck in the Milky Way. The speck would grow as the asteroid approached, slowing filling the night sky. First the North Star would disappear. Then the Big Dipper would loose its handle. Within a few months, Orion, Scorpio, and all their twinkling friends would be hidden from view, eclipsed by the asteroid’s huge girth.

Several weeks before the Earth and the asteroid met, its gravity would pull the Earth’s oceans from their beds, gathering them together until they looked like a giant raindrop falling up into the sky.

Then, at the moment of impact, the Earth would shatter like a snowball, barely feeling a thing.

“It’s just obnoxious the way these asteroids think of no one but themselves,” the Earth ranted. “They go wherever they want and do whatever they want with no thought of who they’re inconveniencing or what they’re destroying. It’s not as if the stupid asteroid doesn’t know where I’m going to be 253 days, 3 hours, and 14 minutes from now.”

The Earth had a good point. His schedule was as regular as clockwork. In fact, his schedule was the basis for clockwork. Everyone always knew where the Earth was going to be several years before he got there. That’s the beauty – and monotony – of orbit. It leaves little room for variation.

If the asteroid knew where he was going to be and when he was going to be there, then why, the Earth wondered, did it insist on running into him?

The answer, of course, was that the asteroid was terribly inflexible. Concepts like “yield,” “stop,” and “turn” implied compromises that the asteroid, who was both terribly selfish and very hard headed, saw as signs of weakness.

In 253 days, 3 hours, and 14 minutes, the Earth and the asteroid would meet somewhere on the other side of the sun. The Earth couldn’t decide which he hated more – the anticipation of conflict, or conflict itself.

The Earth wondered how the people would deal with the approaching asteroid. He suspected they would recycle one of their Hollywood clichés and shoot a missile at it. The people, of course, had the same idea.

Within hours of the asteroid’s discovery, a swarm of satellites started buzzing. China talked to England. Mexico and Canada joined in a conference call with Australia. NASA turned its telescopes to the heavens and told everyone the end was near unless they acted fast.

The people acted fast. Their leaders pressed buttons and unlocked doors, uncovering weapons hidden long ago like eggs in the Easter grass.

“If we can split an atom,” the people thought, “surely we can split an asteroid.”

But given the choice between fight and flight, the Earth wasn't sure picking a fight with the asteroid was the best idea. "Flight," he thought, "might be a better option."

Afraid for his own future, the Earth began to formulate a plan.

"If I start running now," he thought, "I can just get out of the stupid asteroid’s way. I can be halfway across the solar system by the time it arrives. If I’m 186 million miles ahead of schedule, I won’t even have to brush shoulders with it when it passes!”

The Earth knew that speeding up would require everyone – including himself – to adapt to a new schedule. The change would be hard for the people. Traditionally, even slow changes that obviously needed to happen (like evolution and equality) had been difficult for them. But what choice did he have? Change was coming whether he (or they) liked it or not. He simply couldn’t continue on his current course and expect to survive.

And so, before the people could launch their missiles at the sky, the Earth took a deep breath and started speeding up. Faster and faster he ran. The faster he ran, the faster the days flew by, passing with quickening speed until a single week was little more than a blur of sunrises and sunsets.

He sped straight through summer and practically skipped fall. The long trip that usually took a lazy year to finish was done in a matter of weeks. Birds, confused by the strobing sunsets, flew south for the winter only to find their homes under several feet of snow. Children were equally surprised when spring break started three days before Christmas.

The children loved the new schedule. They had hardly finished one birthday before the next one began. Girls celebrated their sweet sixteen with Barbie Doll cakes and Dora the Explorer parties. Boys were old enough to buy beer before their voices changed.

Anxiety levels also rose among college students who complained they didn’t have enough time to study for exams. Pulling an all-nighter was practically pointless. The sun came up before they could finish a second cup of coffee. And when fraternity boys partied all night on Friday with plans of sleeping late on Saturday, it was sometimes Monday morning before they woke up and wondered where the weekend had gone – which wasn’t very different from the way things had always been.

Even Santa’s elves were disgruntled. Unable to keep up with their new production schedule, the doll division threatened to strike.

The future was simply coming before the people were prepared for it. Before the Earth began his sprint toward safety, both the quick and the careful could order their lives because they knew what words like “next week,” “next month,” and “next year” meant. Like “one pound” and “four meters,” the meanings of “one minute” and “four days” were constant. This predictability not only sold thousands of calendars at Christmas, it also gave the people an illusion of control.

But now “tomorrow” was like a menstrual cycle -- reliable, but unpredictable. The people always knew it was coming, but they didn’t know exactly when it would get there or how long it would stay.

Across the globe, petitions were signed asking the Earth to slow down. Concerned citizens gathered at community centers and organized anti-Earth demonstrations. Unlike the great protests of the past, however, the people marched without knowing where to go. Since City Hall couldn’t solve their problem, the people wandered aimlessly, hoping the Earth would hear them yell.

At a march in Oregon, an environmentalist who had once fought to save the rainforests led a group in chanting “stop the world, I wanna get off!” At a rally in Atlanta, a construction worker carried a shovel, but never followed through with his threats to dig a hole.

It didn’t take long, however, before the people realized that there wasn’t anything anybody could do to make the Earth slow down.

Activists couldn’t boycott anyone.
Armies couldn’t attack anyone.
Police couldn’t arrest anyone.
Lawyers couldn’t sue anyone.
Men couldn’t threaten anyone.
Women couldn’t manipulate anyone.

The AARP, whose membership had recently doubled, printed an informative pamphlet, but nobody had time to read it.

The Earth knew the people were frustrated, confused, and afraid… but it felt so good to finally control his own future.

The Earth felt it first in his North America. Then it spread to his Europe and across his Asia. This wasn’t one of those headaches he got from too much pressure along his tectonic plates. This headache was the direct result of 6 billion feet marching across his surface in angry unison. If they didn’t stop stomping soon, he would be forced to knock the people off balance. The Earth hadn’t been this upset since the invention of high-heeled shoes.

During what he considered the puberty of their race (generally referred to as “modernity”), the Earth felt the people had become disturbingly self-centered. Maybe he had a heart of stone, but the Earth was tired of being taken for granted. He was tired of letting ungrateful people walk all over him.

Wasn’t he always patient during their Thanksgiving Day Parade? Didn’t he suffer quietly through their New York City Marathon? He even allowed their military to practice their ridiculous advances and retreats at all hours of the day and night. His patience, however, was growing as thin as his ozone. The endless protest marches had to stop. They were not only irritating, they were insulting.

The Earth wasn’t deaf. He knew what the people were saying about him. He was listening when Greenpeace voted to take his name off their website. He noticed when Earth Day was cancelled and replaced with a symbolically violent tether-ball tournament. He tried to ignore preachers when they filled their Sunday Sermons with stories comparing him to somebody named “The Prodigal Son,” but he couldn’t. From pulpits across the globe they shouted that he was like an arrogant child who ran away from his father and leapt carelessly into the future. They said he “neglected his responsibility” and “denied his true calling.” They condemned him for “choosing a path other than the one assigned to him” and urged him to return to “the natural state of things.” They didn’t think the Earth realized how serious things had become.

The Earth was offended that the same people who invented oil-powered engines and artificial sweeteners dared to lecture him about “respecting creation” and “acting according to the laws of nature.”

Why, the Earth wondered, didn’t the people understand that he hadn’t broken away from his pre-determined path? He was still following the same circle around the same sun… he was simply doing it differently than he had before. And even if he had rushed into the future, he hadn’t done so carelessly. He had done so from necessity.

Self preservation and selfishness are two entirely different things.

Right in the middle of the evening news, the people looked up and saw it.

Fist the North Star Disappeared.

Then the Big Dipper lost its handle.

When a shadow fell across the sun, the people began to panic.

Some of them ran deep into underground cellars. Others herded themselves into churches to pray. Just as a few important people prepared to push important buttons and send missiles streaking into space (with little or no effect on the outrageous rock), a physicist scribbled something on her chalkboard. Out of the lines and numbers rose a wisp of chalky hope.

“But how is that possible,” the important people asked. “We already calculated that if the Earth is orbiting the sun at 29.77 km/s and the asteroid is traveling in a straight line at 56.2 km/s, then we should collide with it… 7 months ago?”

The director of the CIA stormed into the room, brushing the first flakes of a light summer snow off his jacket.

“So, you’re saying what?”

“The asteroid,” the physicist said, “is apparently going to miss the Earth by 186 million miles.”

“Well,” he stammered. “I’ll be damned.”

Before the asteroid arrived, the Earth’s path was familiar and frictionless. Every day he moved through space carried by his own momentum, hardly working to spin through the seasons. In the vacuum, there was little need for effort or exertion. Nothing worked against him. Trusting his instincts and inertia, the Earth took for granted that he would always coast easily through life. But now, everything was different. As the asteroid came closer, the Earth felt his forward motion interrupted by a sideways force. For the first time since he settled into the routine of orbit, The Earth felt resistance… friction… gravity pulling him in a direction other than the one he had always known.

At first the asteroid’s gravitational pull was as indefinable as emotion – little more than an idea tugging at his corners. Like happiness, fear, and excitement, it could be felt more than it could be explained.

As the asteroid came closer, however, its gravity grew into something more concrete. The Earth’s oceans noticed it first. Suddenly disinterested with the moon, they found themselves attracted to the asteroid, drawn to its rugged strength. Like crazed fans, they crowded the beaches and fought for the best view of its approach.

Like a ball fighting to roll uphill, the Earth strained against the asteroid’s gravitational pull. But when he tried to move forward, the asteroid’s gravity tugged him back. It didn’t matter how tightly he tried to hold to his orbit. The Earth was a movable object fighting an unstoppable force.

The Earth didn’t know what to do. He had already done everything he could to control his future, and was worn out with the effort. He couldn’t run any more.

Finally, after weeks (or was it months? or years?) of straining against the asteroid’s gravity, the Earth finally accepted what he could not change. He stopped fighting the invisible truth. Exhausted, he stopped running. For the first time since the asteroid was sighted, the Earth relaxed and let nature take its course.

And as the asteroid passed – only 186 million miles away – its gravity wrapped around the Earth’s middle, slowly pulling him away from the sun and into the deep, dark unknown. The predictable curve of the Earth’s orbit was straightened into an infinite line. Like a puppy led on an invisible leash, the Earth left his home and followed the asteroid into in the unknown of space.

When the asteroid was first sighted, the Earth tried to save himself. He chose to run – to avoid the asteroid rather than let it collide with him – and his plan worked. He hadn’t been destroyed by an impact. But despite his effort (or perhaps because of it), his path had been forever changed. Now, as the Earth followed the asteroid past stars he had never seen, he wondered which was better, change or annihilation? He didn’t yet know.

He noticed, however, that the people weren’t saying anything about what happened. They weren’t admiring the view or complaining about the cold. They were all strangely quiet.

The Earth thought he might like them better that way.

The Extra Credit Kid

When the boy was ten, his 5th grade teacher used the hour after lunch to teach her class the beautiful language of the deaf. Even though everyone in the class could hear – even though they all listened to their radios at home and turned their TVs louder than their mothers would have liked – this particular over-achieving educator wanted her class to know sign language. She wanted to teach their still innocent hands how to do something constructive. She wanted them to learn gestures that would communicate without offending the elderly.

The children loved their sign language lessons. Once, during a silent game of Ring Around the Rosie, they even got so rowdy that the teacher had to remind them to use their inside hands.

After the first week of learning to speak with silent words, the boy told his teacher that his mother was deaf. He said that everyone in his family knew how to use sign language. He had been doing it for years. Sometimes, before bed, he even used his hands to read out loud to his mother.

"But not the Bible," he said. "All the whosoevers and wherefores make my knuckles crack."

The teacher was amazed. Like an exotic exchange student from a quiet and faraway land, the boy was a native who already knew the language. He was a natural tutor. In a moment of instructive genius, the teacher offered bonus points to any child who spent time with the boy whose hands could talk.

He was the extra credit kid.

Within hours of the teacher’s edict, the extra credit kid became the most popular kid in class. His lunch table was always full. His seat was always saved. He never spent recess jumping rope by himself. He was extra credit.

Every afternoon The Extra Credit Kid leapt off a bus full of new friends, eager to tell his mother how popular he was at school. With exhausted fingers, he bragged about how everyone wanted to spend time with him because he was good at something. Because he knew something. Because he could do something no one else could.

Because he was extra credit.

The teacher asked The Extra Credit Kid to keep a journal of the time he spent with friends from their class. She wanted to be fair when she assigned extra points. The Extra Credit Kid soon noticed that he was invited to lots of birthday parties and sleepovers, but only on nights before the teacher tallied progress reports or just after difficult math tests. He played lots of video games with the lazy kids, but was never spoken to by the smart ones who had stars next to their names on the bulletin board.

In March, everyone celebrated The Extra Credit Kid's birthday by singing Happy Birthday with their hands.

In April, his class took a special trip to a school where the children couldn't hear. The Extra Credit Kid ate lunch at a table full of deaf kids and told a joke so well that a boy almost choked on his peas. Everyone from The Extra Credit Kid's class turned around to look. The rest of the cafeteria hadn't heard a thing.

In May, everyone waved goodbye to each other and promised they'd play together at the swimming pool.

In June, when school was over, the Extra Credit Kid's new friends stopped returning his calls. His hands, once limber from telling jokes and stories, grew lazy and fat. Summer vacation wasn't nearly as much fun as the school year had been.

The sixth grade was even more disappointing than the summer. His new teacher, Mrs. Espinoza, had severe arthritis and wasn't interested in sign language. She wanted to teach the children Spanish. The Extra Credit Kid had never been to Spain. For a month he spent the hour after lunch memorizing conjugations with his hands folded politely in his lap.

It was hard crossing from extra back to ordinary. It always is.

During the seventh grade The Extra Credit Kid learned to play the trombone.

In high school his hands were often busy, but with a new form of “sign language” that involved him talking mostly with himself.

The Extra Credit Kid eventually went to college and found a job and became a man.

After a while, the man almost forgot that he had ever been extra credit.

But then, when his mom visited, they would sit together and tell stories with their hands. And laugh. And he would remember.

Red Light?

New York is a pedestrian city. New Yorkers don’t walk for recreation or because we can’t find a closer parking place. In New York, the closest parking place is New Jersey. In New York we walk because it’s too expensive to hire a $20 taxi every time we leave the house. Poor and unwilling to remain confined to our apartments, we walk everywhere, littering the sidewalks with our smaller carbon footprints.

When we walk, we watch the traffic signals. New Yorkers know that when the green light turns yellow, the stream of cars blocking our path will slow to a stop and we can get an early start across the street. Unlike their suburban cousins, New York drivers are trained to never speed through a changing signal. In New York, running a red light means running over twelve people.

Last weekend, Jeremy and I were part of a crowd of NYU students and out of work actors crossing 18th street before we should. Several seconds before the red hand gave way to a walking man, a little girl on the opposite sidewalk stepped away from her father and into the street, following a herd of bad examples.

I saw the little blonde girl step off the curb, disobeying the red flashing hand that told her not to. Her father saw it, too. He shouted for her to stop, but in the chaos of the crosswalk it was hard to tell if he yelled more from fear for his daughter’s safety or hate for what his insurance company would do if she got hit by a car.

The little girl heard his shout and quickly stepped backward onto the sidewalk, safe and repentant.

When he knelt in front of the little girl and put his hands on her shoulders, the middle-aged man was still a father – angry, frightened, and flawed. But when he opened his mouth to scold his daughter, he was also something more – part prophet, part poet, part messiah. If the little girl remembers his advice, it will help her survive more than just the city.

“What have I always told you,” he said, sternly. “Don’t follow the people. Follow the signs.”

I listened too, and was thankful for the reminder.

SNAP!

Mice haven’t invaded my apartment, but they’re beginning to send spies. Every few days one scurries across my kitchen floor and hides under the stove. One by one they enter… but they never return home.

When the first mouse was spotted, my roommate shrieked, “it’s not even cold outside yet! I’m not emotionally ready for this!”

Is anyone ever emotionally ready for mice to invade their apartment? Isn’t the hallmark of a good invasion that it starts as a surprise? Would the Nazis have succeeded in occupying Eastern Europe if Hitler had RSVP’d with Poland for a September attack? Probably not. That’s why it’s important to end an invasion before it begins.

And so, with Old Testament vigilance, I’m catching the mouse spies one by one and killing them.

(Technically, and is the incorrect conjunction in the preceding sentence. The story shouldn’t read “I’m catching the spies and killing them.” It should read “I’m catching the spies by killing them.”)

SNAP! is my new favorite sound.

While I happily accept the role of grand executioner, serial killer, and/or instrument of rodent death for our apartment, Casey (my roommate) is a pacifist. She’s not offended by death, but she doesn’t think it should be forced on anyone (or anything). She wants the mice exterminated, but she doesn’t want to hear stories about it. Like the problem in Darfur, she’s aware of the killing, but thinking about it makes her sad.

Casey and I briefly discussed buying catch-and-release traps, but agreed that the theory behind catching and releasing is only effective if there’s an element of rehabilitation involved. Otherwise, your kindness is mistaken as hospitality. After the “release,” you’re practically guaranteed the mouse will bring its rodent friends back to your apartment to meet the nice people who keep filling the wire box under the sink with cheese and snacks.

The instructions for these pest-control placebos should read like the back of a shampoo bottle: “catch and release… and repeat.” Unless you have an infestation of golden retrievers, why bother?

It might be true that ever time a mouse dies, PETA cries… but in my opinion, the best way to catch a mouse is to kill a mouse.

***

Belly-up is always a posture of death. When you see a mouse trap flipped on its back, you know your resident rodent has finally joined Puckers – the goldfish you forgot to feed – on the other side of eternity.

This morning I looked behind the kitchen trash can to check a trap. It was sprung, tossed at a wild angle by the force of its snapping spring. The bait, a walnut tied to the trap with a piece of string, was completely intact and uneaten.

Beside the trap laid a dead mouse.
It wasn’t injured.
It wasn’t broken.
It wasn’t bloody.
But it was dead… next to the trap.

The mouse was resting three inches from the overturned trap, just far enough to blur the line between cause and effect. It was like finding a dead man across the street from a car accident.

Mysteriously, they both lay there, coldly divorced from each other, their bodies not even touching.

As far as mysteries go, “the case of the mouse who died, but wasn't caught” isn’t a very good one. I’m smart enough to know that cholesterol isn’t the only thing that causes heart attacks. When, on a calm autumn afternoon, your tiny mouse heart is already beating at over 9 times per second, SNAP! probably isn’t your favorite sound.

Animal rights activists can say what they want, but this confirms what I’ve always known. I’m not a killer… I’m a heart-breaker.