Big Box

Inside a warehouse, there are many workers, and they are building a huge box. They rush here and back with tools and they apply them to a job and then they rush off somewhere else. The box is the size of a dumpster.

There is an indistinct, anonymous politician up on a catwalk with an entourage. They are watching the construction of the box with great approval. Sometimes somebody will pat the politician on the back, and he'll nod, and they'll all continue smiling down at the box and the workers constructing it.

I know I should recognize the politician. He's always on TV, in the papers. But they're starting to run together, like penguins. They're all slick and smiling and their images are like a mass entangling of photons. If one of them orients in one direction, another will be moving exactly the opposite in reaction.

It's a nuclear power plant, I'm told by someone who knows. I say, that dumpster? Well, it was once as big as a building,with other Politicians high up in a skyscraper smiling down at the construction site. But this Politician stopped it in Congress because it had been suggested by another Politician. That one would have powered a city forever. But this one, he scotched it, and now it's dead in the water.

So some blamed him. And he hurriedly before the next primary kicked off a smaller projet. This one is 10% of the other, and it will power one household forever. There's to be a lottery to determine which household. The Politician is taking credit for saving lots for the taxpayers.

Newsmagazine

I have a newsmagazine, I say. I don't remember which one. I don't read the cover to find out. I tell this one, a stranger standing on the street, I say, it includes a film clip. Isn't that marvelous?

He says, says this one on the street, oh, boy, more TV.

I say, yes, but it's a newsmagazine. His eyes glaze over, and I've missed my ride home in the telling.

I set out walking. The route is from my old high school home, forty years ago and more, but I set out.

Someone in a pickup picks me up. Hi, he says. I'm Mitch Romney. I'd like to be your president.

I determine to remember what he says so I can tell Niki J when I'm home. Maybe this guy is famous. He might even be in the newsmagazine. I listen very carefully, and he doesn't stop talking. It's as if he's broadcasting. I don't feel the need to say anything at all, because once I begin to encourage him to continue, he's already continued over me anyway. I just nod and act interested, like back in school.

So I just listen closely.

And when I'm home, I rush to tell Niki J. I say, guess who I rode home with. Mike Romney, the presidential candidate!

Oh, says Niki J, without pausing what she's doing, which has nothing to do with Mick Romney nor politics either. What did he say?

That's the funny part, I say, puzzled. I don't know.

You rode home with him and you don't know what he said?

No, I admitted.

He must be the quiet sort.

No, no, he talked the whole ride. It's just - his words were like breathing. They didn't cling together. They didn't say anything. They were exactly like the hum of the engine. It's a complete mystery. I thought at the time we were having a conversation, I mean, the sort you have with politicians anyway, and now that I reflect on it, there was nothing there.

What's that you have in your hand?

What? Oh, this. It's a newsmagazine. With the most remarkable content: a video clip! Inside the magazine!

Whoopee, says Niki J. More TV.

Movie Star Map

I am seeing a mysterious inset in the lower right corner of a colorful fan magazine page.

It's an obscure lifelike drawing of figures in some indistinguishable action. It makes perfect sense to me. I realize however that most likely not another human on the planet would understand it. To them it's probably like the inexplicable drawings in New Yorker which have nothing to do with the story, or like all the other photos in this and any magazine. But this one contains more important data than anywhere else on the page, in the magazine, in any other magazine. I am so amazed by this.

We have been a long ways off visiting, and now it's time to go. We set to go, dreading the long voyage home. There is someone in a long elaborate vehicle. Very delicate, for he is deliberately wrecking it. Making a false move at the wheel and the expensive contraption crinkles like crackers and I turn and walk away.

There is Rita, my sister-in-law, standing on a large platform in the shape of a twin bed. She is on the top bunk, and it teeters, because it overruns the bed below. She steps on the unsupported edge and it tilts. I see there is no danger. She will only fall harmlessly onto another bed. I am not alarmed. She does fall exactly where physics demands. I realize it is an accident, but not a very serious one.

After much thought, I suddenly realize there is a firm and fast link between the two events and the graphic in the magazine, for the drawing describes and identifies the rest. I am certain of this. I can see it all. It's like the first time some human looked up at the stars and beheld the very image of a bull. I see it all. I am utterly astonished.

Then more so, as I also become slowly aware. Someone designed the graphic. I'm not alone. Someone intended this.

I look all around, then up at the stars.