Written by Mel Reichler Copyright 2002
Ashley in the Computer
Chapter 1
Ashley was sitting in her room doing her homework. She was working on the computer and getting more and more tired, wondering whether she would finish the assignment which was due the next day. It was to write about a foreign country and how it was foreign.
The trouble was, she did not know any foreign countries. There were enough strange countries. In fact every country she knew of was strange. But foreign countries were a different story. A country was foreign when you didn’t know anything about it. A country was strange when you knew enough about it to know that you didn’t want to be there when anything in particular was happening.
Ashley picked one of the curly chestnut locks that hung down over her face and twisted it between her fingers. “What makes a place foreign,” she explained to herself out loud, which she always did when she confronted a problem she couldn’t guess the answer to right away, “is that I don’t know anyone who was born in that place, even if it is not strange.” She made a list in her head of the places that her friends had been born in.
Sam Song was from
The only place that she definitely knew that she didn’t know
anyone from, was
There were many kinds of states and not all of them were states like N.J. She knew a number of states of mind and was acquainted with a few states of confusion but she didn’t know their capitals so they were disqualified as foreign countries for the purpose of homework. All countries were states of some sort or another, but not all states were countries even though they were all places.
States of mind, states of disrepair and only some of these were
states like N.J. Logic was stretchable, but usually only in one direction, and
deciding to call
Deciding things was the hardest work she did and trying to decide
things when she was working on the computer made her tired instantly. She
typed, “There are many foreign countries in the world and some of those are
strange places also, like
Working on the computer always tired her out quickly because she had to think about two things at the same time. First, she had to think about her homework —which was always difficult. Then she had to think about the computer which seemed to have a mind of its own. It took a lot of concentration to make it do what she wanted it to do. She looked over her knuckles and picked the middle one to chew on.
Today the computer seemed to be more or less under control but her homework was defiant and completely impossible.
When she looked at the sentence after she typed it, she felt it was not correct but she could not tell exactly what was wrong with it. “It is probably a word that is not spelled right,” she told herself. Spelling was something she did not do well. Although the words always looked proper and lovely when she typed them, her teacher, Miss Maple, always objected to one or two in each sentence.
“Check everything you write,” Miss Maple, insisted, when she showed Ashley how to use the spell checker on the computer in her home room in school. But Ashley didn’t like to use it because it always pointed a finger at the prettiest words and lit them up and insisted there was something wrong with them.
When Ashley looked at what she had written she decided it would
look better with the word ‘Poof’ in front of it. “Poof, there are many foreign
countries in the world and some of those are strange places also, like
Ashley tried to decide whether it was worth the trouble to make it look right. ‘Poof’ would certainly look better at the beginning. But it meant moving the word to the front of the sentence, or moving the sentence in back of the word, and she did not trust the computer enough to do either one when she was really tired and could not watch it carefully.
She tried to remember how to move words. She remembered how to type words, and how to un-type them by pushing one of the keys without a letter on it, but she could not remember how to move a word.
“There is definitely a way to move words,” she instructed herself. “There’s something else I have to do but I cannot remember what.” She looked around and spotted the mouse resting on its pink and white striped pad on the desk. She could not figure out why it was called a mouse. It was a blob of smooth, white plastic with keys to press. It took a lot of effort to imagine it was a furry, creature with a tail that knew how to make a computer work. The mouse had something to do with moving words.
There were supposed to be rules about using the computer, but, for rules, they seemed to jump around a lot. She could not remember the first rule that Miss Maple had taught the class. The second rule stood out clearly.
The second rule that she had learned for using the computer was ‘always to save what you typed,’ which she did after she typed every word. It made typing anything on the computer tedious and boring but it was an important rule so she did it just about all of the time. The third rule was a rule about the second rule but she had forgotten it also.
She tried to remember the rule about moving words. The buttons on the mouse were one part of the rule that she could not remember— she remembered that. There were only three buttons so there could only be three parts of the rule which were not too many for trying one at a time.
She picked up the mouse and held it against the screen as close to the word as she could but nothing happened. “Silly,” she said to herself, remembering the mouse only worked when you tickled its belly by rolling it around on the pad it nested on. She put the mouse back on its nest and rolled it around furiously until the shadow of the mouse on the screen (which looked even less like a mouse) began crawling toward the word ‘Poof.’
It seemed to Ashley that as soon as ‘Poof’ saw the shadow of the mouse coming toward it, it started to run away. It squirmed and danced around the screen running to the beginning of the line then jumping to the middle then to the end. Then it bounced to the top of the screen and rushed along the edge to the bottom. It leaped to the very center and stopped for a minute and then it turned sideways and started to burrow straight down into the center of the screen pulling the words of the sentence, “There are many foreign countries in the world and some of these are strange also, like New Jersey,” with it.
“I’m sure if I were a word I would not be afraid of a mouse. Hold still,” she yelled, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.” The word did not listen. It burrowed deeper into the computer screen. The shadow of the mouse held tightly onto the word.
When she saw it disappearing into the screen, Ashley couldn’t figure out what had gotten into ‘Poof’. Miss Maple had never said anything about words disappearing into the screen.
As the word dove deep into the screen with the shadow of the mouse on the screen holding tightly onto it, she could feel the mouse in her hand lifting up and trying to follow its shadow into the screen. She clutched the mouse even more tightly even though a squeaky voice inside of her told her to let go.
‘Poof,’ was one of her favorite words. “If I don’t show it who is boss, I will never be able to use it again,” she said to herself. “It will always be going wherever it wants and squiggling around the page.” She held on tightly to the mouse. She could see ‘Poof’ getting smaller and smaller as it somersaulted and whirled and twirled into the center of the screen pulling the mouse behind it.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said, suddenly remembering the first rule for using the computer that her teacher, Miss Maple, had taught the class. “The first rule you have to learn is, ‘teach the computer who is in charge’,” Miss Maple said. Ashley decided this was the best time to show the computer who was boss. “Stop,” she yelled. The word did not listen to Ashley any more than the computer at school listened to Miss Maple. Not paying any attention to Ashley’s command, ‘Poof’ dove deeper into the computer pulling the mouse along with it.
“Well I will never learn how to use a computer if I let parts of it do what they want,” Ashley said to herself loudly.
She imagined trying to explain to Miss Maple why she did not have her homework. “I don’t have my homework because a word I wrote disappeared into the computer and took my mouse so I could not finish my essay.” The lines on Miss Maples’s face would gather themselves up and leap at her. The first rule,” she knew Miss Maple would say, “THE FIRST RULE.” She will never believe that I lost my paper in the computer, Ashley thought, looking at the scrunched up face of her teacher in her imagination.
“Oh dear,” Ashley said, anticipating disaster. She began to hit keys with the hand that was not holding the mouse. “ Stop, stop,” she cried hoping she could calm the word down. As she watched, the mouse disappeared into the screen taking her hand with it, and, before she could do anything, the rest of her was sucked into the computer too.
As far as she could remember the computer was only a foot or so wide so she thought she would come out immediately and hoped she would not shoot out the wire at the back of the screen and end up in the wall which would be worse than being in the computer. “When I am back in my room I will rethink the whole problem,” she announced to herself.
But once she passed through the screen the world went dark. At first, the inside of the computer felt dry, crackly and dusty. She worried she would get dirty and when she came out she would have to explain to her mother that she had fallen into the computer. Since her mother knew nothing about computers, Ashley was sure she would not believe her.
Instead of coming out into her room Ashley fell deeper inside of wherever she was falling. “I must be falling down,” Ashley said to herself, “because I don’t know any other way to fall.” But it did not seem exactly down. The only noise she heard was a clock ticking.
She was falling through a grayness and she blinked because of all of the dust in the air, but the longer she fell the more she could make out here surroundings. She seemed to be falling through a tunnel.
In the walls of the tunnel were little cubby holes and in the cubby holes there were words.
Here and there she could see whole essays that she had written and then lost because she hit the wrong key. But in most of the cubby holes there were the words that the spelling checker had discarded from all of the other homework she had done. Most of the words were in little families that looked very much alike. Each of them had a band aid around some part of them.
“When I get a word wrong I usually get it wrong most of the time,” Ashley pointed out to herself, looking at the words living in the cubby holes that surrounded her as she fell, “even though the wrongness is sometimes in a different place.” Looking at the cubby holes filled with injured words she thought she should improve her consistency in making mistakes. “It is not making mistakes that’s so much a problem,” Ashley said as loudly as she could so that she would remember it later, “but making them in so many different ways.” She resolved to settle on one way of making each mistake. “Being regular is as important as being right,” she told herself. Some of the words waved to her and when she recognized a word she knew well, like ‘though’ and ‘loose’ and ‘argue,’ she waved back.
As Ashley fell, she heard voices coming closer, but it seemed to her that they were moving in the wrong direction. Instead of falling down they were passing her in the opposite direction.
As Ashley tried to turn and look in the direction the voices seemed to be coming from, a fuzzy creature with his arms flailing ( it seemed to her that it was a he, and that the flailing things were arms) screamed at her from below and whisked by her going up. “Passing through” it screamed, “out of the way.”
“How can you be falling up?” she asked the creature as it passed her.
“I’m not falling up, you dunce,” the creature snarled, “I’m falling down. I just started from a different place.”
“I hope all of the creatures in the computer aren’t so nasty,” Ashley said before the wind of the creature passing spun her around and she got dizzy. As she closed her eyes to try to get her balance she heard voices, although she couldn’t tell whose or from where.
“The sky is falling,” one voice said.
“You fool,” she heard another voice repeat. “It’s a little girl.”
“Well maybe the sky is made up of little girls.”
“That can’t be right,” Ashley said to herself. Her science teacher had told her science class that the world was made of quirks and put together with super string. She tried to remember the quirks that made up the world. Some of the quirks were brightly colored and others were topsy turvy.
“Won’t she ever come down?”
“Buffalos don’t come with brakes,” another voice said. “She is down.” And Ashley found herself on the ground.
Chapter 2
Ashley picked herself up. She touched her nose and reached down and tapped her toe.
“I am all here but no thanks to you,” she said to herself. She tried to decide if self criticism would make her less self confident in the future and she came quickly to the conclusion that it would not. It was much more important to be confident than right. “You can always be right. Being right is easy,” she reminded herself. Being confident was another matter. It took a lot of work.
“What were you thinking of,” she said to herself sharply. Whenever she had something nasty to say to herself she always took the familiar, but a little bit far away tone that Miss Maple and other adults did when they criticized her. “Ashley, what were you thinking of?”
“A word,” she answered. “What’s one word more or less. You have a dictionary full of words,” she reminded herself. “There’s always another word just as good with the same meaning.” It was strange about words. A lot of different words meant the same thing. If one didn’t suit you another did. If one was too long or started with an ‘f’ or a ‘u’ there was usually another that meant nearly enough the same thing that started with an ‘h’ or a ‘d’.
“And if there wasn’t one that suited you in the dictionary you
could make one up,” she reminded herself. A lot of perfectly good words were
just waiting to be made up and used in front of sentences like ‘
“‘Gruffle,’ for instance. “
She looked down. The mouse that had pulled her into the computer had changed. A real mouse resting in her hand asleep. She put it gently on the floor.
“What were you thinking of?” she asked herself again. It was always the hardest question that she knew how to ask because she never had a clue what she was thinking of when she did something that, looking back and thinking about it, she should not have done. “I don’t know,” she answered herself honestly. “I haven’t a clue. Well, see. You should never do anything without having in mind an explanation to someone of why you did it.”
“You were probably thinking about your homework,” a voice said.
Ashley looked around. The mouse had sat up and was lickings its whiskers.”Did you ever hear of Chaos?” it asked.
“It’s a foreign country with a lot of people,” Ashley said without hesitating.
“You are very sophisticated,” the mouse said.
“Of course I am,” Ashley said, ready for a compliment if she was not completely sure what it was a compliment for, or what it meant.
“Do you know what sophisticated means?” the mouse asked.
“It’s knowing how to do something before you know the word for what you are doing,” Ashley said.
“Close enough,” the mouse squeaked. “Now about
Chaos. Chaos is not a foreign country with lots of people. That is
“It’s the same thing,” Ashley said, a little annoyed that a mouse had corrected her.
“You might have a point,” the mouse said, “but not a good point.”
“What is the difference?” Ashley asked sweetly.
“Chaos is not a country. It’s when something that has happened a million times before stops happening and something else happens in its place and you can’t tell what’s going to happen next.”
“That sounds like a country to me,” Ashley said, “any country, but especially a big one, or adults.” She thought a moment. “Chaos may not be a country, but it may be a foreign country.”
“If something isn’t a country how could it be a foreign country?” the mouse squeaked.
“It’s a metaphor,” Ashley said, “like
“Oh,” the mouse said, scratching its tail. “When did it become a metaphor?”
“Just right now,” Ashley said.
“Well if it’s a metaphor it might be right,” the mouse conceded, “but what kind of a metaphor is it?”
Ashley recognized school. “It’s a Gruffle metaphor. English lesson is over,” she said in the voice Miss Maple used to tell everyone a discussion was over. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know where you are but I believe I am lost inside the computer I am usually outside of,” the mouse said thoughtfully.
“Well, since we are in the same place, I must be lost inside of the computer too,” Ashley said.
“Well, I’m going home,” the mouse said.
Ashley did not like the idea of being lost alone. “If you don’t mind, I will go with you.”
“Sorry, I don’t think you can,” the mouse said, rising on its back feet. “I am going there.”
“Where’s there?” Ashley asked.
The mouse pointed with his tail, curling it so that it pointed behind Ashley. Ashley turned as saw what looked like a street near her home. There were mice and all sorts of odd creatures running around.
“I’ll just tag along, if you don’t mind.”
“If you can, it’s all right with me,” the mouse said indifferently and scampered under Ashley ‘s feet.
Ashley turned and started after it but before she had gone a foot or two she couldn’t move any further. “I’ve hit a wall,” she informed herself. She could feel it with her hands as she slid along it but she could not see it. Even though it was invisible, it kept her from following the mouse who she could see scampering down the street. She walked to the left and to the right but the wall stretched as far as she could walk. She sat down and tried to figure out what to do. When she couldn’t think of anything, she started to cry.
She cried and she cried and the more she cried, the more sorry she felt for herself. “How come I can feel this sorry for myself and no one around me even notices. Crying is a poor advertisement for yourself,” she decided and started crying even harder.
When she had exhausted all of the crying she had in her, she rested for a moment and looked around. She noticed the mouse had returned.
“I left something here,” he said, “my band aid.” He held it up for her to see. Ashley noticed that its nose was red and sore. “I thought you were coming,” it said.
“I tried,” Ashley said, “but…”
“The firewall. Of course you’re still too real,” the mouse announced.
“How can I get through the firewall?” Ashley asked.
“Become less real,” the mouse replied.
“How do I do that?” Ashley asked.
“I’m not sure, but an escape key might help,” the mouse said, adjusting the band aid on its nose. “Well I’ll be going.”
“There doesn’t seem to be an escape key,” Ashley said, “at least as far as I can see, but…” She remembered that there was usually at least two ways to make the computer do anything. She reached down and grabbed the mouse.
“Put me down,” the mouse demanded.
Ashley ignored him and touched his nose to the invisible wall. The mouse’s nose bent a little at first then a door opened. “Mouse first,” Ashley said politely.
“Why do I always have to get my nose bent?” the mouse complained.
“It’s the way computers work,” Ashley said.
Ashley put her head through the door. There were trees that shimmered and glowed and the sky had great sweeps of diamond like clouds in it. It did not look like the tunnel she had just fallen through but it looked like what she thought the insides of a computer ought to look like. But as much as it resembled her favorite computer game it was different and the more she looked, the more different it became. She tried to say in words to herself how it was different but no words came to her. “How come I can know something is different and not know how it is different or what made it different?”
“It’s the way the world is,” the mouse said as it trembled in her hands. “Now put me down.”
“Most people travel to foreign places to have the world change,” Ashley said out loud. “But I only have to stand still for a little while or take a step, and the world changes for me. I’m not sure I really like the notion,” she said but it gave her an idea about her homework. “I will write about here and now as the most foreign country, because it changes all the time in ways that you haven’t a clue about. Because I don’t have any idea about why things change or how they are changing I had better pay very close attention to what is happening around me,” she told herself.
Before she could really take her own advice, a group of animals ( she called them animals because they were definitely not plants) seemed to turn a corner she could not see and flowed around her as if she were a rock in the stream they were floating in. They ran around one another and tumbled and squealed bouncing off of one another.
Their heads were circles connected with slinky coils to their bodies which were like the groups of lines she saw on envelops and packages that came in the mail and their hands and feet were just wavelets. There were big versions and smaller versions but even the biggest was smaller than she was. Some wore short pants with suspenders and others had fancy striped shirts.
At the front of the line of creatures was something that was more recognizable to Ashley. He resembled something between a big giraffe ( because he had a very long neck) and a bear (because he had a roly poly body that seemed to be stuffed with feathers that puffed out of the seams of his jacket.) One of his arms was very long and the other was considerable shorter.
“The Macarena,” he cried.
When they heard the word Macarena all of the creatures stopped and looked at Ashley.
“I know what Macarena is,” said Ashley, “and I am certainly not one.”
“No one thought ever thought you were exactly,” the creature at the head of the line said. “I am a Meme, that rhymes with cream, and these are sprites, that rhyme with just about anything,” he said pointing to the creatures that were dancing around Ashley. “What are you?”
“I am a, a, a girl,” Ashley said.
“Mm,” the Meme said. “I’ve seen lots of little girls, but I’ve never seen one of you in a computer.”
“I am lost,” Ashley said. “It is a long story that I would like to make shorter by getting out of wherever I am lost,” Ashley said.
“I’m sure, you will, get out I mean, in the end,” the Meme said. “Bye the bye, what do you think a Macarena is?” it asked.
“The Macarena is a dance,” Ashley said.
Of course a Macarena is a kind of dance but its also a song. It’s a kind of a story too that’s a poem. You’ve heard of a haiku.”
“Yes,” said Ashley believing she had.
“Well it’s not one of those. It’s different. Very
different. It’s a story in the form of a poem. I was just telling
everybody a Macarena. While we were waiting to play.
You can only play you know when you can see
“No, I don’t see two rivers,” Ashley replied, looking in the direction that the creature’s long arm pointed although his shorter arm pointed in exactly the opposite direction.
“Imagine two rivers. Do you see them now?” the creature asked.
“More or less,” Ashley said, trying to be agreeable.
“Good. Now follow the rivers back. Do you see the mountain?”
“No,” Ashley said. “The only thing I see is clouds.”
“That’s it, “ the Meme explained, “behind the clouds. When the clouds clear and you can see it, we can play. I was telling them a Macarena while the weather made up its mind and you interrupted. You can listen too. Sit down,” it commanded.
“The Macarena,” the Meme said, as it waved its arms.
On the deck of a burning yacht
a Macarena cried.
“Queen of a land I never ruled,”
she sighed.
Slowly, slowly sank the ship,
the Macarena laughed, but sadly,
and realized when the tables turned,
they usually turned badly.
The Macarena held her breath
until her face went blue.
“What you did to them for years
they whirl and suddenly do to you.”
And slowly, slowly turned the ship
before it finished sinking
the Macarena danced her dance.
“I wonder,” she said thinking
They said that I could have it all
and piled it right beside me.
A little late I realized the weight
would sink a ship at sea.
They said that I could have it all
and all is what they gave me
but now I guess a little less
would have been the thing that saved me.
What I could use is a tiny tub
a bright star to guide me
a small beach on a small shore
and buoys to mark the sea.
It seems my life is over now
and all of my romances.
I thought the reason for having fun
was taking chances.
Who seize the moment need to have
an iron grip,
and shoes that leave a mark behind
before they slip.
Who wants to take the world in hand
and turn it to their pleasure
must be prepared to smear their face
and stand their ground forever.
Chance governs all
reason and joy and sorrows.
Or so she sang before the deep
swallowed her tomorrows.
As the Meme finished the poem all of the sprites cried and rubbed their eyes. “It was a sad song, wasn’t it?” the Meme asked. “How do you like it?”
“I wish I understood it,” Ashley said.
“Of course it loses a little in the translation. It’s poetry of course if you understood poetry, you could understand it. Do you see it yet?” the creature asked.
“What?” Ashley inquired.
“Mount Improbable.”
“Not yet,” Ashley said, “only clouds.”
“Well then, we have time for another song,” the creature said.
“The lottery song,” all of the sprits cried out.
“Sounds good to me,” the Meme said. “Do you know it?” he asked Ashley.
“I don’t think so,” said Ashley.
“Well begin,” the creature said, “and we will help you. It begins, “In every lottery there is.”
Ashley repeated the line. “Very good,” the creature said. “Now the next line.”
“I don’t think I know the poem,” Ashley said.
“Of course you do,” the creature replied, “just close your eyes and say it.”
Ashley closed her eyes and the words just came out.
In every lottery there is
there’s just one mystery,
it’s why the winner isn’t you
and the winner’s never me.
I gave the wheel a wicked spin
and asked the question why.
The lottery wheel went round and round
and this was its reply.
“Chance is not the reason that
some win and others lose,
not luck, which bares its teeth and snarls,
and bites and tears and chews.
Not fairness with its grimy face,
nor justice with its eyes closed tight,
nor circumstance with its finger out
explain why your choice is never right.
Desire is not the reason why
your number never wins,
nor wanting like an idiot
which sits and drools and grins.
It’s not because of what you did
or what you should have done,
It’s just to keep your interest up
that someone else has won.
It’s just to keep you wide awake
no matter what you do
to keep the mystery alive
that the winners never you.
It’s just to keep you on your toes
it’s just to guarantee
that you don’t fall asleep at night
that you don’t win you see.”
“That was very good,” the creature said. Exactly right. Can you
see
“I don’t think I see it,” Ashley replied.
“Imagine it,” the creature instructed “Beyond the two rivers, up high, a mountain.”
“A mountain with snow on top,” Ashley said guessing.
“No, this mountain has a park on top. There are all sorts of interesting things in it, like bears with wings and…. Imagine !”
“I can barely imagine something like that,” Ashley said.
“Barely imagined is good enough,” the creature said. “Time to play.”
“Time to play what,” Ashley asked.
“The lottery of course,” the creature said. “When you can imagine
“I’m not old enough to gamble,” Ashley explained.
“Or do a lot of other things that you do,” the Meme said. “But its O.K. to play the lottery. It’s not really gambling because you never win. Remember the poem. Someone always wins the lottery but it’s never you, so you can play.”
“If I never win, why would I want to play?” Ashley asked.
“Are you one of those people who need a reason before they do anything?” the creature asked sharply.
“Doesn’t everybody need a reason before they do something?” asked Ashley.
“No, of course not. Some people need a reason and other people need an excuse and some people,” the creature said, looking at Ashley so sharply that its nose became a single line, “need both. Which kind of person are you?”
“I guess I need a reason at least, “ Ashley said.
“Does it have to be a good reason?” the creature asked, bending its head close to Ashley. “I have a reason or two but not good reasons. Here’s one. “Buffalos don’t come with brakes.”
“What kind of a reason is that?” Ashley asked.
“It’s a reason. It’s reason enough for getting out of the way of a running buffalo. It’s a reason for speculating in the brake market. It’s also a reminder if you mistake a buffalo for a pick up truck.”
“But is it a reason for playing the lottery?” Ashley asked.
“The best,” the creature said.
“If I can’t win why should I play?” Ashley said in her most unoffending voice, leaving the buffalo to graze and move on.
“Winning isn’t everything.”
“Winning is a great deal,” Ashley said. “Where I come from, people invent all sorts of games just so they can win. Hardly anybody invents anything so they can lose.”
“Losing is just as important,” the creature said gravely. “In life you lose much more often than you win so learning to lose gracefully is more important that winning in style. The lottery teaches you how to lose gracefully.”
“And there are all sorts of other reasons,” the sprites crowding around Ashley yelled out.
“It’s part of growing up, taking risks,” one of the sprites said.
“Because everyone else is playing it,” another yelled.
“Because someone always wins it’s just not you,” one of them added.
“I don’t think most of us should take comfort from the success of the few of us,” Ashley said. “What happens to them hardly ever happens to the rest of us.”
“In a system in which the schools don’t work it’s the most educational thing going, “ the Meme declared. “Besides,” it said, “you never can tell, when someone will fix it. If it were fixed you would be guaranteed to win so you would not be gambling. Maybe someone has fixed it already.” There were brightly colored lottery tickets all over the ground. “Is everyone ready to play?” He said this over Ashley’s shoulder to the sprites who had gathered around Ashley.
Ashley shook her head but all of the sprites jumped up and down yelling “yes, yes,” and nodded eagerly. The Meme passed out tickets.
“What day is it?”
“The last I remember it was…,” Ashley began.
“No, not the last remembered day, today, “ the
Meme insisted. A small creature with straw stuffed in her spring looked around
on the ground. “Here it is, it’s
“It can’t be Ashley said. If it were I would be …”
“It’s Saturday. I’m sure of it,” the creature remarked assertively.
“Then today the lottery is ‘Quick Throw.’”
The creatures all scampered around. The bigger creatures grabbed the littler ones by whatever part of them they could grab.
“O.K.,” the leader said, “ready, set, let it roll.” All of the bigger creatures spun the little ones around as fast at they could and the largest creatures grabbed the big ones that were just a little smaller than themselves and spun then. In the end almost everyone was spinning. None of the creatures went near Ashley. “Let go,” the Meme said, releasing the spinning little creature he had hold of as fast as he could.
“Who won?” Ashley asked watching the creatures get smaller and smaller as they flew though the air.
“With Quick Throw you don’t know until they come back—and they hardly ever do. The ones that lost don’t want to be sore losers and the winner always gives himself the prize and goes off on a vacation.
“That’s the silliest lottery I’ve ever heard of,” Ashley said in her annoyed tone of voice.
“I told you it was broken,” the creature said.
The few creatures who drifted back, heads dangling from bent springs stood around and stuffed their tickets in their pockets. “I was close,” one of them cried, “very close.”
“I’m glad I didn’t play,” Ashley said.
“Oh but you did. You were very, very close. You almost won. Look at your ticket. Do you want to play again?”
Ashley looked down and saw a ticket with a number sticking out of her pocket.
“That’s what makes the lottery fun,” the creature explained. “Everyone plays whether they know it or not. And you nearly won. Do you want to play again?”
“I’ll think about it,” Ashley said not wanting to make a fuss.
“If you don’t play how will you know if you’ve lost?” the creature said. “Knowing that you’ve lost is just as important as knowing that you’ve won. Maybe more.”
“What’s the prize?” Ashley asked, hoping she could refuse on the basis of not wanting the prize.
“Oh what would you like to win?” the creature asked.
Ashley wanted to say that she did not want to play but she was sure the Meme would not take that for a no. Then she remembered a story she had heard. The person who picked a herring as a prize had a better change of wining than people who picked vacations in strange places or castles or lots of money. “A herring,” Ashley said quietly, although she was not exactly sure what a herring was.
“That’s a strange desire,” the Meme said.
“It’s not a desire at all,” Ashley said, “it’s only a choice. They’re quite different.”
One of the creatures sighed. He looked a little like a fish. “Why am I always the prize?” it asked sadly
“You are never the prize,” the leader replied. “If you win,” the Meme said to Ashley, “you will have to clean him and cook him and make a salad and all of the trimmings.”
“I think I will pass up the lottery,” Ashley answered.
“Not wanting or needing the prize is hardly a reason for not playing the lottery. It’s positively unpatriotic.”
“I’ve had enough of lotteries,” Ashley said, stamping her foot on the ground.”
“I’d be careful where I put my foot when I was complaining loudly,” the leader of the little troop of lottery players said. “It’s always possible to complain to loudly or…”
Ashley could feel the pebble underneath her foot.
“Perhaps next week,” was the last thing Ashley heard before the little creatures shimmered and disappeared.
Chapter 3
Ashley stood very still for a moment and put her feet together. It was her power posture, the way she stood when she met up with the unexpected. She tried to work out in her head what had happened.
The only thing that she was almost sure of was that she wasn’t where she had just been. “If I can remember what happened perhaps I can plan not for it to happen again,” she said to herself. Ashley recognized she was telling herself a white lie. “The same thing never happens in the same way for the same reason twice,” she reminded herself.
“I recall,” she rehearsed “taking a step” — she lifted her foot slowly and put it down very, very carefully —”and then suddenly it got dark. I closed my eyes,” —she closed her eyes again, very, very slowly—”so that darkness would not be strange and when I opened them, and …”
“You were here.” It was not her voice that said the words. She opened one eye and looked around and when she saw the sheep she quickly opened the other one.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing but I thought it impolite,” the sheep said. It was sitting up on a tiny stool with its legs crossed. On its front hooves the sheep was wearing very puffy slippers, one bright red and one bright orange.
“Where is here?” Ashley asked quickly, trying not to be startled by the sheep. She stared at its slippers.
“Where were you before?” the sheep asked
“I’m not quite sure,” Ashley said
“Well then you were lost,” the sheep said, ending its sentence with a forceful ‘Ba’.
“I am sure it was not here,” Ashley said. “I would have remembered you,” she added, staring at the sheep’s slippers.
“Well you are still lost, that much is certain, but if I would venture a guess, I would say in a different place. That’s progress” the sheep added optimistically. “Getting home is just progressively getting more and more lost until you very nearly forget where you came from. Then,” it said with a self-satisfied ‘Ba’, “you are home or as close to home as you are likely to get traveling in that way.”
“Having a history is different than having a home and neither is an explanation of much,” Ashley said. “It’s very confusing to be picked up from one place and put down in another without moving a step.” She tried very hard not to stare at the slippers the sheep was wearing but she could not.
“They are very lovely slippers aren’t they,” the sheep said. “You aren’t one of that crowd who thinks it beneath them to associate with a sheep do you. I suppose they think that slippers on a sheep are pretentious and that these slippers are too elegant and fine for something of my kind of milk. You don’t think that, do you?”
“Not at all,” Ashley said. “It’s just that I…”
“Never saw a sheep before.”
“Not all of one and not up close,” Ashley said, “my mother…”
The sheep interrupted her. “Now you are not going to try to tell me your mother was a sheep, are you.”
“No,” Ashley said. “What I was going to say is my mother had a …”
“If you are going to try to impress me by telling me you have a sister who is a sheep don’t bother,” the sheep ba’ed. “I’ve heard that claim from bigger and more elegant creatures than you, whatever you are.”
“No,” said Ashley, “I definitely was not. She had a coat…”
“I am sorry for her” the sheep said. “She was probably expecting something else. I mean walking around for a year expecting and then having a coat can’t have been pleasant. I have a coat also but it came with the rest of me.”
“I had better change the subject,” Ashley said to herself. “I am sure that an animal would not think highly of a girl whose mother had cost it a relative.”
“And my slippers are made out of the finest…” The sheep stopped and thought for a minute. “You don’t have any friends or relatives who are who are…I’d rather not say what they are made out of. There’s no reason to give offence.”
“They look to me as if they were made out of…” Ashley said. She wondered if the sheep would be insulted if she said what they looked like they were made of.
“I’d like to change the subject,” the sheep said, “if you don’t mind.” It uncrossed its legs and re-crossed them so that red slipper was on top. “We could try an experiment. You’ve learned about science in school haven’t you. You could close your eyes and see if anything changes again. If we had a laboratory it would be better (science is always better done in a laboratory) but we can try it here.”
Ashley closed her eyes. She heard the sheep moving around. “Don’t open them yet,” it screamed. After a moment she heard the sheep’s voice again very close to her. “Open them up now.”
Ashley opened her eyes. The sheep had gotten off of the stool and was standing up very close to her. She had put the slippers on her horns.
“Anything different?” it asked.
“Well you’ve moved and…” she looked at the slippers.
“The slippers again,” the sheep bleated, “you’re not crazy. You can tell when something has changed and when it’s stayed the same. But you may be very, very prejudiced.”
“I am not prejudiced,” Ashley said.
“Well you seem to have a very hard time just accepting the fact that a sheep can have fine slippers while you walk around in something less fine.”
“Oh no,” said Ashley. “That’s not a big difference, not a real one. Hardly any differences are,” she said. “Like the difference between orange and purple. They are both colors. And the difference between Mars and the moon. They are both planets. In school they teach us to accept differences. They teach us to look aside and pretend they do not exist. I got an A in diversity,” she said.
“Well they don’t teach you well enough,” the sheep said, taking the slippers off its horns and sticking them into a bag it wore around its neck. “I definitely know your type,” it said turning to look at Ashley.
You think that you are quite above
the creatures that you meet.
You talk and gossip, push and shove
while others only bleat.
But nature balances the scales,
and gives us hooves or wings or tails,
and slippers for our feet.
You think that you are better than
the creatures that you eat.
To you they’re merely nourishment
and other kinds of treats.
But nature balances the scales,
and gives us hooves or wings or tails,
and slippers for our feet.
You think that you’re superior
to creatures that you raise.
To you they’re merely animals
because they like to graze.
But nature balances the scales
and gives us hooves or wings or tails
and slippers for our feet.
Absolutely fabulous slippers for our feet.
“I’m sure you will do very well when you get home, but here there may be more diversity than you can handle,” it said and trotted off into the distance.
“That was a very sensitive sheep,” she said. “I wonder if all sheep are so sensitive. Perhaps that why their wool is so curly and warm.” Then she turned her mind back to her troubles. Perhaps the experiment which didn’t work the first time would work if she tried it a second time. She lifted her foot and closed her eyes. “Oh I remember,” she reminded herself “when I disappeared I turned around.” When she turned around and put her foot down the darkness came again and there was a little plastic swimming pool in front of her.
Chapter 4
“It is exactly like the pool that I had when I was much, much, younger except the pool I remember was red and new, while this pool is red and patched from top to bottom.” Water dripped into the pool from a hose and dripped out almost as quickly from holes which showed up uninvited, like ants at a picnic. As the water began to dribble out of a new hole, a small crab in overalls ripped a patch from one of the holes that had been mended and tore it in half and pasted half back on the old hole and put half on the new hole. “It’s harder to make do with less all of the time,” the crab sputtered loudly, maneuvering a tiny piece of patch onto a new hole twice its size. “A bit of the time it would be nice to work with a larger piece, not a big piece mind you,” it said to Ashley, “but a larger piece.”
The crab sang as it struggled to patch the hole.
When those in charge of the world
want something done, they want it done now.
They don’t want to hear that it’s impossible,
They are not interested in how.
Physics doesn’t concern them at all,
about mathematics they couldn’t care less,
the laws of nature are merely excuses.
They are only interested in success.
When those who run the world have an itch
they want it scratched.
When their pool springs a leak,
they want it patched.
They will demand the job be done
with half of what’s required,
and twice as fast, because they see,
that you are getting tired.
Make do with half a patch
because they’ll likely say,
‘it’s such a little hole,’
and take a half away.
Then they’ll look and say you’re careless,
a glance, and then they’ll say,
you’re wasting our resources
and take another half away.
Make do with half a patch
then divide it twice,
somewhere along the line
the faction won’t suffice.
Physics doesn’t concern them at all,
mathematics is a distraction,
the laws of nature are irrelevant,
what they crave is satisfaction.
Those who have more, believe they’d have more
if those who have less had less.
It would increase the general happiness.
if those who have little, had a little less.
Those who, when they want things
reach out and take them,
believe the laws of nature govern
those too weak to break them.
Physics doesn’t concern them,
mathematics does not matter.
The laws of nature are fairy tales
science, gossip and idle chatter.
With half of half of half a patch
learn to make do,
unless you’re very lucky
you’ll have less then they are through.
As it sang, it held onto the pool with its large claw and it pasted the patch on with the other. The claw that held the pool put a little hole in it. “Oh damn, damn, damn,” it cried.
With half of half of half a patch
learn to make do,
unless you’re very lucky
you’ll have less then they are through.
There was a swarm of little creatures swimming in the pool and as far as Ashley could tell, none of them paid any attention at all to the fact that there was only an inch of water in it. They flailed their arms and legs and tails and splashed and swam under water for a long time. They looked like they were having a great deal of fun.
The best description Ashley could think of for the creatures was lizard, although it was not a particularly good description. They were lizards of some sort for sure, but many of them sparkled and glittered in the light as if they were made of spangles or tinsel and others had finely painted designs on their skin. She knew about lizards because she had had one for a while, but it was a ordinary green lizard which was supposed to change color when it was put on something with a different color but never did. It stayed green from the moment it was bought to the moment the cat gobbled it up.
In front of the pool was a diving board that was taller than she was. The creatures scampered up the ladder that leaned against the diving board and leapt off. But instead of falling straight down they hovered in the air, twisting to adjust their position so that there was a wild crowd of them writhing around in the air before they fell. And when they decided to come down they came down gradually, squirming until the very moment they hit the water.
She very much wanted one of the lizards to and invite her to join in. The water looked cool and very wet which was just what she felt she could use because the air had become very warm suddenly.
“Even if I am not invited to swim or dive, I can at least get a little wet,” Ashley said. “If I can manage to avoid the plummeting creatures” — which seemed to be easy because they took so long coming down— “I can wade a little,” she told herself. She had no bathing suit of course, but she took off her shoes and socks and put them in a little neat pile far away from the streamlets of water flowing from the holes in the plastic pool. She walked slowly to the pool intending to ask someone if they would mind her wading a bit. The ground was hard rough and pebbly.
“Ow,” she cried as she stepped on a particularly sharp pebble.
All of the creatures in the pool and some in the air stopped moving and took what seemed to her an impolitely long look at her before they went back to squirming and leaping.
“The depth will surprise you,” a voice said. It came from a bright green frog with yellow patches like Post it notes on its back, who was puffing a cigar and wearing sun glasses. It was drifting around the pool on a leaf, paddling with a cane it held in its hand. The baseball cap it wore said ‘Lifeguard’.
“They are water sprites,” he said.
“I see,” said Ashley. “Can I go wading?” she asked.
“I don’t think it will work,” the frog croaked.
The splashes the sprites made as they were jumping and twirling in the water made their own designs which stayed in the air even after the water they were made up of fell slowly into the pool.
“Does that mean that I cannot, froggy?” she asked the creature.
“No, it just means I don’t think it will work,” it said without saying anything more. Ashley noticed that the smoke from the cigar seemed to form into one of the spindly little creatures that were diving in the pool. It floated to the ground and took off running into the pool.
“Well, since he did not say no,” she said to herself watching, the frog paddle away, “I would say it’s a kind of yes.” She walked to the pool. “One, two, three,” she cried and jumped.
Instead of the cool water Ashley found herself standing on the bare ground. It was as if she had leapt straight into the middle of a strange movie. Everyone around her was playing in water and while she could see them splashing and getting wet as far as she was concerned the water was only a play of shadow and brilliance.
“Get out of our light,” the creatures shouted.
Ashley looked down. The ground was very pebbly. She scratched her head and looked for a place to sit. “Ouch,” she said first, as she sat down on a pebble, then “Oh,” as she felt the water rushing in around her and over her head. She popped up to the surface and started swimming.
Ashley loved to swim and felt very much at home in the water. The water in the wading pool was very deep and she thrashed around trying to be as precise as she could about the stroke she was using. “It’s the doggy paddle I think,” she said to herself, “I think I have it right. “
After a moment the frog with the baseball cap and sun glasses paddled around her.
“What are you doing?” it asked.
“Swimming,” Ashley said. “The doggy paddle, I think.” She thrashed around imagining her arms to be dogs paws.
“That’s not swimming,” the frog said, “at least not dog swimming. It looks like a banana swirl to me. Dogs bark their way in the water.”
He extended his cane, puffing on the cigar all the while. He pointed to the word lifeguard on the cap. “Grab hold of this,” he ordered her and pulled her to the side of the pool.
“It’s very strange” she said. “From the outside the pool is only a few inches deep,” she remarked to the frog lifeguard.
“It’s not strange at all. A lot of things look very different from the outside than they do from the inside because they are made to look different from different directions.”
“I know things look different in the store than when you get them home,” Ashley said. “It makes shopping very confusing.”
“Take my word for it, it would be more confusing if things weren’t disguised and everything appeared to be what it was. Do you need artificial respiration?” the frog croaked. “I’m certified to give artificial respiration, natural respiration, all sorts of rolfing, behavioral modification therapy and channeling and good advice.”
“No,” she said. “But what happened?”
“It’s hard to say exactly,” he said, “but it was probably one of these. He reached down and handed her one of the pebbles. It was not the plain kind of pebble she knew from her back yard. It looked like one of the keys from the keyboard attached to her computer. There was the letter ‘D’ on it. She looked down. The ground was littered with pebbles with different letters and numbers and signs on them like ‘F1’, ‘Esc’, and ‘Enter.’ “You must be careful where you step—or sit,” he added. “And that’s why things change here,” the frog said. “Of course it’s only one of the reasons.”
“Why else do things change?” Ashley wanted to know.
“Big things change because people are too smart for their own good,” the frog said.
“And why do little things change?” Ashley asked.
“Little things change,” the frog said, narrowing its eyelids dramatically, “because they’re not smart enough. At least its why most things change here. Of course a lot depends on which program is running,” he added.
“Which program,” Ashley repeated not understanding.
“Yes, you know the spell checker or the word processor or the one of the games.”
“Oh,” Ashley said, feeling the spray from the creatures splashing and diving around her. “I will be careful,” she said and she put her foot warily into the pool. The water stayed wet and the creatures continued to swirl around her.
She held her dress up a little and ventured slowly into the center of pool. For a while the water did not get any deeper then suddenly it was deep again and she was swimming the doggie paddle. Since she was wet all over it did not seem any harm could be done by getting wetter. If she got home before her clothing dried she would only have one more thing to explain to her mother. “Get out of the light,” one of the brightly sequined spindly water sprites yelled at her.
As she moved, a number of the creatures bounced off of her. Up close she could see that some were not like lizards at all, more like soft and fuzzy miniature dragons. What they looked like depended a lot on the direction from which she saw them. From one angle they looked like they had tails that went on and on into the distance. From another they looked tailless and tiny. She found if she was careful and looked at them the right way they looked a lot like sea horses and she could lift them into the air by blowing on them.
“Whoa,” one of the creatures who whinnied as she heaved it high above her head. She watched as it got caught in a wind and headed like a kite into the sun.
The lifeguard blew his whistle. “Hey, watch that sea horsing around,” he said.
Ashley waved back to the stern looking creature. As she turned, two of the creatures in the pool grabbed her hands. “We’re going to make a whirling. Come along.”
“I’m not sure I should,” Ashley said. “As long as I’m not touching the ground I’m OK,” she said to herself, “otherwise…”
“Don’t mind him,” the orange creature said, pointing to the lifeguard. “He makes up the rules as he goes along. He hardly ever comes into the water. He hates getting wet.”
“Lets make a Mandelbrot whirl,” the creatures in the pool said “then we can spin and spin and churn the water into butter.” Ashley felt her hand being grasped and felt herself being turned and pulled in every direction at once. As she spun around, she realized she was being pulled into the shallow part of the pool. “Not there, not there,” she said just as she felt herself stepping on what seemed like a mound of pebbles. Ashley braced for one of her sudden changes but nothing happened. “Maybe if the keys are wet they don’t quite work,” she wondered out loud.
Round and round she swirled not paying any attention to what her feet were doing. Suddenly there was a little darkening of the sun and Ashley felt herself dry as a white bone in the desert again. The pool had disappeared but a number of the poor unlucky creatures were sticking out of her.
“Oh dear,” she said and stopped twirling. She picked the creatures out of her gingerly, grasping them by whatever part was outside of her. “I am sorry,” she said. As she set them down, they disappeared with a pop. “I wonder if…”
Just as she started wondering the lifeguard appeared smoking his cigar and bellowing. “Water safety,” he yelled, as Ashley pulled a creature wriggling around half inside her arm, “you’ve got to practice water safety. You’ve got to watch where you walk,” he said to Ashley sternly. He put the whistle he was carrying in his mouth just beside the cigar. A puff of smoke and a shrill whistle came out at the same time.
Out of a little house by the side of the pool four little creatures each wearing an orange bathing suit with tank top that said ‘EMERGENCY CREW,’ scurried around Ashley. They pulled out a little ladder and set it against her.
“It tickles,” Ashley said.
“One of the prices of not being careful,” the cigar smoking frog said, “hold still.”
“Hold still,” one of the tiny emergency crew members repeated, and he scurried up the ladder.
“Most of her is solid as a rock,” he said tapping on her side.
“Can you hear anything?” the lifeguard asked.
“It’s hard, there’s a lot of noise, Breathing and such,” he said after a minute “but …”
“Yep, Twiddle and Gruntsy for sure.”
“I knew it,” the frog lifeguard said, “I knew it.” He scurried around poking the ground.”Can you find them?” he yelled.
“Just a minute,” the creature on the ladder said, and Ashley could see him poking his head inside of her.
“Hey,” she cried, “those are my insides. You shouldn’t go poking your head in anyone’s insides without asking.”
“It’s another cost of not being careful enough,” the lifeguard said not paying attention to her.
Out popped the head.
“They’re there, all right but I can’t reach them. Throw me up a rope and come on up.” Another creature climbed the ladder cautiously with a large coil of rope. “I’m going in,” the creature on the top of the ladder said, disappearing just above Ashley’s rib.
“Wait,” Ashley said, “that’s an invasion of privacy.”
“You should have thought of that before you climbed into a computer,” the lifeguard said.
Out of her side the head of the creature popped. “I need a longer rope, the air is not very good in here.”
Puffing his cigar furiously the lifeguard hopped off and came back almost immediately carrying a load of pebbles he had collected and spread them on the ground. “Stamp on these,” he instructed Ashley.
She brought her foot down hard on the pebbles but nothing happened. “Try these,” he said adding some to the pile from the collection he cradled in his arm. As Ashley stamped on one of them the sky darkened and there was a crunching noise.
“No” she heard the frog cry and she quickly stamped on the pile of keys again.
“That’s it,” she heard a voice say and she looked down just in time to see the pool reappear and two and three creatures falling down inside of her.
“Now that was a dive” she heard one of the sprites say. “Can we do it again?”
“Absolutely not,” the lifeguard said. “Shark. Everyone out of the pool,” the frog croaked over his cigar.
“Shark,” Ashley repeated looking around. She scrambled for the shallow water. Sharks were not the kind of thing you wanted to go swimming with.
“Shark, where?” she asked after a minute and no fin appeared in the water.
“You,” the frog smoking the cigar said. “You.
For sharks swimming time is
Ashley decided since most of her was still wet the rest of her might as well get wet also.
“But be careful where you walk,” the creature said.
“I will be,” Ashley said, dunking her head under the water. “I will,” she said, just as she could feel a key under her foot and felt the world changing around her.
She found herself on land again. The pool was gone but in the distance she could see a little house.
Chapter 5
Between Ashley and the little house was a very large lawn on which there were many signs. Some were very big signs and some were very small and some were very close to the ground and others were very high on sticks. She tried to read them but the printing on the big ones was very blurry and on the small ones the print was so tiny that she could not make out the message on even one of them.
“What good are signs if you can’t read them,” Ashley wondered out loud. As she turned to make her way toward the house, she heard a loud, shrill voice screech “Hey, keep off the lawn. Can’t you see the sign? You are supposed to listen to what signs say to do.”
Ashley, who had seen a lot of signs like ‘SMOKE CAMELS’ and ‘DRINK A BUD,’ which ordered you to do things you definitely were not supposed to do and other signs which made no sense to her at all like ‘CURB YOUR DOG’ and ‘QUIET HOSPITAL’ or ‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.’
She looked around a while before she realized it was the sign closest to her, a smallish, very white sign with a blurry short message, that had spoken to her. She stared at the sign trying to make out what it was saying. The blurry message seemed to read, “Darkness also travels at the speed of light,” which didn’t make any sense at all. “Maybe it’s the distance that makes what’s sensible look senseless,” she said to herself. “If I move closer and look very hard maybe the message will be clearer.” She moved closer very carefully and looked again. From up close the words on the sign read “Keep off the grass.” Scribbled in pencil under the word grass was “and other living things and keys that have the letter ‘m’ on them.”As she was deciphering the message, the sign twisted a little so that it faced her directly.
“What’s the matter,” it asked “didn’t you ever come across a sign saying, ‘Keep off the grass’?”
“I’ve seen a lot of signs saying ‘Keep off of the grass’, and other things but I’ve never really heard a sign say it,” Ashley said.
“How could you be close enough to see a sign saying keep off of the grass and not hear it say it? It doesn’t make sense at all,” the sign protested. “You are a silly little girl.”
Ashley thought for a minute. “I’ve seen a sign reading …”
“How did it read?” the sign asked, suddenly interested.
“Not how,” Ashley said, “but what. If you read at all, you know how. What to read is the problem.” The sign in front of her leaned toward her intent on hearing what she was going to say. “The sign read ‘Quiet,’” Ashley said.
“Well if that’s all it read it couldn’t have been a very intelligent sign. I’ve heard of a sign which read, ‘Library.’ Now that was a well-read sign.” Before Ashley could say anything, the sign continued. “And I know another sign that read, ‘Disregard everything written on this sign.’ Now that is not easy to read,” the sign said smugly.
“Or understand,” Ashley added. “Does that mean? …”
“And that was only the beginning,” the sign interrupted her. “Are you one of those people who wander around trying to read signs?”
“Who would wander around trying to read signs?” Ashley asked, trying to imagine hordes of people wandering around scrutinizing billboards that said, “Stay off the grass,” or “Vote for Judge Judy,” as a yellow sign close to the house seemed to say.
“Oh you would be surprised,” the sign continued. “Sometimes the lawns are clogged with people who have come out to read the signs. Some of them are looking for vital signs, others for signs of the times which are a few blocks down the road. Some are looking for signs of an upturn and others for signs of a downturn and others for a sign of a change of mind or intentions or signs of affection. Sometimes they come just to hear the song signs sing when the sun goes down.”
“I never knew that signs could sing.” Ashley said.
“Oh yes,” the sign said. “In my signeage there is more than one hero and a number of contraltos and tenors. Would you like to hear the song?”
“Yes,” said Ashley “I very much would.”
The sign cleared its throat and began.
If you are a sign the job demands
you cultivate the skill,
of displaying yourself immodestly
standing absolutely still.
Our motto is
what stands and waits, at whatever station
also serves, and so
deserves appreciation.
But everyone who looks at us
then takes the look away,
sees the message not the messenger,
not us, but what we say.
It’s not as if we do much good
for as much as people stare,
most go and do the opposite
of the message that we bear.
Is it a wonder that each sign
before it goes to tatters,
wants to be significant
and say some thing that matters.
That a sign of affection wants to be
thought sincerely of,
and aspires to be
a sign of eternal love.
If you stare, it stands quite still
but rub your eyes or blink,
and the sign that said ‘Beware the dog,’
suddenly says ‘THINK.’
Ambition drives each one of us
we’re a most dissatisfied lot,
A sign that says ‘Please don’t spit,’
wants to say ‘Absolutely Not.’
A sign of forgetfulness wants to be,
if the truth be told,
a sign of some importance
like a sign of getting old.
A sign of trouble longs to be
a sign of great disorder,
a sign that says ‘No trespassing’
wants to mark a nations border.
Each and every one of us
aspires above his station,
a sign of a state of discontent
wants to signal the birth of a nation.
A sign on a bathroom door saying ‘his,’
if chance brings the opportunity,
will become a sign saying ‘Ms.’
and claim a victory.
We know the world would be a better place
if signs and people could cooperate,
if we would show the world a constant face
and humans get the message straight.
So we’ll stand still, and calm, and proud,
and our position hold,
if human beings will do the same
and do as they are told.
The sign stopped singing and tilted over so that Ashley could not see the letters on its front anymore. “I’ve fallen silent in case you haven’t noticed,” it said. “Anyway, people—some people at least—” it added in a sarcastic tone— “are interested in what we have to say.” It tilted up so that its front was visible again. The message written on it now read clearly “The warning shot warns the shooter.” It waited a moment to see if Ashley had any comment on the new saying and when she did not it continued. “Most of the time people don’t really understand what the signs around here are saying because …”
“Because signs speak a language of their own,” Ashley said, “Sign language. We learned about it in school.”
“That’s a dialect, not the original,” the sign said. “Of course, speaking sign language is harder than hearing it, and hearing it is harder than understanding it. Or is it the other way around. I’m never quite sure.”
“There are signs of trouble and signs of disaster and good signs and bad signs,” the sign added and took a breath. It seemed to Ashley that it was one of those signs that babbled on and on with clauses and phrases that told you nothing at all. “And warning signs,” it continued. “There’s even a sign I’ve heard about that signifies nothing.”
“Why would anyone put up a sign that didn’t say anything?” Ashley asked as innocently as possible.
“I didn’t say it didn’t say anything only that it signified nothing. They are quite different matters,” the sign said indignantly, “and no one put it up. It just evolved. Things evolve, it’s the law of things that communicate. Perhaps it was a sign that said something once but changed its mind again and again and got confused. Making up your mind what to say is not easy especially if you are growing. One minute you’re absolutely clear about something and the next minute, poof. Know what I mean, wink, wink” it said to Ashley. “If you don’t listen to warning signs when they talk to you, you are in trouble. By the by,” the sign said, dropping its voice to a whisper, “I wouldn’t go there” —it tilted toward the house, “if I were you.”
“Thank you for your good advice,” Ashley said “but it’s the only house around.”
Ashley watched as the message on the sign changed slowly. “Chacun son gout,” it read in a gorgeous, shocking pink as she set off in the direction of the little house.
Chapter 6
Ashley walked toward the house. She picked her way carefully between the signs who yelled at her and avoided stepping on any pebbles she saw lying on the ground. Except for the signs, the way to the house seemed clear.
As she turned to avoid a patch of small stones laid out like a keyboard on the ground, a blurry picture flickered off to her side. Ashley thought she recognized a picket fence and a lot of arms and legs whirling and jumping around but when she stopped and stared directly at it, the image twinkled and faded away.
“I know I shouldn’t look back,” she told herself. “Something bad is sure to happen if you look back” she reminded herself. “The way you should move is that you set your eyes on a place in the distance and move forward and never look back.” But she could not remember if there was any rule about looking sideways. “As far as I remember looking to the side does not seem to be a problem.” She stood very still and held her head forward and shifted her eyes so that while she was looking forward, she was seeing sideways with her eyes.
What she saw was an octopus painting a fence.
The picture would not stay still and she moved her head until it stopped shimmering for a while. She waited for the octopus to say something but when it didn’t, she spoke to it.
“Excuse me.”
The octopus stopped whirling its arms and looked at her. It had a gray skin and seemed to be wearing plaid short pants with a lot of legs and an argyle sweater with a lot of arms.
“You are very hard to see,” it said. “Why don’t you come into the light. Over here.” It motioned with one of its arms that was holding a paint brush and drops of paint flew up and made a rainbow before they turned into butterflies which fluttered off. Ashley moved in the direction the arm was pointing and the image settled down.
“You don’t look like much from the front,” she said to the creature as politely as she could.
“I don’t look like anything at all from the front or from the side,” it said. “I wish I could say the same for you,” the creature replied. “You’re all too big anyway I look at you.”
“It’s all a matter of perspective,” Ashley said trying to hold her head very still to keep the animal from disappearing. Ashley realized she had walked completely through the creature on her way to the house.
“I’m a fractal,” the animal said.
“You look like an octopus,” Ashley replied.”I’ve never seen a fractal, but I’ve seen pictures of octopuses.”
“That’s what you know about modern animals,” the creature said crossly. “I’m a fractal that looks like an octopus. What are you? The closest I’ve seen to one of you is….” The creature shuddered. When it shuddered it became distinctly visible and distinctly invisible in succession like the faces of the moon.
“You are hard to see,” Ashley complained again.
“It’s the angle. A small fraction of a dimension makes a real difference to a fractal. Do you know fractions?” it asked. “You only see a fraction of me I’m afraid. Would you like to know what I look like, I mean all of me?”
“Yes,” Ashley said. “I’ve always had troubles with fractions. Whole numbers are much nicer,” she added, trying to remember the rules for making fractions work.
“Well I look like an octopus,” the creature said “and I’m doing the usual.”
“What’s the usual?” Ashley asked.
“Painting the fence next to the gate,” he said impatiently, pointing to what seemed to Ashley like a very short section of fence only a few feet long and a few feet high, “and blowing up balloons and painting them — the usual.”
“Painting