Mole Group
by Rich Ives

A Temporary Loss of Personal Identity

If you think about other people’s troubles, you will know how lucky you are not to be them. But Wee Willie’s fat finger was pointed right at Wee Willie’s own fat finger in the nasty little mirror of his self-indulgent but very very large imagination. He was searching for happiness.

He looked on the ceiling and he looked into the minute particles of tiny micro-organisms and he looked in the kitchen closet.

“Wherever can I be?” exclaimed Willie’s dense and childish philosophical preoccupations, and Willie’s mother gave him a sugar cookie.

“Perhaps I am hiding in the grass,” considered Willie, and he raced for a vegetation map in his papa’s dusty old encyclopedia.

Willie read, “The white men found that they could not always kill one of the stragglers to eat.” Then Willie read, “The lands marked with the green symbols are the places where grass is plentiful.” Still no Willie. “Across these great plains once roamed herds of wild oxen, horses, goats and sheep,” said the encyclopedia. But no roaming Willies. All Willie got out of the whole adventure was that somehow some people had learned how to tame some animals and eat them.

Wee Willie was lonely indeed.

But because of the international recognition of his mother’s freshly knitted consulate, an extremely new parade was passing. Perhaps it should be recognized that we needn’t break into warbling; however, Wee Willie did rush into the available street where a variety of dangerous rains were falling and unintentionally offered his body as a shield. His predictability, friendly as a warm virus, nearly killed him.

Following Willie’s recovery, Willie was chastened with overly generous laurels while several precariously perched officials were cooing over his aggravated inflation. Despite the inconclusive official inquiry, most of Willie’s relatives thought he had been outlawed, his greatest achievement to date, but they were nevertheless surprised to see him used so irresponsibly yet once more by the fickle public. All this repetitious hugging required repetitious investigation.

Suddenly, there was Willie’s mother with a hankie, dabbing at her swollen eyes. “Here is a nice pair of dull scissors and here is a beautiful dirty cup,” she said, beaming, and crying, and winking at the governor.

After dinner, Willie’s mother told Willie’s father all about how he got lost and the beautiful gifts he received for his accidents.

“Now that we’ve got you back, let’s substitute some more sugar cookies for the affection that was rightfully yours in the first place. I’m so sorry we don’t have another name for it.”

You see, Willie’s mother was not crammed full of useless illusions as are the engendering sources of so many deceived children. No melodramatic offers of undying affection and maternal dedication. No generous donations to inflated charities. No misguided mendicants grousing about their new ties to gratitude agendas. No farm implements wheezing in the child’s nostalgic future dust. And especially no obsolete cigar smoke billowing out of the neglected father.

Poor Willie.

Yes, it’s a sad and ordinary tale. You probably wish it had ended differently and it did, in the approved version. But many new varieties of rain have begun falling and one of them, surprisingly, is reflecting Willie’s unreliable happiness in collusion with several other closely related but equally tentative varieties of experience. In fact, all of them are telling this very story, whether it’s Willie’s or not, because damn it somebody’s in here and I want to come out.

Ornamental

She lost her thimble. She lost her shoes. She lost a dear one in the forest. She lost her understanding of the fragile thread of reality holding together the fiber of modern civilization.

She thought maybe her little brother had been playing with her chainsaw, but her mother said she lost it. Susie knew better. Susie had been tricked before. Susie was a practiced victim.

Then such a time there was. Susie complained and petitioned and whined and pleaded and cajoled and belatedly turned her father in for prenatal abuse and distorted and manipulated and bit her mother right under the arm where she carried her little brother.

Finally the doctor said, “I shouldn’t say this because I’m a man and might be perceived as biased by my gender, but I think Susie’s a very sick young woman.”

So Susie’s mother took Susie to the hospital for an operation. Susie left something at the hospital and then Susie went home and played with the other abused children.

Susie’s mother missed saying, “Susie is ill and she cannot eat,” but there it is. It has to be dealt with. It’s true all the same. Susie was partaking of a limited bounty. Susie was substantially inadequate to Susie.

Ah, but Susie’s shiny collection of panties were on the radiator again, so Susie’s mother could say, as she did in the old days, “Susie is on detention and she cannot play,” and that was almost as good, even if it was sure to fail.

But soon Susie was pushing her fresh plate back again. Could it be said that the operation had failed?

Finally the doctor said, “I shouldn’t say this because I’m a man and might be biased by the opposite gender, but I think she’s pregnant.”

That’s when Susie just lost it.

So Lucifer, Susie’s overly ambitious boyfriend, took her to find something lost in the forest and there in that very same forest were a thimble and two pairs of open-toed shoes and Susie’s shiny panties and a rusty old chainsaw.

But the forest was gone. And in its place was a lawn ornament that only looked like a deer, but to some of the neighbors was endearing nonetheless. Because this is a true story and trailer parks do, indeed, exist nearly everywhere.

Of course, despite overwhelming limitations, Susie’s daughter grew up to be a doctor and purchased a particularly challenging lawn ornament. And she didn’t lose things, as her diesel mechanic husband claimed, she just gave them away. And her little baby boy was no deer-in-the-forest-following hillibilly, nosir. He progressed beyond his lineage and ascended to the throne of the kingdom, a chainsaw empire of depleted resources and whining environmentalists.

And all daughter Susie’s new little doctors with their truly unique lawn ornaments were very busy indeed. And it was, sadly enough, the children of the children themselves who had lost their understanding of the fragile thread of reality holding together the fiber of modern civilization.

Which made Grandma Susie look damn solid indeed. Not a loose hair on her thinking, nosir.

So then the story goes skiing in Aspen and begins therapy at group rates because, hey, we could all use a little help, and if it’s really okay to live like this, how come you didn’t?

That’s what I want to know.

Only the Free Man Knows He’s a Slave

I was singing, “Don’t Need a Reason till It’s Over.” I was out of place and I was ecstatic.

I was accosted by a vicious citizen, but I began dancing and it scared him.

I wouldn’t call him portly and diminutive.

Did this make me feel like I had just witnessed an animal hit by a car get up and limp into the darkness? No, it did not.

This, of course, means I should live my life, but the rest of my life’s not here right now, it’s impossible, just impossible.

I keep on dancing.

Oh who id dat Joe wid da sloppy floppy grin grin grin?

That’s when something incongruous like blue cement ignites a cry of joy. Yes indeed a cry of joy. Truly. I’m not lying about it.

But the kingdom I came from is no longer quite so bright and welcoming, no longer lost, in that place where it could be perfected. Only the earth-shattering spike of some unnameable plant says what needs to be said.

And you listen. And you sing. And you begin a great refund of energy.

Is this what you wanted to be?

It’s like that painting: Pugilist Questioning the Lagoon. I was no longer gesturing to illusionary supplicants. I knew what I wanted to do. I went outside to refresh myself, but I can’t say I succeeded. I left something. I came away with less.

I wanted to believe I had made a contribution. That I had donated. But I was out of place and ecstatic and no longer accosted.

So I danced. And then I danced some more. My freedom depended upon it.