TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 135

Mon Jan 29 07:23:17 PST 2007

January 29, 20000000000000000000000000007

Dear Mumbling Humbles,

	We went to the vault yesterday, and 
unravelled the mystery of what a vault looks 
like.  It was a huge warehouse, about as big as a 
Costco, and in designated areas were wooden 
crates and wrapped furniture.  The workers had 
previously opened the wooden crates (big) and 
dragged out the boxes and furniture, spread it 
all out over a large area so we could get to 
everything.  Still, the boxes were stacked on top 
of each other and the labels were not always 
facing out.  I went with the list of things we 
wanted.  I was primarily looking for the things 
that villainman wants that he was squawking 
about, threatening to charge me ten thousand 
dollars if I didn't come up with them.  The 
items, together, are worth a few hundred dollars. 
But how do you go through four hundred fifty 
boxes to find five tiny hand blown glass cups? 
Goofy little things that villainman made himself 
when he was taking the glass blowing lessons I 
gave him for his birthday once.  I succeeded in 
finding almost everything on the list.  The rest, 
he can wait for until we move and unpack 
everything, piece by piece.

	Meyshe found his Go set, but couldn't 
find his night time CDs, the ones of global 
ethnic music that he turns on when he's going to 
sleep.  And Feyna found much of what she was 
looking for, but didn't find her art markers, a 
serious set of two ended markers in every shade 
of the spectrum, professional artist's tools. 
She had been looking in the boxes marked, 
"Feyna's room", when in actuality, she'd left the 
markers on the floor in the dining room, so they 
would have been in a dining room box.  When she 
discovered her error, it was five minutes before 
we had to be out of there or else be charged for 
a third hour.  Five minutes would have meant 170 
buzzutz (pronounce that:  bu-ZUTS).  So we had to 
toss in the towel and call it a day.  It was 
already a day by 11:00 in the morning.  And then 
we had the nice workers pack the van, and we 
drove back the 40 miles or so home.

	Now I've got these things in the car that 
belong to villainman, and I have to drop them off 
at my lawyer's office to see that they get 
directed to the right villain.  And watch.  He'll 
complain loudly that the two wooden bowls that he 
made in junior high school, and the brown/purple 
glass fish sculpture aren't among the twenty 
items I fetched for him.  I crawled, I scrounged, 
I scrubbed at it with my bare hands.  I kneeled, 
climbed, bent over, and had a hundred or more 
boxes opened so we could check for his items.  I 
fetched all but three.  I am amazed that we could 
find what we did among the myriad boxes.  I 
considered it a resounding success.  And three 
hundred forty buzzutz later, we will get a 
complaint. He might even threaten to charge me 
that ten thousand clams (pronounce that: klamz). 
It is hard to recognize any shred of humanity 
that might be left in him.

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Psychokinesis

	Since I was only in the single digits 
I've had a recurring dream that graces my nights 
and is also a plague.  It always starts out with 
my discovering that I can move things without 
touching them.  It is very difficult.  I have to 
stare at the object for a long time, and furrow 
my brow, concentrate, strain my intensions until 
I am exhausted.  And finally, the little object, 
something like a salt shaker, wobbles a little 
and moves from its position on the table.  I am 
elated.  I am proud.  Look what I can do!  I try 
it on something else.  A book, maybe.  I glare at 
the book, squinting, squeezing my eyes, aiming my 
energies.  All I want to do is open the cover of 
the book.  Just turn a page or two.  But the book 
is resistant and I have to wrestle the angel. 
Finally, after a frustrating forever, the cover 
of the book opens.  It falters before opening 
completely.  I send the cover to the table, lying 
flat.  And I work on turning a page.  The page 
turns; another page turns.  I am exhausted.  Now, 
I am going to try to move a chair across the 
floor.  Even a few inches.  This time, with all 
the practice I've been getting, it works sooner. 
I focus my attentions on the chair, a step stool 
in the kitchen, and soon it stutters sideways on 
the linoleum, then gains a little speed and winds 
up on the other side of the room.  I am 
delighted.  I feel powerful, able to change 
things, direct my life and random objects.

	Still, what does it matter that I can 
move a chair across a room by devoting every 
ounce of energy to the task?  So a chair moves. 
Is the world a better place?  I set my sights on 
a window.  I am going to open the window.  Just 
push the window up and invite in the fresh air. 
Maybe it's even a tough window to open.  It gets 
stuck a lot.  I send my thoughts out to it like a 
wish, no more than a wish.  And it opens easily. 
I am learning this.  I am getting stronger.  So I 
look around and select something heavy, a car 
outside, parked on the street.  I stare at it, 
and it lifts straight up off the asphalt a few 
inches.  I lift it up and then I set it down, 
gently.  Perfect control.  I move on to a house. 
I try a house.  I jack up the corner of the house 
with my mind.  Then I let it down again.  A few 
inches off the ground, an entire house.  Pretty 
soon, I am able to move whatever I want to move 
in any direction as far as I want.  I am sending 
buildings flying across the street to empty lots. 
I can go into a grocery store, open bags, then 
send all my groceries hurtling through the air to 
land in them.  I will the bags into the back of 
my car.  I sit in the front seat and don't bother 
with the keys and the engine.  I just propel the 
car forward, sailing a few inches above the black 
top, guiding us home.

	Now I can move things without even 
concentrating on them.  All I have to do is give 
a glance in the general direction and furniture 
flies from one end of the house to another, lamps 
and tables sail through the air.  Refrigerators 
glide over the floor.  I can send myself sailing 
upstairs and lie on my bed as it is suspended in 
mid air.  Nothing is too big.  By raising my 
eyebrow, I uproot trees, change the course of 
rivers, send whole cities from south east to 
northwest a mile or two.  What does it matter?  I 
can do anything.

	But it becomes too easy.  I have to be 
careful of my thoughts because the slightest 
inkling will bring walls crumpling, or wreck my 
own possessions, hurl a house against an office 
building, uproot trees.  Then things come flying 
at me: books, furniture, unhinged doors, knives, 
claw foot bath tubs.  Ceilings cave in on me.  My 
thoughts are dangerous.  My whims are alive and 
catastrophic.  I cannot stop them.

	This is how the dream ends, with me 
flying from my own frightening power run amok, 
out of control, turned mean on me.  I wake up 
screaming.

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-- 

Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net