A Lifetime’s Supply of Fool’s Gold

“Let me see what you have written, young lady,” says Teacher, snatching the doodle before little Sinna can protest.  Teacher takes a quick look and knits her brow and bends at the knees.  “Sinna, this is a time for writing your story.  You shouldn’t be wasting it with these silly lines of nothing.”

Teacher lays the drawing back down and the girl surrounds the paper with her pale arms, protective.

“Can’t you think of anything?”  Teacher asks, folds her arms, impatient, and waits for Sinna’s response.  Teacher looks around the classroom, gestures, and remarks, “Sinna, your fellow writers are already working.  See?”

Sinna, not looking up, senses that the dozen other girls have all started, swept out in a sea of words.

They are in trances; Sinna is in trouble.

“And don’t give me any guff about not having any ideas.  We did exercises for the last hour and you must have something.  Today I won’t take your excuses,” Teacher spits.  “I’ll give you five more minutes.”  Without pause, Teacher turns her back and walks away.  She sits again at her big, oaken desk and continues to write like all her others.

Sinna feels like crying.  She starts a sentence about a dog running in a field, but stops before the end, staring out, lost.

Teacher sees her, taps her pen on her desk, and calls Sinna over.  She is old, so old, graying, tired eyes, frustrated.  “I see you’ve stopped,” she admonishes.  “You go to the graffiti wall and unlock what’s inside of you.”  She points to the spot.

Sinna, alone in the back of the classroom, holds the spray pen out, examines the cluttered wall, sees the words before her, and thinks of what to add to the mix.  She thinks of a swear word, but sees it is already there, sprayed by some other blocked writer that has proceeded her.  She lowers the spray pen.  A handful of moments pass.  Suddenly smiling, she again raises the pen, and lets loose the red ink inside, stiffly painting.

Smiling, Teacher approaches to measure Sinna’s progress.  She reads what has been added, lets out a pent-up gush of steam through her clenched teeth, and grabs the girl by the arm.  Teacher drags her into the hallway, away from the other girls –- girls too transfixed to notice this latest transgression.

“2 + 2 = 4!  That’s what you give your country?  Numbers?  I have had enough of you.”  Teacher shakes her Pupil and throws her against the tiled wall of the school hallway.  “Sinna, I cannot take your insolence one day longer.  I am wiring your parents!  I bet they’ll be so pleased that their little writer is devoid of soul, life, and patriotism.  You must quit this behavior with, with numbers this very day, this very instant!  You have been brought into this world for the sake of stories!  Numbers are for Fixers, and you are not a Fixer!”

Meekly, the girl says, “But I don’t like writing.”

Teacher bats Pupil one more time.  Sick, Sinna bends over, clutching at her stomach until Teacher drags her to the clinic and they send her home.

The WordTram, or the W.T. as city men call it, pulls up at the hour, and Sinna climbs aboard. Since the school day is not over, Sinna is the only passenger.  She takes the back seat of the W.T. and it pulls away from the building.

The automated voice speaks:  “WELCOME!  THIS IS AN INSPIRING DAY!  ON OUR JOURNEY WE WILL HELP YOU WITH YOUR STORIES!  IF YOU ARE NEEDING AN IDEA, PLEASE ASK FOR ‘IDEAS.’  IF YOU ALREADY HAVE AN IDEA, PLEASE ASK FOR ‘FEEDBACK.’”

Sinna shouts playfully, “Feedback!”  Now that she is by herself, she wants to play games.  It was not often that someone had a W.T. all to oneself.

“FEEDBACK,” confirms the Tram.  “FIRST, PLEASE RELATE YOUR STORY AS IT STANDS.”

“A man catches a gwumbah and slinks the food before the chee-wa.”  She knew this was nonsense.

“I’M SORRY,” apologizes the Tram.  “BUT YOUR VOCABULARY IS UNFAMILIAR TO ME.  PLEASE DEFINE ‘GWUMBAH.’”

“It’s the opposite of chee-wa,” she replies.

“I’M SORRY,” says the Tram.  “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.”

“Feedback!” she screams, laughing at the echo in the metal Tram.

“FEEDBACK,” resets the Tram.  “FIRST, PLEASE RELATE YOUR STORY.”

This time, Sinna blurts out, “A W.T. is taken over by a 12-year-old girl and driven off a cliff.”

“THERE IS AN INHERANT PROBLEM IN YOUR STORY,” advises the voice of the Tram.  “THERE ARE NO TRAM LINES NEAR ANY PLACES OF HIGH ALTITUDE, THUS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO BE STEERED OFF A CLIFF.  WOULD YOU LIKE ADVICE ON HOW TO CHANGE YOUR STORY?”

“No!” Sinna laughs.

“I RECOMMEND THAT THE LITTLE GIRL INSTEAD TAKES THE TRAM TO THE LIBRARY, WHERE SHE MAY READ ALL ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORDTRAM.”

“Bor-ring!” She mocks with every syllable.

“IF YOU PREFER AN ADVENTURE STORY, ASK YOURSELF WHAT ADVENTURES HAVE YOU HAD?  WHO IN YOUR FAMILY HAS LIVED AN ADVENTURE?  IF YOU LIKE MORE INFORMATION ON ‘ADVENTURE’ I MIGHT RECOMMEND…”

The Tram drops Sinna off a block from her house.  She knows her mother will be waiting.  No doubt the school has already sent an electric wire home saying Sinna is on the W.T.  She delays and dawdles in the street.

A Fixer comes out of the neighbor’s house with a bundle of cable in his fat hands.  Must have a broken picture printer.  Mr. Allison had complained about it during her parents’ weekend writing workshop.

“Sinna!”

She hears her name called and recognizes her mother’s voice.  There is no anger in her tone, so she turns the corner.

Mother is waiting on the porch.  She looks sad and frowns.

“Sinna!  Not again!”  Mother takes Sinna by the arm –but easily, not like Teacher did — and ushers her inside.

Seated in opposite chairs, Mother speaks.  “The school has sent us a final warning.  They’ve wired your Father, you know?”

This, Sinna had not known.  This is serious indeed.

Mother looks teary-eyed.  “I hope this isn’t a reflection us.  You know what it’s like to be a write-at-home mother.  It puts extra pressure on you to perform.  I don’t have to go to the printing plant every day like your Father, bless him.  I know you’re probably too young to know all this, but when one gets a leave of absence to write a long novel, you must produce a work of substantial importance, or they won’t give you another chance.”

“Sorry, Mother,” Sinna says.  She looks down at the tile, just as she had done with Teacher.

Mother leans back, rubs her head.  “The wire said it was over numbers again.  Was it?  And don’t lie to me.”

“It was,” she admits.

Mother sighs.  “Well, that just won’t do.  For us to continue to live in this place, we must do right by society –- right by our neighbors.  We are not Fixers.  Numbers are for Fixers.  And for only high-class Fixers, you hear?  This family, we’re writers.  So you go to a writing school, and you’ll have a writing future.”

“But I don’t want to write,” Sinna protests.  It was an old argument.

“You’re just going through a spell,” consoles Mother.  “All writers do.”

“No, Mother!” she says, raising her pitch.  “You don’t understand.  It’s not a spell.  I just don’t care.  There’s nothing to say.  It’s all been said.”

Mother didn’t hear.  “Just a spell,” she mumbles, “never lasts.”

Sinna stands, storms off up the stairs.  To her room.

Mother, hopeful, says with excitement, “Got an idea? Good, honey-pot.  You’ve got plenty of paper up there, right?  Good.  When your Father comes home I’ll tell him you’re in your room writing, that’ll calm him down.  Good words, dear…” And Mother shakes her fist in victory.

Alone again, Sinna breathes.  She places her “Writer At Work” plaque into her door slot (a present from Grandmother), and throws herself down on her bed.  Her thoughts turn to numbers, and figures, and she counts, one, two, three…until she reaches high triples…

Soon, she hears Father enter the house.

She counts the seconds until he knocks.  Seventy-eight.

“Sinna?” he asks through the door.  “Can you find a stopping place?  I want to talk to you.”  His daughter is dead quiet.  “Finish the sentence you’re working on?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound sure anymore.

The door opens, and Father sees Sinna laying face down on the bed, pillow in her hands.  Numbers in her head.  Fifteen between the knock and the entrance.

“I knew it,” he deflates.  He sits on the bed.  “You weren’t writing, were you?  Mother said -– “

“Mother says what she wants to believe,” Sinna says into her pillow.

Father takes off his hat and lays it neatly at the head of the bed.  He takes a second, letting the words gather up on his tongue.  The room is so quiet Sinna hopes it will last.

“Do you know why you must write?” he asks.

“Because Teacher says,” she answers.

“Do you know why Teacher says?” he asks.

She cannot reply at first.  Then, “Because everyone writes.”

Father is relieved.  “Yes…everyone writes.  I know what you think.  You think it is so unfair that you must do something you don’t want to do.  But it was the same for me once.  The same for your mother.  When we were little.  We are born into this society as writers.  We made protests, sure.  But slowly we learned to put our protests on the page, and soon…we were writers.  We are a nation of stories.  True stories and made up ones.  The only thing that matters to us is preservation of this idea.  It’s our national duty.”

Sinna turns over, half-cocked to face her father.  This is more than he has said in quite some time.  He comes home, covered in ink from the second shift at the presses, the presses that run continually -– round the clock, without ending, placed on every block.  Father comes home and immediately starts to write, as if he couldn’t wait to get to his pen and put it all down.  His words will follow the same cycle as all others: he will write, he will be sent to the inker, he will come out for sale, and he will be bought.  He will also buy others’ words with his payment, just as everyone does, and this life will float along on a river of the alphabet, and everyone will be equally recognized.

“Do you know what a wonderful time you live in, my darling daughter?  There are no illnesses, no labor, no army, and no civil service.  Everything has been discovered in science, in space -– there’s nothing left.”  Cheerily, he adds, “And there is rarely ever a breakdown in the mechanics.  And for those we have Fixers -– who are vile, yes, but necessary in a tight spot.”  At the word ‘Fixer,’ Father sees Sinna’s eyes widen, so he adds, “Oh, you are in the best possible class, and should not take your duties so lightly!”

“What about Vaggies?” Sinna drops.

Father looks away.  “Vaggies,” he dismisses with a spit.  “Not even worthy of mention.  Dropouts from society.”  He turns back, shaking a sermonizing finger, “They get no benefits from us, I tell you.  They live on dog meat, defecate in fields.  Do you think that’s a way to live?  I think not!”

At this, Sinna sees an opening, and she reaches for Father’s leg, but catches the tip of his hat, which he pulls closer in interception.  “Father, I don’t want to live on dog meat.  I don’t want to make you and Mother mad.  But you just…you just don’t listen sometimes.  I’m not a writer.  Teacher, she does all these exercises, all these silly, boring games –- they just make me sleepy.  The only thing I like…is numbers.”

“Numbers!  What is that?”  Father laughs.  “No need for those, anymore.  Have you stumbled across something in the library about numbers?  Well, I’ll complain to the school.  Totally useless.  The machines do all the adding and subtracting and multiplying and dividing.  We’d probably forget all about numbers if we didn’t need two shoes and two socks.”

She knows it is no use protesting any further.

There is a long moment of silence.

Helpfully, Father says, “Here, I’ve got a story for you.  Write about a little girl who doesn’t want to write.  I’m sure there’s something there.  You give me five pages before supper, and I’ll let you have desert.  How’s that sound?  Just give me a little something for Teacher, okay?  To show that you don’t want to cause trouble.”

He slaps his daughter’s bottom gently, replaces his hat on his balding head, stands, smiles, points to the “Writer At Work” plaque, and exits.  He will probably write the same story from the Father’s point-of-view this very evening.

When he is safely downstairs, Sinna opens her window, climbs down the spouting, and escapes.

She goes to the woods, her private place.  It is not a particularly attractive place.  Plain trees, leaves dying.  And she likes it that way.  Everything ragged and overgrown.  There is no beauty to comment on here, except that the place lacks anything to write on or with, and she likes that best of all.  She waits by the tip of the creek, thinking about the biggest number that comes to her mind.  As soon as she has it, she thinks of one bigger, and that excites her.  It excites her more than any other feeling on earth.  And she thinks, ‘this must be what it’s like.   This must be what it’s like to write.’  And why can’t writing get her there?  To that place where you lose track of time, of space, of your surroundings, possessed and sweating.  But it is alien to her, and that makes her frown…

There is a person with her.

She sees him behind a tree.

The man steps into the clearing, and it is not her Father, so she relaxes, but says nothing until he notices her.

“Oh!” he says, startled.  “Sorry.  I thought I was alone.”

“So did I,” she replies.

“Well I guess we’re alone together,” he smiles.  He takes a seat on a stump and looks at the night sky.  His clothes are tattered.

“Are you a Vaggie?” Sinna asks outright.

He is confused.  “Don’t really know what that means.”

When she thinks about it, she doesn’t really know either.  So she decides to eliminate the others.  Fixer?  No, he says.  Writer?  Hell, no, he says.  She detects a tone of disgust.

“Don’t you like writers?” she asks.

The man lies back against the tree, cups his big hands behind his neck, and says,  “No…love writers.  Shakespeare, Austen, Hemingway, Bradbury.  Them’s the real stuff.  Writing born out of struggle, when the craft was a joy, not an order.  God –- not man — chose those people and they came through.  And I thank them.”  The man looked sad and grateful in the same measure.  “I have not been chosen to write; and I’m wise enough to see that.”

“I can’t write either,” she offers.

“Really?”  He is impressed.  “Well…it’s good to meet a fellow non-writer.”

“I don’t know why we need so many writers anyhow,” she says, kicking a stone into the creek.

“A-men,” he agrees.  “You know that every civilization can feel when its days are numbered?  By the way the wind is blowin’, I think this one’s about finished.”

She liked how he says, “numbered,” and asks, “What makes you think we’re numbered?”

At this, he leaned into the stump again.  “Well, little lady, most countries run about the same.  First they conquer the land, then they conquer the animals, then they conquer each other –- this is usually their biggest problem -– then they conquer their technology.  When all that’s done, what’s left but to conquer but the mind?  The Greeks did it; so did the Romans.  Now, what are the things that really let us know these ancient civilizations were unique?  It’s not the roads, not the waterways -– no.  Those things all disappear.  The only things we cling onto are sentiments.  Words.  Art.  Culture.  These things transcend time.  They leave their marks forever.”  The man takes a breath, finishes with, “That’s what they all seem to want to work on here –- marking forever.  And that usually comes right before doom.”

Sinna is suddenly depressed.  The man can sense this.

He offers, “What makes you happy?  Is it coming here to the woods?”

She shrugs.  “I come here to think.”

“Think of a story?”

“Think of numbers.”  He looks surprised.  She is ashamed.  “I know it’s silly,” she says.  “Father says every number’s been used too much already.  The machines do it.”

The man stands.  “Ah, yes.  They’ve narrowed it all to zeros and ones.  Every other progression in numerology has been extended to it utmost possibility.  There no need for further study.”

Again, she feels sad.  This man doesn’t sound like Father, but he is agreeing with him.  But he shakes his head in sadness and reaches into his pocket.

“Here, little lady,” he says.  “I have a present for you.  I have no use for it now, but you may have it.  One day, it may unlock the secrets of the universe for you.”

He handed her an object –- a flat, black pad with numbers zero through ten, plus controls for multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting.

“They called it a ‘calculator,’” he says.  “You can do wonders with it.  It’s pretty useless now, but it’s powered by light, so it should last ya.  I don’t know how old it is, but at least fifty years if it’s a day.  I’d say it’s time someone made us see things in a new way.  Find us a new number”

She is overjoyed, and she depresses a digit, seeing the display light up in corresponding increment.  “Thank you, thank you,” Sinna gushes, hugs him — hugs tight.  Before long, he is gone into the trees, leaving her alone to add up every star in the heavens, to divide them, and to times them by a thousand.

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Darren Callahan lives in Chicago.  His novel “City of Human Remains” is published on Fiction365, and can be read in its entirety here.

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