MISSING
Chapter 6: Es muss sein (pt. I)
Es muss sein!
An observation printed in the school bulletin after an interview: “everyone’s really nice. People will always lend you a dollar or change to get something from the vending machine – they just trust you will pay them back.”
She used to drive to work with her father in the mornings. She had a back room at his office all to herself. She would draw usually, or sometimes watch TV, but if he came back in between patients, he would make her turn it off. By fourth grade he had tutors come for her in the morning. This embarrassed her for 2 reasons: in the adolescent vocabulary, the word “tutor” sounds dangerously similar to the word “toot,” which refers to flatulence. Also, in the adolescent world of sensibility where one shirt costs too much to pay for two, a tutor indicates special needs. A tutor forges the assumption you struggle to keep up with your class work. You are probably dumb, and need extra help. You will probably end up with the special students next year.
This is not the case for the girl without a chance, but she desperately fears her classmates will decide otherwise. She despises the word tutor and fears ridicule. No one else in her fourth grade class has a tutor, no one. A boy at her bus stop is mean; he is a year older, and he bullies kids. He makes fun of her sometimes, but most of the time he is neutral to her because they share a bus stop. He will become relentless if he knows she has a tutor. He will be merciless. He is, after all, a boy.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
MISSING: Chapter 5
MISSING
Chapter 5: The Girl Without A Chance
The girl without a chance materialized in 5th grade: scrappy like Di, but not blond. She enters on somewhat even ground. She is nice. She is quiet at first and then stronger, but attracts the attention of one of the more popular new boys. She comes in 5th grade because 5th grade is when The Academy of the holy trinity admits approximately 20 new students, expanding the class size to upwards of 50. She is not pegged as the new girl in any identifiable way. She plays soccer, but not with Anner and Rory and Lexa. She knows Lexa – I hear their parents are members of the same suburban fitness club, along with the Campbells. She knows the class pagliaccio femminile, clown: Paige, from kindergarten. Paige, whose bowl-hair cut lines her as an ally to the boys in games like tag; our pagliaccio has no affinity for romance or affection, but who declines an opportunity to affect a social status, even one’s own? Paige calls the new girl and offers to sit next to her at lunch on the first day of school. She has no malice. She does not manipulate. She has no mal-intent. She introduces the new girl like something she won over the summer.
The girl without a chance starts with one chance: she has the fortune to be paired with Di as her “buddy.” On the first day of school she is dropped off early and timidly finds the principal’s office. She is shuffled into the Old Gym for an assembly. She is shuffled up to a top section of the bleachers where she is seated near others her age. She is handed off to Mrs. Fraanzen who will be her homeroom teacher. Mrs. Fraanzen gestures that the children in this section are her classmates. After a long assembly, the children are herded into a room with green carpet where Mrs. Fraanzen introduces herself. The class will end in a few short minutes, so they will begin tomorrow with introductions. They will copy the instructions written on the board down into their assignment notebooks and when the bell rings they may find their next class.
Thank GOD she decides not to wear the uniform jumper she set out! Such a tragedy would be her fate while – sitting in the commotion of just-minutes-before-the-bell she overhears girls celebrate their freedom from the lower school commandment that prevents girls from wearing pants. A glance around the room reveals a couple of timid smart-looking girls wearing skirts. No jumpers. The girls who look the most confident and comfortable wear pants. Ugly, unflattering, unfashionable pants, she sighs.
Muss es sein?
Chapter 5: The Girl Without A Chance
The girl without a chance materialized in 5th grade: scrappy like Di, but not blond. She enters on somewhat even ground. She is nice. She is quiet at first and then stronger, but attracts the attention of one of the more popular new boys. She comes in 5th grade because 5th grade is when The Academy of the holy trinity admits approximately 20 new students, expanding the class size to upwards of 50. She is not pegged as the new girl in any identifiable way. She plays soccer, but not with Anner and Rory and Lexa. She knows Lexa – I hear their parents are members of the same suburban fitness club, along with the Campbells. She knows the class pagliaccio femminile, clown: Paige, from kindergarten. Paige, whose bowl-hair cut lines her as an ally to the boys in games like tag; our pagliaccio has no affinity for romance or affection, but who declines an opportunity to affect a social status, even one’s own? Paige calls the new girl and offers to sit next to her at lunch on the first day of school. She has no malice. She does not manipulate. She has no mal-intent. She introduces the new girl like something she won over the summer.
The girl without a chance starts with one chance: she has the fortune to be paired with Di as her “buddy.” On the first day of school she is dropped off early and timidly finds the principal’s office. She is shuffled into the Old Gym for an assembly. She is shuffled up to a top section of the bleachers where she is seated near others her age. She is handed off to Mrs. Fraanzen who will be her homeroom teacher. Mrs. Fraanzen gestures that the children in this section are her classmates. After a long assembly, the children are herded into a room with green carpet where Mrs. Fraanzen introduces herself. The class will end in a few short minutes, so they will begin tomorrow with introductions. They will copy the instructions written on the board down into their assignment notebooks and when the bell rings they may find their next class.
Thank GOD she decides not to wear the uniform jumper she set out! Such a tragedy would be her fate while – sitting in the commotion of just-minutes-before-the-bell she overhears girls celebrate their freedom from the lower school commandment that prevents girls from wearing pants. A glance around the room reveals a couple of timid smart-looking girls wearing skirts. No jumpers. The girls who look the most confident and comfortable wear pants. Ugly, unflattering, unfashionable pants, she sighs.
Muss es sein?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
MISSING: Chapter 4
MISSING
Chapter 4: Es muss sein
Her father is a form of doctor – a dentist – and a good old boy from back in the day. He contributes faithfully to Cretin-Derham Hall and runs with the boys from St. John’s. He remembers coach Griak from the University days. He follows the rules and saves his booty. He invests, and earns his wife.
She is harshly beautiful: Dutch. Thorned exactly like an Irish rose: a tomboy; a father’s favorite; a rebel with access to mother’s cigarettes, all-too-happy to leave a brother and 2 sisters at the home of her parents’ alcoholic fights.
He follows directions well. He admires the father, Abraham. He wants 7 children – at least – right away. She wants to prove herself. She thins to infertility. She changes her mind when she becomes pregnant. Perhaps she resents her belly, that baby. She would pop the bubble if she thought he could bear it. But so it is that she lets herself burst. And so comes forth a girl.
Chapter 4: Es muss sein
Her father is a form of doctor – a dentist – and a good old boy from back in the day. He contributes faithfully to Cretin-Derham Hall and runs with the boys from St. John’s. He remembers coach Griak from the University days. He follows the rules and saves his booty. He invests, and earns his wife.
She is harshly beautiful: Dutch. Thorned exactly like an Irish rose: a tomboy; a father’s favorite; a rebel with access to mother’s cigarettes, all-too-happy to leave a brother and 2 sisters at the home of her parents’ alcoholic fights.
He follows directions well. He admires the father, Abraham. He wants 7 children – at least – right away. She wants to prove herself. She thins to infertility. She changes her mind when she becomes pregnant. Perhaps she resents her belly, that baby. She would pop the bubble if she thought he could bear it. But so it is that she lets herself burst. And so comes forth a girl.
Monday, April 6, 2009
MISSING: Chapter 3
MISSING
Chapter 3: OUT OF HABIT
An observer can easily describe the situation: “oh, unfortunate.”
For her, having the additional burden of being the disadvantaged participant, the situation is unfair in addition to being unfortunate. Tragically unfair. Fate is unfair.
She vomits; kicking and thrashing, imploding into herself and into the toilet, into the sewage. Life is not fair. Life is not fair.
But women have such things as their pride to attend to. Who will admit at youth the most common of quandaries: I am vulnerable, I feel very vulnerable. Who moreover will do so openly and without any blame or fear of exposure: I am vulnerable and exposed. A flower in the wind has only one secret: to conceal its vulnerability to the wind.
What mother can receive such an observation from her delicate darling: “Mother, I am overexposed” – without feeling responsible.
What mother does not feel responsible for her child. What mother is not responsible for her child?
Chapter 3: OUT OF HABIT
An observer can easily describe the situation: “oh, unfortunate.”
For her, having the additional burden of being the disadvantaged participant, the situation is unfair in addition to being unfortunate. Tragically unfair. Fate is unfair.
She vomits; kicking and thrashing, imploding into herself and into the toilet, into the sewage. Life is not fair. Life is not fair.
But women have such things as their pride to attend to. Who will admit at youth the most common of quandaries: I am vulnerable, I feel very vulnerable. Who moreover will do so openly and without any blame or fear of exposure: I am vulnerable and exposed. A flower in the wind has only one secret: to conceal its vulnerability to the wind.
What mother can receive such an observation from her delicate darling: “Mother, I am overexposed” – without feeling responsible.
What mother does not feel responsible for her child. What mother is not responsible for her child?
Friday, April 3, 2009
MISSING: Chapter 2
MISSING
Chapter 2: HICCUP
In the social scene at the Academy of the Holy Trinity for Boys and Girls, Diana Silverling is best equipped. Her preparations do not collaborate until high school – arguably the most favorable time for popularity to flower in a given individual. Di is never really ostracized – a rare individual to pass from grade school through adolescence almost completely untouched by that parasite, malevolence, that feeds on most youth.
Di is a “lifer” at the Academy of the Holy Trinity for Boys and Girls. A scrappy blond, she does not come into her beauty – or bust – until she piques high school. However, children are not so transfixed by outward appearances as their elders are. Di has always been nice and plays well with others. Her hair casts her the coveted role of Princess or otherwise heroine. In middle school boys like her. She is not the fierce queen of the middle school playground – who has boobs and an elusive best friend with 2 first names and bigger boobs, and access to cigarettes. However, the fierce queen of the middle school playground is remarkably savvy in social politics; she keeps Di as a secure second-hand. The Queen protects the throne viciously and pulls Di up: Rapunzel. Di does not have to fight for any claim; the work is done for her.
The classmates overthrow the queen and crown Di because she is nice, and because she is already very near to the correct location for a queen to be, at the top of the hill. Mrs. Carol Silverling is glad to play the position through Di. Brush your hair a bit; don’t you see all the boys looking at Di. Di has play dates with the Courtlings, and the Silverlings sit next to the Trentons at church. Carol fabricates a carpool with the principal’s son so she can not drive twice a week. Di is always entrusted into a good family’s care when Mr. and Mrs. Silverling fly to San-Somewhere for a getaway. She tells Di, “hold on. Just hold on.”
Little Anna Campbell does not have blond hair. Her family moves from Belgium when she is four. This small ornament always adorns her. Her mother says, “hello lovey,” and sings, “Anner,” when boys call for her on the telle. Anner knows words like torchlight and lolli. She can win affection by reverting back to “the bubbler” or “the lou.” She carves herself out as a cute young thing. She falls – for a short while in Middle School – when her class schedule aligns her with the second-rate group of girls and boys. She cares too much about others. But Anner plays soccer for the local team; this opens a secret COURSE/MEANS OF ACCESS for Anner. Her father coaches the team and she can set play dates and car pools with the other girls. Mrs. Campbell always bakes crispies for after the game. She keeps Anner’s water bottle cooled with ice. In high school Di joins the soccer team.
Rory Goodchild is a bit too beautiful to completely shine in her surroundings. Beauty can turn a double edge in the delicate game of girlhood. Beauty wins affection with boys, which can increase social standings. In social politics all things matter; which boys call you amorous matters immensely. An element of awareness towards competition also matters. The Queen keeps Rory close. Di keeps Rory close. Anner keeps Rory close. Rory is too beautiful to find her way to the top. She is also too beautiful to fight her way there. Rory stays always an arm’s length away from the top of the hill. Her mother expects her to keep her room tidy, and mow the lawn weekly. Rory barely protests, and almost never contests in public. “Why even bother inviting her over after soccer – she probably has got her laundry still to do.”
Alexia Lamont; Lexa, Di’s confidante. Not so much skimpy as she is lithe: a fashionable trait for any middle school girl. Lexa is good at soccer and her sister is best friends with one of the popular boys’ sisters – this is very fortunate. Lexa is friends with one of the popular boys! She doesn’t even care. She doesn’t need to care. Di chooses Lexa to keep company with her at the top. Mrs. Silverling probably actually inspires the choice – Lexa is a very likely candidate. A perfect means: sleepovers; carpools; “Di should join Lexa’s soccer team!” “Diana, join Lexa’s soccer team!” Mrs. Silverling talks with Anner’s Dad. She volunteers to drive the girls – Rory, Anner, Lexa, and Di to soccer after school. She bakes cookies that vie with Mrs. Campbell’s crispies– the girls are tiring of Mrs. Campbell’s crispies anyway. Mrs. Campbell would step down, if not for Anner’s continual prompting.
***
Many years later, a mother recognizes that all of the girls must have suffered at least a small wound of envy, for wanting to be Di, or for wanting to have Di & Lexa.
How many girls have this story; Diana Silverling does not because her father is an alcoholic. Lexa knows because Di needs someone to tell her emotional processing-s to. She needs to elect someone eligible for vacation trips where he might come home drunk. Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Goodchild probably don’t want their daughters to know anyway. Neither princess has the capacity to help manage such a twist.
Circumstances pair Anner and Rory together after Di pulls Lexa up to the top of the hill.
Chapter 2: HICCUP
In the social scene at the Academy of the Holy Trinity for Boys and Girls, Diana Silverling is best equipped. Her preparations do not collaborate until high school – arguably the most favorable time for popularity to flower in a given individual. Di is never really ostracized – a rare individual to pass from grade school through adolescence almost completely untouched by that parasite, malevolence, that feeds on most youth.
Di is a “lifer” at the Academy of the Holy Trinity for Boys and Girls. A scrappy blond, she does not come into her beauty – or bust – until she piques high school. However, children are not so transfixed by outward appearances as their elders are. Di has always been nice and plays well with others. Her hair casts her the coveted role of Princess or otherwise heroine. In middle school boys like her. She is not the fierce queen of the middle school playground – who has boobs and an elusive best friend with 2 first names and bigger boobs, and access to cigarettes. However, the fierce queen of the middle school playground is remarkably savvy in social politics; she keeps Di as a secure second-hand. The Queen protects the throne viciously and pulls Di up: Rapunzel. Di does not have to fight for any claim; the work is done for her.
The classmates overthrow the queen and crown Di because she is nice, and because she is already very near to the correct location for a queen to be, at the top of the hill. Mrs. Carol Silverling is glad to play the position through Di. Brush your hair a bit; don’t you see all the boys looking at Di. Di has play dates with the Courtlings, and the Silverlings sit next to the Trentons at church. Carol fabricates a carpool with the principal’s son so she can not drive twice a week. Di is always entrusted into a good family’s care when Mr. and Mrs. Silverling fly to San-Somewhere for a getaway. She tells Di, “hold on. Just hold on.”
Little Anna Campbell does not have blond hair. Her family moves from Belgium when she is four. This small ornament always adorns her. Her mother says, “hello lovey,” and sings, “Anner,” when boys call for her on the telle. Anner knows words like torchlight and lolli. She can win affection by reverting back to “the bubbler” or “the lou.” She carves herself out as a cute young thing. She falls – for a short while in Middle School – when her class schedule aligns her with the second-rate group of girls and boys. She cares too much about others. But Anner plays soccer for the local team; this opens a secret COURSE/MEANS OF ACCESS for Anner. Her father coaches the team and she can set play dates and car pools with the other girls. Mrs. Campbell always bakes crispies for after the game. She keeps Anner’s water bottle cooled with ice. In high school Di joins the soccer team.
Rory Goodchild is a bit too beautiful to completely shine in her surroundings. Beauty can turn a double edge in the delicate game of girlhood. Beauty wins affection with boys, which can increase social standings. In social politics all things matter; which boys call you amorous matters immensely. An element of awareness towards competition also matters. The Queen keeps Rory close. Di keeps Rory close. Anner keeps Rory close. Rory is too beautiful to find her way to the top. She is also too beautiful to fight her way there. Rory stays always an arm’s length away from the top of the hill. Her mother expects her to keep her room tidy, and mow the lawn weekly. Rory barely protests, and almost never contests in public. “Why even bother inviting her over after soccer – she probably has got her laundry still to do.”
Alexia Lamont; Lexa, Di’s confidante. Not so much skimpy as she is lithe: a fashionable trait for any middle school girl. Lexa is good at soccer and her sister is best friends with one of the popular boys’ sisters – this is very fortunate. Lexa is friends with one of the popular boys! She doesn’t even care. She doesn’t need to care. Di chooses Lexa to keep company with her at the top. Mrs. Silverling probably actually inspires the choice – Lexa is a very likely candidate. A perfect means: sleepovers; carpools; “Di should join Lexa’s soccer team!” “Diana, join Lexa’s soccer team!” Mrs. Silverling talks with Anner’s Dad. She volunteers to drive the girls – Rory, Anner, Lexa, and Di to soccer after school. She bakes cookies that vie with Mrs. Campbell’s crispies– the girls are tiring of Mrs. Campbell’s crispies anyway. Mrs. Campbell would step down, if not for Anner’s continual prompting.
***
Many years later, a mother recognizes that all of the girls must have suffered at least a small wound of envy, for wanting to be Di, or for wanting to have Di & Lexa.
How many girls have this story; Diana Silverling does not because her father is an alcoholic. Lexa knows because Di needs someone to tell her emotional processing-s to. She needs to elect someone eligible for vacation trips where he might come home drunk. Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Goodchild probably don’t want their daughters to know anyway. Neither princess has the capacity to help manage such a twist.
Circumstances pair Anner and Rory together after Di pulls Lexa up to the top of the hill.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
MISSING: Chapter 1
TITLE: MISSING
Dedication: For Katie, if you ever want to know.
Chapter 1: Der schwer gefasste Entschluss – the difficult resolution
Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Es muss sein! * >>see asterisk below<<<
She careens over the public toilet and explodes. Loads of vomit flood from her mouth. Her brain – armed with monotonous familiarity – seems disconnected for a time. She does not look at the vomit, or at the blotted stains on the underside of the toilet seat that can only be dried urine. This is a public restroom that provides rest to both sexes. The dark-colored pubic hair that curls at the rim of the toilet bowl is likely from a male. She wonders for a second at the crudity of such a public intimacy. How many others have used this room for their own respite? How many others have stowed away in this bathroom to shoot up or to steal an indiscreet cigarette? How many girls have sat on this toilet – with the seat down – and fucked a stranger? The public bathroom is a stowaway for stale transgressions of intimacy.
*Muss es sein? Es muss sein!" alludes to the Der schwer gefasste entschluss (the "difficult resolution) of the last movement of Beethoven's last quartet, which is based on the following two motifs "Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Ess muss sein!" In German this translates to "Must it be? It must be! It must be!"
****
Sometimes her vomit speckles the rim of the toilet seat. She cringes and violently grabs large wads of toilet paper to cloud around her hand before swiping around the under-rim of the toilet bowl. Disparity. She knows in one small flicker of her heart that this is too unsanitary to comprehend. Another flicker she calls common sense tells her this comes with the territory. She deserves this. She has earned this. Es muss sein!
***
A common childhood approximation for naming works of writing postulates that a title should: identify a main character who is introduced within the first 2 chapters; identify an object that has metaphorical significance to the plot; or identify a theme that is contributory to the plot. This was a very long – almost run-on – sentence. However, most works are generally allotted one handful of long, run-on sentences to sprinkle throughout a story IN ORDER to meet one of two criteria: to present a large amount of interconnected material in a way that connects the material; or to guise at vernacular.
This title – “Missing” – aims to defy the stipulates of childhood grammar. The title is ferociously rebellious. Following the above introduced approximation for naming works of writing, one may assume this story will identify the plot of a missing child. This is not the case. Nor does this story indicate the importance of any animate object or theme that is “missing” from the plot. However, this title is not so rebellious as it aims to be. This title is neither perverse nor progressive. And so we begin this story's tale.
Dedication: For Katie, if you ever want to know.
Chapter 1: Der schwer gefasste Entschluss – the difficult resolution
Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Es muss sein! * >>see asterisk below<<<
She careens over the public toilet and explodes. Loads of vomit flood from her mouth. Her brain – armed with monotonous familiarity – seems disconnected for a time. She does not look at the vomit, or at the blotted stains on the underside of the toilet seat that can only be dried urine. This is a public restroom that provides rest to both sexes. The dark-colored pubic hair that curls at the rim of the toilet bowl is likely from a male. She wonders for a second at the crudity of such a public intimacy. How many others have used this room for their own respite? How many others have stowed away in this bathroom to shoot up or to steal an indiscreet cigarette? How many girls have sat on this toilet – with the seat down – and fucked a stranger? The public bathroom is a stowaway for stale transgressions of intimacy.
*Muss es sein? Es muss sein!" alludes to the Der schwer gefasste entschluss (the "difficult resolution) of the last movement of Beethoven's last quartet, which is based on the following two motifs "Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Ess muss sein!" In German this translates to "Must it be? It must be! It must be!"
****
Sometimes her vomit speckles the rim of the toilet seat. She cringes and violently grabs large wads of toilet paper to cloud around her hand before swiping around the under-rim of the toilet bowl. Disparity. She knows in one small flicker of her heart that this is too unsanitary to comprehend. Another flicker she calls common sense tells her this comes with the territory. She deserves this. She has earned this. Es muss sein!
***
A common childhood approximation for naming works of writing postulates that a title should: identify a main character who is introduced within the first 2 chapters; identify an object that has metaphorical significance to the plot; or identify a theme that is contributory to the plot. This was a very long – almost run-on – sentence. However, most works are generally allotted one handful of long, run-on sentences to sprinkle throughout a story IN ORDER to meet one of two criteria: to present a large amount of interconnected material in a way that connects the material; or to guise at vernacular.
This title – “Missing” – aims to defy the stipulates of childhood grammar. The title is ferociously rebellious. Following the above introduced approximation for naming works of writing, one may assume this story will identify the plot of a missing child. This is not the case. Nor does this story indicate the importance of any animate object or theme that is “missing” from the plot. However, this title is not so rebellious as it aims to be. This title is neither perverse nor progressive. And so we begin this story's tale.
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