A CRY IN THE FOREST
Sandpaper is an effective exfoliant.
Looking about the room, Asher felt isolated, alone, an outsider breathing through a one-way mirror. His shoes chafed, his collar choked, his red tie sartorial punctuation for the ache in his gut. As is his way, Asher is punctual. It is 8:55 AM, and he has five minutes to backstroke in his free mind.
He is a quizzical mannequin amongst a group of cooperative mannequins, except the other mannequins speak and move their hands as if they genuinely embrace this hive-mind gathering. They make small talk, and they act fascinated, genuinely fascinated, in the weather updates shared by Pennebaker and the reports of other mannequin children skiing or playing soccer, again by Pennebaker, with Glabus and Gayle nodding and affirming and pontificating about the economy and Ukraine. Shoemake shares the news that so and so died from such and such, and "You know his name? He was that guy on that show. No, not that show, the other one, maybe on Netflix or could have been Amazon." Twenty sets of glass eyes blink, and smooth heads nod. Tragic.
No one knows the actor's name, the show, or the network. But that is not really the point, Asher reasons, and he writes that thought down in his notebook. His notes remind him that he has value because he sees what they don't. His notes keep him sane and distract his focus from the encroaching anxiety that tells him to flee before his legs become noncompliant and his brain thickens to day-old oatmeal.
GET OUT, GET OUT, he scrawls. The static in his head quiets and recedes, and the room becomes focused. He thinks of his Dad achingly tuning the canary yellow transistor radio, the dial turned imperceptibly until he caught the signal, hooked like a large-mouth bass through sheer will and painstaking patience. The man had hands like catcher's mitts and the dexterity of a diamond cutter. Those were good times for Asher, with his Dad, in the garage, listening to the ball games, straightening the well-worn tools, and holding the flashlight for oil change after oil change and a fan belt or two. The garage smelled like exertion, like grease and metal and leather and whiskey and cigars, when Mom was at the store. Asher and his Dad were flesh and blood in that garage.
Today, Asher sits in a room that smells like disinfectant and unnatural light. Asher writes that observation in his journal and underlines unnatural light. However, it's easily vivid enough to remember later when he rewrites his notes into prose, and the midnight moon hanging about in a cloudless black blanket offers Asher a soft atta boy, just like his Dad when he zeroed in the flashlight straight and true. His pen leaks slightly, he opens and closes the journal, and a diminutive Rorschach emerges. It resembles a fallopian tube or a butterfly, perhaps a trapdoor. He imagines himself to be a butterfly, then a moth, a discouraged moth flitting its powdery wings against a pane of glass, the warbling blue jays and liberty beckoning.
The mannequins are made of fine wood, mostly poplar but some oak, from an era when tougher wood was appreciated. Over the years, each has added layer upon layer of varnish, with slight variations in tone from butternut to teak to rosewood, redwood, and ebony, the most prized for reasons incoherent but vital, as has been explained to Asher. Some, usually the most prodigious talkers, like Pennebaker, have applied a high gloss topcoat. Asher has used neither. The other mannequins resent him but never let on. Being direct is not their way. Passive ostracism is, though, and on those dreary days when it becomes too much, Asher walks into a forest and cries, the trees his kin, his original family, absolution for his original sin.
Seated at a U-shaped table, the mannequins are encamped in an architected box built by unromantic hands—efficient, drab, and unremarkable. The mannequins are certainly together, but they do not sit too close nor too far to seem weird or planned. The stench of Clorox wipes lingers, and the slick wetness evaporates in the mass-produced light. It is apparent to those paying attention, and they are not, that much of the surface area of each faux wood tabletop has not been sanitized. It's an illusion of safety that comforts the mannequins, and, of course, the nostril-burning aroma props up the lie. The real danger lurks in the plasticity of it all. No one is truly safe. But it smells safe, so the presence of coffee and mixed nuts are more significant. If it weren't secure, there would be no snacks. It would be negligent and mean-spirited to provide cashews, peanuts, almonds, caffeine, a last supper, and then bring the hammer down. Full bellies dull the senses, so the intent of the small bags of salty pleasures and black, bitter water is advertised as nourishment and thoughtfulness.
Asher wonders about the floor and ceiling and what he cannot see—are there gears, pulleys, and pistons? Who built this, really? Why would they do this? Where does their evil come from? Is this a room, benign and artful neglect aside, or is it a trash compactor, masquerading as an office space, masquerading as a coffin? Would it be murder or assisted suicide, given the prevailing circumstances, if all this ran its (un)natural course? We’d all be a Rorschach, then…and that revelation goes quickly into the notebook for safekeeping, gold dust in a small, rough sack to be weighed later.
It’s now 9 AM, and the pretend time has begun. Come to order, please.
Asher closes his notebook.
And wonders when he became a mannequin.