The Couch Says Ouch

E and T were trying to read a Spanish book, when suddenly E said: "I know what game we can play!! A game where we speak Spanish! Tu eres a bajo!!"  E means to say: "You are going down!" but something gets lost in the translations.

E and T begin chasing each other around the couch in the living room.

E throws a pillow at T and she says: "Ugh!  You got me!"
T throws a pillow at E and he ducks and says: "You missed!!"

The pillow hits the couch with great force.  Suddenly, a voice says: "OUCH!"

E and T freeze.

"Who said that?" she says, in her frightened Scooby Doo voice.
"It wasn't me.  And it wasn't you." said E.

"It was I!!" said the Couch.  "I said OUCH!! And I'm not going to take this lying down!"

The Spanish Letters: Parts 1 & 2

5/21/13, Tuesday:

Lo siento, pero tuve que salir temprano hoy.

Hay una puerta de magia en la cocina, debajo de la ventana.

Abrirlo.

Va a encontrar un tesoro.

Sinceramente, su compañero de cuarto,

PS ¿Qué crees que es la historia del tesoro?

==
I am sorry but I had to leave early today.

There is a magic door in the kitchen, under the window.

Open it.

You will find a treasure.

Sincerely,  Your Roommate,

PS What do you think is the story about the treasure?

==
Miercoles, Mayo 22, 2013
Querido E,


Hay cuatro piezas del tesoro.

Y hay cuatro piezas de la historia.

La primera parte tiene que ver con el capitán del barco pirata español.

El segundo tiene que ver con un poco de chico listo que era un polizón.

La tercera tiene que ver con un loro.

La cuarta tiene que ver con una reina generosa.

Sinceramente, su compañero de cuarto,

PS ¿Qué crees que pasó?
==

There are four pieces of the treasure.

And there are four pieces of the story.

The first piece has to do with the Captain of the Spanish Pirate Ship.

The second has to do with a Smart Little Boy who was a Stowaway.

The third has to do with a parrot.

The fourth has to do with a generous queen.

Sincerely,  Your Roommate,

PS What do you think happened?

How He Became the Invisible Man

Prince Charming was out of work.

This happens to them regularly.  It's the downside of being successful in this line of work.  You find the fair maiden, slay the dragon, complete the quest.  And then you have nothing to do.

This "Happily ever after" business is strict bullshit.  Being happy full time is BORING.

So, he's out of work, wandering around, hoping to do SOMETHING vaguely related to his line of work (maybe he has lots of student loans that he's gonna have to pay back in a few months, whether he's working as a Knight or as a Busboy, so he should stick with the Knight track if he can).

Walking down the street, in a strange neighborhood, he emerges from the subway and notices that nobody is talking to him.  Nobody is seeing him, even. He is suddenly rendered invisible.

Before, he was certainly the normal type of neurotic (especially as a teenager) who was convinced that EVERYONE was looking at him.  Now, he had a distinct sense that he could travel through the busiest streets, the most crowded cities, even looking people in the eyes, and NO ONE would see him.

At first, it was quite freeing.  He scared himself enough times that he wanted to figure out how to reverse the spell.  Easy.  As with many things in his capitalist society, all he had to do was pull money out of his pocket.  Engage in some kind of transaction.  I consume, therefore, I am.

And when he didn't buy anything, he could go for hours being alone & invisible.

Certainly, there were days when he didn't leave his apartment.  And the damsel whom he had married always seemed to see him when they were home.  Most of the time. (But even that he questioned, sometimes).

Mostly, he was happy to curl into a ball, to hide, to walk among the living without being bothered.  Now and then he would get lonely, and want to be seen for something other than a consumer.  It felt like  the lowest form of life.   But often, it would be too late.  He'd talk to people, asking for conversations.  And then he'd notice other invisible people.  Trying to blend into the background.

It terrified him. Not the discovery that lots of other people knew his secret of invisibility.  But that actually being visible to other people was the real trick of magic.  And he had lost the ability to evoke it.  Like losing a language, like losing speech.

It made him want to become permanently invisible.  

What Happy Sounds Like

He awoke that morning to a Dark Place.  So Dark that any light hurt.  So he decided to stay inside as much as he could. Even Prince Charming had difficult days, and these were some of the worst.  His home was a familiar trap to him. The bed was his only place of refuge, but even that was a trap. He couldn't move inside his own body, and even if he did get up, he knew the Dragon would be waiting for him. So he pulled the covers up over his head as much as he could. But even children know this is not a way to hide from monsters.

He had to leave the apartment sometimes.  Briefly, for food. Or to move his Chariot twice a week for Alternate-Side Street Cleaning. The Enchanted Island had all sorts of magic, but not even the streets could keep themselves clean. You had to obey certain rules or you'd get a ticket. So, he got his car out of the way twice a week, and sometimes that was the only time he left his cave.

And on very lucky days, he heard singing.

It was a Lovely Sound.

One couldn’t tell exactly where it came from, the echo bounced around so that, even though it seemed crystal clear, it seemed to bounce all around.  Until you weren’t even sure if it was or was NOT coming from inside your own body.

There were notes as sweet as berries.  Words like “Love” came out sounding as if the singer were smiling.  A beautiful smile.  You could picture a locked-away princess, with only her echo to keep her company. Fragments of song were heard in the stairwell, in the hallway. He heard her songs coming out of windows. The sound was Happiness itself.

One day, when it hurt too much to move, he found himself drawn to his cave door, opening onto the hallway. She was singing, a beautiful, endless song.  Clearly this time, coming from the other end of the hallway. Never such a beautiful song before.  The kind that hurts your heart when it comes to an end. Enchanted by this sound; his curiosity overcame him.  

All he wanted to do was to touch The Happy Sound. He wanted to hold it in his hand, like a bird. Or to eat it, like an ice cream. He wanted it to hold him like a hug, or reassure him like a summer breeze.

He opened the door and began to walk down the hallway, to the unknown side, where light always seemed to be spilling in from outside, even at night.  His cave apartment was dark and damp, and every time he entered the building, he could feel himself turning away from the sun.  But this time, he walked towards the light.  Most of the apartment doors looked normal, quotidian & everyday-looking, even.  Much like his own.  When he got to the last one in the hallway, it was cracked open just a little bit, as if the sunlight itself had fingers and eyes and was wanting to peek out.

He was afraid and his heart was pounding.  The golden notes seemed to be coming from inside, but if he pushed the door open, would they stop?

The song seemed to be coming to an end.  And it stopped on its own.  Somehow, it had always started up again, as if it were a sound with a million verses.  Now his hand moved to open the door, if only to start the music up again, like a record player whose needle needs to touch down on the outside edge again.

The door moved a few inches open. There was a Girl, scrunched down, hugging her knees. On the floor of a long hallway in an apartment, much like his own, yet completely different.  If he hadn't seen her, he wouldn't have believed that she was the source. The way she looked didn't match the sound at all.


The Girl had long hair and big eyes.  In some lights and at some angles, certain times of the day, she could be considered beautiful.  But not here and not now.  Here she looked like a cleaning lady, or a babysitter. She seemed too tiny.  So weak.  As if all her breath were in the song, and without the sound, she was empty. 

Her eyes were focused away from him and looked even larger than they would normally appear, because they were shimmering with tears.  And to his surprise, she began singing again, without even noticing him.

He slowly backed away and went back to his own cave.

He wanted to talk to her.  He wanted to ask her why she was crying, but the whole idea only made him sadder.  And he was afraid to get more sad than he was already.   It was a swamp full of quicksand for him.  

He was afraid to find out that this beautiful pure thing, this lovely song, had come from a place of sadness.  A song as beautiful as that should only make people happy.  Especially someone who can sing it so well.  He wanted only  to know that the song made her happier, not sadder.

He wanted a song for himself.  That would only make people happy when they heard it.  He wanted to make a song that would make him happy.  But he knew his destiny was to fight his dragon and not make things like a tinkerer.

“Besides”, he thought, “there is no song in this world which could make me happy”.

“That’s what you think,” she thought, as the sound of his door closing echoed down the hall.

The Wand of Invisible Magic

Once upon a time, there was a Boy locked in an Impossibly Tall Tall Tower.
There was also a Girl in this story.  And she begged him to unravel his hair, to lower it down to her.  He was completely puzzled as to how he was intended to escape his imprisonment, as anything lowered down to the ground would only seem to only allow for access up.  And his hair wasn’t THAT long, after all.
But he Shrugged.  And let it fall where it may.
And was astonished to find that his locks reached the ground and made a perfect hair-ladder for her to climb.
In a flash, she was next to him.
“Here”, she said, “take this Invisible Magic Wand”
“Is this for Invisible Magic?” he asked, trying to be funny under the bleak circumstances.
“It’s for everything,” she said.  “It’s better than potions and magic spells and all the evil powers in the universe.  It can be used against all Dragons, everywhere.”
But he knew how strong his Dragons were.
He looked at her doubtfully.
“How is this supposed to help?”
“How can it not?  Look, you don’t think I climbed up to this Impossibly Tall Tall Tower on your bangs, do you?”
He shook his head and realized that his hair wasn’t really THAT long after all.  And that he was probably stuck in a dream or prolonged metaphor of some kind.
“So, all I have to do is wave this invisible stick and everything will be better?”
“Um, it doesn’t really work like that,” she said,
“Where’d it go?” he was suddenly annoyed that he had already lost his one magic tool, even though he knew that invisible things were especially easy to misplace.
“First of all, you can’t lose it.  It follows you around somehow.  IT waves at YOU.”
“Oh.”  He was still confused.  “And THEN everything will get better?”
“The Good News is that is protects you somehow.  Grants you a magic power you didn’t realize you had.  Or that you needed,”
“And the Bad News?”  For he knew there was always Bad News to counteract the Good.
“Duh!  The Bad News is that it’s Invisible!  So you forget that it’s there.  And it’s really hard to notice that any Magic power has been created or destroyed or whatever.  It’s not like there will be any fireworks,”
“So how do I know that it’s working?”  he asked, getting impatient and incredulous.
“Um, more Bad News.  You don’t.  You might be able to figure it out in hindsight, but, yeah, at the time, it’s pretty much gonna feel useless.”
“Oh brother!” he rolled his eyes. “Look, can’t you give me like a potion or something?”
She heaved a big sigh.  “Yeah, the Psychopharmacologists are working on that.  Their magic isn’t perfect either.  But maybe all these things in combination . . .” her rising intonation did little to appease his worries.  But, her magic had appeared out of nowhere, and that was better than the lack of magic.
Suddenly, he could hear his Dragon approaching.  Huge sounds of everything evil reached their ears and made them both wince.
“Uh-oh, gotta go!”  the girl said as she looked out of the window.
“You’re leaving me now??” he asked, now completely impatient and frustrated at the Girl’s well intentioned but utterly useless visit.  The Dragon’s footsteps were getting closer and closer, shaking the brick walls of the Impossibly Tall Tall Tower.  He felt the familiar shadow of Dread as the monster came nearer and nearer.
“Exactly the opposite,” she said as she looked deep into his eyes.  Suddenly he saw her shatter and burst into a million tiny words, like the firecracker she had said the Invisible Magic Wand wouldn’t turn into.  They swirled everywhere around him until they melted like magnets and formed a suit of armor, thicker than any Dragon’s tooth. Somehow the suit was still pliable and comfy, which was quite a relief to him as the Impossibly Tall Tall Tower began to crumble and he rode the wave of broken bricks and mortar into the valley.
He was wondering why that ride suddenly felt so familiar, and why the suit repelled dust so quickly and efficiently when he heard the Dragon’s growl ending in a coherent sentence.
“You are stuck with me!”  The Dragon roared, looking as mean as ever.
The Boy could take it no longer.  All the years of running and dreading finally got to him.  He decided to fight back in the most evil and fiercest persona he could conjure up. The universally dreaded Common American Teenager.
“So what?” the Boy roared back.
“Uh, so don’t think you can run away.  Because, um, you can’t!”  The Dragon stammered.
“Yeah, so?”  His newfound frustration reached a breaking point. “So, you’re just gonna keep chasing me?  Is that the idea?”
“That’s what my contract says, yeah,” The Dragon rested his fist on his hip.
“Can’t we like, come to an agreement about this, or something?  Work in a vacation or two?”  The Boy looked up through the visor on his suit of armor, still slightly afraid to raise it completely.  Not for fear of injury, but he knew the Dragon’s breath always stank to high heaven.
“Look, kid, you know we aren’t supposed to discuss the terms of The Curse!” Now the Dragon tried to fold his puny little arms in front of him.  
The Knight-Boy stifled a giggle.  “But what if we did?  I mean, this can’t be any fun for you.”
“Well, this is the only job I can get and still be a Dragon.  I’m not cute enough for the cartoons,” the giant Dragon began tearing up.  He knew that he himself was cursed on many levels. Not only did Kleenex not exist in this version of reality, but his teeny arms could not reach up past his shoulders.
Our hero suddenly summoned up even more courage than he realized he possessed.  As nonchalantly as he could, he leaned over some of the rubble and decided to ask the Scary Question.
“Hey.  Have you ever heard of an Invisible Magic Wand?”
“Shit!”  The Dragon snapped his fingers. “You got one of those?”
“Hand delivered not 10 minutes ago!”
The Dragon rolled his head back and sighed a giant sigh of exasperation.  The clouds above his head turned green from the fumes.  It was bad enough that the Boy had a new magic weapon, but the Dragon had no idea what it could be used for.  It’s kinda bad for your opponent to draw his secret weapon in the midst of battle, but WAY more embarrassing if he knows you failed the Secret Weapon Exam and calls you on it.
“Let me get back to you on that.  Okay, I don’t know what it means, but I know it’s gonna cause me a shitload of paperwork.  Can we meet back here again in another couple of weeks?”

This dance was the part of the negotiation they both knew they were lying about.  They never kept their appointments.  Which was one of the excuses the Dragon used for his anger.  He always had to chase the Boy, find him wherever he was and take him by surprise.  

But the Boy had been getting bigger and stronger.  And every time, he had been getting better and stronger tools.  And every time, the Dragon was just a little more injured, a little weaker, even though he would never let the Boy know.  But every time, the Boy had a just a little bit more Magic on his side.

9/4/12