Once upon a time there were two little kids named Sarah and Mack and they were best friends.  They’d known each other since they were three weeks old and they played together almost every day.  Their moms were best friends, too, and they both had curly brown hair.  All of Sarah and Mack’s playmates at their preschool couldn’t tell their moms apart.  Also, both of their dads played guitar and they had younger siblings who were the same age.  Next year, Sarah and Mack were going to go to kindergarten together.

One day, Mack and Sarah were playing at Mack’s house.  They had just finished lunch and they were arguing because Sarah didn’t like the way Mack leaned all the way over his bowl when he ate his cereal.  Mack said that Sarah was stupid because she always spilled food on herself because she didn’t lean over her bowl.  Mack’s mom said that they needed to do something more constructive and would they like to wash the walls in the bathroom?

Mack and Sarah got big yellow sponges and went into the bathroom.  Sarah started sponging the walls and Mack closed the door and wiped it down.  Then he got soap and put suds on the door handle, too, so that it was nice and clean.  Wouldn’t it be silly, he thought, if  he locked the door and he and Sarah couldn’t get out?  He locked the door.

“Look, Sarah!”  He said.  “I locked the door.  Now we can’t get out.”  

“Yes we can,” she said, “You can just unlock it.”  But she was secretly concerned, so she put down her yellow sponge and tried to turn the lock the other way.  It was too slippery.  “I can’t unlock it,” she whined.  She rattled the handle, but it wouldn’t open.  She dried her hands and tried again, but the door still wouldn’t budge.  

“You’re so stupid, Mack!”  She said.  “I hate you.  Now we’ll never be able to get out and we’ll be trapped in here forever.”

Mack grinned at her.  It was funny how Sarah got upset so easily.   He loved it.  He knew that his mom would get them out.  He snickered at Sarah and sat down on the rim of the bathtub.  

“Haha we’re trapped and now we’ll never get out and we’ll have to live in here forever,”  he taunted her.  He hoped his mom would hurry up and let them out soon, because he was secretly getting a little nervous.  

Sarah yelled for Mack’s mom, but she was outside gardening, so she didn’t hear.  Sarah and Mack tried to dry the door handle, but the soap wouldn’t come off.    Mack’s mom had forgotten about them.  

One day, many months later she had to use the bathroom, and was surprised when the handle wouldn’t turn.  She fetched a screwdriver and removed the handle.  She found Sarah and Mack inside.  They were very hungry and very upset, but they were happy to finally be out.  Mack’s mom gave them cereal and they didn’t argue once about how to eat it.  Then Sarah went back home and her mom was so happy to see her.  She had just been thinking that morning  that she should call Mack’s mom and see if she’d left Sarah at Mack’s house.

wa 7 draft 1

Once upon a time there were two little kids named Sarah and Mack and they were best friends.  They’d known each other since they were three weeks old and they played together almost every day.  Their moms were best friends, too, and they both had curly brown hair.  All of Sarah and Mack’s friends at their preschool couldn’t tell their moms apart.  Both of their dads played guitar and they had younger siblings who were the same age.  Next year, they were going to go to kindergarten together.

One day, Mack and Sarah were playing at Mack’s house.  They had just finished lunch and they were arguing because Sarah didn’t like the way Mack leaned all the way over his bowl when he ate his cereal.  Mack said that Sarah was stupid because she always spilled food on herself because she didn’t lean over her bowl.  Mack’s mom said that they needed to do something more constructive and would they like to wash the walls in the bathroom?

Mack and Sarah got big yellow sponges and went into the bathroom.  Sarah started sponging the walls and Mack closed the door and wiped it down.  Then he got soap and put suds on the door handle, too, so that it was nice and clean.  Wouldn’t it be silly, he thought, if  he locked the door and he and Sarah couldn’t get out?  He locked the door.

“Look, Sarah!”  He said.  “I locked the door.  Now we can’t get out.”  

“Yes we can,” she said, “You can just unlock it.”  But she was secretly concerned, so she put down her yellow sponge and tried to turn the lock the other way, but it was too slippery.  “I can’t unlock it,” she whined.  She rattled the handle, but it wouldn’t open.  She dried her hands and tried again, but the door wouldn’t budge.  

“You’re so stupid, Mack!”  She said.  “I hate you.  Now we’ll never be able to get out and we’ll be trapped in here forever.”

Mack grinned at her.  It was funny how Sarah got upset so easily.   He loved it.  He knew that his mom could get them out.  He snickered at Sarah and sat down on the rim of the bathtub.  “Haha we’re trapped and now we’ll never get out and we’ll have to live in here forever,”  he taunted her.  He hoped his mom would hurry up and let them out soon, because he was secretly getting a little nervous.  

Sarah yelled for Mack’s mom, but she was outside gardening, so she didn’t hear.  Sarah and Mack tried to dry the door handle, but the soap wouldn’t come off.    Mack’s mom had forgotten about them.  One day, many months later she had to use the bathroom, and was surprised when the handle wouldn’t turn.  She fetched a screwdriver and removed the handle.  She found Sarah and Mack inside.  They were very hungry and very upset, but they were very happy to finally be out.  Mack’s mom gave them ceral and they didn’t argue once about how to eat it.  Then Sarah went back home and her mom was so happy to see her, because she had just been thinking that morning  that she should call Mack’s mom and see if Sarah was still at Mack’s house.

wa7 draft 2

I’ve been working for the NYPD for ten years, ever since I was a green twenty five year old.  I’ve been a plainclothesman seven years, and I even worked a stint as a homicide detective, so I’ve seen some pretty strange things.  But there are things that you never expect to see, and even when they’re happening you can’t believe it.

I met Tim McSullen the first day on the job.  He was the ruddy, reclusive cop by the soda machine, addicted to Coca Cola like no other.  It was impressive how many of those he’d finish during a beat.  I’ve seen him shoot a guy while downing a can.  My buddy, Al, and I used to say that if there was one cop who was gonna lose it and probably shoot one of his coworkers, it was McSullen.

On Friday, the 23rd of November, ‘07, there was a big time dealer that got busted and a bunch of us were called in to help out.  We were pretty preoccupied with all the questioning and filing and trying to get other guys’ names.  So it wasn’t much of a surprise that nobody much noticed the strange creature that McSullen found in the dealer’s apartment and smuggled into his cruiser.  Nobody noticed then, but it’s on the security cameras.

About two days later someone noticed that McSullen was missing.  He hadn’t shown up for work, and when we called his cell he didn’t pick up.  This is the guy who worked without more than five sick days for the last fifteen years.  We figured something was up, so my buddy Al and I went over to his apartment on the lower West side.  Ratty place, graffiti on the stairwell, the whole number, and about a gazillion crumpled Cola cans in the recycling bin by the curb.  Taking this as confirmation of our coworkers place of habitation, we entered the building and ascended the four flights of stairs to the door titled McSullen.  Knocked twice, no answer.  Knocked again, nothing.  Now Al starts freaking out, says he’s worried McSullen’s lying inside dead.  Mostly Al was acting crazy because he has low blood sugar and he skipped lunch.  Always a bad situation for a guy with a major weapon on his belt.  So Al goes and busts down the door.  

We go inside and find McSullen in there all right.  And he’s got an elf with him.  Maybe not an elf, more like a goblin.  Real big jowls, about three feet, green eyes, crazy little thing.  McSullen instantly throws a blanket over the thing and tries to act real nonchalant, so we say, Hey, McSullen, why is there a mythical creature under the blanket.  Turns out this is some crazy goblin guy that the dealer bred and McSullen has high hopes to breed it and sell the new species.  Then the thing snarls and rips through the blanket and suddenly we see these metal claws.  I draw my gun and it leaps at me, tearing off my left arm with its steel teeth.  It sprints past me out of the apartment, and McSullen runs after it.  Al and I chase them out to the street and raise our guns to fire, expecting McSullen to do the same.  Then the crazy guy does what I’d always predicted: he points his gun at us and is about to fire...When the goblin shrinks into the sidewalk, turning into a flowery weed between two old tires.  

wa 7 draft 1

I’ve been working for the NYPD for ten years, ever since I was a green twenty five year old.  I’ve been a plainclothesman seven years, and I even worked a stint as a homicide detective, so I’ve seen some pretty strange things.  But there are things that you just never imagine you’d come across in a million years and even when they’re happening you can’t believe it.

I met Tim McSullen the first day on the job.  He was the ruddy, reclusive cop by the soda machine, addicted to Coca Cola like no other.  It was impressive how many of those he’d finish during a beat.  I’ve seen him shoot a guy while downing a can.  My buddy, Al, and I used to say that if there was one cop who was gonna lose it and probably shoot one of his coworkers, it was McSullen.

On Friday, the 23rd of November, ‘07, there was a big time dealer that got busted and a bunch of us were called in to help out.  We were pretty preoccupied with all the questioning and filing and trying to get other guys’ names.  So it wasn’t much of a surprise that nobody much noticed the strange creature that McSullen found in the dealers apartment and smuggled into his cruiser.  Nobody noticed then, but it’s on the security cameras.

About two days later someone noticed that McSullen was missing.  He hadn’t shown up for work, and when we called his cell he didn’t pick up.  This is the guy who worked without more than five sick days for the last fifteen years.  We figured something was up, so my buddy Al and I went over to his apartment on the lower West side.  Ratty place, graffiti on the stairwell, the whole number, and about a gazillion crumpled Cola cans in the recycling bin by the curb.  Taking this as confirmation of our coworkers place of habitation, we entered the building and ascended the four flights of stairs to the door titled McSullen.  Knocked twice, no answer.  Knocked again, nothing.  Now Al starts freaking out, says he’s worried McSullen’s lying inside dead.  Mostly Al was acting crazy because he has low blood sugar and he skipped lunch.  Always a bad situation for a guy with a major weapon on his belt.  So Al goes and busts down the door.  

We go inside and find McSullen in there all right.  And he’s got an elf with him.  Maybe not an elf, more like a goblin.  Real big jowls, about three feet, green eyes, crazy little thing.  McSullen instantly throws a blanket over the thing and tries to act real nonchalant, so we say, Hey, McSullen, why is there a mythical creature under the blanket.  Turns out this is some crazy goblin guy that the dealer bred and McSullen has high hopes to breed it and sell the new species.  Then the thing snarls and rips through the blanket and suddenly we see these metal claws.  I draw my gun and it leaps at me, tearing off my left arm with its steel teeth.  It sprints past me out of the apartment, and McSullen runs after it.  Al and I chase them out to the street and raise our guns to fire, expecting McSullen to do the same.  Then the crazy guy does what I’d always predicted: he points his gun at us and is about to fire...When the goblin shrinks into the sidewalk, turning into a flowery weed between two old tires.  

wedding draft 3

Liam and I were eating dinner at our favorite dumpling shop when he proposed.  The streets were frosted with sparkly ice.  The wind was slippery and had jewel drop flakes that melted on smells of spicy pork and slurpy tamari sesame noodles.  The walls were red and the tablecloth was black paper.  I looked at Liam’s frosty cheeks and dew coated eyelashes.  I said I’d have to think about it for a couple days.  Five minutes later I said yes.

I gleamed promisingly as he unlatched the lid of my velvet case.  He sucked in his breath, admiring my golden curves and the tantalizing sparkle of happily ever after that I stood for.  The saleslady, Estella, who always secretly changed from her heels into pink crocs as soon as her boss left, snapped the lid of my box closed and rang me up. 

I found a silk turban in a thrift shop and I laced it with glitter and silk flowers to wrap around my hair for the ceremony.  Our friend, Brett, lent Liam a kimono that his girlfriend had bought him.  They’d split up and he didn’t want it anymore.  We went to the nearest mall and took sloppy photobooth pictures and glued halos of fairy dust and calligraphied the details around our laughing faces and sent them off as wedding invitations.  

The toothbrush was stiff bristled and plastic pink.  It spoke to me.  Iwent to the drugstore on the corner but the saleslady wearing yellow crocs said toothbrushes were nonreturnable and smirked.  The snow was coming down as through a sifter and I went home and made a rose tinted cake.  The toothbrush talked to me while I worked.    

I showed it to Liam when he came home from his art class.  The toothbrush told us stories about its travels through the mountains in China.  It told us of its past lives.  It had been a penguin last.  It offered to grant us one wish.

April rolled around and Liam and I couldn’t decide what our wish would be. 

On April 16th I was finally removed from my drawer.  Chester, the pink ringbearer placed me in the middle of the silky pillow on which I was to wait.  It was a misty spring afternoon, and I relished the delicate scent of wet flower petals and pollen.  

Chester was a pest with a soft side for the deviled eggs that had been arranged as appetizers on the picnic tables.  He was gorging himself when a pin striped fellow wearing a beautiful emerald brooch approached him.  I leaned towards the edge of my pillow, trying to get a better view of the lovely jewel, but at the same time, Chester reached for another egg and I plummeted into a foamy cloud of yolk.  From my fluffly bed, I heard the gentleman chide the boy for not being in place yet.  The boy muttered something indignantly, but dutifully shuffled off.  The last thing I saw as I was lifted high into the air and swallowed whole was the hand which bore me.  It was cuffed in a sleeve of pink pin stripe.

It was spring and while our friends  in the backyard, I walked down the aisle to Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.  Liam waited for me in a shiny bubble at the end.  His freckle-glossed nephew, Chester, held out the ring cushion...It was empty.  

Chester shuffled and looked at the egg yolk sun.  I slipped the toothbrush out of the sash of my sunflower dress and placed it on the pillow.  We both took one end of the toothbrush and closed our eyes and wished.  The toothbrush sang and leapt into the air like a baton, raining a dolphin of wishes and magic on all of our guests.  It shimmied in the glowing air, and glided to the hand of a man in a pink pin striped suit with a glassy faceted emerald brooch.  He twirled it, and grinning crazily, slowly sunk into the ground.  A tiny winking pink flower bloomed where he had stood.

wedding draft 2

Liam and I were eating dinner at our favorite dumpling shop when he proposed.  The streets were frosted with sparkly ice.  The wind was slippery and had jewel drop flakes.  I was eating spicy pork and he was slurping down sesame noodles with extra tamari.  The walls were red and the tablecloth was black paper.  I looked at Liam’s frosty cheeks and dew coated eyelashes.  I said I’d have to think about it for a couple days.  Five minutes later I said yes.

I found a silk turban in a thrift shop and I laced it with glitter and silk flowers to wrap around my hair for the ceremony.  Our friend, Brett, lent Liam a kimono that his Japanese girlfriend had bought him.  They’d split up and he didn’t want it anymore.  We went to the nearest mall and took sloppy photobooth pictures and glued halos of fairy dust and calligraphied the details around our laughing faces and sent them off as wedding invitations.  

The toothbrush was normal and plastic pink.  It had stiff bristles and it spoke to me.  I tried to take it back to the drugstore on the corner but the saleslady wearing yellow crocs said toothbrushes were nonreturnable and smirked.  The snow was coming down as through a sifter and I went home and made a rose tinted cake.  The toothbrush talked to me while I worked.    

I showed it to Liam when he came home from his art class.  The toothbrush told us stories about its travels through the mountains in China.  It told us of its past lives.  It had been a penguin last.  It offered to grant us one wish.

The next day Liam and I fought about what to wish for as the snow dusted the world outside.  I took the genie brush and ran.  We hid in a pizzeria where my friend Ollie worked for two days. We ate poppy red pizzas and drank root beer and then we went back to Liam.

April rolled around.  Liam and I discussed what our wish would be.  It was spring and while our friends  in the backyard, I walked down the aisle to Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.  Liam waited for me in a shiny bubble at the end.  His freckle-glossed nephew, Chester, held out the ring cushion...It was empty.  

Chester shuffled and looked at the egg yolk sun.  I slipped the toothbrush out of the sash of my sunflower dress and placed it on the pillow.  We both took one end of the toothbrush and closed our eyes and wished.  And the toothbrush shrieked and sang and leapt into the air like a baton, raining a dolphin of wishes and magic on all of our guests.  It grew pink shoots and shimmied in the glowing air.  And through the balloons and mist, I saw a man in a pink pin striped suit with a glassy faceted emerald brooch grin crazily and slowly sink into the ground.  A tiny winking flower bloomed where he had stood.

wedding draft 1

I gleamed promisingly as he unlatched the lid of my velvet case.  He sucked in his breath, admiring my golden curves and the tantalizing sparkle of happily ever after that I stood for.  A soft, strangled noise escaped his throat at the sight of my price tag, but he quickly recovered, masking it as a whistle.  The saleslady, Estella, who always secretly changed from her heels into pink crocs as soon as her boss left, snapped the lid of my box closed.  It would be the last time I saw her.

I sat in the bottom of his sock drawer and twiddled my metaphorical thumbs.  Once, I heard raised voices and the slam of a heavy door.  He came into the room and flicked open my box.  I shone radiantly, and he watched me for a moment before gingerly closing the lid.  He placed me back in his drawer, between his wool hiking socks that had holes in two of the toes. 

On April 16th I was finally removed from my socky prison and taken from my box.  A pink boy named Chester clumsily helped the groom attach me to the silky pillow on which I was to wait.  It was a misty spring afternoon, and I relished the delicate scent of wet flower petals and pollen.  As I peered about, I noticed that guests were mulling happily, drinks in hand, on a lawn!  Where was the church?  I had always dreamed of a proper wedding, a church with marble pillars, and champagne flutes.  Where were the pews, the organs?  What kind of a ring did they think I was?

Chester was a real pest.  He had a soft side for the deviled eggs that had been arranged on the surrounding picnic tables as appetizers.  He was on his fifth when a pin striped fellow wearing a beautiful emerald brooch approached him.  I leaned towards the edge of my pillow, trying to get a better view of the lovely jewel.  It was Sariah!  She had been sold just a month after I arrived, but not before I had fallen madly in love with her.  I needed to talk to her, to see her.  She was looking the other way, staring at the guests absentmindedly.  She was perfect, shiny, radiant.  I needed to get her attention.  I slipped to the end of my pillow, trying to catch her eye, but at the same time, Chester reached for his sixth egg.  His hand dipped low, and I plummeted into a foamy cloud of egg.  From my yolky bed, I heard the gentleman that was wearing Sariah chide the boy for not being in place yet.  The boy muttered something indignantly, but complied, dutifully shuffling off.  The last thing I saw as I was lifted high into the air and swallowed whole was the hand which bore me.  It was cuffed in a sleeve of pink pin stripe.