I thought on and on.
How would one describe the girl now, as she was inside the box? It was like she was there, only she wasn’t; or like she wasn’t, except that she was. Or maybe she occupied an indeterminate state of being, both there and not there, in exactly equal amounts.
I thought and thought, nudging the outer skin on the ground with the tip of my foot.
I thought until, unable to stand it any more, I rushed home, grabbed a sledgehammer, retraced my steps, and smashed the box open.
There, in the shattered box, lay the girl. As I had feared, she was in pieces, completely destroyed. Heartbroken, I started to sob. Why did I smash the box? I thought bitterly. But how could I have stopped myself?
How could anyone endure such a state, of having someone there and not there—not there and there—at the same time?
Deeply indignant at this quandary of quantum physics, I cried and cried.
As I collided with the man, several moles fell out of the front of his jacket.
“Oh, bother! Bother!” the man said, desperately trying to rake them together with his hands.
I walked on by, pretending I hadn’t noticed. Nothing good ever comes of getting caught up with people you meet in the night.
“Hey, wait! Wait!” the man yelled.
He appeared to be chasing the moles, going round in circles, but I didn’t look back and walked off as quickly as I could.
I walked just until he was out of earshot, and then I stopped. He did not appear to be following me. I waited a while, but there was not a single sign of him. I waited a few more minutes. Not the slightest sound. I could see the moon, high up in the sky, and I could feel the breeze gently caressing my skin, but nothing of what I was expecting might happen was happening.
Disappointed, I retraced my steps.
But, as the saying goes, seek too keenly, and ye shall never find. Sure enough, as far back along the path as I went, I could find no trace of him. Occasionally, though, I would catch sight of the odd mole dawdling about, so I continued back along the path, using these sightings as beacons.
I must have walked on a bit too single-mindedly, for the next thing I knew, I was on a path that seemed unfamiliar. There came a slow, lilting melody. I listened to its strains, and felt drowsy. I won’t listen, I won’t listen, I told myself, but the music seemed to pour into my ears of its own accord, producing a feeling now of utter physical and spiritual tranquillity.
In that state, I stretched myself out on the path. I could detect a faint warmth in the earth, left over from the day. Ah, I’m falling asleep, I thought. But the next moment, I was being rudely roused by the man.
“You transverse piece of lowlife!” he yelled.
I leapt to my feet.
“You think you can get away with such lopsided logic?”
Astounded, I stared at him.
The insults continued.
“Don’t you have any triangular consciousness at all?”
“You’re a pest! A quadri-transmogrifying pest!”
“I’ve a good mind to break you, fold you, then turn you upside-down and shake you. Then drop you in a pot!”
I was so blown back by the force of his words I couldn’t reply, but then he stopped abruptly. Looking closely at him, I saw his face resembled a mole’s. Actually, “resembled” was not the word: he was a mole. Struggling to conceal the moles packed down his jacket, Moley-Man resumed his invective.
“Two days ago, it would have been the Great Depression for you, oh yes, that’s for sure!”
“And a ding-dong, sing-song, plinkety-plunk: You better watch out! Hey Hey Hey… Pop!”
This was all getting difficult to make sense of. Oh well, he was a mole—what could I expect? I decided to keep silent and wait for him to finish. Evidently thinking me intimidated, he gradually got calmer. Finally, he just stood there, breathing short quick breaths.
He came up to me, now panting heavily.
I looked up in fright, and saw he was just about to put his hands on my shoulders. He brought his snout close to my face, sniffing and snuffling, with little whiny sounds. He sniffed again, carefully. When he had sniffed his fill, his expression suddenly softened:
“Well, hello!” Then: “That was a little rude of me. Heh, heh! Do excuse me. Got a little on edge for a moment there…”
He seemed to have made a complete U-turn.
“Come now. Let’s be friends,” he said.
He put out a paw. The back of it was as black as coal, and he had long, strong claws. I shook it, and stole a glance, and saw he was blinking repeatedly, nervously.
I told myself firmly: Do not let down your guard.
“Do you have any hobbies?”
“How’s business these days?”
“Do you know any nice cafes round here?”
His questions came thick and fast. Answering in what I hoped was the least objectionable way possible, I stole more glances, trying to suss out the situation.
Without intending to be, we were back on the familiar path: I could hear the strains of that same melody. I told myself to keep my wits about me, but when that tune found its way into my ears, something inside me fell apart.
By the time he asked me, “What do you feel is the most important quality in a man?” I was filled with a feeling of such recklessness, I was ready to throw caution to the winds. My mouth was itching to say it.
I said it in a low voice.
He didn’t appear to have heard me. “What’s that?” he asked, loudly.
“That he’s loaded. Loaded with moles…”
As soon as I uttered the words, the moles stuffed down his jacket burst out, tumbling onto the path.
The man clutched his fists.
“Loaded with moles?…” He was shaking all over.
The moles poured forth in a continuous stream, falling on top of each other at our feet. The ground was teeming with them. The moles filled the night with their eloquent, scrabbling sounds.
For a while, I just cried, as I gathered together the bits of the girl. But since nothing would be accomplished by crying, I decided I would take the bits to the Boss.
As I got closer to the Boss, I could hear a steady, continuous noise, which got louder and louder. It was a huge windmill, whose blades were going round and round, whirring. The windmill was located behind the throne where the Boss sat. It was pulling in the night, stirring it around.
Sucked in and turned around by the blades, the night at first flows smoothly, but then it starts to take on a denser consistency. Already the night was nearly halfway through its course, so a good portion of it had hardened. Because of this, as I walked through it, it gave me none of the easy, buoyant feeling you get in the early-evening hours. Something about it seemed creaky. But that was, in its own way, typical of the night too.
“I’d like to request a replay,” I said, dropping to the ground on my knees and bowing my head low.
“A replay, you say?” the Boss replied, narrowing his eyes.
The Boss’s body sank low in the throne. He was not a very big Boss. The enormous blue jewel in the sceptre he was holding sparkled brightly.
“It is my humble understanding that the Boss possesses the power to bring about a replay, and that is why…” I bowed again, very low, head to the ground.
But before I could raise my head, he growled:
“Request refused.”
“What?”
“Why would I want to do that, for a girl!”