December20

Today was the day.  Today was really the day.  Today something good would happen in the story.  They had thought that yesterday would be the day, but no.  Yesterday was the day that Manchester the elf had turned out to be a purple aardvark.

Yesterday hadn’t been a good day all around. 

Yesterday, Pete had taken a final in English where he was supposed to write an essay comparing depictions of good and evil in Lord of the Flies, and To Kill a Mockingbird.  He hated those one-question exams where everything hinged on one idea.  What if he had nothing to say about good and evil in the two books?  How could you prove everything you had learned in an entire semester with a single answer? 

Yesterday hadn’t gone well for Brittany either. Yesterday, Brittany had a fight with Renee because Ken Wilson had announced that he had been eating lunch at Brittany and Renee’s table not because he liked Renee, but because he liked Brittany.  Brittany, however, didn’t like Ken; at least she didn’t like him that way, and therefore now Ken and Renee were both mad at her.  Ken was mad at her for not liking him, because everybody liked him, and Renee was mad at her for not liking Ken because she liked him so much, and how could her best friend invalidate her feelings by not liking him at all?  Brittany hated soap opera garbage.

Today, however, would be different.  It hadn’t started off well for Pete, but it would get better.

Uncle Duane had e-mailed to announce that his e-mail and his identity had been hijacked.  Pete had asked his parents what it meant to have your e-mail hijacked, but they couldn’t answer, except to read aloud.

While it appears that no damage has been done, I am locked out of my computer, as well as my bank account and credit cards, for the time being.  

He had given very detailed instructions about when he could be reached by phone, and then he had gone on to ask that his correspondents be very vigilant about e-mail from him, because “they” might have gained access to his address list, and so his correspondents’ e-mail, and presumably their identities could be vulnerable too.  He closed by concluding that the experience had been “upsetting, and kind of scary,” which Pete figured must be the understatement of the world.  To have no access to your own computer, or to your money, and to not be sure what some stranger was doing with your name and your credit cards!  

His parents said that it was especially ironic because Uncle Duane had only consented to have a bank account a couple of years ago.  He had decided to join the modern world when he had turned seventy-five.  Before his seventy-fifth birthday he had kept his savings in wads of cash stashed all over his house, which had been amusing, because he kept forgetting where they were.  And now it turned out he had been right all along.  Wads of cash were really safer – at least for Uncle Duane.

But there was nothing Pete could do about any of it.  If Uncle Duane hadn’t sent the e-mail, Pete wouldn’t even know about the whole mess.  He was just going to put it out of his mind. 

Except for it’s bad start, today was going to be better than yesterday. 

Today, the story was going to make sense.

Today, they would understand why the elves looked like purple aardvarks. 

Although, as Brittany said, why not?  Why should he expect elves to look like little people with pointy ears, pointy hats, and big shoe buckles?  He had never seen a real live elf –  had he?

There was no good reason to expect an elf to look like what he expected an elf to look like.  No good reason at all, except for all the movies and storybooks. 

Brittany knew that there was no reason to expect typical Christmas elves, because once again, she had been on the Internet.  She hadn’t expected to find elves that in any way resembled purple aardvarks, and of course she hadn’t.  But she had wondered if maybe there was some kind of shared cultural memory of a time when there really had been elves, or elf-like beings, and she had wondered what those elves had been like. 

She rushed out to the bench on Friday morning, December 20, the last school day before the Christmas holidays, to tell Pete that if there was a collective memory of elves, or elf-like beings, it was confused, and contradictory.

“In Norse mythology,” she explained, “Elves were really good.  You could become an elf after you died, but only if you were really good in this life.”

Brittany was so comical when she went into intense research mode, Pete couldn’t help making fun of her.  “Heaven is being a diminutive, pointy-eared toy-maker?”

“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.  Elves weren’t like that in Norse mythology!” 

Part of the pleasure of making fun of Brittany was that she didn’t even know she was being mocked.  She just kept on going.

“They were ‘excessively beautiful, and potentially helpful.’  That’s a direct quote!  More like the elves in The Lord of the Rings.  They have strong magical powers, and they aren’t bound by physical limitations.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like they can walk through walls and stuff.  And there were stories where elves and humans had babies together, so they can’t have been aardvarks, because a human and an aardvark couldn’t --”

Pete cut her off there to save her the embarrassment of trying to give him a biology lesson.  “Well that’s certainly a relief.  I was afraid I was going to have to adjust my whole world view to accommodate purple-aardvark-elves.”   Pete was having so much more fun with this whole thing now that his finals were out of the way.  He wasn’t stressing any more.  In fact, he was trying another sketch of Manchester while he listened to Brittany.

“But then there were bad elves too.  People blamed them for just about everything.  Not so much in Norway, but in Iceland, and Britain, and Germany.”

“Oh good, I was worried about Norway.”

Brittany hardly noticed the interruption.  “It said they caused tangled hair, and skin rashes, and that they could even make you sick enough to die, if you made them angry.”

        “How would you make an elf angry?  You don’t play with the toy it made?”

        “Would you forget the toys, already?  The whole toy thing came much later.  With the Victorians, when people probably didn’t even really have any real contact with the elves any more at all, because of industrialization and child labor and all that.”

        Pete couldn’t believe she was actually saying this.  Real contact with elves?  As if elves actually existed, or had ever actually existed.  Elves weren’t real.  This was one thing he was absolutely certain of.  Stories about the Three Wiener Dogs Gruff may appear out of nowhere, but elves were not real.  On the other hand, he didn’t feel like arguing, so he opted for teasing instead.  “So the toy thing is bogus?”

“No toys.  Forget the toys.”  She was waving her hands in the air in a very amusing, agitated way.  “You make an elf angry by not doing what it wants.  The example I read was about this one time where the elves wanted a human to live with them but he said no because he knew that when he went back to the human world, that time would have moved on, because – and this is really cool – elves can control time too, and he was about to be married, and he didn’t want to come back and find out that his bride was an old lady.  But this elf-lady really wanted him, so she made him sick, and he died.  It says you can appease them by giving them butter, and that the German word for nightmare means elf dream.”

“That’s all very nice, but guess what, Miss Internet-Research.  I can do it too.”  Pete was very pleased with himself.  He had finally gone on the Internet and found something pertinent.  “While you were wasting your time with little pointy eared elves, I was looking up aardvarks.  Did you know that the word aardvark means earth pig?  There’s a connection to the three little pigs right there!  And did you know that even though they move really slowly, they can dig really fast?  That’s right.  Two feet in fifteen seconds.  Remember the printout from a long time ago where it said that a wiener dog is licensed to hunt both above, and below the ground.  Wouldn’t a fast-digging aardvark be a very big help?  And, you say elves can walk through walls, well did you know that indigenous magicians in West Africa make a charm from different parts of a dead aardvark?  And what do you think the charm lets them do?  That’s right.  Walk through walls.  So maybe they aren’t so different from your elves after all.  Also, they’re kind of cute.”  He showed her his sketches of Manchester.

And so, a little more educated about elves and aardvarks, in much better moods than they had been for days, ready to accept the possibility of an elf-vark, and certain that today, December 20, the story would finally begin winding its way toward some answers, Brittany and Pete opened the notebook.

December 20

“Who the !@#$# is that?”  Did those !@#$%# rabbits come back?  Close the door, already, this ain’t the Bahamas, baby!”  A man in a ratty Grateful Dead T-shirt, and red furry pants appeared.  Long white beard, bifocals.  Rotund.  He had the distinct appearance and smell of a derelict wino, wearing half of a Santa suit, and recovering from a binge financed by a short gig at a shopping-mall-picture-line.  This was no Saint Nicholas.  This was no independent Claus.

“I don’t care what universe you’re in, Santa doesn’t spout profanity like that.  At least put some of those random character things in place of the actual words!”  The other characters looked at Akelmeyer quizzically again for a beat, and then resumed.

“You’ll have to excuse him.  We’ve all had to.  It’s the DT’s.  His latest is he sees talking rabbits spying on him.   It’s part of the problem.  We can’t get him sobered up.  The thing is, all he drinks is water.”  Manchester was visibly embarrassed by the fat man.

“Oh, give it a rest Manny.  You don’t-- I don’t -- Where did those dogs come from?  What the-- Oh.  Hoo, boy.  I gotta sit down.”  With that the old man collapsed into a nearby recliner.

Fred cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry we don’t have time for proper introductions.  I don’t know if you can accept the explanation that we are the Three Wiener Dogs Gruff, intrepid adventurers and solvers of mysteries, from another dimension than your own, but perhaps you can believe that we have been sent to help you, and I am convinced that we can.  Oh, and this is Martin, the pig.”

“Well, frankly, I am open to suggestions, whoever you are.  I’ve been getting nowhere.  Santa’s stupor is only part of the problem.  The bigger problem is the labor unrest with the elves’ guild.  Lack of leadership.  That would come from me.  But, I’m no leader; I’m just a stand in.  Used to be, the elves derived their meaning through worship and service to the Goddess of Whimsy.  Having long not communed with their deity, finding her silent, they have fallen to negativity, petty bickering, and grumbling one against the other.  And moreover, they are just not making toys.”

Akelmeyer cleared his throat.  “I don’t think anyone actually says, ‘moreover.’  The author was annoyed with Akelmeyer’s bold attempt at co-authorship.  “Knock it off,” he said.

Fred asked, “Did you hear that?  It sounded as if someone said, ‘Knock it off.’  It seemed as if….”

“We have to hurry, I think the whole fabric of our existence is beginning to break down.  I think I know what to do about Claus.  Deck, Martin, come with me.  Akey, you can help Manchester and the Elves.  I think you will know what to do.

Akelmeyer stood a little taller, proud that Fred trusted and placed responsibility upon him.  He did know what to do.

TO BE CONTINUED.  .  .

        Pete and Brittany stared at one another.  Maybe Akelmeyer knew what to do.  They didn’t know what to do.

        Santa was intoxicated?  Santa Claus?  Really? 

Brittany didn’t know if that was voguishly edgy, or really disturbing. 

Pete just knew it was wrong.  He wanted to be angry at whoever was writing the story.  Idiots like Jennifer, and Ilo Senza drank too much, and at the wrong time.  He could picture Santa having a cup of eggnog in the evening to wind down after hard day of supervising elves, or reindeer, or whatever it was he did all day.  Maybe even a hot-buttered rum, if he wanted to be exotic, but Santa should not drink himself silly.  There was just no excuse.  Whoever was writing the story was an idiot.  A complete idiot.

And what if there was no human author, typing away at a computer?  What if there was no one to be mad at?  What if it was real?  What if these creatures really existed somewhere? 

OK, he thought, but even if they did actually exist, someone was writing it down.  Even if it was somehow non-fiction, someone was chronicling it.  Someone was putting the words on paper for posterity.

*  *  *

I don’t know when he stopped believing in affirmations.  He was the one who taught me about affirmations, and then he stopped believing in them.

*  *  *

Pete and Brittany stared at one another.

        “This can’t be.”

        “I don’t like it either.”

        They just sat there while the busses went by.  They didn’t like it, but there was nothing they could do about it.  They could go to the Internet, and look up Santa Claus, or the Grateful Dead, but what they obviously really needed was the Goddess of Whimsy.  What was a Goddess of Whimsy, anyway?  

*   *   *

And life isn’t so perfect now either.  Yes, life with my charming old gentleman is soothing, and healing.  Last week we went dancing on the beach.  Even with his portable oxygen concentrator.  We brought an iPod with two earpieces.  We played Big Band classics, and danced at the edge of the surf. 

*   *   *

But all Pete and Brittany could do was what they really had to do, which was to go to school.  They had to go to the all-school assembly where each grade would give a Christmas performance.  They had to crowd into the main gym with every other student at the school, from Kindergarten through twelfth grade, and they had to watch the high school choir singing songs about a baby in a manger, and the littlest kids singing, and dancing wearing reindeer horns, or Santa beards.  And it would be inspirational, or cute, depending on the age and intent of the performers, but Pete and Brittany would know that it was all in jeopardy.  Because the story was in their universe now, through no fault of their own, and it might just be real.

*   *   *

And then there’s the messed up loser who followed me here.  The messed up loser who doesn’t want to let me go.  The messed up loser that I used to think was so intoxicatingly adventurous.  Turns out he was just intoxicated.

And he won’t leave me alone.  And he’s trying to hurt my kind old gentleman.

*   *   *

Brittany thought about the way Akelmeyer couldn’t seem to suspend his own disbelief.  That seemed to mean that he knew he was a character in a piece of fiction.  He knew that he was being written.  Was the story going to end with the writer appearing, and declaring them all fictional?  That would be about as unsatisfying as when a character wakes up at the end of a story and it all turns out to have been a dream.  It was good when she saw it for the first time in The Wizard of Oz because, at six years old, she hadn’t been expecting it.  By the time she read Alice in Wonderland, however, it was already old.  Now?  After all this build-up?  Twenty days of reading one page at a time?  No way.  The story absolutely could not end with an author saying it was all a story so it didn’t matter anyway. 

*   *   *

The man looked at the plastic deer that the boy would find in tomorrow’s box.  Another deer?  Seriously?  How could he work in yet another deer?  How in the world could he bring it to an end?  Purple elf-varks?  What were the purple elf-varks doing in the story?  There were no aardvark toys in the set. 

No.  The purple elf-varks had come from his own mind.  His wife used to imagine mythical aardvarks around the house, like guardian angles.  The purple and pink ones took care of them, and the green and yellow ones were clumsy, inept, and somehow endearing.  Whenever something broke, or went wrong, it was a green aardvark to blame.  Whenever a problem was solved, the solution had come from a purple aardvark whispering in their ears.

        So maybe that’s why Manchester was a purple aardvark.  Maybe he needed a purple aardvark to fix everything.  Everything certainly needed fixing, that was for darn sure.

        Of course, Akelmeyer was opening up the possibility for the man to step into the story as the author at the end.  Typing on the computer, he tried the idea on for size.

A great tearing sound shook the ceiling above them.  Mythical creatures from two mythical worlds raised their eyes to see a tassel loafer of gigantic proportions, with leather upper, and rubber sole, plunge through the ceiling.  Plaster, dust, and chunks of cement tumbled around them, as the loafer settled on the ground next to the meeting table, only to be joined by its mate.  Inside the loafers were human feet of equally gigantic proportions, attached to human legs, likewise gigantic.  The animals could only assume that the rest of a human being was attached to the legs, but they couldn’t see that far.

“I am your author,” intoned a voice from far above.  “As Akelmeyer has suspected all along, you are characters in a doomed, and poorly written story, and as such, this charade will now terminate.”

OK, how stupid was that?  He highlighted the whole section of drivel, and hit the delete key.  Lack of imagination may force him into something that stupid eventually, but not until December 24.  He had four more days to keep trying.

*   *   *   

But Brittany understood that she had to face reality eventually.  How could the wiener dogs be anything other than fiction?  Did she actually think there was another universe somewhere where wiener dogs talked, solved mysteries, and played basketball?  And even if there was, what was the likelihood that a story about their real-for-sure adventures was somehow being mysteriously sent to her and Pete?  At the very least, she had to accept that it was probably just a story, and that the author was cleverly depicting the babbling Akelmeyer as the smartest one of all.  He was the smartest, because he knew he was a fictional character, and the other characters didn’t. 

If you were looking for mystery and adventure, it was sure easy to take that one step further.  What if it was all a story?  What if she, and Pete, and her parents, and her brother, and her friend Renee – what if they were all characters in a story too?  What if some author was writing about them?  What if they weren’t real at all?  She remembered her dream about waking up from a wonderful place, and realizing that she must leave it behind.  What if it wasn’t a place she had to leave behind, but her concept of reality?  What if she didn’t exist except as an idea in some author’s head?  Did her thoughts and actions still matter?  Were they even her thoughts and actions at all, or were they merely the thoughts of some anonymous person typing away on a keyboard?  How many times had her ideas, and her very personality been deleted and revised?  What about Pete?  Could the same person be inventing her, and inventing Peter Meren at the same time?  How could that be?  She and Pete were so different?  Or were they?  They had started off different, back on November 30, when she had wanted adventure, and he had wanted logic, when she had been smart and he had been a dweeb, when she had been able to do Internet research, and he was only interested in battling aliens on the computer, and hating his little brother, but were they blurring together as the author got tired, and the story started to wind down?  Pete had looked up stuff about aardvarks on the Internet, and he hadn’t complained about Joey in days. 

What did it mean to be real?

*   *   *

Brittany woke up with a start.  Something was terribly wrong.  The wiener dogs had forgotten something important!  She looked at the clock.  The glowing red numbers said that it was 12:37 – in the morning.  She couldn’t leave the house.  She couldn’t talk to Fred, Malchisedech and Akelmeyer.  She had to talk to Pete.  She couldn’t leave the house.  She couldn’t call the Merens at 12:37 in the morning.  The glowing red number on the clock changed.  Four more glowing lines appeared, and 12:37 became 12:38.  She had to talk to Pete.  Would he still be awake battling aliens on the Internet?  If this was really a story, and they weren’t real, he would be up battling aliens on the Internet, and she could IM him.  She turned on her computer.

He was there!

Was that good, or bad?  Was it a great coincidence, or was it so conveniently coincidental that it proved that she didn’t exist?  She would just have to ask him that too, although she would rather be asking Mr. McAllister questions like that.

bweaver:  [12:40]  Help!  WDs left animals in rabbit den!

bweaver:  [12:41]  Are you there?

bweaver: [12:42]  Answer me!

bweaver: [12:43] Do we really exist?

bweaver: [12:44]  Are we figments of an author’s imagination?

bweaver: [12:45] Do you have any idea how long I’m sitting here waiting for your answers?

bweaver: [12:46]  Do you have any idea how long a minute is?

pmeren [12:50] Dude!  Chill out!

bweaver:  [12:50]  Chill out?  I’m having a crisis!

pmeren [12:51] alien onslaught.  Brb

         Brittany paced the living room, keeping her eyes on the computer screen at all times.  Alien onslaught!  Who cared about a stupid online alien onslaught?  It wasn’t real!  How could an otherwise more-or-less sensible person, a devoted-to-logic kind of person like Peter Meren, ignore real life in favor of a computer generated alien onslaught? 

Oh, but it wasn’t computer generated, he would say.  The aliens were other users playing the MPP game.  Other idiot users who had no life, and thought their stupid. . . 

pmeren  [12:59]  OK I’m back.  Animals still in rabbit den.  Check.

bweaver: [1:00] Rabbits said that would be really bad!  They have to be moved!

pmeren [1:03] you going to move them?

bweaver: [1:04] shouldn’t we at least worry?

pmeren [1:06] (sigh)why should they be moved again?

bweaver: [1:07] sleeping pear magic only lasts 48 hours

bweaver: [1:10] You still with me?

pmeren [1:11] sorry got distracted.  48 hours.  48 of their hours.  Not ours.

bweaver: [1:12] oh.  Right.  I guess that makes sense.  Like Narnia.

pmeren [1:13] whatever.  Can I go now?  Big battle coming up.

bweaver: [1:14] it’s just that I’m wondering if we really exist, or if we’re really fictional characters like Akelmeyer.

pmeren [1:18] OMG I don’t believe this!  It’s the middle of the night and you’re awake wondering if you really exist?

pmeren [1:19] Do you have any idea how stupid that is?

pmeren [1:20] It’s like the if the tree falls in the forest thing, or the sound of one hand clapping thing.  Do we really exist? Are we fictional characters?

pmeren [1:22] Go to sleep!!! Or grow up!!!  Nobody really worries about that kind of stuff.

pmeren [1:23] gonna go battle aliens now.  Goodnight!

bweaver: [1:24]  Thanks.  I think I can sleep now.