Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang: Volume 1, Chapter 12

3 days ago

4 min read

It was the beginning of the middle of a long night when Desiree started bashing the mustard-colored wall with a hammer. And it was in this extended middle part that her mother, Leighann, returned home from celebratory margaritas. She’d bought a taser, she announced, and was going to keep it in her purse, in a side pocket, easily accessible, not buried at the bottom. She was already comfortable in her own home again. And she walked a wavy line into the living room, and the room was glaringly and uncomfortably different.

“Desiree, why is there a hole in the wall?”

Desiree’s tied-down ponytail had become loose and erratic. Strands of wild hair continued to slip out of the hair tie that had fallen about six inches from where it started. She wiped back these loose strands with a sweaty palm. For the demo, not wanting to smash things barefoot, she’d put on the shoes she mowed the grass in (and never walked through the house in and definitely never took a picture of).

“Something’s wrong with the house,” she said, aware of the understatement as she laid the hammer on her shoulder.

“Like with the electric?” said Leighann.

Desiree tightened her ponytail and brushed whatever loose hair behind her ears.

“Just come look.”

A thick black outline marked the tall rectangle. The mustard-colored shape seemed to float in the mustard-colored wall. On every side were holes driven by Desiree’s hammer, as she searched for the studs, for screws, for the trick.

“It’s not nailed to any part of the frame. Here, press your head into the hole.”

“Is this what that rude artist painted?”

“Yes. This was the scuff that’s always been here. He painted it, too. Here, push it. Look, the studs are here and here.” Desiree pointed the head of the hammer at exposed beams on the left and right.

Leighann pressed her full palm on the outlined rectangle. She leaned into it, thumped her palm on it. She put her other hand on the same spot and pushed with all her weight and strength, her flats slipping on the fake wood floor.

Sudden sobriety washed the tipsy glaze from her eyes.

“Desiree, what’s going on?”

“Press your head into the hole.”

With slow deliberation, Leighann fitted her cheek into a hole connected by a long crack to the left side of the black outline. The hole itself had been bashed to the fit of Desiree’s cheek for this same spying purpose. Although it was dark, there was nothing obviously connecting the square to anything inside the wall.

A silver blade drove through the black outline and Leighann, gasping, jumped away and cursed her daughter. Meanwhile, Desiree guided a knife around the outside of the rectangle. Leighann pressed her cheek into the hole once more to see the knife complete the circuit.

“Give me that,” she said.

Desiree handed the knife to her mother.

And knife-first, Leighann stuck her arm in the cheek-hole. Unable to do this and see into the narrow space at the same time, she sliced the knife up and down and across as if to cut the magician’s thread that just had to be there.

She returned the knife to Desiree and put her head sideways in the hole, pushing on the rectangle to see if it budged.

“What is this?”

“Move your hand.” Desiree struck the square with the hammer. The strike sent vibrations through Leighann, but the wall remained stable, without a quiver, and unblemished on its face.

“This is where that lion’s mane creep came from. The one who ran you out of the house.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Desiree smashed the hammer against the wall. It bounced without a mark off the mustard paint.

“You want a swing?”

Leighann shook her head.

“Is this a prank? Is your phone set up somewhere? Are you recording us? Desiree, this isn’t funny. And you’ve destroyed our wall.”

Desiree struck the wall again.

“I can’t explain it, Mom! But this thing is floating, and that orange-headed man came through it. And he’s not the only one.”

“Then we need to cover it with something—a sheet!” Leighann went yelling off to her bedroom down the hall. “I can thread the sheet through; you can reach your hand in and try to pinch it and pull. If we work together, we can tie a knot around the back. And then if someone is walking through, it’ll be like they’re walking into the bottom of a bag! We’ll catch whoever it is in a sack.”

“I don’t think that’ll be enough.”

“Once they’re in the sack, I’ll tase them.”

Desiree let her eyelids fall slowly like a pair of tired shoulders and considered confiscating what was in the side pocket of her mother’s purse.

“They’re weird, but it doesn’t seem like they want to harm us. Everyone that’s come through has left a gift.”

When Leighann returned with a blue sheet, Desiree guided her to the gold plate on the coffee table and its offering of the ring, the jar, the harmonica, and the pen.

“This, too.”

Desiree handed her mother the large gold coin.

Leighann turned it over in search of a purity stamp. There was no clear image or writing etched on either side. No karat, weight, or mint. Heads and tails were both composed of abstract shapes and textures. She ran her thumb over the grit. Embedded in the gold were smooth, dull, green and red gems. She weighed its heaviness. Her hands seemed attuned to measuring the density of precious metals. An inspection that included biting it like an Olympic athlete (a tequila-inspired measure) before she put the coin on the gold plate and took up the spiral ring. She held it to the light and rotated it; its intense firework sparkle dimmed the relative glimmer of her real diamond earrings, and Leighann dropped the bedsheet.

“Desiree,” she said, “I know my jewelry. If these aren’t real, I’ll buy that ugly painting you like so much—the one with all the shapes you kept trying to get me on board with when we first decorated—I’ll buy it and hang it on the wall myself.”

Next week on Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang, Desiree and Leighann try on new jewelry and shoes. Are these supposed to be gifts or bribes? And is there something more attached to these objects besides their beauty? Find out October 26.