Paper and
Plastic
A child creates a tower from multi-colored
Lego blocks. Yellow, black, red, white, blue,
assorted other color bricks: a rainbow
monolith
standing straight,
solid.
The child folds an
airplane from brown hand-writing
paper that they gave out in school. The wings: uneven,
the left bigger than the right.
Simulated
engine noise: lips buzzing together, creating
noise like a
dragonfly's wings, the paper strikes plastic.
"BAM!" the child yells, scaring
Mother in the kitchen,
who bakes cookies with
U.S. flags drawn with icing.
Child breaks the tower where the airplane struck,
a
brick transforms into a man in imagination, heading
down,
slow motion, guided by the child's fingers.
"Oh GOD! OH GOD!" yelling again, in another voice,
deeper. A foot above the ground, the child lets go;
the brick falls without
ceremony but with a narrated "Splat!"
The child surveys the
destruction, picks up the blocks,
placing them back in the bucket with solemninity;
missing only one behind the
La-Z-Boy, which
Mother
will step on while carrying a tray of cookies, their brown
moist goodness covered with stars and stripes, betrayed
and made to fall by their cousins, and eaten by the
dog.