Cheryl is in the library. She is folding a large sheet of paper.<\/p>\n
Tom is standing behind her.<\/p>\n
Cheryl stares at the paper. She has made flowers seem to rise from it, paper gardens; a river of paper water; trees that hang low with fruit; the Nandavana Gardens, this, where Buddha was given forth, only, the more she attempts to make a paper saint, the more she fails.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should come forth,\u201d she says, \u201cthus!\u201d<\/p>\n
She gestures at the gardens.<\/p>\n
\u201cFalling into the silver net of the four angels; taking four paper strides,\u201d she says, \u201cand crying out, \u2018the lord am I in all this world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan it cry out?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is to be a pop-up Buddha,\u201d she explains. \u201cOnly \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how I fold it,\u201d she says, \u201cI cannot make a paper that sees through the wheel of Samsara. It is bound into the cycle of karma. Inextricable \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
She crumples half the paper gardens in her frustrated fists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really very good,\u201d admires Tom.<\/p>\n
She lowers her head onto an exquisite floating raft. She cries and soaks the river with her tears. \u201cYou\u2019re just saying that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Tom is appalled by this statement.<\/p>\n
\u201c. . . no,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
She snorts.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen,\u201d says Tom. He reaches for her hand. He enfolds it with his own. \u201cListen. I myself, I, Tom Friedman, science adventurer <\/i>\u2014 I could do no better. Make a paper Buddha? It transcends my ambitions! The most I\u2019ve ever dreamed of is to save the world from its petty pointlessness and to conquer time and space.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sniffles. She tugs at the hand he holds. She dries her eyes with her free hand and folds the tears back out of the paper river. She looks at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a carbon-neutral fashion,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, one that does not contribute to the warming of the Earth. Because I\u2019m totally not a ophidian planet-inheritor from the species that\u2019s going to supplant humanity. I\u2019m like that. Only, not!\u201d<\/p>\n
Suspicion grows. He is a suspicious character.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to try and take down Satan while he\u2019s off in Andromeda or whatever,\u201d argues Tom.<\/p>\n
She tugs at her hand some more. \u201cLet go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He releases her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is wrong-headed and perverse to try to take down Satan,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a concept<\/i>,\u201d Cheryl says. \u201cBesides, you\u2019d totally ruin rock and roll.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaha!\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n
He throws himself into a chair. It spins once and leaves him poised cockily staring at her with one elbow against the library table.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour paper is a flawed creation,\u201d he says, \u201cand you are defeated, because of the duality of your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
She squints at the paper. She looks up at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cPossibly,\u201d she agrees. \u201cTo suffer an affliction of conflicting conceptions is integral to the karmic trap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thoughtfully, she makes a snipping gesture with two fingers of one hand, as if to remember the scissors that she has only seen in the darkest and most overwrought of documentaries.<\/p>\n
Scissors!<\/p>\n
Was there ever another living thing that reconciled its dualities so sharply as did they?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis part of the land,\u201d Cheryl says, sweeping over half her little map, \u201cwishes to take the story in one direction; it exerts force; but this <\/i>little piglet \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
She has confused herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this<\/i> part of the map,\u201d she corrects, touching the other, \u201cpulls against it \u2014 and in like fashion, with the Buddha\u2019s humanity and his invincibility, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can fix that,\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fixable,\u201d she denies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt totally is.\u201d<\/p>\n
She squints at him, then she looks away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could,\u201d she says, chewing on her lip, \u201cattempt to fold my thoughts into the correct pattern, but then the problem would repeat fractally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaha,\u201d laughs Tom. \u201cThat\u2019s perfect! You have an admirable mind, you know. My instincts led me truly when I found you. When I said, \u2018Ah, Tom, here is a girl for the House of Dreams.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that a \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
She frowns at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you flirting with me? I cannot be involved with boys,\u201d she says. \u201cI have to attend to my paper, and to the snake.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have all known the concerns of papers,\u201d says Tom. \u201cAnd no. I am beyond such petty concerns as men and women, myself. I live in a world of one people, undivided, equal, unfettered by the base romantic urges \u2014 a world of science.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cWow,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s geeky!\u201d<\/p>\n
He takes off his hat. He flourishes it, first holding it high with one arm extended as if it were a hero\u2019s sword, then settling it down gently and carefully on his two flat palms and holding it out to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlace this on your head,\u201d he says, \u201cand it shall resolve the contradictions within you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t,\u201d she says, vaguely.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s your hat,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s your \u2014 alien, warm \u2014 it is whispering to me . . . mister.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas,\u201d he says. \u201cThomas the First, head boy of the House of Dreams. Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTom.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is distracted by the hat now. She is picking it up. She is holding it in her hands. She is lifting it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is it talking to me?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you are worthy,\u201d says Tom. \u201cBecause you are not such as my roommate Stephan or that lump of a Loggins. You are a girl who can join me in my House of Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
She swallows.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill I \u2014\u201d she says. \u201cWill I \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I put on this hat,\u201d she says. \u201cWill I become able to make \u2014 I mean, to kill, to kill, to kill<\/i>, I mean, a giant snake made out of paper?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hadn\u2019t considered that,\u201d says Tom. \u201cI \u2014 I don\u2019t see why . . . just paper, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, and wax.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom makes a decision. He takes a stand. He is one person; he flows into it, he makes his choice, and it will bind on him forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say yes. I say you shall. I will break life and death and Hell and dreams for you, if I must, to make you into such a girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
She lowers the hat over her head.<\/p>\n
The dream-wroth catches fire in her eyes. She aligns. She becomes a single thing; she folds her spirit without contradictions and then unfolds it, the soul and mind of her, into endless flowers, unfurling snowflakes, twists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIT IS THUS<\/font>,\u201d she whispers.<\/p>\n She moves her hands across the paper. The paper Buddha falls into a silver net. She compresses the edges. He steps forward from the net. He takes three steps. A pop-up balloon of words spits up: \u201cThe lord am I of all within this* world!\u201d<\/p>\n The * refers to a footnote. It is scribed in the ground at his feet. It reads, in wiggly letters made to resemble Sanskrit as Cheryl imagines it to be, \u201c* paper\u201d<\/p>\n Now paper gods attend, and there is great joy in the paper Heavens; the devas spin their drink umbrellas and flower petals flutter across the landscape she has made; after their long minutes and hours of existence in the library under the pressure of her folding, the paper universe is at last set free of the ineluctable chains of karma laid upon it with its birth: no more caught in folded desires and parchment ignorance, but seeing through to the true papyreal thing beyond.<\/p>\n Cheryl sighs. She flutters closed her eyes. She falls forward and the dream-wroth slips from her \u2014 not far from her, but from her. It settles itself as on a hat-rack or a wall-mounted shelf within her mind.<\/p>\n She sleeps.<\/p>\n Tom reclaims his hat. He leaves a black knit hat on the table beside her \u2014 it is often the case that even without his crowning hat he, as a member of the House of Dreams, feels an obligation to wear a crown of black.<\/p>\n Then he walks out.<\/p>\n He stops at the librarian\u2019s desk on the way. He grins at the man behind it. He raises his finger to his lips.<\/p>\n \u201cShh,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The librarian\u2019s eyes crinkle. He lifts a finger to his lips in turn.<\/p>\n Though each is ignorant of the mind of the other, the light in one pair of eyes meets the light in the other\u2019s. Stumbling through life each in their own way and to their own fashion they find a momentary accord.<\/p>\n \u201cShh,\u201d the librarian agrees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cheryl is in the library. She is folding a large sheet of paper. Tom is standing behind her. Cheryl stares at the paper. She has made flowers seem to rise from it, paper gardens; a river of paper water; trees that hang low with fruit; the Nandavana Gardens, this, where Buddha was given forth, only, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-4943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-1","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Hat_1_blankbg.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4943"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6188,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions\/6188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4943"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=4943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}