Object No. 96 of 100

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Bruce Holland Rogers, has ended. Original price: 29 cents. Final price: $21.50.]

By my third visit to Dr. Peragua, I had decided on what I was going to steal. There were lots of candidates. His office is full of keepsakes from his travels to meet shamans, whom he says are his professional colleagues. There are a lot of objects small enough to slip into my pocket, but I decided on the dish for paper clips that sits on Peragua’s desk. It was in the shape of an open, upturned umbrella.

By the fifth visit, I had a plan. Dr. Peragua knows that I steal things. He even knows the kinds of things that I steal: small objects of no great material worth. I’m here to talk to him about my stealing. I’m here to get my father off my back.

On week six, I arrived chewing a big wad of gum. Before we started to talk, I stood up and tossed the gum at the wastepaper basket behind Dr. Peragua’s chair, and missed. The gum stuck to the wall above the basket. “Oops,” I said, and Dr. Peragua took a tissue from the table between his chair and mine. He pulled the gum from the wall and dropped it in the basket. Perfect. Each week since, I have come in chewing gum. I spit the gum into a tissue and throw it into the basket.

Before we start today, I take out the gum and toss it, unwrapped. “Oops,” I say. Dr. Peragua frowns, reaches for a tissue, and turns. In three heartbeats, I have crossed to his desk, pocketed the little umbrella , and returned to my chair before Dr. Peragua has finished cleaning the wall. “Sorry,” I say.

“Hm,” says the doctor. He looks around the room as if doing inventory. “You don’t really want to get better, do you?”

He knows that I’m here only because my father said that if I’d see a therapist for ten weeks, at my father’s expense, my father would stop mentioning my habit.

“Taking things makes me feel good,” I say. “And it’s not as if I’m taking things worth a lot of money. Where’s the harm?”

“You harm your relationships. Whether your victims know what you’ve done or not, you know that they can’t trust you. That limits your opportunities for intimacy.”

“I have friends.”

“Well,” he says, “let’s talk about those friendships. You know, everything, even what you see as a one-sided transaction, is a kind of exchange. So let’s talk about what you give and what you get in your friendships.” That’s the start of our session. He asks questions, I answer. At the end of the hour, he glances at his watch and says, “That’s about all we have time for today.” He asks about a further appointment. But today I have fulfilled my half of the bargain with my father.

“Goodbye, Dr. Peragua.”

“Goodbye, then,” he says.

I leave the umbrella and paper clips in my pocket. The walls of my living room are lined with shelves. When my father visits, he always asks me how much of what is on those shelves is really mine.

All of it. And now he can’t ask any longer.

I reach into my pocket. Something jabs my fingertip. A burr. My pocket is full of sharp little burrs. Where are the paper clips? Where is the umbrella? But then I find that the umbrella is there, a little metal figurine with no moving parts. Only now, it is closed.

Object No. 82 of 100

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Josh Kramer, has ended. Original price: 25 cents. Final price: $76. This story is the first in a three-part series produced in collaboration with The Center for Cartoon Studies. ]

Object No. 70 of 100

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Charles Ardai, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $20.50. ]

The telegram arrived too late. The morning mail had brought the box, wrapped in a double thickness of brown paper and covered with fibrous packing tape I’d had to dig out the heavy Wüsthof cook’s knife to slice through. Inside, upon a bed of cotton batting, lay a ceramic ball painted with images of flowers in a wicker basket and tiny, gold-bellied birds. There was a plastic stopper in the base, a loop of ribbon at the top, and a diamond pattern of pinholes on either side. I looked at the return address on the torn and crumpled wrapping: Gabriel Hunt, Trebišov District, Košice, Slovakia.

The illustrious Mr. Hunt, a centimillionaire and renowned world traveler…why, I wondered, would he send me this oddity? I had recently completed co-authoring a book with the man (by which I mean that I wrote all the words the book contained, save three: ‘by,’ ‘Gabriel,’ and ‘Hunt’), but that hardly explained the appearance in my mailbox of this rara avis.

The explanation arrived an hour later, in the form of a half-size sheet of paper bearing the logo of Western Union. “Charles,” the message read, “you will receive a package from me shortly; do not, repeat do not, open the object you find inside. I send it to you for safekeeping, so I beg you, keep it safe. Hang it, please, in a cool, dry place, away from noise and direct sunlight. Do not listen to it. Do not attempt to peer inside.

“You will be curious as to what the piece contains. I will tell you, so that you might avoid accidentally doing irreparable harm. This innocent-seeming container is the handiwork, Charles, of the renowned Slovak metaphysician and sculptress Mária Gruska. She fashioned it with clay from the basin of the Tisza River, the burial site of the great Hun chieftain, Attila. Some incantations followed – I don’t know the details, Charles, and since Gruska has recently passed on (rather violently, I’m afraid) I doubt we ever will. But incantations there were, and a pentacle inscribed on the ground, and certain other bits of ritual that resulted in the ancient chieftain’s soul being drawn back from whatever midnight realm it had so long inhabited and stoppered up in this spherical chamber.  The art on the outer surface is functional: as anathema to the inhabitant as holy water to a vampire, it keeps him penned inside.  The holes permit communication, but not escape.

“Gruska had it hanging, Charles, from a cast-iron hook in her cellar.  Her mansion was aflame when I found and rescued it, escaping mere instants before the building collapsed into a heap of rubble.

“Now it’s in your hands. I realize you may not believe that Attila is in there.  Humor me at least. I will take it off your hands when I return.”

I would have done as Hunt requested – very gladly. But by the time I read this I had already slipped a thumbnail beneath the stopper’s edge and, with a tug, removed it. It had come free with an audible pop and I’d felt a strange breeze, as though there’d been a window open nearby. There was a scent in the air as well, like roasting meat or burning wood. But it passed, and I’d thought nothing of it – until the telegram.

On his return, Hunt was inconsolable.

I have used the container ever since to hold salt.

Object No. 69 of 100

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Stephanie Reents, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $33.00. ]

1.

The transparency of glass is cruel.

2.

When the beige palm of the sky descends, there is no warning, no chicken calling, “The sky is falling.  The sky is falling.”

3.

A sphere has no beginning or end, and thus my story does not start, “Once upon a time, long, long ago – ”  But rather, “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow,”  or “Today, tomorrow, and yesterday.”  I was and am and will be.

4.

Desire: I am always swimming towards her, and she is always swimming away.  I know we are soul mates because we always travel at exactly the same speed.

5.

Snow globe is a misnomer.  This is a glitter globe.  All that glitters is not gold.  All that swim are not fish.  All that smiles…

6.

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow I call to her, and my own voice answers.  The water at the top of the sky kisses the glass, a maddening imitation of the real thing.

7.

“Wait for me, my love.”

“Wait for me, my love.”

“I am coming.”

“I am coming.”

“This is futile.

“This is futile.”

8.

I am sadder than a goldfish in a tank, a lion in a cement cell, a lightening bug in an old peanut butter jar.

9.

Then: the world around us changes.  The beige sky falls, and it begins to glitter, a flurry of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal light, and when the sky ascends and the glitter slows, I see we are a bubble on a broad, brown plain.  Something thicker than paper whirs and sings.  Light falls through other glass, warming my waters.  A little warmer, I think, and I will finally swim freely, finally meet my love.  A creature with two skies sits and tries to speak to us in staccato clicks and clacks, but soon grows frustrated and leaves.  “Don’t go,” I cry, “I have so many questions.”  I wait for an answer, even the echo of myself, even the stirring sound of kisses –

10.

[                                      ]

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Toni Schlesinger, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $88.]

“I have something for you,” she says.
“For me?” he asks.
“For you!” she says. “Wait, waiter, I’ll have a pale gold drink.”
“For you?” asked the waiter.
“I’ll have one that’s blue.” He coughs. “I’m so excited.”
“Here it is.” She places the 4-tile on the table.
“Oh,” he cries. “But it’s not Valentine’s Day.”
“Why does that matter?”
“You know, the candy heart that reads 4 U but without the U. What is it?”
“You remember…”
“Of course! You had it made to remind me of the four times I strayed.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, you would!”
The waiter returns. “Here are your drinks, for heaven’s sake.”
“I know, that time we discussed having a foursome!”
“We never did. That sort of thing is so out of fashion.”
“God. It’s from Vegas. Some indicator of money lost or gained.”
“No, you’re being too formal in your thinking.”
“It’s the 4 from the height chart in the lineup of suspects where you had to stand when you were arrested for murdering that man in Tennessee?”
“You’re getting close. Don’t look so forlorn.”
“I’m foraging. Perhaps the waiter knows.”
The waiter looked at the ceiling. “It’s not for me to say.”
“I’ll give you a hint. A summer day, all the world was as blue as your drink. You flew through the air…”
“…and I dove into the cool water of the swimming pool and I thought of marimbas and orchids and forsythia and when I came up…”
“You said, ‘Be mine forever.’”
“No, I said, ‘Be mine — for now.’”

[The auction for this Significant Object, with song (MP3, and lyrics, below), by Teddy Blanks, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $2.38. This was part of a special collaboration with Design Observer, where it was co-published here.]

CLICK BUTTON to listen to “Figurines” by Teddy Blanks.

“Figurines”

All those years we were married,
You, the beloved host of a daytime talk show
I’d stay home with the children
arranging your figurines for display

Now I stare at the mantle
Fixed on a small white porcelain motor scooter
Remembering how you told me
You wanted to ride a real one someday

Studio B, and all the lights
Flashing lowly in your metered dreams
TVs have taken flight
Leaving your objects rusting away

Three straight days of headline news
Your memorial, it was deeply moving
All the stars call to tell me
“She was the queen of daytime TV”

But I’m stuck here with your boxes, baby
Just like it was on the day you left here
you took off on your scooter,
leaving the porcelain one to me

Were you asleep? Was it too dark
when you swerved across the boulevard,
and all the braking cars,
crashing directly into a tree?

Walked right up to an ambush
They were just standing there like a ticking task force,
sisters reading your diary,
combing the wreckage, taping the scene

Camouflaged in the background,
I’m just a footnote in the life of a fallen legend,
father of her two children,
keeping her archives ordered and clean

Studio B, and all the lights
Flashing lowly in your metered dreams
and all that’s left in sight
is your collection of figurines

[Guitar on 'Figurines' played by Patrick Albertson]

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Andrew Ervin, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $51.]

Several weeks ago I was biking around the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, or what’s left of it, and shooting photographs of the rebuilding process. I have been hearing the same two descriptions over and over — “It’s like a war zone” and “It’s like a bomb went off” — but the reality is more like something from the Old Testament, something supernatural. Most of the original residents of the neighborhood I visited that day have moved on — into formaldehyde-poisoned FEMA trailers, to Baton Rouge or Lafayette, to Texas or Mississippi. Those who have moved in fill the streets with foreign, burning smells and songs that are strange even by New Orleans standards. The new residents mark the streets with incomprehensible runes. They tell me the loa have never left.

That day, a small but vocal crowd had gathered at an unmarked and all but deserted crossroads. Several women were holding on to a panicky stray goat. Their jewelry glittered in the afternoon sun. I stopped to take some pictures and was told that a young man had attempted to steal a car at gunpoint, but was thwarted by the neighbors and detained. But before the women could determine a suitable punishment, the would-be thief transformed himself into a goat in order to avoid capture. There were witnesses.

“Someone fetch The Judge,” the oldest of the women said.

“Meh!” the goat said. “Meh meh meh!”

A small girl took off on foot and returned fifteen minutes later holding a sack of silvery cloth. She handed it to the old woman, who, with a flourish, reached in and removed this figurine — The Judge. She held the idol over her head and then placed it on the ground next to the goat. The other women released the animal. Everyone stepped back to form a wide circle and await the verdict. The goat’s eyes appeared mournful and even, I must admit, guilty of some crime.

“The Judge will soon decide the fate of the thief,” the old woman said.

“Meh meh meh!” the goat said, then it took off in a trot.

It was a terrible thing to do, I know, but amid the pandemonium I threw the idol into my camera bag and pedaled away.

That night I put The Judge on my bedside table, but was unable to sleep. I felt the idol watching me. Weeks later, I remain sleepless and have grown irritable and feverish. It was The Judge — he was hectoring me but also, I knew, praying for me. Then, this morning, I took a half-slumbering walk to the corner for coffee and, I swear to you, saw a goat drive by in a blue Toyota four-door.

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Rebecca Wolff, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $19.50.]

There was this family, and their eight-year-old son developed a tumor on, or in, his jaw. They had it removed, and treated with radiation and chemotherapy, but a short while later it came back. They had it removed again. Their son learned to play the guitar, and the ukulele, and the banjo, and grew tall and lean. He would have been handsome but for the narrowness of his face, the lower part of which on one side had been shaved away. Now he’s thirteen, or fourteen, and the new tumor is large and cannot be further pacified, removed, denied. A small ark has been constructed for the family by terminally ill children with great reserves of unspent joy in the children’s ward of the Hospital of Our Lady of the Rocking Waters.

There was this girl, in Indiana, and in 1992 when she was twelve she got in this car with four older teenage girls and these other girls tortured and murdered her. My neighbor down the street is reading a true-crime paperback about it; she can’t put it down. My neighbor is completely under-educated and has no resources. She works weekends at the hospice and stays home with her daughter during the week while her son is at school with my son. She’s an accidental hipster; it’s just a trick of physiognomy that her tidy shape, clothed in the cheap duds she buys at Target, is the shape of a 1960s London mod. She’s Catholic from Long Island and tells me that she never complained about her ex-husband because the laws of Christianity told her not to. She says “Thank God” after everything.

So then this morning I hit a dog with my car. My two little ones strapped precariously in the back, I screamed “My God” in an agonized way that I remember from previous death experiences and started sobbing immediately. Parked in a driveway and ran out of the car, out of my mind, hyperventilating, back to where the golden lump of sweetness and innocence — never hurt anything — I must never hurt anything yet a moment ago — where it lay. Ark in my pocket. A working ark, hand-beaten of tin, painted in bright jewel tones to reflect the inexhaustible resources of the miraculous. Your faith alone will buoy it on the waters of Armaggedon, or Yahweh’s displeasure, whichever comes first. Miniatures are hard to come by and in great demand for their portability as well as for the exquisitely precise effort of Hopes and Fears required to exact true functionality.

Turned out I knew the dog’s owner slightly, a man who had parked across the busy road and let his dogs run free for some reason. He knew the reason: “It’s my fault,” he said, when I said “My God I’m so sorry.” Then he said: “I think he’s going to be okay: I think his leg is just broken.” The dog looking up at me, not saying. Later I’ll call and find out if the dog lived or if the dog died.