Storytime

By Azure Brandi:

Son is yawning but forces his eyes to cling open. Father eagerly sits on Son’s rocketship bed, tightly gripping the binds of his manuscript. It is time for The Raven, the Mailbox, and the Towerer. Father has been testing his new children’s book out on Son for a decade, a.k.a. Son’s entire life thus far. Father thinks this story has The Giving Tree potential; Son thinks otherwise but hides this thought with his little-kid grin, blinking at Father to begin the tale. Son knows that Father needs this time each night. It is not indoctrination but a matter of him processing the day’s writing.

“I’m ready.”

Father clears his throat. He should be off dairy but cannot resist eating Son’s leftover boxed mac and cheese. The malady of fatherhood. Father licks a finger, shakily flipping to the story’s opening.

“The golden beads of sun hit the dust and gravel of the canyon earth below his feet. He trudges in a coat, his clunky boots beating down the souls of decades past, marking the ground with heavy footprints. The houses on each side of the canyon are squat. He lifts his head towards the sky, and his skull nearly cracks it open. A single raven caws above, its dark black wings imprinting the clouds. The raven is a shadow in the sky, the towering man observes.”

Son interjects: “What’s the raven’s name?”

“I don’t know. I never came up with one.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not what the story’s about.”

“Well, I’m never attached to the raven. I think a name could help.”

Father gives a placating nod, ignoring Son’s suggestion.

“The mailboxes are so symmetrical. The wind cannot knock them over. Yet the man sneezes, and a window pane of the squattest of all the houses cracks. The old man spits on his forefinger. He takes the saliva over to the window pane and glues its cracks back together.”

“How does he know how to do that?”

“What?”

“How does he know his saliva works that way?”

“He’s been around. He knows how his body works.”

Son furrows his brow. Father straightens his spine, his form a perpendicular angle at the edge of the bed.

“The man wants to heal the world, but he is so mighty and forceful that he cannot help but damage in his attempts to heal. How to live when you are just too big, too mighty, too tall?”

“I think that’s a bit repetitive.”

Father raises an eyebrow. “You want to revise it for me?”

Son cracks a smile. “I liked last night’s version. When you get straight to the quake.”

“Quake’s later this time. Where was I . . . ? The raven wants to continue to fly freely. He does not want to get hit by an airplane, but maybe he can never fly that high anyway. On second thought, maybe he wants to fly as high as an airplane, to have the strength to fly for hours and hours and hours against the jet stream. To be big and mechanical, not small and so natural. He wants to leave massive footprints in the ground, not little specks of stick feet. He wants his caws to be thunderous, not weak. He wants his beak to be piercing, not callous. Impervious—”

“ 'Impervious'?”

“It’s good for vocabulary expansion.”

“ 'Impervious' isn’t in The Giving Tree.”

Father, fuller voice: “He wants his beak to be piercing, not callous. Impervious yet malleable.” Son rolls his eyes.

“He sometimes even wants to be a mailbox. To be a rigid form, unchanging. And the mailboxes giggle when the raven thinks this want. For the mailboxes know that their paint chips and weathers in time, that their contents are everchanging, like a body regenerating cells year after year. Its shell is not its soul. So the mailboxes giggle when the raven thinks this want. The raven is too consumed in his own thoughts to hear the mailboxes’ derision. The raven knows in his innermost depths that he is a free bird and the mailboxes bound. 

“When the towering man comes toward the mailboxes, they stiffen with glee and anticipation. For even the barest waver of a waft of the towering man’s breath has the potential to alter their state completely.”

“ 'Waver of a waft'?”

“Yes. 'Waver of a waft.'”

“Waver of a waft of a waft of a waver. Waver of a waft of a waver waft. Waft waver. Waver waver waft waft.”

“This is why we don’t have sugar before bed.”

“Raft of a waft of a raver of a—”

Father crinkles the page, his thumb red, forehead creased with a dominant stress wrinkle.

“The mailbox at the end of the canyon fell over when the towering man coughed one spring morning. The bulk of the mailboxes tittered with excitement over their fallen friend. The fallen friend whispered, or rather croaked, in its newly horizontal state: 'I’m a fallen alien, friends. I am a young whipper-snapper who has taken a fall. I have met the Earth more intimately in my fall than ever before in my upright life experience. I can only ever know the Earth and the soil and the contents beyond its surface if I put my mailbox ear to the ground and listen in.' ”

“Who’re you gonna get to illustrate that?”

“I’m doing the illustrations.”

“The other mailboxes eyed one another suspiciously. How to get the towering man over to them, how to elicit a cough from the towering man so that they too may fall horizontal and feel the pulse of the Earth’s contents beneath their ears? This was a feat they could not muster control over, that they could only hope for. How interesting, the raven observes: the towering man wants to make sure he damages nothing in his wake, and yet all the mailboxes want is to be the product of that damage.

“And yet as the days go by, the fallen mailbox becomes less lucid, more ethereal in his speech to his friends: 'The mailbox you claim you are not is in fact as much of you as the mailbox you claim you are.' ”

“Okay, Confucius.”

“As if you know who that is.” Father glares deeply into his manuscript. 

“The mailboxes listen in horror. 'Has he gone mad?' they hush to each other.

“The fallen mailbox’s ears perk up: 'Friends! I am actually closer to the Earth now. I hear her innermost hums. She’s communicating something to me directly.'

“The upright mailboxes look at one another and think maybe it’s best if they remain upright. For now. They want to know what the fallen mailbox knows but do not want to fall to know. 

“The towerer goes over to the fallen mailbox. 'No!' the fallen mailbox exclaims. 'Please let me stay as I am.'

“The towerer kneels down, his thumb plucking the mailbox off the ground. It cries out. 'I have so much more to hear! So very much more to learn!'

“The towerer looks down, puzzled. 'You want to stay down?'

“The mailbox feebly wipes away a tear. 'Yes, I want to learn more. I’m not ready to come back up.'

“ 'But you must come back up if you wish to be of service.'

“The raven caws."

“John caws.”

“The raven caws.”

“His name is John. John caws.”

Father sighs. “John caws. The fallen mailbox speaks. 'I don’t want to be of service. I am ready for more. I am stuffed with other people’s duties and feelings. I just want to be.'

“One day, long before the towering man arrived, the fallen mailbox was gurneyed toward a different fate. It was hammered and bolted and constructed as a live-wire receptacle of love letters and taxes and bills and spam mail and acceptances and rejections. Of love poems returned, girthy rejection letters, dutiful taxes, sustaining income, raging celeb crush fan mail, wanderlust for unwandered lands, old leaves from seasons past, crusted Valentine’s Day chocolate, regret for saying 'I love you' too late, longing for an 'I love you' to be returned. And yet this fallen mailbox knew that its worth was beyond its aforementioned contents. That what it contained was not what it was. That it was not the container and not the contents, and it was not the container without the contents, and it was also not the contents without the container. The fallen mailbox wondered how the Earth understood herself: if she was aware that the molten lava pounding beneath her crust was as real and potent as the stuff above her surface, such as itself. Or if the Earth knew that what most defined her was the stuff far beyond her surface, the stuff in outer space. Perhaps the stars were as much a part of the mailbox’s own fallen being as the cawing raven who hopes to be a towering man."

Son’s eyes are drifting closed. Father clears his throat loudly. Son bats an eye open.

“The following evening: 'I can help you up, soldier.'

“ 'No thank you. I’d like to stay down.'

“ 'Why stay fallen if you can rise back up?'

“ 'She’s telling me something, I just need more time to hear what it is.'

“The towerer sighs, and his exhalation jerks the fallen mailbox a bit.

“ 'I’ll come back tomorrow, see if you’ve changed your mind.'

“The fallen mailbox rests its little cheek onto the earth and listens some more. She’s my lullaby, it thinks.”

“Didn’t you just read this scene to me?”

“No. It’s a different interaction.”

“It sounds like the exact interaction they just had.”

“It’s different.”

“Sure.”

“The towering man was a temple for the Earth’s might, and yet in nightmares he sleep-talked profuse apologies to the stars, seeking to atone for the harm he so accidentally caused. Your self-blame is not helpful to the Earth, the stars twinkled. The Earth had no easy way of communicating to him that he was as much the contents of Earth and of the galaxy as the raven cawing overhead, as the canyon in which he dwelled, as the dirt his heavy shoes imprinted upon. The humans are an interesting tale, the stars wonder when even their own dying light bores them in the wee hours of night. The Earth feels these star murmurs but cannot translate them into language for the towering man, nor the mailboxes, not even for the raven—for John—who is closest to the stars. The stars smile at one another when the towering man coughs, thinking how he has brought some life to a rather stale row of squat houses and mailboxes.

“The canyon hums to herself all night. The raven and the mailboxes and the houses and the towering man sleep through it, peacefully. One night, in the midst of a new nightmare, the towerer sneezes and awakes to the ground rattling beneath him. He becomes still and yet the Earth still shakes. This cannot be me, he thinks. The raven caws. I’m only being, this can’t be me. The raven caws. The stars shine. The Earth rattles. The fallen mailbox smirks. So this is what she was telling me about. Must have been lost in translation.

“The upright but now downright mailboxes scream in terror.

“ 'But I am your contents!' ” The towering man and Father holler, gripping onto squat roofs and rocketship sheets for fallible support. And yet the Earth’s strength prevails over his own. The Earth shakes stronger, and the towerer loses his footing. His elbow cracks the shaking Earth, and the shaking Earth still shakes, unfettered by his fallen body. The fallen mailbox is soon joined by the upright mailboxes, and the raven caws, and the towerer sinks deeper into the Earth, and she keeps shaking, and the stars keep shining, and the houses crinkle and descend into the Earth’s core. My contents, the Earth hums and vibrates, I am bringing you home. The dying starlight illuminates the fallen contents of a sturdy Earth. Her shaking and stillness: both equal signs of her vitality. The raven caws.”

Father wipes a bead of sweat from his brow. He smooths the rocketship sheets. Picks up a couple of fallen books from Son’s shelf. Son watches, wide awake. Father is deep in it:

“Conductors rise to their feet, orchestras summon their will, in hope that their music lives on.

“The Earth collects the sounds into her core, and then: silence.

“The clouds are serene and still.

“A caw emerges soon after. Then a sneeze. The stars’ dying light is imperceptible from the sun strobes that streak the Earth’s surface. The morning light shines onto the Earth, anew.”

Son and Father sit in silence.

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s a terrible ending. You wasted my time.”

“Oh. Uh. That’s not how it ends. I just thought you were getting tired. There’s more.”

Father picks up the book and turns to the last page. Son leans back on his rocketship bedspread triumphantly. Father stares at the blank page, then dives in.

“One fine morn, the Earth yawned her little yawn, and the raven cawed its little caw, and the stars twinkled their little eyes shut for their night’s rest.

“Good morning, sky! the Earth hummed.

“Good morning, raven! the Earth hummed.

“Good morning, sun! the Earth hummed.

“Good morning, to me! the Earth hummed.

“The Earth hummed all morning long. At lunchtime, she felt her inner core rumble. The raven eyed her. She eyed the raven.

“I spared you once, my friend, the Earth hummed. I will spare you again.”

“Why is the raven spared? Why not the others?”

Father hides a smile.

“John cawed and flew on, doing his laps around the sky.

“Good afternoon, clouds! the Earth hummed.

“Good afternoon, rain! the Earth hummed.

“John made another lap around. 

“At tea time, she let the rain droplets soak into her. John landed on the Earth, his little sticklet feet making little prints in the muddy ground.

“ 'I rule this land,' John cawed. The Earth hummed, and John flew off. 

“In the evening the stars awoke, and the Earth hummed her little lullaby, and John cawed his goodnight caw, and the world was still. And then John sneezed and went back to bed. The next day, the golden beads of sun hit the dust and gravel of the canyon earth below his feet. He trudges in a coat, his clunky boots beating down the souls of decades past, marking the ground with heavy footprints. John looks down at his imprints in the dirt. My life finally feels lived in."

---

Azure Brandi

Azure Brandi lives in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied Drama and Creative Writing. While at NYU, she studied under writers such as Zadie Smith and Nathan Englander. Her work (essays, poetry, fiction, nonfiction) can be found across many media publications and platforms:

"Style" (New Croton Review); “You Can Deny” (October Hill Magazine), “Persona as Art” (Virgo Venus Press), “Magnet Self” (SORTES Mag), “On Beauty” (Afterimages by Thirty West Publishing House). 

Forthcoming: “The Currents” (The Underground);“Earl” (Alien Buddha Zine); “Saturn’s Rings” (Bending Genres Journal); “C Street” (Stick Figure Poetry); “London Bridges” (Basset Hound Press); “Italia”, “Carousel”, “pounce” (The Up and Coming Mag); “Turnstiles, in my mind” (Kaleido Zine), “Bowie Effect in Blue (Soup Can Magazine); Corporate Clinging (The Gorko Gazette); and “Broadway Audition” (Vol. 1 Brooklyn).