American Elsewhere

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN




The People from Elsewhere look around themselves helplessly. They have waited so long for Her to return, and now She is lost again. What is there to do?

It is Mr. Elm who speaks first, whispering in his wife’s ear.

“The car?” Mrs. Elm asks. “What about the car?”

He mumbles something.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, you are right, aren’t you. The car does need work. It’s not quite right, is it?”

He shakes his head.

“No, it isn’t. I think you’re right. We do need to go home. We have some things to take care of. What if I make a nice pitcher of lemonade, just for you?”

But Mr. Elm is not listening—he turns and walks away, back to the house, back to do what he did the day before, and the day before that, and several hundred days before that.

One by one, they all agree—they have work to do. The Dawes children had planned to build a pirate ship out of sand in their sandbox, Mr. Trimley had intended to put up a new train, and Mrs. Greer must arrange for the next dinner party (which will be very nice indeed). Some of them even invite the children home, for despite their unusual appearance, the people of Wink have not seen their little siblings in so long, and taking care of one’s guests is what a proper host should do.

So, one by one, they return to their homes, and they go about their business. Even when the fire begins licking at the sides of the houses, even when it bursts through the kitchen windows and crawls across the kitchen cabinets, even when it dances in their beds and across their carpets, they do what they did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.

There is a way things should be. This is what we are. This should save us, shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t it? Now that we are these things, shouldn’t everything be fine?