by Sheila Heti
THE LITTLEST DUMPLING
A SAD LITTLE dumpling who had never been told his name started off his day by dropping softly to the ground and lying there. Because he was bruised he started to cry and held himself as best he could, rocking a little back and forth.
“Oh, my sore little self,” he moaned, and looked up at the pot in which his brothers and sisters were floating, and felt sad and alone.
“I’ll never see them again,” he feared, and rolled under the center of the table and lay there with his thumb in his mouth, crying himself to sleep ever so gently.
It was only six in the morning and already the whole world was becoming pastel with the sun rising from behind the clouds, painting everything pink or blue or light light yellow. When the newspaper arrived, thumping down on the stoop outside the house, the toilet flushed from upstairs and the father came down and opened the door, letting a gust of cool air in. He picked up the bundle, snapped the elastic off, and sat down on the couch to read.
There were terrible stories all throughout the paper, stories about people killing each other and hurting each other, people playing the wrong kinds of music and saying the wrong things. Even something about deaths. Even some jokes and predictions. But there was nothing about the dumpling. The man had no idea that the littlest dumpling from his very own pot had fallen onto his kitchen floor and was there, right now, tears in his eyes.
When the son came down he went into the kitchen to get his orange juice and milk and cereal, he called out to his father to see if he wanted any, but the father said no, just a banana, and there was no mention of the dumpling. Probably they weren’t planning on eating the dumplings until later that night.
The father sat at the table and the son sat across from him, and the first ray of light fell straight through the window into the dumpling’s eyes, waking him up at once. He tried not to move, tried not to seem dangerous, and tried not to scare them back.
The father said some booming things to the son, and the son said some booming things also, and the sounds and the words reverberated inside the littlest dumpling, and the dumpling felt littler, then littler, then suddenly big enough.
But by then the father and son had gone from the table, and the dumpling looked down at himself with disgust.
“Now, what was I afraid of! Damn it! What was I so damn afraid of!” He uncurled and stretched himself out to full length, cursing. “I should have just crawled on his shoe, up his leg, just stood on his knee and made myself clear!”
After a couple of moments the front door slammed and there was a silence. Now the dumpling was all alone. Lying there he felt exhausted. It had already been quite an ordeal and he’d still have to get back in the pot. Such a feat would be practically impossible, though, because in the several hours since he had fallen out he had lost his stick and would not be able to make it even halfway up the stove. The littlest dumpling was drying out.
When he realized this—drying out!—he froze, shuddered, then seized some more. Drying out was the worst sort of death, a long and painful one! There would be no escape; the father and son would not be home for several hours. He would die, then be swept up perhaps a week later.
Unfair. That’s what they always said about life. Who said it was fair? Who said you could do what you wanted? There were ways of doing things, ways to die. The dumpling was just a dumpling and the family was just a family.
THE FAVORITE MONKEY
THEY LAY UNDER the tree in the morning June air and breathed in each other’s whispers. That’s how romantic it was under the tree—under any tree! And nobody made them leave or come out of it or shake it off.
Already they had found out the meaning of life and the meaning of their love, and they had only met three days before, as he was sunning himself under the tree and she fell from its branches.
“Hello!” she had said, and he had said, “Hello,” and that’s when they knew they would always understand each other, even though she was a monkey.
He called her “my little monkey” when he brought her home from the hill, and they lay in his bed and made up secrets to tell each other, so they would have something sweet and pure to reveal.
She told him lies that made him happy and made her happier, and he told her fairy stories that made her sigh in admiration of him, who had made up such beautiful stories just for her.
He wasn’t very smart, but he could feel people’s hearts by being near them, and he said, “Dear monkey, I do so hate living in the city. I can hear the trees crying.” And when the monkey heard this she began to cry, for him and the trees, but for him, mostly, that he should feel such pain.
She was very sad three days later when she told him that her mother was calling and she had to get back, just to say she was fine and had fallen in love with a beautiful boy and was going to live with him forever. But the boy cried and held the monkey’s hand and said, “Don’t go! Don’t go! You’ll never come back! I love you and I need you!” And his eyes threw tears onto the floor and the walls and he cried into his bedspread while the monkey patted his back and said soothingly into his ear, “I love you, I love you. I’ll be back in a day and a night, after I tell my mother, and then we’ll live happily forever.” The monkey grinned and a twinkle came into her eye, but the boy remained sad, and he kissed the monkey feverishly and held on to her fur until at last he let her go, watching from the window as she climbed up and over the hill.
With the monkey gone the boy just lay in his bed, and though his friends came calling, he did not answer. He was content to be alone and think of the monkey.
But his friends did not understand; they were persistent and continued to knock on the door, crying, “Let us in! Let us in!” And though the boy did not want to, at last he relented because they just wouldn’t stop, and besides, he wanted to share his happiness.
The boys had been friends of his for a long long time, and they saw at once that he really had found love, and they sat on wooden chairs and made happy silent faces when he told them about the monkey who would soon be his wife, and though they were boys, they made no crass remarks.
When the boy had said all there was to say and there was nothing left to reveal, one of his friends said, “Let’s go for a drink.”
“Oh no,” replied the boy. “I must stay here and wait for my monkey. Who knows when she’ll be back. You go. I’m happy to lie on my bed and think of her.”
“No, no,” said his friend, and the others chimed in, “Come on, come on, come out with us.” They missed the boy and worried they might never see him again.
But the boy said no and refused.
Yet still the friends kept prodding and begging, “Come on, come on, you’re not saying no,” and so finally, reluctantly, the boy gave in, and he put on his shirt and shoes and left, locking the door behind him.
His friends took him to a little tavern with a red-peaked roof, and they sat outside in the cool spring air. The night was dark, and they couldn’t see the hill, but they could see the stars. The boy said wonderful things, and they all said sorrowful things, smart things, and funny things, and they laughed and laughed and got quite drunk, and at three in the morning his friends stumbled home, down the cobblestones and into the town, but the boy returned to his little cabin and opened the door and walked inside and fell asleep.
WHEN HE WOKE in the morning he felt sick and drunk, but when he remembered that his monkey would be coming home, he got up and washed and put on a shirt and sat at the table and ate a banana and waited.
Then he went onto his porch and waited there, so that he could see her as she approached. But soon the day grew dark and the boy grew concerned. “No, it’s impossible,” he thought. “She loves me as much as I love her. The looks in her eyes—she couldn’t have been pretending. No, no.” Those were the kinds of thoughts he was having as he waited, now on his bed, now in the darkness, now inside and under the sheets. “Her mother is probably a nag and wants to keep her there. Maybe she has to sneak out at night. Maybe she ha
s to wait for nightfall. She’ll be back in the morning. I know it.” And he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
In the morning the boy woke, certain he was disturbed about something. “Now what was it?” he asked, and then with a panic cried, “My monkey!” He leaped from the bed and flung open the door but the porch was bare. “Where is she?” he bawled, and slumped down to the floor and lay with a stomachache, crying, “My beautiful monkey, my beautiful monkey, the only girl I ever loved,”making up little songs for himself, inventing the tunes as he went along.
At about one in the afternoon the monkey arrived.
“Hello!” she called out, and the boy pulled himself from the floor and saw his beautiful little monkey standing before him, holding a bright red suitcase.
“You came back!” he cried, and took her in his arms and threw her into the air and swung her around as the monkey laughed and laughed.
“Yes, I’m back. I’m sorry I was late,” she said, and put down her suitcase and went and sat on the bed.
The boy followed and took her hand in his. “Oh, I was so scared. I thought you’d never return. I missed you so much and I love you so much. Please, please, never leave me again. I’d die without you. I’d really really die.”
And he went on and on like that as she sat with her hand in his, smiling at his face, waiting for him to finish.
THE GIANT
THERE WAS A giant in their town. His name was Sal. Everybody laughed as he walked by and said things like, “Hey giant!” and waved and grinned and elbowed their dates and stuff like that, which the giant tolerated only because he was a giant. It was part of his lot to be way bigger than everybody and teased mercilessly for being so.
His parents, Jewish, normal-sized, let him stay at home with them. There was no way he was going to find a wife, no way a woman would want to jeopardize her life for him. And so they coddled him and treated him like a little boy and let him keep his room and such.
One day the giant said to his mother, “I’m thinking of killing myself, I really am.”
It was a dark day in their household then. The mother told the father and they sat him down in the living room and gave him a big long talking-to.
The father said, “Maybe you just need to see the world. This small town can get a little oppressive at times. Why don’t you take your bag and hat and go. Your mother and I have money. Don’t worry about us.”
The giant looked at his mother and saw her nodding, and he wept and wept at the kindness of his parents.
Three days later he was ready and the day after that he left, his mother and father waving him good-bye at the train station.
Since he was a giant, accommodations were a little difficult. In the train he had to sit with the feed, and on the boat he had to stay on the deck, but when he got to Paris he was free, walking around in the bright sunny air with all the other people, tourists and natives alike. He couldn’t stop smiling. He had no idea that such a world lay beyond his small town, a world where people spoke differently and looked at him without cruelty. And his first night there he met up with some rowdy young men and went with them to a bar where they all got quite drunk. It was the first time the giant had ever been drunk and he was quite pleased with the sensation. He told them he loved them, that they were the first friends he had ever had, and the one who spoke English translated for the rest, and they all let out a great cheer and clanked their mugs together, and the giant felt right at home.
The next day the giant wandered through the streets, and he was surprised to find a demure young woman in a light-blue dress bending over a balcony, watching him as he passed. She called to him, “Please come!”
The giant, who knew a little French, crossed the street and laid his head on the railing and looked softly into her eyes. She touched his nose and laughed out loud, then pet his eyes and pet his hair, then covered his face with kisses and ran inside squealing.
Well, the giant had never been kissed by a woman before, and whether or not he’d ever see her again was a worry for another time. He just strolled into a park and lay down on the grass and relived the sensation over and over.
Suddenly he realized it was two o’clock.
“Oh no!” he gasped. “If I don’t catch the boat I’ll be ruined!”
He ran down to the docks and caught it just as it was about to leave the harbor, then settled in on the deck and watched Paris recede.
The next day he was home again.
His mother and father sat him down in the living room.
“And how was your trip?” his father said.
The giant smiled. “I said I was never coming home again, and I’m not,” he thought.
THE GIRL WHO WAS BLIND ALL THE TIME
SHE LIVED IN the hollow of her mouth and ears. She lived in the two deep hollows of her nose, and when and if someone touched her, she lived in her skin as well.
She made her way to and from school each day. She had no dog. She didn’t want to be led by a beast, she said, and people laughed. That’s all they really did around her. Laugh. Because you can’t just smile, and you have to be nice to a blind girl.
She got dizzy when she thought of sex, which she had never had, and she got dizzy when she thought of boys, so she didn’t think of them very often.
She once held her own one-woman parade down the long winding road that circled her university campus, and she carried a flag with the word “See,” and marched on by, and she had no idea for weeks afterward what the response was, if any. Only when Julie phoned and read to her some little news item in the University Bulletin that said, “Blind Girl Leads Revolution Single-Handedly,” did she grimace and go, “Oh God,” and go, “Nobody has any fucking sense of humor.” And Julie, over the phone, laughed.
The blind girl went to parties but always with a girlfriend, and always her girlfriend would return to her, and the blind girl would say, “Go away, have your fun.” Sometimes her friend caught her talking to a guy, sometimes her friend caught her standing all alone.
The blind girl never once thought about suicide and was surprised when a boy brought it up. “Don’t you ever think of killing yourself?” he asked, and then she put it to all her friends for the next few weeks.
“Well do you ever think of killing yourself?”
And they all answered yes.
She was surprised.
She started to think about it herself.
She said to herself, “Suicide,” and mulled the word over, and thought, “But how would I ever do it?” And after three weeks of thinking about it, she knew how. She’d walk off a bridge. She’d kill herself just like that.
After that month of suicide thoughts she had three of the best days of her life. She met a boy, fell in love, lay out in the sunshine and held his hand and kissed, and fucked behind a video store, and after those three days she had the worst year ever, the worst year of her whole entire life, a year she would look back on when she was eighty and still think, “Yep, that was the worst fucking year of my whole entire life.”
Every day she was sick and green and every day she woke up with a foul smell in her nose, which ebbed in and out from morning till night, and her glands swelled up and she cried and cried, and her friends started calling more and more often, then stopped. And her belly swelled up and her hair sweated down her back, and her mother yelled about money and her future, and she ran into walls, and she fell down stairs, and she was disoriented, and lost, like a girl gone blind.
She came out of that year very skinny and very tattered. Almost all of her bones had been broken or cracked and she had welts and bruises everywhere, especially on her face, and there were dark black circles under her eyes. And the thought of parading around campus with a joke flag made her quiver with nausea and resentment.
That was it. She came out of it. She never had such a down as that or such an up as the three days that preceded it, not ever again in her life. The rest of her life was like a long thin line with little diminuendos and tiny little crescendos,
and friends visiting from out of town.
She had a big, bright, curly head of hair that made her look like a clown, and nobody ever told her.
THE MOON MONOLOGUE
NOBODY EVER ACCUSED me of being bright, which I am glad for. You see, all the really bright people I have ever known have been involved in elaborate drug deals, and I’m not one of those people who believes that drugs are just a part of life.
I am very much against drugs, and I think the people who do them are foolish. I have seen the way they make people act, and I am not a space case. I am a genuine human being, and I express what I’m feeling.
So when it happened that Bobby, that night in the cellar, touched my breast with the palm of his hand and fell back as though electric-shocked and said, “You’re bright, Marie!” I thought he was the biggest goof ever, and I said so.
“Nobody’s ever accused me of being bright, Bobby,” I said with pride and a bit of anger. I got up and went straight to my room to watch the sun rise, but there was another hour still to go. I just sat at the window then, and looked out at the lawn and thought it was a pretty confusing world, which it is, if you look at it the right way.
So much for that.
It wasn’t two days later before I began meeting people on the street who started asking me questions; questions about where the world was going to, what would be happening with plants in the future, and would pets be obsolete soon?
Strangely enough, I had all the right answers for these people.
It was like they had put the ideas in my mind with the questions they were asking. “Sure,” I said. “There’s all sorts of things that’ll happen in the future.”
“Like what, Marie?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. Tomorrow I’m going to a party and I’m going to be the hit of that party. I’m going to wear a dress and make out crazily with all the boys. The boys I know are pretty sly but they can’t pass anything over on me. If I see Bobby I’m just going to ignore his face.”
