Day 14 - Something Else

This is the first draft of something. It started as a poem. Got squashed into a paragraph poem. Then kept getting bigger and bigger and ended weirdly like an allegory. It still may become a poem. This is just its incarnation now. Whatever. I'll write more today. Its Saturday. And I have time.

10 Mile Window

It was perceived to be high art. To have a piece so eccentric, so post-modern. It was ratified between the towns of Hincke and Maquawk. They would split the difference, cost and distance. On the day, 15 helicopters carried what looked like a giant flat Christmas gift. The wind ripped at some of the packaging and one below said when revealed, it looked like someone had cookie cut the sky. The 10 Mile Window was set gently down in the bordering forest and locked into the earth.

A t the ceremony, every citizen of Hincke and all the persons of Maquawk lined their respective sides. At the agreed upon minute, ribbons were cut and the great covering fell. All felt the moment. They knew they had done something grand. First one, and then four, and more walked to the window. They would match hands at the glass. Yell to see if they were hearable. Some felt they now looked into a different country, it was a magical glass. Others swore it was really a 10 Mile Mirror for all they saw was reflections of themselves, neighbors and the like. One man, who was older than all, saw the legions of dead he’d known. All went home that night knowing they’d done a great thing.

The towns, which had once shared a lively commerce, began to separate themselves. The 10 Mile Window became an invisible barrier that while it blocked no roads to and from, became wrong to cross. Children would play games on either side. The ratio of starcrossed lovers rose, and alarming amounts of bi-village romances sprang up. They’d tape love notes to the glass and plant flowers on their side. And they’d pledge undying love to the end of window’s time and beyond. Business deals that had to be done between Hincke and Maquawk were now done with the safety of the window between.

The town of Maquawk began to feel as if they were in a giant house. The 10 Mile Window seemed to close them in. Give them common border. The Maquawkians became closer, treating each other like family. They called each other brother and sister. The Mayor and his wife became adopted parents. Potlucks happened every night in the parking lot of city hall. And after dinner they would walk to the Window, look out on their beautiful yard, which was the borders of Hincke and they would comment on how fearsome and roguish their neighbors looked.

The town of Hincke developed a sense that they lived on the edge of a great zoo. Look at those strange folk, they would say. They dress odd and they don’t talk. They are not like us. And so the Hinckites began to see them as something else. At first it was oddity and they would tap the glass. The strangers would react and so they tapped more. They would bring their dinner to the glass and taunt the animals with it. Soon the kids would have nightmares of Maquawkians finding a way around the window. They established an armed patrol. Spotlights lit the window. The town of Hincke felt safer.

Then a crack appeared in mile 9. The Hinckites thought it must be Them trying to get in. The Maquawkians knew that the animals were pecking at the glass. Both sides moved their patrols to the crack. In Hincke, they spoke of how those men wanted to take their women and drink their blood and eat their young. A draft was issued. Most were enscripted. In Maquawk, the town produced heavier weapons in their factories. An intricate defense was set. They read books on animals. Tried to anticipate what their primitive brains would attack first. All slept armed.

Someone cast the first stone. The might of Hincke and the might of Maquawk surged toward the 10 Mile Window. They were evenly matched. When the first bullets fired, the sound was not nearly as loud as 10 miles of window shattering. It sounded like a star breaking. Everyone gasped. Weapons dropped. Their beautiful gift to each other was gone. They were wrong. And they built a monument to the 10 Mile Window. Melting all the glass into a giant 10 mile glass obelisk. That rose above their two towns like a frozen signal fire, like a god’s finger reminding them always.