Issue 10.2 Spring 2015

10.2 cover image

 

 

Reassignment

 

Kara Brown

 

 

“Yes, hello?” she said, answering the door. The man on the other side wore a well-fitted black suit with the jacket open. He had a tie, and a briefcase in one hand, sunglasses covering his eyes; he was wearing a hat, like men do in old-fashioned pictures. He was what she privately thought of as business casual; wearing a business suit in a casual manner, like the real power was derived from himself and the clothes were just there to make others comfortable. He wore it carelessly.

 

He sat down on her couch and took off the hat and set it on her coffee table. He left his sunglasses on, which she found disconcerting, and balanced his forearms on his knees, looking at her for a moment, and it felt subtly threatening. She sat across from him on the sofa with her hands in her lap and knees angled to the sides, ankles crossed. He seemed to be looking at her.

 

“Did you think we wouldn’t find out?” he said softly, and she jumped, her hand almost instinctively coming up to her throat. He pressed his lips together for a moment, in disapproval, both at what she’d done and what he had to do next, and then set his briefcase on the table, looking at her—probably looking at her—as he unsnapped it. She flinched. The case actually popped open without being lifted, and he began to take out excellent manila folders, opening them to show the paperwork and with staples and paperclips and photographs. He turned the images around so they were facing her, and gently pushed it towards her. She leaned forward but didn’t touch.

 

There it all was. The time she hadn’t done the dishes for over a month and lived off paper plates and paper towels, the entire bowl of cookie dough eaten in one sitting, going to Disney movies alone, the Halloween costumes, the Halloween candy, the bunny pajamas and coloring books and a list of all the phone calls to her mother over the last twenty years. All the times she’d paid the bills late, called into work “sick”, gone around the block twice because she couldn’t parallel park, the excessively long lapses between doctor’s appointments and oil changes, the times she used her Jedi powers to open the grocery store doors or used the grocery cart as a large, advanced form of scooter. The doodles in her memo book at work during meetings, and the day she’d eaten an entire tube of black icing and it had turned her teeth blue for a week. The woogie that she no longer slept with but kept in a trunk at the end of the bed, just in case. There was even a blurry photo of her nightly leap into bed to make sure the under-the-bed monsters couldn’t get her feet. They’d even gone as deep as to include a picture of her toothpaste that was blue with sparkles in it and the bubble-bath hidden behind the shampoo.

 

“You’re no adult, Ms. Harroway,” he said, and there was something kind in his voice, but very serious.

 

“We’re the government. We keep track of these sorts of things, and you must have known eventually we’d catch up to you.” Her lip trembled.


“I knew. I just… I thought everyone had a few things, here and there,” she said, a hint of pleading in her voice.  He shook his head, and seemed let down by her ignorance.


“Adulthood isn’t something you pretend to be, Ms. Harroway,” he said reproachfully. “It’s licensed. We assume that you can handle the work entailed, so the process is fairly rubber-stamped when you turn twenty-one, or have a baby, whichever first, but we keep an eye on it to make sure the system works. We can’t just have anyone tearing around out there, pretending they know what they’re doing. Can you imagine the consequences?” he demanded. “Old men playing with bubbles! Competing with children in sack races! Chaos, anarchy, a complete breakdown of the system and the loss of boring respect you are accorded by every child in the world.”


“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked.


He sighed. “You’re going back where you belong, of course. We’ve reassigned you. Now you’re only twelve years old, Ms. Harroway,” he said. “Now, come with me. We’re going back to sixth grade.” He tapped his case shut, stood up, and reached out a hand to her. She looked at it, afraid, but then thought about what a relief it would be, to longer have to be so serious, to do what she wanted to and have the right to complain when they stopped her. She reached out, and took his hand, and they walked out of the house together, back to when she was a small girl, and there was nothing wrong with having fun.


The Grownup Police had finally gotten her, and it really wasn’t so bad.

 

 

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