The empty field

I was standing on the edge of an empty field. Police officers who were not uniformed were searching the field for potentially harmful items. These were items left by a woman who was not disguised as a terrorist and was not a terrorist herself. She did, in fact, wear a uniform. She wasn't in the field anymore.

A police officer grabbed a wrench and hurled it at me. “You flung that wrench right at me,” I protested. He remained silent. I said it again. “He flung the wrench directly at me!” exclaims the narrator. Nobody listened to me. The wrench had landed near me with a thud and had not hit me, but it could have. “Someone threw a wrench at me,” I thought. Then I remembered the idiom "putting a monkey wrench into things" and was saddened by the lack of imagination reflected in my own thinking.

Of course, I arrived at the workplace on time. I always do my best to follow instructions. With patience, the officer awaited my arrival. I'm picturing her right now. Her light-brown hair was long and she was tall. She wasn't Jane Goodall, but she looked a lot like her—or at least what a therapist in a 1970s movie would look like. aviator glasses with honey brown lenses, trench coat (opaque). Brown eyes and prominent cheekbones. She entered carefully and took a seat at her desk. Her motions were slow and sluggish. I couldn't make out what she was saying in the dim light, but I can imagine her now. I requested that she repeat what she had said. “Actually, only this morning I wrote a line about organizations!” I exclaimed as she mentioned something about organizations. I typed the following sentence: “All organizations are insane.” After that, there was a lengthy awkward pause. "Though it's possible I got that sentence from Scientology," I said.

I expected her to inquire as to how I obtained it from Scientology. I remembered the title of the book, How to Live Like an Executive. The word, on the other hand, was unexpected. This was an L. Ron Hubbard book I had carried up to my room and stuffed into my bag after borrowing it from a hotel library in another country. I had borrowed another book from the library and stuffed it deep into a huge flowering bush at the same hotel overseas. I made sure the book landed completely inside the blossoming shrub, where I hoped it would decompose.

That novel was written by a cruel author. I'd met her before, or at least someone tried to introduce me to her. Even though there were only the three of us in the otherwise empty auditorium where we were all about to read aloud from our works, the author averted her look as if she hadn't heard the person attempting to introduce me to her.

The officer remained silent. There was a little window with a view of the empty field. Before my meeting, I had been standing at the edge of the empty field, where the terrorist had also been, or the woman who was neither a terrorist nor an officer, and certainly not someone I knew.

Outside, a female cop rushed up to a smaller, sliding window, as if she were at a drive-thru. She leaned in casually and simply said, "Hello." Well, it could have been a little different but comparable hello. She took off jogging. All of this jogging brought up memories of the 1970s. My officer didn't respond at first, but then she seemed to change her mind and stood up to cheerfully wave to the female cop, extending her arm through the drive-thru window to do so. The window was in an unusual location, being low and in the middle of the wall. My officer said something to the effect of "Till later!" “You see?” she remarked as she turned back to me. Others, many others, can enter this room.” I replied, “Yes, I knew that; I could bring anyone here, any number of them,” to which my officer replied, “Well, no, that's not what I meant; I'd have to approve them in advance, and not too many,” to which I replied, “Yes, I knew that, of course.” But I hadn't. To be honest, I had no idea what she was talking about, but I assented anyhow, as is my habit in life. After all, this is why I was there in the first place.

And the following part was unpleasant, or rather, startling, and probably embarrassing, since she did a bizarre, acrobatic back bend. Under a tiny table next to her desk, but above my head in some way. “Wow, you're incredibly adaptable!” I exclaimed. She remained silent.

“I couldn't do that; it would shatter my back,” I answered, and she said, “Yes, and I didn't realize you can't make new bones; you can only work with the ones you have,” to which I replied, “I didn't know that either!” They don't tell us anything about our bodies,” I added, thinking she'd like my last remark, because here was a woman who resembled Jane Goodall, and she was, after all, a naturalist in addition to being my officer. She scowled, as if she didn't understand what I was saying.

My time with the extraordinary woman had come to an end. She shook my hand and walked over to the knotty pine wall, where I took a position near the exit. I made an effort to make a pleasing expression on my face. I repeated the enticing expression again and over. “See you, then,” she said, and I replied, “When?” in what I hoped was a pleasant tone of voice so as not to offend. “The end of next week,” she responded, and I asked carefully, “So, you mean Friday?” Some factors, such as a datebook, force work weeks to end on Friday. However, even though I believe the week ends emotionally on Sunday, the genuine and proper end of the week was Saturday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week, which is strange. Isn't it Saturday? I realized I had no notion when the week started or finished, which is certainly something that is taught in elementary school. She stayed silent outside the room as I silently ran through the various possibilities of what "the end of next week" may mean to the woman, or to anyone for that matter. Finally, I confessed to myself that there would clearly be no reaction, so I attempted a different approach.

“Good,” I said, “then I'll call,” but she said, “No, don't call,” so I added, carefully, “It's not any trouble, for me,” and she said, “Really, I prefer to just get it done,” and I said, “Certainly, so do I,” and she said, “No, I prefer to just get it done,” and I was back to being the fat little girl in the pantry.”