The Patterns of Paper Monsters by Emma Rathbone

Author:Emma Rathbone [RATHBONE, EMMA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780316088619
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2010-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

“We need to find a dusty dome,” she said. This was yesterday. We were sitting in the cafeteria, at the very back, against the large glass window that looks out onto the hallway. Sometimes the JDC has guest speakers come and talk to us about things like “Decision Making” or “Conflict Resolution.” The pro is that you get to leave class for a while. The con is that you have to sit and listen to some handout-happy dickface proselytize about making “Life Tabs.” Today’s session was about “Organization.” Upon entering the cafeteria, we each received a packet that I hadn’t looked at yet but that was sure to contain a number of bullet points.

“To sit on and watch the sunset,” she continued. We were talking about being the last two people on earth. Everyone was facing the front of the cafeteria, talking or rocking back and forth. Pastor Todd was in the corner, glancing around furtively. Aaron and Jake were at the front of the room. The guest speaker was late.

“And maybe there will be some horses.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll have some sort of pack, with stuff that I got from a convenience store. We’ll eat whatever’s in it.”

“Yeah, we can think of all the Fourth of Julys that happened. Or we could even pretend it was the Fourth of July, since we would be the only people left, whatever we said would just go.”

“Yeah, we could like, designate everything.”

“We could make all our clothes out of flannel.”

“And collect a bunch of Bubble Wrap.”

“Totally,” she said. “I’d probably eat a lot of graham crackers.” She pulled on her earlobe. “The only thing that might suck is that I’d never get to visit Stonehenge.”

Lane walked into the cafeteria, checked her watch and conferred with Pastor Todd. She jutted her elbow out and removed what must have been a hair from under her arm and let it waft to the ground. Then they stopped talking and idly searched the room in a way that made me realize they might not like each other very much.

Andrea was digging her fingernail under the staple in her packet. “We could imagine all of those families on all of those Fourth of Julys on all of those damp blankets, and how all of it was leading up to this.”

“Everything crumbling and empty.”

“Like a busted snow globe,” she said.

“No more moments. No more four-year-olds with the reflection of fireworks on their eyeballs.”

“Right,” she said. “No more worried moms struggling with screen windows.”

“No more overly air-conditioned electronics stores.”

“Or hearing a recording of your voice and thinking it doesn’t sound like yourself,” she said. “I hate that.

“You know what?” She leaned toward me. “I just thought of this. I had a friend who worked at the BlueStar Pavilion last summer. It’s this pavilion outside of Staunton where they have bands play and stuff. She showed me how to get into the shell, like, the stage, even though it’s usually locked. And where the lighting board is and everything. We would go there at night sometimes, when there wasn’t an event, and sneak in.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.