by Helen Phillips
1.
Dear Sir/Madam:
From the bottoms of our hearts we regretfully inform you that the story you submitted to our magazine for consideration is: poorly conceived/ poorly executed/ poorly written/ melodramatic/ boring. Were it not thus, we would be more than delighted to publish it. Should you manage to write something you are certain is: better conceived/ better executed/ better written/ more skillful/ more interesting, we might give your work a second look. With some bemusement, we wonder if you have ever entertained the possibility that we do regularly receive stories about: couples struggling with the decision to abort/ discontent suburban husbands and wives having affairs/ strained relations between parents and children/ lonely single women/ people returning to their hometowns for funerals/ struggling writers.
We suggest that you avoid the following themes: Love, Death, and Art. We cannot help but feel compelled to offer several writing prompts: (1) Heloise knew she had thirty seconds left before the knight in her kitchen lunged at her with the corkscrew. (2) One morning, Matthew discovered he had the uncanny ability to transform his coworkers into cakes merely by looking at them. (3) I ate 142 live goldfish. (4) A large asteroid will hit Kansas tomorrow. We beg of you, please begin with one of these instead of with a description of: a landscape/ a fight between a middle-aged husband and wife/ a young couple sitting in a train station discussing an undesired pregnancy/ a phone call notifying an aspiring writer that his aunt has passed away in the Midwest/ the image of an empty highway/ a metaphor about the ocean.
As you can see from this letter, we take it upon ourselves to assist hopefuls such as yourself, dear Sir/Madam, and we do trust you will in turn take it upon yourself to attempt to write a story that is not offensive in its lack of originality. Though we are hesitant to believe in the likelihood of such an eventuality, we wish you the best of luck in the pursuit.
Sincerely Yours,
The Editors
2.
They live over the ridge, across two rivers, beyond the valley, past three meadows. They move fast. Their arms and legs are longer than ours. Their skin shines in the light of noon. They do not tire. At midday, we’re forced into the shade. We lie there, small and hot and lazy, puffing out our empty bellies. They do not seem hungry. They notice us the way they notice the sun (which does not burn them) or the river (for whose water they do not thirst) or the stars (to whose mysteries they seem indifferent). Nothing could frighten them. This frightens us.
When we spot them, we ache for something for which we do not yet have a term; thousands of years from now, we will settle on the word beauty.
We cluster ourselves around the fire of a single consoling thought: We shall survive into the future, and they shall not. This fact has been passed back to us by a prophetess from the year 2007, and we know it is true. A second thought, less consoling because we do not know if it is true: We are more intelligent than they. We lie in the shade, thinking these things, convincing ourselves we are superior.
But say they pass near enough that we can make out their features. Say two of them, a male and a female, come striding radiantly up the ridge. Their gaze drifts down over us, at once compassionate and severe. Silver eyes. Sharp noses. Bronze skin. The unconcerned calm of predators. Our men feel themselves hardening. Our women go slick between the legs.
They each carry an object. These objects glow in the sun. What are they? Circles, someone says. Globes, someone corrects. Three-dimensional circles, someone adds. Spheres. Made of what? Rock. No, stone. No, marble. They made those? How did they make those? What are they for? No, quartz. No, obsidian. We could never make such a thing.
They vanish over the ridge, and we’re left knowing foolish evolution will select us over them.
3.
At times, we wake hopeful, sensitive to good omens, such as the cotton candy seller who sits right beside us on the subway, puffs of pink cotton candy guarding our heads like an umbrella; such as the inexplicable fireworks glimpsed over distant skyscrapers on a boring night in June.
Like tribal peoples, we obey the imperative of these omens. We dress ourselves in brightly colored garments. We load blankets and games, water and food, into a wheelbarrow. We go to the city park, we spread the blankets, we shuffle a deck of cards, we wait for our friends to arrive. We put our trust in the city lake, which reflects a half-blue sky; we put our trust in the grass. We become convinced that we will be able to create the impression of Arcadia, of nymphs and gods lounging nude in some clean and wild place, how pastoral it will all be, how softly the weeping willow dips seven fingers into the lake, you may think those are scraps of litter but in fact they are clusters of small white flowers. We sit there on our blanket, awaiting joy.
Our friends appear, smoking cigarettes and worrying about the weather. With yellowed fingers, they point out the black cloud we’ve neglected to notice. Unlike them, we are brave. We are not afraid of lightening, nor thunder. In fact, we rather enjoy such things. We swear to—
But at the first drops of rain, we grab the blankets and the games; we push the wheelbarrow through the downpour; our friends follow behind in a long lackadaisical line. We try to think of our life as a moveable feast. We try to yelp with the thrill of the rain. Our kitchen fills with damp cigarette smoke. Wet heels grind crumbs into our carpet; someone writes on the fabric of our couch.
Hours later, cleaning up, throwing plastic cups away, we become furious with ourselves for misinterpreting the signs. We should have kept the blankets safely in the linen closet. We should have built an arc.