(Editor’s note: These “narratives” were based on a process of fusing together disparate fragments of story and dialogue encountered while channel surfing. The inspiration for this project was the early Surrealist practice of wandering in and out of movies in progress, allowing the different film fragments to merge into one hybridized narrative.)
They meet at the door of the white house, and shake hands like strangers. The woman smiles shyly at the man, and takes his hand. As they enter out into the city, thought bubbles pop up around them like fluff, dispersing the quip comments that neither of them have the courage to say. As they sit down at the table in a small restaurant, she discovers the man’s secret, that he is wearing a sock puppet on his other hand. He uses the sock puppet to talk to the woman, and she plays along, but with a resignation and fear. Perhaps this date isn’t going to be what she had hoped for. Over and over again in her mind she asks herself why she can’t meet any nice men, without sock puppets to severe mental problems. As an aside she consider the psychological basis of the sock puppet, and how that reflects on the Id and Ego of the man. She develops a pity for him, and his need for the puppet, even, as he confides in her, in the bedroom during intimacy….
The woman thanks her listener and tells about her website. She wanders over to another table where an overexcited little girl sits, leaving the man alone with his sock puppet. The girl explains that her little brother Patrick annoys her, and follower her everywhere, but today he is sick. “But children’s Tylenol will make him better,” she says, looking up at the woman with an air of knowing. The woman leaves, and the child wanders out the back door into a wooded park.
The child asks the dinosaur where the park rangers are, and skips along the trail to a gathering of children in a clearing. The park ranger tells the children that today, they need to be detectives. The ranger tells the children that they need to look and see. They begin wandering around the clearing, peering into the grass and puddles from the recent rain…
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