NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Dead leaves have blown clear from around the picnic tables, leaving a flat dry expanse of earth. I am sitting at one of the tables, watching squirrels under the bare trees on a clear still day in Fauxmont Park. They chase each other through the complex crossings of branch shadows that look like a map projected on the smooth ground. Three squirrels run across and up the trunk of a nearby white oak. They move around to the back of the trunk out of sight. Someone’s coming slowly, getting closer and closer. A shadow gradually moves up the table jerking up its width, in small increments, with each step forward.
“Don’t turn around”. It’s Diddlie’s voice. She must have come through the woods at the other end of the park behind me. Saying nothing further she waves two wands in the air and their shadows give the impression of her having a feathery headdress. Looking ahead into the trees for the wrens I can hear, I don’t turn around.
“Have you seen Mr. Liddell?” she asks by way of a greeting.
“Hi Diddlie, can you see those wrens?”
“No, they’re in the bushes. It’s too thick.”
“Why are you sneaking up on me?”
“You saw my shadow didn’t you?”
“Yes but you seemed to be moving stealthily. I couldn’t hear your tread or anything.”
“I am not sneaking around. I just like shadow games especially in this warm wintery sun coming through the trees.”
“Shadow games you call it. No, to answer your question, I haven’t seen Mr. Liddell lately. When did he run away?
“Haven’t seen him for weeks.”
“I saw a white rabbit near your house back in August or September maybe.”
“Got him back that time. Lou caught him eating his garden lettuce and brought him back. Said I owed him thirty bucks at the going rate for all he’d eaten.”
“You going to sit down Diddlie?” She doesn’t answer but stays behind me slowly waving her shaggy weeds as if she were taking part in a ritual. Ignoring my invitation she asks, “You know why they didn’t build a house here?”
“No it hadn’t occurred to me.”
“I think some one bought the lot.”
“Isn’t it community property?”
“That’s what people say.”
“So why didn’t any one build here?”
“That’s the question. It’s valuable land.”
“Have you been writing about it?”
“Writing? What do you mean?”
“Remember you said you were going to write because you were not happy with events in Fauxmont the way I am writing them.”
“Yes but no one can see it.”
“Why, is it written in invisible ink?” I start to turn around but she puts a hand on my shoulder to restrain me and steps away to stay out of sight saying, “Don’t turn around okay?”
“Okay I won’t.”
“Listen, I am not ready to show any one.”
“But you are working, right?”
“I’m writing about a different place.
“Where?”
“I realize what I write isn’t going to change anything here. If I show it to you then it will just be part of your thing.”
“It will still be yours. I am not going to plagiarize.”
“No it won’t. I know you’re not going to plagiarize! You can never see it because if you do, you make it yours. You’ll be writing it, attributing it to me, but that doesn’t really make it mine.”
“Yes it does, that’s the meaning of attribution.”
“If you quote me in your FAUXMONT blog then it is yours. It is yours because you chose to put it there. Same as anything else you quote.”
“Are you going to let anyone read it?”
“I’ve never written anything for an audience before.”
“Oh you mean it’s a matter of confidence and …”
“Yeah right, its kind of scary letting some one else read what I’ve written. I am not ready yet.”
“Surely there’s some one you would trust to read it. What about Lou?”
“No, Lou wouldn’t be interested.”
So who’s going to see it?”
“You may never know.”
“Are you saying you’re never going to show it to me?”
“Well maybe, eventually, when I’ve got the goods on you.”
“What makes you think there’s anything to get?”
“All the trouble you make around here for one thing.”
“What else?”
“Well, I’d like to know who you bought your house from.”
“Why?”
“I’ve checked around and it was never listed. No one has lived in it for years. In fact I don’t know who owned it before you. Never met them. I think there have been some renters though, but I didn’t get to know them. They didn’t stay long. It was kind of a spooky place hidden behind all those hollies by the road, and your azaleas have grown up in front of the entrance and windows so you can’t see much of the house except the roof. Never saw any one fixing it up either. It must have been in bad shape having been rented or empty all this time?”
“Were you trying to find out about this park at the same time?”
“I have been checking out a number of things.”
“My house wasn’t listed because I bought it from the owner thanks to Lou who introduced me. It was a deal between us.”
“Well that explains some things and not others, such as who did Lou introduce you to?”
“The owner was represented by an agent. Never met them in person.”
“Yeah, and wasn’t this around the time Lou sold his business?”
“It was, so what?”
“Never mind.” I try to turn round again wondering why she is keeping herself out of sight, but she insists that I mustn’t. Diddlie gives no explanation but goes on about who might read her work. Maybe Daisy will read it, or Arty, but Arty is too busy. I don’t like to ask her.”
“Is it on line?”
“Yeah but I haven’t given any one access yet. Think of it as an alternative universe.”
“You wouldn’t be stringing me along would you?”
“Ha ha, very funny, no. Besides I don’t think that stuff works on our scale of existence. String theory has to do with things smaller than an atom.”
“Who told you that?”
“One of the scientists from Prestige U. who hang out at the H-bar.”
“I thought there is supposed to be a multiverse. That is, multiple places like this in other dimensions inaccessible to us.”
“I’ll believe it when there’s experimental evidence.”
“You’re very hard nosed Diddlie.” Her shadow has moved off the table as if she stepped away. Turning to look it is obvious she has moved on. The golden rod growing at the side of the field has small fluffy seeds in circular arrays on the end of the dried and dead brown stalks. Hers is usually in full bloom. Diddlie might have walked behind the shed on the lot next door, or did she go back through the woods the way she came? Watching the shed I don’t see her emerge beyond it.
