Presence
I sat on the floor with my five-year-old son next to a pile of toy wooden logs. The logs came in a big tub and were meant to be constructed into cabins, farm houses, and outbuildings. On the tub were pictures of structures of varying size and complexity. My son insisted we build the most complicated one, a major fortress. It looked like the Taj Mahal.
I had an important meeting to prepare for along with a dozen other things to ponder and worry over. “How about a little cabin,” I said. “We can pretend we’re in the Alaskan wilderness. We’ll live off the land.”
He shook his head and pointed to the picture. “Let’s build that.”
“That’s just an example. You don’t have to build it.”
“But I want to.”
I rubbed my neck in frustration, fought the urge to check my phone for messages. It had been ringing all afternoon. I conjured up awful scenarios that might be transpiring in the office while I sat home on the carpet. “Don’t you want to be creative and design your own house? Have you heard of architectural minimalism? It’s all the rage.”
“Huh?”
“You know, building something simple and cool.”
“No,” he said, pointing to the picture. “I want to build that.”
He would not relent, so we started building. I did most of the labor and he served as supervisory architect and all-purpose taskmaster. The boy was a stickler for accuracy. He insisted we construct an intricate vestibule shown on the picture that served little functional purpose. We toiled all afternoon. The construction was painstaking but oddly satisfying in its focused minutiae. I became so absorbed in it that I forgot all about my ringing phone and everything that could go wrong at work.
When we finally finished, the structure looked exactly like the picture. We exchanged high fives. I was giddy with all the cool things we’d do with it. We could invent aggressive, testosterone-fueled conflicts and post apocalyptic survival scenarios. Maybe we could add outbuildings and make it a compound or even a small town. I began the construction planning, figuring we’d need to buy at least three more tubs of logs to make the dream a reality.
As I fantasized, my older son ran into the room, kicked over the fortress, cackled briefly, and left. I stared in disbelief. I looked at the boy, expecting him to burst into tears of frustration and rage. But he just looked at the toppled structure for a moment, then stood and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I said. “We can rebuild it. We have to.”
He frowned. “Why? We already did. Let’s go play catch.”
He left the room. My cell phone rang.
Tom Mahony is a biological consultant in California with an MS from Humboldt State University. His fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in dozens of online and print publications. His first novel, Imperfect Solitude, was published by Casperian Books in 2010. His second novel, Flooding Granite, is forthcoming in October 2011. Visit his website at tommahony.net.
