Everyone Yearns for What Is Missing

Everyone asked his or her children where their sibling Jan was. The children were gathered around a vacuum cleaner on the twelfth floor of the office building where everyone worked.

The children were Jody, a sanctimonious thirteen-year-old with a penchant for fart jokes who had recently become a famous child actor; Star, the one-time ten-year-old with a heart of gold before he or she ripped it out; and Journey, an eight- or nine-year-old chocolate thief who had absconded from juvenile detention while awaiting trial. Jan was a six-year-old and very much like everyone’s spouse in that he or she was missing.

The children looked toward the windows when everyone asked. Two of them were open. The children had been commanded not to go near them.

Everyone ran to the open window on the left and looked down. Below was a plaid jacket lying atop the bushes along the side of the all-glass building. The jacket looked too large to be Jan’s, but everyone wasn’t sure. The spouse had bought the children many things everyone didn’t recognize.

“What was Jan wearing?” everyone asked.

The children shook their heads in ignorance.

Everyone looked down again at the jacket. Everyone would have preferred to be examining the vacuum cleaner, but it was already full, what with a hand--an adult hand--extruding from the bottom.

“We’ll have to go down now,” everyone said, “all of us. I can’t trust you.”

Jody wheeled the vacuum cleaner before him or her “in case it was needed,” he or she said, as the children followed everyone to the exit.

“Our children,” everyone heard his or her coworker Sam say from his or her office.

Everyone veered away, chose a different route. Everyone had not expected Sam in the office over the weekend. Everyone did not want the children to see Sam. Sam had a crush on everyone and often made untoward advances. Everyone wanted his or her departed spouse back and did not want complicating factors. Star would be heartless in a divorce hearing.

Everyone opened the door to the hall where the elevators resided.

“Hello there,” everyone heard Sam call. Everyone let the children go into the hall before him or her, then looked back. Sam stood in the doorway to his or her office decked in a bathrobe that was open, beneath which only Sam’s underwear showed. Everyone closed the hall door, pressed the down button on the elevator bank.

“Who was that?” Journey asked.

“The office paramour,” Star said. Jody nodded.

Everyone gave Star a disapproving look.

“What?” Jody scolded. “You think we don’t know?”

Outside, the children scurried down the sidewalk, Jody pushing the vacuum on its hind wheels. Journey rushed into the thicket. The plaid jacket sunk into the bush’s leaves.

Star, kicking at the branches, made his or her way into the bushes as well.

Everyone asked them to stop, to come out. And then everyone asked if they saw Jan.

The children laughed.

Jody abandoned the vacuum, took off all but his or her underwear, and dove into the thicket as well, as if it were swimming pool.

A light came on above. It was from the twelfth story, one of the open windows.

Everyone looked up. A body stood in silhouette looking down at everyone. Everyone couldn’t tell if it was Sam or Jan.

“Don’t jump,” everyone cried. “Please don’t jump.”

The silhouette jumped.

Everyone Reads a Great Work of American Enterprise

Everyone had been invited to the reading by his or her child Star. Star was dead, but reading aloud to a live audience was something Star had great enthusiasm for, which was why everyone felt an obligation to appear. Everyone planned to read from his or her blog. The blog was about everyone’s search for the meaning of life after the death of his or her child Star, or the loss of his or her spouse or of his or her coworkers Harvey and J. D., or the disappearance of his or her child Jan, or the loss of $5092. Everyone wasn’t sure which. Everyone had lost a lot.

This explained why everyone was having trouble beginning. The blog was supposed to be a novel, though the Internet said it hardly qualified. The Internet was against everyone’s novel--because it was jealous, everyone imagined.

Everyone brought screen captures of the blog to the reading so that he or she would not have to depend on the Internet to supply a copy.

The reading was in a room on Skype that looked like a coffee shop. There were a couple of tables with chairs, three couches, a recliner, and a set of bookshelves that featured important works by important authors, such as Quacker Oats Cereal by the Popsi Cola Corporation, Busty Cooker’s Bakeware by the Genial Miles Corporation, and Wheet Thicks by the Kneebisko Corporation. Everyone was proud to be among such celebrated works of American enterprise, for nothing bespoke success like market share. Everyone hoped his or her blog would soon find a home among such works.

Everyone ordered a coffee and waited. The clerk ignored everyone, however, and that’s when everyone realized the coffee was self-serve, so everyone served. The coffee tasted homemade.

A chair sat in front of the shelves. The chair stared into a camera mounted on a computer. Everyone sat in it.

Four people had read before everyone. These people now sat on couches waiting for everyone to begin. Everyone expected more, so everyone waited.

The four people grew restless. One person stood up and stretched, then went outside, leaving the screen. Another went to make coffee.

Everyone realized he or she needed to begin before more disappeared. Everyone wasn’t sure where. The key, however, was to begin. That’s what the Internet would have said.

Everyone began.

Everyone opened the folder in which he or she had placed the printouts from the blog. Inside was everyone’s tax return from the previous year. Stapled to it was a letter from the IRS. The letter said everyone owed $5092. It said this boldly, in bold letters.

Everyone looked for the chapter “Everyone Starts a Blog.”

The next item in the folder was a letter from everyone’s coworker Sam. The letter threatened everyone with legal action if he or she continued to use Sam’s name on the blog.

Next was a bill from Star’s surgeon, asking for compensation for his or her heart of gold, and a bill from a window company, and an ad for a sedan from the Misery Beanz Corporation.

Another person rose from his or her seat and took hold of the jacket resting on its back. The person beside rose as well.

The person with the new cup of coffee took a deep gulp. “I’ll come with you,” the coffee drinker said.

The room was empty.

Everyone stared into the camera, looked down at his or her folder: a vacuum cleaner ad, a vet bill, a bill for a cemetery memorial.

Everyone looked back up at the camera and gave a wan smile.

Everyone began: “Account summary. Previous balance: $5092. Payments and credits . . .”

Everyone Fakes Being a Parent

Jody was a famous actor now, and Star was jealous. Jody had parlayed the role of Kindred in a local play into a part in the movie Fifty-Two Ways to Blog about the Meaning of Life, starring the famous actor Clint Gabble. Star tore his or her heart out and died. Star had had a liking for Clint Gabble ever since he had started dating Gina Monrovia, with whom he had starred in the movie The Real Mr. Keen, mostly in the nude. Star had been too young to see the movie, but the Internet had shown Star nearly every clip available of the two lovers together in real life, and Star had wished his or her life to be the same.

Jody and Clint got along admirably. Clint invited Jody to watch television with him and Gina in his trailer while the makeup artist prepared their hair. The three of them watched the romantic film The Notbook, for which Clint had a soft spot, it being Gina’s favorite. Clint played tough roles in movies, but he was actually quite sensitive. That was why he had wanted so badly to play the real Mr. Keen. Plus, Clint liked sex.

Jody could relate. Being twelve years old, almost thirteen, Jody thought about sex constantly, even though he or she had never had it. In fact, Jody’s preoccupation with sex had been at the center of his or her portrayal of Kindred in the local play, Everyman, because after all, all kindred came from sex.

“I never thought of it that way,” Clint said.

Not long after that, Clint invited Jody to go waterskiing with him and Gina, and the three hung out all day on a motorboat drinking Popsi Colas and looking fit, which caused members of the opposite sex to buy up several popular magazines.

Clint had yet to meet the second of Jody’s parents, however, and Jody was nervous about it. Clint and Gina met one of the parents--everyone’s former spouse--out on the boat that day. Everyone’s spouse was known to drink Popsi Colas as well and regularly spent time on motorboats with fit and tan and beautiful people who were rich, successful, and famous, so he or she fit in well with Jody’s friends. Everyone’s spouse had long known Jody was bound for success: Jody had always been sanctimonious, and Hollywood people, the spouse noted, eat that up when the sanctimony runs in the correct activist direction.

Everyone, however, was something of a failure. Everyone had been blogging a novel for thirty-something weeks, and still no one was reading it. In the novel, everyone was looking for his or her spouse--or for the meaning of life, or both--when both were lying right here, on a motorboat in a body of water, easy to obtain access to, even as Jody and Clint and Gina had. Everyone had problems.

And that was Jody’s problem. He or she was worried how everyone would react when everyone met Clint. Everyone had not had dealings with rich and successful people in beautiful bodies, save for everyone’s spouse, before he or she had become successful, and all the people of the world who read the blog, which was no one, knew how that had gone.

Jody asked his or her friend the Internet for advice.

“Hire an actor,” the Internet said. “Nothing says Clint and Gina have to meet both your parents or even a real one.”

Jody pondered this for a few seconds and found the advice flawless. The Internet knew everything, which was why it was so good at dispensing advice. Jody asked the Internet if it knew any good actors that Clint and Gina didn’t know, actors who could play a parent.

The Internet spilled out reams of names. The Internet knew all of humanity but most especially those who wanted to be someone else, as they were the ones who had the most dealings with the Internet and were thus the Internet’s closest friends.

Jody chose an actor in black-and-white because he or she looked old, the way his or her other parent did. The actor agreed to come to the marina to get on a boat with Jody and Clint. They would go waterskiing together and drink Popsi Cola.

Star, who was dead, was not happy about this.

Everyone’s Child Dies a Star

“Sam?” everyone heard Star say. Star was everyone’s second child. Sam was everyone’s coworker.

Everyone looked up from the bed. Star was standing in the doorway. Sam was not everyone’s spouse.

“I thought you were devoted to John Quincy Adams,” Star said.

“I am,” Sam insisted.

“It’s not what it looks like,” everyone said, putting feet on the floor and buttoning her or his shirt. “I came in to look at what was in the window.”

Star had tears in her or his eyes. “John Quincy Adams was inside you,” Star said.

“No,” Sam clarified. “J. D. is inside me. John Quincy Adams reminds me of J. D. John Quincy Adams is profound the way J. D. was. John Quincy Adams speaks of Hawaii the way J. D. used to.”

“I am devoted to my spouse,” everyone explained. “I would never--”

Star tugged at her or his chest, pulling the clothes away from her or his body, as if a vacuum cleaner hose were sucking at them.

“Please,” everyone said. “I’m sorry. I’m only human.” Everyone looked at the picture of her or his spouse on the shelf beside the bed. The spouse was gorgeous. She or he had been working out for a year before the photo was taken. Each muscle was perfectly toned. The workouts had occurred out of doors, and the spouse was well tanned. In her or his hand was a Popsi Cola, everyone’s favorite drink. The spouse was on a boat on an ocean or a lake. The sunlight cast a shadow onto the figure standing beside the spouse, also perfectly sculpted. How could everyone compete? And now this.

“This, this here,” Sam continued, trying to explain, “it’s just.” Sam bowed her or his head. Sam had not risen from the bed. Her or his robe stood open, advertising Sam’s flesh. Everyone realized that Sam was not only a constant source of temptation but also a paragon of gaudiness. No wonder everyone had fallen into Sam’s embrace.

“Everyone was there that day,” Sam said. “Everyone stood beside me in my grief. Our grief. I’d hoped--”

“Adams was out on that ocean for you,” Star yelled. “Adams went to paradise. Adams knows what love is, what it’s supposed to be.” Star was convulsing. She or he had more than a shirt in hand.

“Don’t,” everyone said. “Your heart. You’ll damage--”

But it was too late. Star had it in hand. It gleamed in front of Star under the fluorescents--gold covered in blood. Star threw it on the floor and collapsed.

“Star,” everyone cried. She or he knelt. Everyone and her or his spouse had devoted so much in medical expenses toward the child. She or he had always seemed the child most likely to become famous, given what was inside.

Sam covered her or him with the robe. “That was rather inconvenient,” Sam said. She or he stood, stooped beside everyone, put an arm around everyone’s shoulder. Together, they looked at the heart.

“I bet you could get $5092 for that,” Sam said.

Everyone Proves Seductive to the Opposite Sex

Everyone needed to know where the body had come from, what the light was that everyone had seen behind it.

The lobby was dark as everyone strode through, the security guards defunct for the night, the food in the tiny café glowing ghostily under futile display lamps. The elevator bank was dead too, a graveyard of metal upright caskets. Everyone emptied her or his security card into its beckoning slot, watched the light switch from red to green, then stepped into the elevator and requested the twelfth floor.

Everyone found the twelfth floor lighted up as if a baseball game were being played at night, fluorescents beaming so brightly across cubicles that her or his eyes hurt.

“I’ve been expecting you,” everyone’s coworker Sam said, coming to the doorway of her or his office. Sam was barefoot, a sleeping robe encasing her or his frame.

Everyone had long known of Sam’s crush on her or him, but everyone had never thought Sam sexy in the way that everyone’s spouse had been. Everyone felt embarrassed and confused. Everyone wondered whether being alone with Sam made a difference or whether everyone’s perceptions had been wrong about Sam these many months. Either way, everyone at this moment found her- or himself wanting Sam with a desperation known only to toads that mate solely one day a year.

“Come,” Sam said, summoning everyone with the turn of her or his body, the flash of skin at the back of the shins too much for everyone to resist.

Sam’s modular desk had been transformed into a bed, sheets pulled down and ready for occupation. Above them, the romantic glow of a fire titillated on the computer. Sam sat down, pulled a champagne glass and bottle from the shelf beside the bed, and poured. She or he patted the bed for everyone.

Everyone looked around. Sam handed the wine to everyone, took another glass for her- or himself, and drank.

Everyone sat. Sam placed an arm around everyone and kissed her or his cheek. Everyone flinched. Sam laughed, pulled everyone into her- or himself.

“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “Your spouse isn’t coming back.”

Everyone studied the photograph on the shelf next to the wine bottle. Everyone’s spouse stood on a motorboat at night. Lights glinted off the water. The spouse was smiling, holding a can of Popsi Cola at waist height with her or his right hand. The spouse appeared fit and tan--better than everyone remembered the spouse looking. An arm was around the spouse, the flesh of a torso. The person beside everyone’s spouse wore shades and a baseball cap. Everyone knew this person. This person gave the spouse’s life meaning.

Sam pushed everyone down on the bed, wrapped her or his body around everyone’s, kissed everyone, began taking off clothes.

“We’ve got to find Jan,” everyone heard. “Everyone’s going to be angry at us if we don’t.”

“You’re the one who insisted on running the vacuum,” Star said. Star was everyone’s second child.

“You were told to stay away from the window,” Jody, everyone’s first, said.

“I did,” Star said.

“It was Jan’s decision,” everyone’s third, Journey, proffered.

Everyone pushed her- or himself up. Sam tugged.

“The children,” everyone said.

Sam stood, pulled off her or his robe, put her or his weight against everyone, slammed everyone into the mattress.

“Our children!” Sam insisted.

Everyone’s Children Participate in Sibling Rivalries

The local playhouse was holding auditions for the role of Goods in its newest play. Goods was a capitalistic character, and Star readily identified.

Star had a literal heart of gold that had cost thousands of dollars. One of Star’s parents had lost $5092 several months ago and was still mourning. Star’s sibling Journey was obsessed with consuming chocolate. And Star’s other parent had run away with a rich person and had been exceedingly happy since.

Star wanted to be rich too--and famous--like the actor who voiced John Quincy Adams at the Dasney Amusement Park Malls, Clint Gabble. Star wanted to have a love affair and to have periodicals follow it. Star was ten years old, and the time in which such things could happen was fleeting.

At the audition, Star practiced his or her lines as others lined up to try out. These others included a person in a plaid jacket whom Star found vaguely familiar, as if one of his or her parents had worked or run away with the person. Another would-be actor was a guy who brought with him a wheelbarrow worth of toasters, as if profligate spending could seal the role. Then there was a woman with very tall hair who kept sticking knitting pins inside it as if the hair were a voodoo doll representing the other auditioners. Star felt vaguely intimidated and calmed him- or herself with these words:

Sir, if ye in the world have sorrow or adversity,
That can I help you to remedy shortly.

Goods was a fine fellow. Star felt ready.

And then a more familiar form came into Star’s purview: his or her twelve-year-old sibling Jody. Jody was wearing a jumpsuit covered in dollar bills. The dollar bills amounted to $5092.

Star had ridden to the audition with Sam, a coworker of one of his or her parents. Sam was the one who had first inspired Star to audition by taking Star to see the John Quincy Adams animatronic robot at the Dasney Mall.

Seeing Jody was a surprise, and Star was uncertain how or why his or her sibling was here. Given Jody’s costume, Star worried that Jody was trying out for the role of Goods as well. Star had worked hard to memorize his or her part, but Jody, being two years older, was much more worldly and conceivably would be better able to render Goods as a full person who engendered passion from those who would act in and attend the play.

Both Jody and Star had learned about character from their friend the Internet. The Internet had told them that character was made of three things: trust, faithfulness, and hard work. Add to that experience, action, and consistency, and a character’s true portrayal was assured.

Star had conceived of Goods as cold and objective the way Clint Gabble had rendered John Quincy Adams, as well as Gina Monrovia’s love interest in The Real Mr. Keen. Goods was to be cool. Star had invested in Goods all the way down to his or her heart of gold. Goods was to be an amalgam of all the relatives who were part of Star’s life.

Who got the part, Star realized, would come down to which characterization of Goods prevailed with the directors.

But Star could not help but worry about Jody. Jody had all the same relatives and was known to be something of a snot and could quote a full lexicon of fart jokes. If Jody managed to quote one at the audition and made the producers laugh, he or she might manage to steal the role.

Desperate situations require decisive action, Star recalled from the advice he or she had received--namely, violence.

Star covered his or her face and strode toward Jody. When within a few feet, Star leaped, hands held out to snatch as many dollars from Jody’s costume as possible.

“Sir, if ye in the world have sorrow or adversity,” Star yelled as he or she came up from the dive, twenty-two dollars in hand, “That can I help to shortly remedy.”

Jody, full of sanctimonious talent, stood firm and calm as he or she rendered the following lines:

In wealth and woe will you hold,
For over his kin a man may be bold.

With that, Jody turned away from Star, tilted his or her bottom into the air, and let one rip.

Everyone laughed.

Star had not known one of his or her parents was at the audition.

Others joined in the laughing too. Somehow, Jody had managed to merge sanctimoniousness and slapstick.

A man in a black beret ran over and hoisted Jody’s arm above his head. “Brilliant,” the man said, taking a few dollars from Jody’s costume and stuffing them into his pocket. “Absolutely brilliant.”

Others in berets strode up then and surrounded Jody.

A woman stepped out from among them with a cap, put it on Jody’s head, and took a few dollars. “You are Kindred,” she said. “You are Kindred.”

Star wished he or she could rip out his or her heart and hand it over. As it was, Star had only twenty-two dollars to offer.

Everyone Has a Child Aching to Be Famous

Everyone’s child Star decided to become an actor. Star had a heart of gold, so she or he was destined for fame.

Star’s inspiration for taking up acting was the John Quincy Adams exhibit at the Dasney Amusement Park Mall. Sam, everyone’s coworker at the parent company’s main office, had taken Star to see the exhibit.

Ever since Sam had seen John Quincy Adams speak, she or he had been transfixed. It was as if John Quincy Adams lived inside Sam and controlled all that Sam said, did, and perceived. Sam wanted others to see in John Quincy Adams what she or he saw. John Quincy Adams had been prescient enough to perceive that Hawaii was a place for tourists and thus to argue for its statehood, all without having seen the islands and before the United States had taken control.

John Quincy Adams reminded Sam of J. D., an ex-coworker of everyone’s and Sam’s. Whenever Sam saw John Quincy Adams speak, Sam was certain J. D. had come to live inside John Quincy Adams. It was evident from the way that John Quincy Adams had such respect for law and Hawaii.

Sam had been disappointed when she or he took everyone to see John Quincy Adams. Everyone had failed to see how John Quincy Adams invoked their former coworker J. D.

So Sam decided to take others. Sam wanted to take everyone’s youngest child, Jan. Jan seemed likely to be the most susceptible to Adams’s power, because Jan was the most like everyone’s former spouse, and everyone’s former spouse liked J. D. But like everyone’s former spouse, Jan could not be found.

Sam would have taken everyone’s child, Journey, as in the right light, Sam could see J. D. in Journey’s eyes. But Sam had heard of the troubles everyone had had with Journey the last time they had visited the Dasney Mall, and Sam did not wish to repeat those.

So Sam settled on Star.

Star believed John Quincy Adams to be the greatest orator of her or his generation, or so Star told Sam. Star identified John Quincy Adams’s voice and mannerisms not with J. D. but with the famous actor Clint Gabble. As a child Clint Gabble had been featured as a child robot on a television show that included a spaceship, and then he had gone on to star with Gina Monrovia in the movie The Real Mr. Keen. The movie had been rated R for sex. Clint Gabble wasn’t a child robot actor anymore, and this was how he proved it. Gina wanted to be famous, and the movie was how she proved that. Now everyone knew what Gina looked like naked, so she could not go anywhere without being recognized unless she had on clothes.

Star had never seen the movie, but the Internet had shown her or him clips, late at night, after everyone went to bed. Most of the clips did not involve the movie, however, except in passing. Most of the clips involved how Clint and Gina were in love. Their love was more famous than they were. All of humanity wanted to know where Clint and Gina’s love ate each night, what that love was doing coming out of the Crystalball Club at three a.m. on a Sunday morning, and when the love would finally make Clint and Gina marry.

In the grocery store Star learned that Gina had been unfaithful to the love, and Clint was uncertain about whether to continue going out with it. Star learned that love had made Gina pregnant, though no baby had ever come forth, and that Clint used a phone line to talk love into going out with other women.

Then Clint and Gina reconciled with love and had their pictures taken with it on a red carpet. Gina wore a long pencil gown that wrapped around her like a vacuum cleaner hose. Clint, right arm around Gina’s waist, smiled haughtily, as if he had just finished vacuuming love’s thirteen-room mansion. And in Clint and Gina’s free hands--because they were rich and thin and fit and happy and successful--were cans of Popsi Cola.

Star wanted to be part of this love that Clint and Gina had. They knew the meaning of life, took boat cruises with it each weekend. Star wanted to always have a member of the opposite sex beside her or him and to have all of humanity know it.

Clint Gabble, on stage as a John Quincy Adams robot, seemed to be out to tantalize single women, the way he spoke of Hawaii as the last adventure to be tamed and potentially as the federal government’s biggest tax haul ever. Clint, as John Quincy Adams, was very logical. Star wanted to have such logic. Star wanted to be an actor.

Everyone Cleans the Office

While in the hospital, everyone came to the realization that everyone needed to write more about his or her children. What was the point, after all, of the children existing if everyone wasn’t putting them to use? By that, everyone was not suggesting that the kids should be slave labor. Everyone had no desire to be on the wrong side of the U.S. Civil War.

Rather, everyone was contemplating his or her novel in relation to character development. Everyone had asked the Internet about character, but the Internet had given him or her screens’ worth of fluff about faithfulness and trust and hard work. The real key to character, everyone had come to realize, was action. Characters had to do something.

“Characters have to live in the world,” the Internet said when everyone brought his or her new idea to the Internet’s attention. “Action is key.”

The Internet was not willing to admit it had been wrong. It never was. Everyone hated that about the Internet, which made everyone wonder sometimes why he or she and the Internet remained friends, especially since the Internet had a way of shutting down when everyone needed help.

But the focus in everyone’s blog today was not on the Internet. It was on the children: sanctimonious twelve-year-old Jody, who knew everything (too much time around the Internet, everyone surmised); ten-year-old Star, with his or her heart of gold; eight-year-old chocolate-addicted Journey; and six-year-old Jan, who reminded everyone so much of his or her spouse in that Jan seemed so often to be missing. Everyone was putting each of them to work today, cleaning the twelfth-floor office building where everyone performed his or her main job as an archivist.

Everyone was a little nervous. The building was made of glass, and children and glass did not mix well. Beyond that, one of the glass pieces on the twelfth floor was missing. Everyone warned his or her children to stay away from the windows, most especially the open one.

The children were to flush toilets in the bathroom until they seemed clean--sixteen, seventeen, eighteen times, whatever it took. They were to dust the computer terminals on Alice’s desk and Harvey’s and J. D.’s. They were to empty the trash in the break rooms and vacuum the common hallways. But they were not to go near the windows, and they were not to go into Sam’s office.

Sam had a crush on everyone, and everyone suspected that photographs of everyone might have become part of Sam’s decor. Not understanding the full context, the children might have taken such images as incriminating evidence against everyone and thus abet everyone’s spouse’s divorce suit against him or her. Everyone did not want to get divorced.

Jody worked hard on the carpet, directing Star’s and Journey’s paths as they stooped over the floor, peeling up bubble gum and dog poop, nail polish and hot glue, staples and sticky notes, with child-sized chisels. Jody was vacuuming, but not much was coming up. The bag was full, and the belt squealed against the rotating cylinder, smoking up the office in the same manner that everyone’s car had smoked when it first burst into flames while everyone was on the way downtown one night to inspect the office’s open twelfth-story window. The flames made the car difficult to drive, even more so than before when there was only the acrid smell of hairballs from the previous owner to contend with. Now smoke constantly poured from the engine into the cab and flames in the back window had to be periodically doused. Everyone couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the vacuum had caught fire from the car.

But such was not the case. Jody stopped the vacuum when the high pitch of the belt squeal cracked loose a second window at the office. This window was next to the missing one, from which the children had been told to stay away, which they did.

“I think something is wrong,” said know-it-all Jody, bending over the vacuum that he or she now held on its side. “Something is in here.” Jody reached in and pulled back, nothing in hand, horror across his or her face.

Everyone came to look. A hand was sticking out from the bottom--not Jody’s.

“You klutz,” everyone said. “You need to be more careful.”

Everyone pulled at the hand. Just then, everyone heard a crash.

The second window was gone.

Journey and Star and Jody ran to it, looked out over the street.

Where was Jan? everyone wondered.

Everyone Raises the Darlings

Everyone needed to make money so that she or he could buy a new car, so everyone had taken a second job as a janitor of random office buildings. Unfortunately, the boss of that second job, Harvey, had disappeared, so there was no second job, unless everyone returned to the random office buildings she or he had been to already with the hope that cleaning was needed and pay was forthcoming. But that pay came from Harvey, so it was unlikely.

Everyone thought about starting her or his own business, using everyone’s children, except everyone didn’t have children anymore because everyone had taken some bad advice and killed them. Everyone was learning: Never trust the Internet.

Everyone looked down at the dog beside her or him at the desk as everyone was typing. One’s darlings are one’s darlings for a reason, everyone thought.

Everyone decided on a rescue mission. Everyone was going to resuscitate the darlings, bring them back to life: Jody, the sanctimonious fart-joke expert; Star, the gold-hearted surgical miracle; Journey, the $5092 tax write-off; and Jan, the copy of everyone’s one-time spouse except in the sense that she or he was a six-year-old girl or boy and hadn’t yet found the meaning of life and disappeared. Everyone loaded her or his pen with the intention of letting the kids spill once again across the page.

“Today, my precious progeny,” everyone wrote, “we are going to Dasneyland.”

There was nothing like a Dasneyland Amusement Park Mall to bring kids back to life. Dasneyland had sick-smelling sweet shops in unnatural and unhealthy levels of proliferation, fart-joke bookstores, metal detectors for kids with hearts of rare earth minerals, chocolate carpets, and rooms where one could select new parents or pretend to be one’s own. It also had rides: on faux cars and faux planes and faux boats, all them through faux cities with faux people, and in those faux cities were faux restaurants that served faux food and faux eye doctors with faux eyeglasses. Everyone loved Dasneyland, and so did her or his kids.

Today, especially.

Today was the day that the John Quincy Adams animatron’s job was transferring to Hawaii, and anyone who paid the twenty-seven-dollar entrance fee could go with him. The way you went with him was to stand in a line, and then walk, and then stand in a line some more, and then walk some more, and then stop and listen to John Quincy Adams speak, and then walk some more.

As it turned out, John Quincy Adams knew a lot about Hawaii. Hawaii had hula dancers and Don Hoe and lots of pineapple. If you smelled closely, you could feel the pineapple in your nostrils, and if you listened closely, you could hear the swish of hula skirts on your legs.

“People were uncertain about electing me president,” John Quincy Adams said, after he explained Hawaii to the visitors, “just as they were uncertain about letting Hawaii become a state.”

Jody’s eyes were the first to come alive as everyone stood with her or his kids staring at the president. “Is it really John Adams?” Jody asked. “When is he going to fart?”

Star came next, pushing a hand against her or his metal heart. “I feel like George Washington and I have so much in common,” Star said.

Then came Journey, chocolate lover, who kneeled and licked the floor.

And finally, Jan, who noted that Hawaii would be a good place in which to look for meaning.

Everyone smiled. The kids had come to life just as she or he had wished.

Now came the hard part--making the kids do as everyone expected them to, or at least wanted them to. Everyone could, of course, force the children to accede to her or his wishes, but everyone could not make the kids wish as she or he wished for them to wish.

“Come on, guys,” everyone said to her or his darlings. “Let’s go clean an office building.”

The darlings stared at one another as they stood beside everyone in front of the president. They felt safe with John Quincy Adams and Dasneyland. They were unsure about an office building. They did not want to leave. It was dangerous outside. They knew. They’d already been killed once.

Everyone Wants a New Start

Everyone was searching for a better beginning to his or her novel. Everyone, as per usual, asked his or her friend the Internet. The Internet knew a lot of stuff and was very wise, but it was also self-effacing. “Don’t believe everything that’s posted,” the Internet often told everyone, not wanting to be found a liar. Everyone wanted to believe everything, because they were friends, but this was difficult because the Internet often said things that were contradictory, as with the beginning of novels.

The Internet said to start at the beginning.

The Internet said you will never know the beginning unless you start, so just start.

The Internet said to start in the middle and cut the first four pages.

Everyone reread his or her first four pages. While everyone was not satisfied with their place at the beginning, they seemed needed. In fact, the longer everyone looked at them, the more everyone thought them the work of a genius.

Everyone could not cut them. They were his or her children: Jody, the sanctimonious twelve-year-old with his or her penchant for fart jokes; Star, the sensitive ten-year-old with a heart of literal gold, quite an expense at the time but luckily covered by insurance, given his or her life on the balance sheet; Journey, the rambunctious little dweeb, eight years of age, with a weakness for all things chocolate; and finally Jan, the six-year-old with the personality of everyone’s spouse, which is to say a missing personality, because everyone’s spouse had run away.

“You have to kill your darlings,” the Internet said, “if you want to write.”

The advice seemed nonsensical. Everyone was looking for a start, and if everyone sacrificed the darlings, what would he or she have left? The darlings were essential.

But the Internet was not to be persuaded. “The darlings will keep you from the end of the story and thus from the true beginning,” the Internet said. “Kill the darlings.”

Everyone cried as he or she moved the cursor across the keyboard. First Jody disappeared, then Star, then Journey, then Jan.

Everyone was alone. Except for the dog. The dog was in the third paragraph, breathing on everyone at the keyboard.

Save the dog, the Internet advised. “People love a good dog story.”

“Are you writing this or am I?” everyone asked.

The Internet didn’t answer. The Internet was miffed. Everyone had asked for the Internet’s advice, and the Internet had given it, and if everyone was going to get angry, then there was no reason for the Internet to waste its time.

Everyone was miffed too. Everyone wanted back his or her darlings. Everyone was crying inside and out. But the way of return had been expunged. This was the beginning.

Everyone Goes to the Mall

Some days, everyone went to the Dasney Amusement Park Mall. The Dasney Mall was a knockoff of Disneyland; only it was a mall, and it had all things Dasney instead of Disney: for example, Sinderella’s Bridal Clothes and Dunbo’s Hearing Aids, Banbi’s Taxidermy and Stuffed Animals and Snotty’s Cold and Flu Elixir Shop. Plus, it had dysfunctional rides and long lines. Everything was bright and pastel and had a sheen of lacquer, as if the world were a giant LP with cartoon liner notes.

On this day, everyone took her or his daughter or son with her or him, one of the four. Entry had cost twenty-seven dollars for the child, and everyone was feeling the bite in her or his pocketbook walking around. Everyone and her or his progeny would have to leave to eat lunch elsewhere, and everyone felt bad and cheap about it, but such became requisite when one’s spouse ran away: one was left as poor as a near-sighted librarian without glasses, which was sort of what everyone was. Everyone actually worked for Dasney. Everyone got half off entry to the mall (that is, free for her- or himself), but everyone could still not afford to take all the children at once.

The floor of the candy store in the Dasney Amusement Park Mall sounded like Pop Rawks. The store was a walk-through ride, looping machine arms twisting taffy around for visitors or giant mallets rocking in rhythm, pounding sweet milk from cane. The heart of the store was a computer made of suckers, its parts rotating to 0 or 1 on Popsicle sticks. Everyone stared in wonder. Everyone always stared in wonder, even though she or he had worked for Dasney an amount of time that, according to statistical averages, would have precluded such interest. The reason might have been that everyone’s second child, Star, had a heart of gold. Everyone could identify with metal and hearts and machines.

The child everyone had brought to the mall stood in wonder as well, or so everyone was thinking when everyone noticed that the child’s hand was not in her or his own. Everyone felt a quiver, uncertain whether it was panic or a candy high (the store smelled of bleach and sugar). Unfortunately, there were so many greedy children in Mikey Moose hats that everyone found it near impossible to distinguish her or his child amid the din. The child did not appear to be amid the computer Popsicles or in the pounding room, nor did she or he appear to be in the taffy room or in the peanut peeling quarters.

Where everyone eventually found the child, just as she or he was about to report the child missing, was next to the cash register, inside a giant glass candy bowl. The bowl was full of fifty-pound chocolate bars. The child was sitting atop the heap. Chocolate smeared her or his cheeks, and she or he was still eating.

Everyone warned the child to get out. The child stared at everyone and took another bite.

The chocolate bars were $5092 each, all that everyone had in savings. There was no way that everyone could pay for a bar. Everyone needed the savings to buy a new car. The new car would have room for the four kids and the dog, as well as the missing spouse, though there was no guarantee she or he would ever return to sit in it. The current car was a green that had peeled to gray and smelled of hairballs. It was hard to drive, and everyone often had to pull over after two or three miles to air it out.

Everyone wished that she or he still had the $27 entrance fee.

Everyone hoped that she or he could pay for just part of the chocolate bar, that the store would be willing to cut off the portion eaten and charge only for that. Everyone needed that $5092.

Unfortunately, everyone’s child loved chocolate.

A lot.