Part I: The Problem
It was mini golf and it was monster themed and it was glow in the dark and it was too much. She cried. She wailed. She threw a fit. And I wasn’t having it. Even in the dark, even in the dimly lit glowing light, I could feel the eyes—not the spooky ones, the judgmental ones and most of all my own. We’re done, I said. I’m disappointed, I said. We paid money for this, I said. And she was all big eyes and big tears and big feelings and tight, folded arms. And all those I could see, glowing.
Part II: The Escape
There was no going back, only going forward, as much as I tried. As much as I wanted. We were only on the third hole. And so, she and I, hand-begrudgingly-in-hand, traipsed over ghouls and ghosts and demons and devils, our free hands clasping plastic putters and not so free after all. We emerged into the arcade. Noise and lights and two empty chairs.
Nothing glowed, save for our cheeks—red, angry, embarrassed.
Part III: The Chairs
“Sit,” I said. “Don’t get up. We’re waiting here until the others are done. And we’re not doing anything else. You didn’t want to do anything, so we’re not doing anything.”
Part IV: The Silence
Blinking eyes. Fidgeting thumbs. I scroll through the news. Regret.
Part V: The Duck
There is a machine, and it is filled with ducks. Rubber ducks, the sort you’d put in a bathtub. The sort that wear wizard hats and scuba gear and glasses and look like unicorns or teddy bears or other such things. Being a duck is simply not enough, not in this economy. You have to be more, all of it, all at once—the duckness fades into the background.
At this machine, there are children. Clamoring. Money in, ducks out and all the while a clawed hand dangles precariously.
“See those ducks, Dad?”
A snort.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“Those ducks? Cool, right?”
“Yeah.”
Blinking eyes and fidgeting thumbs and scrolling the news and…
“You can go look.”
She does, immediately, leaps to her feet, wipes the tears from her eyes, the snot from her nose. She stands at the machine, staring. Hoping. Willing. Manifesting. But money has already been spent and not on a duck masquerading as a knight.
“Can I push the button?”
“Nothing will happen.” A beat. “Sure, whatever.”
And she does. And the god of the ducks smiles down upon her because some circuit somewhere discharges in just the wrong way at just the right time and down, down, down the chute falls a singular plastic duck. And she reaches in, hesitant, doubtful, can this really be, is this real life or something we’ve all just agreed to dress up and call something else, and no, it really is—a duck.
“Can I have it?”
And I, too, am awestruck, amazed. This simple thing, random, meaningless, and yet—
“It’s a superhero duck.”
“That’s pretty cool,” I say. “Yeah—I think it’s yours.”
And she holds it up, grinning. Glowing.
And we sit back down in those chairs, studying this plastic duck. “I can’t believe it,” she says. “Neither can I,” I say. And we go back and forth like that, gazing at this duck, this superhero, this tiny piece of plastic.
And when others finally finish their round of golf, it’s all we can do to contain our excitement. “Can you believe it?” we say. “A superhero duck! Just came right out! She barely pushed the button!”
Chapter VI: The End
And in the end, the big eyes and big tears and big feelings and tight, folded arms fade into the mist. “Remember that time I got that duck?”
“Yes,” I say. “I do. That was so crazy.”
“SO crazy.”
“So crazy.”
And we smile and laugh and we forget the regret and we celebrate the duck and we glow together in the dark and otherwise.
And some other things:
As we grapple with the horrific suffering, terror and violence we’ve witnessed over the past week, I share this reflection I wrote for “Now Discern This” over at Jesuits.org: “A Prayer of Lamentation.”
And, remember last week when I said I’d have a “My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars” cover to share? You can preorder the book now!
Pre-ordered!