'I knew it was strange' she'd tell me later 'for one I wasn't even looking for a face, I was pre-occupied with pondering whether the sky wants to turn teal but feels pressure to remain blue to satisfy everyone's expectations, and if so why teal? Why not mauve, or coffee teeth yellow? Plus what color even IS teal? Isn't that just a different shade of blue? What have we DONE to the sky so that even in its wildest fantasies of change it can still only contemplate a subtle alteration? And shouldn't we be ashamed of that? I'm ashamed of many things, stuffing my bra in high school, stuffing full envelopes into mailboxes that were already full, stuffing up my first go at tennis by being not naturally gifted at it, not wearing a bra to tennis and distracting a postman who crashed his bike into a telephone booth and broke his pelvis, stuffing up my weekdays for three weeks to do his job for him, using the word 'stuff' too often, and loads more stuff, but I'm not ashamed of the sky feeling trapped to stay the same? That's shameful. Also I'm hardly ever looking to find a face. I feel like if that was a goal you'd be disappointed a lot, and disappointment can really stuff with your brain.'
'So how did you feel when you saw the face?' I asked, wanting to know more, and feeling I had the skills to acquire this information using the beautiful art of question asking.
'Well nothing at first, I'm a cute girl so I often see faces pointing at me, but then after I saw this face I thought about it for a while and realized something that I hadn't previously realized that I'd one day realize, when I realized that "lawns don't normally have faces", but then I thought "WHY don't they? What have we done to lawns to make them feel ashamed to not grow faces if they want to?" I've done a lot of things I feel shame for, stuffing Jenny at school into a locker, and then stuffing a rat in there, then saying "I bet you stuff your bra" and then crying "me toooo" and then going to hug her and getting bitten on the vagina by a rat, and then having to have a doctor look at it, but when he said he had to look saying "stuff you, stuff your job, and stuff my whole stuffing life", but I'm not ashamed of not letting lawns feel shameless about growing faces, and then I thought "why did it grow a Caucasian face?" And then I thought "why does it matter what race face it has, I don't care if anyone is black, white or green" and then I thought "oh THAT's why people say that, the third category is lawns" and then I felt ashamed for not knowing that earlier'.
More information was flowing, my delicate balance of using my voice to get her to use her voice to tell me more through the delicate skill of asking questions was working, I now just had to summon up every ounce of my question asking expertise to pose the PERFECT next question to keep this rolling, and I nailed it, 'and then what happened?' I asked.
'Then I called my mom, and I said "mom, have lawns always grown faces?" And she said "you know what, I don't know, I don't think I've ever looked at a lawn, I'm always staring at the sky and wondering if it's ever considered turning teal, but won't because it doesn't want to scare people" then I called her an idiot, I mean the sky shoots lightening at people's heads, even if they are wearing protective metal hats, it is NOT scared of scaring people. Then I thought "Oooh danger, that's sexy". Then I thought "I wonder if lawns are good kissers", you know because I've never kissed a lawn, and I've kissed a lot of people and things, so I'd probably be a good judge, so I began kissing it, and the answer is YES, lawns kiss VERY well, perhaps it's tongue was a bit grassy, but I smoked a cigarette once so who am I to complain. Soon enough the kissing got hot and heavy, and we were rolling around just going for it, and that's when I realized...'
I knew this next period of time in our conversation would be crucial in my attempt to gather more information and so I engaged the timelessly beautiful technique of question asking, and I nailed the PERFECT next question, 'what?'
'That the face was on top of me, I was on the bottom, and the rest of the lawn was still under me'.
I needed to continue mining my rich vein of great information collecting, and the beautiful dance that is flawlessly engendered question formulating helped me again, 'so?' I asked.
'So the face wasn't attached to the lawn. The lawn hadn't grown a face at all! So I pulled it away from me. And then I saw the sky through its mouth and I thought "I wonder if the sky would like to turn teal but doesn't because it's afraid that it'll have to get new ID because it won't look like the picture of itself on its license" and then I thought "focus on the face please" and then I wondered why I had said "please" to myself, I'm not normally that polite, like I've stuffed up many job interviews by saying "just give me the stuffing job", when saying "just give me the stuffing job, please" would gave GOT me the stuffing job. So I'm like I should be as polite to strangers as I am to myself, and then I thought "stuff that, I dont even stuff my bra anymore and boys STILL want to touch, I'm awesome, stuff being polite". And then I went back to making out with the lawn. And then I remembered realizing that the face was not attached to the lawn. Then I was like "eww, this isn't the lawn's face, this is just a face some grub had on his head but mustn't of liked so just dumped it, and then I was like "eww, I just kissed the face of a dude who doesn't even like his own face, eww" and then I vowed to kiss it for three minutes more TOPS!'
I needed to know even more, and I just knew that the blemishless poetry of the question could be my aid, and I formulated the best question I can imagine posed for many a sun drenched millennia, 'what did you do then?' I requested.
'What do you think you idiot, there was a fucking loose face in my hands, I handed it into lost and found, I'm not a complete jerk'.
She now stormed out. And that was it. I was devastated. There was so much more I wanted to know:
- How big was the faces nose?
- Was it a round face?
- Which lost and found?
- Was this yesterday?
- Was it REALLY a good kisser or was it a really good kisser but just not real?
- What other art forms can I make a question metaphor or simile with?
- You saw sky though it's mouth, oh right cause you're looking up, and it's just a face, not a whole head.
- If the nose was big then so what, why the hell are you judging a randomly found face's nose?
- Does that make you feel good about yourself?
I'm not nosey normally. And although it may seem like I'm a talented and renown journalist that's not true at all, or why I was asking her to tell me more.
You see, I'd accidentally dropped my face on a lawn the day before, and I was hoping to find out if this one could possibly be mine. But I just didn't ask the right questions I guess. Regardless of my delicate and intricate fingering of the strings attached to the cello that is the beautiful concept - the question.
I guess I really stuffed that up. Sam's right, being a stuff up super sucks. This is the worst thing to happen to me since 2007 when for some reason my postman randomly over stuffed my mailbox. And take it from a faceless man, have your bills wrinkled is totally STUFFED!
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