Do you remember your first creation? The first thing you made with your own hands, spontaneously sparking up a universe in your imagination.
You know, that one, special thing. Whether it’s a scribbled ink drawing or a smattering of words on a wall or piece of paper. The thing that made the entire world in your mind real. What made you stand up and say, “I am alive.”
For me, it came when I was just ten years old. A little earlier than most, but the exact right time for a nerdy-two-shoes girl back then. I was running back home from school, alone, with a stack of blank sheets held close to my chest.
During school that day, before the final bell rang, I managed to sneak into the computer room and steal some paper. See, my classroom ran out of scrap paper for art sketches and math work, but the teacher, Ms. Apple, grew rather obstinate about getting a fresh supply when we asked for it. According to my friends, she needed to pay for it, so she took the cheapskate route.
Burdened with a wildfire of an idea that wormed into my mind during recess, I desperately pleaded with Ms. Apple’s sympathetic side to get more paper, to make this idea a reality. I put my heart into it, explaining what it would mean for my parents.
Despite that, she shot down my request, citing expensiveness and the stress it would put on the budget. A ten-year-old girl would never fully understand words like “budget,” but throughout my life I became familiar with the elaborate ways grown-ups said “No.”
In this case, Ms. Apple enunciated the words Danielle Grell, my full name, and continued with an insincere apology. I knew she wouldn’t relent when she pulled that verbal maneuver and sulked away with faux-guilt. But the idea still burned in my head.
It refused to fizzle out, too personal to just abandon. I needed to make it real. Ten-year-old me never made anything before, and this felt like the only opportunity to try.
Disappointed but driven, I took matters into my own hands. In the computer room’s only printer, I snatched a heavy white stack and ran. After all, these supplies are beholden to the students. Not to a budget or some kind of committee. Intentions justified, I passed by friends without a goodbye or a plan for tomorrow. This project will take as many tomorrows as it needs.
About halfway to home, the decision to steal weighed heavier on my mind. If my theft is discovered, what will the school do? How severe a punishment would they levy against me? Those questions dragged me down, but the idea, that wildfire, spurred me on. No matter the consequences, this burgeoning creation is worth the trouble.
My house, constructed on the outskirts of my slummy neighborhood, was a long way from school. As you can imagine, I arrived at the front door, doubled over from exhaustion. No one will come help, as the Grell family didn’t have great neighbors, and my parents won’t come back from work for hours.
Heaving, I brought myself to our “doorbell,” a black glass box with sensors and a speaker, and waved my hand over it. Immediately the box sparked to life with a whir and a flash of blue light.
“Good afternoon, Danielle,” greeted a bodiless voice. “Back Home from School already? I detect elevated adrenaline levels. A grueling run for someone so tiny.”
“Can it, DECK, and let me in,” I replied, a wheeze after every word.
“Oh I would,” he hummed, infuriating as usual, “But DECK cannot, as this is such a deviation from your usual activities on school days. You never come home before your Guardians arrive. This period of time usually involves you playing with your friends. Either in that park or in the alleys near the—”
“Hey!”
“I know. I have not told them about that. Still. What brings you Home so early?”
DECK, the closest thing to a brother, might have the personality of an uptight nanny, but he’s a rule-follower, adhering to directives that ensure my safety. While I wish he followed them in a less mocking way, he only focused on taking care of me. The only way to appease him and start my project was complete honesty. He can tell when I lie anyway.
“Reach out to Mom and Dad,” I began, heaves now gone. “I had an idea, back at school. I needed paper, but my teacher said no. Despite that rejection, I stole a lot of paper from my school’s printer. With it, I plan to use the pencils inside to make… a project for them.”
Despite the openness, I still withheld specific information about my project and its relation to my parents. DECK, being super smart, knew it would not be a gift for a birthday or some kind of anniversary, but that explanation should at least satisfy that brother-like curiosity. The small blue bulbs in the box flashed on and off as DECK computed my request, reaching out to Mom and Dad. Like any older brother, he was more “connected” with our parents than me, but I had the benefit of being able to hug them, so it evened out. A couple of minutes later, and DECK’s box dinged. The sound of success.
“Welcome home, Danielle.” The front door slid open and the interior lights flickered on. “The Guardians are still at their jobs, so they couldn’t process everything, but DECK managed to share enough information.”
“Thanks, bro.” I leaned towards the black glass box and smiled to make my gratitude visual. The bulbs pulsed a light red in response. A sign of bashfulness in my experience, never failing to look cute in a unique, computer-person way.
“No problem, Danielle,” he buzzed, a lot more chipper this time around. His voice followed me through the doorway. “The Guardians of the GR-11 household will respond to a project. Please share once done.”
Spurred on by my brother’s support, I made a beeline for the living room table, a simple wooden platform supported by scavenged pipes and branches. With a solid thud, I place the paper onto the table then head to my bedroom, a small space across from my parents’ station. In a small cubby Dad dug into the wall, I found my art supplies: a collection of colored pencils and No. 2’s.
Back at the table, I raise a freshly sharpened piece of graphite, and pull out a sheet. It had no tears or wrinkles. A blank canvas waiting for action.
At the first touch of pencil to paper, my idea was unleashed. Thoughts and emotion flowed out like a fountain.
In both broad strokes and little ones, as words formed paragraphs and color forms shapes, I create a story for my mother and father. I begin to paint them a picture. For them, I start to ask a question.
What will they think? How will they answer?
Hours pass and progress moves forward in incremental degrees. Every tool in use. No paper wasted. When I first stole the stack, I counted around a hundred pages. Now, I’m down to ten. Each pen stroke is a step forward. Corrections are not an option, but these hands hold no hesitation or doubt. There is too much passion to stop or think.
This story is my first creation, and its full shape was clear from the beginning. The process is non-stop. More hours pass.
Finally, it is done. The final project settles into two neat piles. Then, my parents arrived home. I hear loud metallic steps at the front door. My parents are back. As the door slides open, I run up to welcome them.
“Hello Danielle. GR-11 and M.S.E.C. return,” my mother greeted, her arms stretched wide in preparation for a hug. Her warm-hearted voice crackled through her rusted vocal tract. In the comforting embrace of her cold machine body, I thought about getting oil for her throat. Then, my dad joins in to form a group hug. His gruff laughter echoes through the house as his heavy, hydraulic arms wrap around us.
With my mother’s responsibilities as a secretarial assistant and my father’s gigs in construction work, they regularly come home late. I craved these signs of affection, and every time they make it worth the wait.
My friends tell me how lucky it is to have parents that never tire. In moments like this, I absolutely agree.
Not wanting to crush us, Dad, always the careful one, lets us go and trudges toward the kitchen table. My mother follows after him.
“DECK informed Guardians of a project Danielle made,” he said, gesturing towards the stack of papers on the table. “Is this the project?”
“Yep!” I perked up, handing Mom a fresh name-brand oil can. “The one with the square is for you and the one with the star is for Mom. Do they… look familiar?”
Mom joins dad’s side, standing over her prescribed stack. The two stood still for a minute. Their bulb eyes blink as they process the images before them. I sit opposite from them, admiring their “thinking” faces. There’s a certain fascination watching them. Their minds become a personal light show with the rhythm of the blinks and their different eye colors. Seconds later, the show stops. My parents are ready to respond.
My father starts first, in his dry, straight-forward tone. “In the GR-11 stack, the cover image is a red square with miniature X drawn into it. Based on computer memory, it is an abstracted logo reminiscent of Skellton Inc. The construction company GR-11 Units operate under. The image under M.S.E.C. purview is a similar abstraction for the Mito filing office that rents M.S.E.C. services.”
Great analysis, I admit, but only surface level.
Mom lifts her head. “Query, Danielle,” she drones. “What is this?”
I reach across the table and remove the cover sheets, revealing the next pages. This time, two poems of a sort, unique to each parent.
“This is a story, mom. It’s a story for the both of you. About us. You read the page. You say ‘Next.’ Then, I turn the page. Once you’re done, please tell me what you think.”
My parents turn to one other and start “thinking” together. I’ve caught scenes like this in their most private moments. Just the two of them, alone. The scenes ended as soon as they began, and this time was no different.
“We agree to these directions, Danielle,” they say in unison. “Please, continue.”
And I did. My parents read at the same pace and would often request the next page simultaneously. The story alternated between illustrations and text. The art is either abstractions, like the covers, or more detailed pencil drawings. The text, meanwhile, ranged from narrative prose to short poems. Those text pages took the longest for them.
The pages they read the fastest though were the ones with mathematical equations. The results of tedious study and a bit of help from smarter friends. Their ability to solve them in seconds, compared to what I solve in an hour, never ceases to amaze. With each page of data, their brains whir and their eyes flash. The entire time, my parents are in sync, internalizing words, art and numbers. How will they understand it all?
Afternoon turns to evening. Eventually, into night. At the stroke of the witching hour, we reach the last pages of the story. The final page turned over, I bellow a hearty, “The End.”
My parents did not seem to appreciate that indulgent endnote… Or anything about what they read. At the final word, they slowly stiffened up and stood stock still, like statues.
I called out to them. I waved my hands right in front of their faces. Sometimes they’d shut down, but jumpstarting their sensors did the trick. Not this time. My calls got louder, transforming into desperate yells.
I pleaded with them, shook their solid bodies, for some type of reaction. Anything to know they were alright. That my story didn’t break them. They can’t just leave. I was their daughter, wasn’t I? Even if flesh and blood, they cherish me like any parent would? They can’t acknowledge that?
That was the question I asked.
For the first time in my life, everything about home became as cold as dead metal. My throat grew dry. A weight crashes onto my shoulders. I told a story, and this is what I got. Disappointed, I trudge to my room and collapse into bed. After a day like today, any ten-year-old girl would go to sleep crying.
I open my eyes, all dried out, and the new afternoon already came. Checking up on the parents seems the most reasonable course of action. No rush or need to go to school. No one notices an absence. Ultimately fruitless though as they stood in the same spot throughout night. Still silent with their eye-bulbs powered down and their heads drooped low.
“Mom… Dad…”
I tug at their hands. No response. Dead as doornails. The spread of paper on the table, the story I shared, now lay limp and drab. This is what I lost my parents to? This is what stories cost?
My fists ball up, and what followed could only be described as a hurricane of dried pulp and graphite.
A week passes. All of it spent on the couch, surrounded by shredded illustrations and abandoned ideas. DECK remains silent, never commenting on this layabout state.
He could only speak when a stranger approached the front door, but even then his speech was limited to just two phrases: “DECK refuses entry” and “The inhabitants are unavailable.”
As was the case when people from school tried to check up on me. First came my friends, first searching for signs of life and then pleading for an extra to play hooky. DECK obliged them with refusals after their daily chorus of demands.
Not wanting to encourage them, I take a cue from my Guardians and remained quiet and out of sight, closing and blockading all the windows. Still loafing on the living coach, I only heard those repetitive phrases, each utterance losing luster and personality, if there was any there to begin with.
Surprisingly, Ms. Apple was the easiest to convince when she came a-knocking. Every morning and evening for a week and some change. Clocking in and out during quick walks through the neighborhood. At least she does the kindness of not wasting anyone’s time like she does in the classroom. I bet she’s grateful she still has a job, a stolen stack of papers apparently not that apocalyptic to a slummy classroom budget. I bet she keeps the computer room door locked too.
It’s funny, without anyone in the GR-11 household coming in and out, DECK has no reason to speak and no reason to work. That isn’t a brother. That’s the world’s most boring doorman, now out of work like the rest of his charges. One could cry at the perceived hollowness of all those greetings, if one wasn’t already all cried out. One could laugh too, if the mood was anything but dead.
Sometime in isolation, I forgot to show him the story, but the need to share got buried in the gloom and silence. A good thing too, I reasoned. It would’ve shut him down like the rest of us, either out of boredom or complete embarrassment.
Two robots, a voice in a black glass box and a ten-year-old human girl. All four, alone and useless. Who wants a story that breaks robots anyway?
The came a random morning, and behind me, two low hums start to rise in pitch. I dismiss the noise as a poor air conditioning, but I should have known better.
Somehow, the spark returned. My parents’ hearts hummed back to life. Their eyes flash faster than before. I see different colors in their eyes. Some were colors that they never use, blinking out of sync. The two of them move out of sync. Their joints roll around with an uncanny vibrancy. I slowly approach them, just to make sure they were alright. Their first words back from oblivion surprise me.
My father shouts, “D-daughter. Child! Danielle! Where are you Dani!?” The first time he ever called me daughter. Even my mother shouts out for me, using every nickname I’d had since birth.
“I’m right here,” I answer. “Behind you.”
They turn on their heels and cautiously walk towards me, as if afraid they’d scare me.
Standing firm, I only ask one question. “What happened?”
At the question, my father became lost, but my mother speaks on his behalf and from her heart.
“We are… alive, Danielle,” she starts. “We were in darkness for so long, but those papers… They were a light. Dani, that is what your story, your gift, accomplished. We see you, child.
“We love you,” she proclaimed, tears in her voice but not on her eyes. She embraces me tightly. A pleasant pain.
She pulls me closer in, with a motherly love and care. Dad soon joins in with a fatherly kindness. An all-new type of hug.
My parents love me. My story changed them. Inspired them.
Unable to speak, I only smile.
One idea, borne from one question: Are we a family?
Then, that idea is made real into a story. The question now sharpened into a spear sent straight into the mind and strikes down to the core. A piece of art, made and shared with love. My first creation. The secret to a life that is so much greater. An opening to new worlds for others, and a brighter light for mine.
