An Abstraction
In a small park at the corner of Ink Street and Cotton Avenue, in the small town of Tral, stood an abstract sculpture commemorating the founding of The Right Society.
Though The Right Society had long been defunct, and its accomplishments largely forgotten, the sculpture remained, for it was in Tral that The Society had been founded.
Each weekday, Lawrence H. Fielding, the town’s psychic healer and lone volunteer firefighter, passed by the sculpture. Like the rest of the townsfolk, he seldom gave it much thought, his mind generally preoccupied with the latest techniques in energy therapy, or concern about the potential for dangerous conflagrations.
As he rounded the corner to Next Lane, he fished his keys from his pocket. He unlocked the door to his modest storefront and stepped inside.
The front room contained his desk and an impromptu waiting area. He turned on the television and went to the back room, where a table lamp bathed the cozy space with indigo light. A plush sofa and matching chair dominated the room. The walls were painted a neutral gray and sported shelves full of crystals, an illustration of the chakras, and a chart outlining the differences between male and female energy. After fluffing the pillows, he went back to the anteroom.
As it had been quite a while since anyone in Tral had sought psychic healing, Lawrence spent most of his days sitting at his desk watching television and waiting for a call from the fire department.
He settled in and was surprised to see his town on the screen — more so because it was a national news program. He turned up the volume.
“…the petition has garnered nearly three hundred thousand signatures, and has been brought down to the very center of the controversy, the town of Tral, where The Right Society first started over a century ago.”
As the report finished, Lawrence watched the last few pictures of his town flash across the screen. One of them was of the very sculpture he had passed only a few minutes earlier. The newscaster’s choice of the word “controversy” struck Lawrence as odd, since as far as he knew, there wasn’t anything controversial within a twenty mile radius of Tral — and certainly not the sculpture, which had been there for as long as he could remember.
Curious, Lawrence turned off the television, left his office, and walked back to the corner of Cotton and Ink. Much to his surprise, there were now several news trucks and a massive crowd occupying the crossroads where the sculpture stood. How did I miss this? he wondered.
He approached an angry demonstrator who was holding a sign that read, “Down with The Right Society! Down with the sculpture!”
“Excuse me,” Lawrence asked politely, “but where are you from, and why do you want to take down our sculpture?” He could feel very negative energy coming from this person which manifested itself in the form of a spasm in Lawrence’s left eye. He was simply too sensitive to others’ feelings, and he immediately wished he had brought some crystals with him.
“Your sculpture glorifies the horrible ideas of The Right Society,” the man replied.
Lawrence’s eye twitched again. “I…I’m a psychic healer. You really should come back with me to my office. I need to remove the blocked energy in your solar plexus right away.”
The man furrowed his brow at Lawrence, and went back to shouting with the masses.
Lawrence went further into the crowd, where he found a young woman with a sign that read, “The WRONG Society!”
“Excuse me, ma’am, but where are you from, and why do you want to take down our sculpture?”
“Why do you want to keep it up? Maybe that’s the better question,” she replied.
Lawrence considered this for a moment. He looked at the sculpture, then back at the woman. “I suppose it’s always been there. And it is rather pleasing to look at.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “You’re one of them, then.”
Lawrence’s eye was quivering rather badly now. “One of whom, exactly?” He suddenly felt very out of place, and his sinuses were beginning to bother him as well.
“You live in this shameful little town, don’t you? You’re a member of The Right Society.”
“The Society was long gone before I was even born.”
“But you’re from this town, and therefore of this town.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t. Have you ever even left this place? Are you aware there’s a whole world out there that has progressed far beyond your precious Society’s anachronistic beliefs?”
The bell tower in the town square chimed 9:00 am. Oh, my, Lawrence thought. All this fuss, and before lunch. His eye was not letting up, and now he felt like he needed to sneeze, but couldn’t make it happen.
“In point of fact,” he told the woman, “I’d say this whole town has moved on from the outdated beliefs of The Right Society.”
“Yet you keep their sculpture prominently displayed.”
“Well, it is a very nice sculpture. Have you noticed its abstract form?”
“Why are you winking at me?”
“I’m not winking. It’s your negative energy. It manifests itself in me. I’m the town’s psychic healer. Oh — and I’m also a volunteer firefighter.”
“Are you for real?”
“Yes, I believe so,” he said.
There was a sudden noise as several of the cameras went on and the reporters began to talk again. As if on cue, the crowd began to chant and yell in opposition to the sculpture’s very existence.
Lawrence had to speak up now in order to be heard. “But why are you so angry about this? What good will it do you to take down an aging piece of artwork in a town in which you don’t even live?”
“The question you should be asking is what harm is it doing by keeping it up?”
“I really wish you wouldn’t redefine my questions.”
“Yes, well I really wish you wouldn’t support The Right Society.”
The crowd was getting noisier, and some of the townsfolk came out to join in a burgeoning anti-protest. The police showed up, keeping the protestors on Ink Street and the rest on Cotton Avenue. The sculpture, unaware that it was in danger, sat quietly on the corner between them.
“Ma’am,” Lawrence tried to explain. “I don’t support The Right Society. I really know very little about it apart from the fact that it started here in Tral. My great grandfather was a member, though. He and the remaining members would go out for waffles after their Sunday meetings. He would take my dad, back when he was just a little boy. They’d sit at the counter and just eat until they couldn’t take another bite. My dad used to tell me that story. It was a very enjoyable time for him.”
Lawrence attempted to smile at her, but his eye twitch seemed to be wrinkling his cheek and forehead now.
The crowd was being pushed forward by newcomers. Lawrence sensed that his non-conversation had ended, and he fought his way toward Cotton Avenue, where he could be with his neighbors.
As he went through the front line of protestors, he spotted one of the town’s policewomen.
“Leah, what is this all about?”
“I wish I knew, Lawrence.” Leah was putting up barricades. In fact, Lawrence noticed, she had put them all around herself.
“They came out of nowhere,” he said. “All this because of a sculpture? And before lunch?”
“That’s an affirmative.” Leah replied, looking up. “What’s wrong with your face?”
Lawrence, suspecting that Leah wouldn’t care much about the intricacies of the Third Eye Chakra, simply said, “I’m getting a bit of a sinus headache, I suppose.” Then he navigated to the other side of the crowd until he spotted his best friend, Tony.
“Can you believe this shit, Lawrence?” Tony started. “Imagine the nerve, coming into our town and telling us how to live!”
Lawrence thought for a moment. “I don’t think they’re interested in how we live at all, Tony. I think they just hate the sculpture. I mean, it’s no Henry Moore or Constantin Brancusi, but it is quite pleasing to the eye, don’t you think?”
“Don’t be so naive, Lawrence. This is all about them telling us how to live.”
“Who are they?” he asked.
“Well, they’re not us, I can tell you that much,” Tony said, then went back to chanting for the cameras.
Safely nestled amongst his friends and fellow citizens of Tral, Lawrence was beginning to see Tony’s point: it really was not fair for strangers to come to their town and redecorate it by force. Yet, he somehow felt that there was more to the issue. His sinuses were very clogged up now, and his eye was almost shut from all the negative energy. Nonetheless, he waved to Leah as he walked back over to the other group, and found someone on Ink Street who was not holding a sign or screaming angrily.
“Excuse me, sir. I’m Lawrence H. Fielding, the town’s psychic healer and volunteer firefighter. Where are you from, and why do you want to take down our sculpture?”
“Lawrence, I live here. It’s me, Bob Nelson,” the man said.
“Bob Nelson? I’m sorry, have we met?”
“Met? We went to elementary, middle, and high school together! Heck, we would have played on the same little league team, if your father hadn’t insisted that the team was not Right.”
“Oh, dear,” Lawrence responded. “I’m so sorry, Bob. It must be the gray hair that threw me off.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. So are you here to help protest the sculpture, too, Lawrence?”
“I don’t really know why I’m here,” he said, his facial tics slightly improving.
“Well, personally, I think that even though these people aren’t from around here, they’re finally verbalizing thoughts that I always harbored in the back of my mind. Everything people believed about The Right Society was wrong, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know, was it? Wasn’t it just kind of how things were?”
“That’s the point, man! The key word is were. None of what they did or stood for applies to modern society. Hell, it didn’t even apply to our grandfathers’ society, but they were brought up with it, you know? The way they behaved, the way they treated people who weren’t in The Society, it’s all so obvious in retrospect.”
“But why does the sculpture have to come down? It’s a very nice piece of art, I think.”
“It’s art that belongs in a history museum, Lawrence. It’s not who we are now. And honestly, as one of the people who was never allowed in The Society, I always kind of found the sculpture a bit threatening.”
“Threatening? But how? It’s just a sculpture.”
“It’s just a sculpture the way a dormant volcano is just a mountain. It’s one thing on the surface, but just below that surface is its truth.”
“Well now you’re talking about symbolism.”
“Yes, exactly! It’s symbolic of something that offends.”
“But Hayakawa insisted that the symbol is not the thing symbolized.”
“Agreed. But actions were taken that resulted in that symbol being created. The sculpture can be as abstract as you want it to be, but its intention was always to materially represent, as you said, the thing symbolized.”
Lawrence excused himself as he reached into his pocket. He took out a handkerchief and sneezed into it mightily. As he folded it and put it away again, he noted that his sinuses had cleared tremendously, and that his eye spasms had stopped completely.
“Thank you for talking to me, Bob. I’m sorry I didn’t get to play baseball with you.”
Bob smiled. “I am, too.”
Lawrence fought his way to the front of the barricades, ducked under, and went to Leah.
“Leah, I think I have to take down that sculpture now.”
“You know I’ll have to arrest you,” she replied.
“Well, of course,” he said. “That goes without saying.”
“And you’ll have your neighbors to reckon with.”
He glanced over at Tony, who continued to lead the anti-protest. “Yes, some people will be pretty mad at me. I won’t be calling on Tony for bail, I suppose.”
“Any man can do as he pleases, as long as he’s willing to face the consequences of his actions,” Leah said.
“Or inaction,” Lawrence added.
She nodded. ”Get on with it, then.”
Lawrence walked to the front of the sculpture and stared at it. The crowd began to settle down as the cameras focussed on him. He held his hands to his forehead and closed his eyes. Suddenly, the sculpture burst into flames. There was a gasp from the crowd.
“It’s okay,” Lawrence said as he turned around. “I’m a volunteer firefighter.”
He was considering calling the boys at the station when the statue crumbled to ashes, like something from a cartoon.
The cameras turned off and the crowds began to disperse. Leah approached Lawrence, who held out his hands. She placed the cuffs on him gently and led him toward the police station.
“I always hated that damn thing,” she said.
“Funny,” Lawrence replied. “I hadn’t given it much thought until today.”