inreaction

seems like a terrible time for the paper walls to fall down.

Perhaps the weaver of her fates could not think of a clever name for her, for she was onomastically ungifted. A sort of fuzziness plagued her vision when she thought of her name, so instead she thought of her grandfather’s. Mobius. A fine name, a fine German. Her mother’s dad’s dad had an affinity for Mobius, as in August Ferdinand Möbius (1790-1868), the German mathematician most associated with the idea of a one-sided surface (as though surfaces did not have two sides, like stories). Regardless, her grandfather was similarly one-sided: he was enigmatic at all times.

When he died she was not really sure what else to do. It struck her that a temporal appreciation of familial comforts was certainly ineffectual – she needed something more. It then occurred to her that the generations must continue, string like, twisting through time on the heels of tradition and family and Culture. So she went to his house.

The home was to be cleared out that afternoon but she did not really think much of this plan. To her, Mobius would always be this place. She would come here and hear her grandfather’s voice when she was young, though she never really understood what he said – his thick Bavarian tones oppressing her American, childish ears with their heaviness. She was always tired, but he would give her push-pops.

The first place she went was his closet, where she came upon a brown corduroy coat with the elbow patches still intact (brown suede). It was clunky, but with great effort she lost herself in it. Her hands parely passed the sewn on ovals, but she was Mobius and that was all she knew. Slid her feet into worn slippers, walked to the bedroom. Through the light blue sheets she stumbled, white pillows seemingly ominous – turned grey through the years. She felt wetness on her hair, and went damp to the study.

Mobius’s closet of a study was not the Holmesian vision of wall to wall bookcases with leatherbound volumes. There was leather, but only on the handle of a stained iron letter opener and on the covers of thin notebooks. She opened one. The year was 68. She read Mobius’s script as though it was hers, the jacket still obtuse on her frame. She wanted to get inside of the text and be read by him – she despaired her ignorance of his interpretation; why did he underline here – what causal justification for this bracketing? this star? Mobius was awake now, and she decided the new energy should not be wasted.

She felt less fuzzy when she put the pad back, as though the roundness of his cursive reppelled her cursed focus back into sharp. Perhaps tonight she would use his toothbrush.