The Fiction of Douglas Lain
The Sea Monkey Conspiracy
Polyphony
September, 2002
an excerpt:
I was eighteen years old, a freshman at Eckerd college, but rather than undergoing dream analysis or guided regression, I was instructed to play. The graduate student pulled out a trunk of therapeutic toys: wooden horses, flexible plastic people, a toy house with green shutters and a doorbell that would ring if you pressed the button vigorously.
I made the Papa doll watch television while the Mama doll did the dishes and the boy doll slowly and deliberately took apart the moorings of the house. The frame collapsed, folding in on itself, and I stepped back and pondered.
"Why did that happen?" the graduate assistant asked. She wrote something on her clipboard and pulled a lock of hair back behind her ear. "Why did the boy do that?"
"He doesn't believe in the house," I said.
"Why doesn't he believe in the house?"
"Because it isn't real. Look, it's just a toy. See? I can take it apart here, and there's this corner that moves out like this, and that's not supposed to happen in a real house," I said. I moved over to the color form set. "Do you have anything else I can break?"
The graduate student smiled and then handed me a remote control. I was left alone to watch television and doodle.
I watched CNN and CSPAN and the network news shows on video tape, and I wrote down my responses, my feelings, just like they asked.
"Smart bombs don't take good pictures," I wrote.
Next there were clips from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and 3,2,1 Contact.
"I'm special." I wrote.
"X is for X-ray."
"Fish can only live underwater."