The Fiction of Douglas Lain
The Subliminal Son
May, 2002
an excerpt:
Forgetting the UmbrellaI'm walking through downtown Portland, strolling past the coffee shops and gas stations, and trying to remember the video collage my son made for me. Noah is four years old and he already knows how to splice together the programs and commercials.
How did it go? Mighty Mouse inhaled a flower up his nose, Elmo talked to a fish, and then--I can't remember. Was it a news report about global warming, an advertisement for Anacin?
Dots appear on the concrete, dark circles and splotches. I look up and the water bounces off my face, lightly falling in my eyes, making me blink.
I look at my hands, at the cane I'm holding, at the thin folds of nylon sheets that are wrapped around this cane, and I pause.
It's raining. Mighty Mouse inhaled a flower up his nose...
On instinct I bring the cane up, over my head, pointing the tip towards the sky, and I fold out the sheets, pushing so that the silver spokes spring out and a circular canopy is formed. I open my umbrella and worry at myself, worry at how distracted I'm becoming, at what it's possible for me to forget.
In the last few months I've temporarily forgotten:
1. Bicycles
2. Chewing Gum
3. Light Switches
and now,
4. Umbrellas
I close the umbrella and push open the doors of the 7-Eleven. I look at the Slurpee Machine, recognize it immediately. I pick up a copy of Newsweek, of Time Magazine. I grab a Hershey's bar and some pop rocks. It's all perfectly normal, immediately recognizable, and I start to feel better.
I approach the counter, deciding to purchase the candy bar and the Newsweek, and put my umbrella down, hanging it on the counter by it's handle.
The Pilsbury Doughboy? David Letterman? Mr. Rogers? The logo for AT&T?
I take my merchandise after watching the receipt get folded and stuffed into the paper bag, and start towards the exit, but have to turn back.
I've forgotten my umbrella again.