Confusion's Nephew

Confusion couldn’t figure out how one was meant to skate at Rockefeller Center. She didn’t know where to rent the skates. Where the ticket booth was. She didn’t know how long one could skate, or if time limits even existed. She looked down at her nephew, and he yawned. He was too sleepy for ice skating anyway, she decided, and she asked him if he’d like to get some dinner and then go back to the hotel. He agreed, because he was an agreeable child. Confusion had begun to wonder if her nephew might be Agreeable, but her sister had warned her against labeling him early. Dinner would be two hot dogs and a soda despite grave warnings not to feed him junk. She was his aunt, and she would do as she pleased. They were staying at a hotel on 48th Street, but Confusion wasn’t sure how to get back there. Her nephew reminded her that numbers go up in one direction and down in another. That helped. He was a very helpful child. Maybe he was Helpful, but he could also be Agreeable.

On the way back to the hotel, Confusion saw her nephew stop in front of a man holding out a sign. The sign read “Explain It” and she saw that her nephew wanted to do something for the man.

“We can’t help,” she said, “Well, I can’t anyway. I don’t excel at explanations.”

“I could try,” her nephew said, “I explain things to Mom all the time.”

That made sense. Confusion’s sister was Obfuscation. That shouldn’t necessarily lead to her son explaining things to her, but she wasn’t going to investigate that further. Her nephew approached the man holding the sign and asked what he needed in the way of clearing things up. The man scratched the gray hair on his chin, and then told the boy that he needed to know why things had worked out the way they had.

Without any further clarification, Confusion’s nephew began to lay out for the man how he had wound up in his current position. He gave vivid details and used many adjectives. By the time he was done, the man appeared quite relieved. Confusion didn’t understand what was happening, but she felt proud of her nephew and happy for the man. They continued walking and she noticed that part of the boy’s hair had gone from a light blonde to a darker brown. She wasn’t sure why that had occurred, and she didn’t know if it was because she was always confused or if it would have been strange regardless. This was a regular circumstance to find herself in, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating.

When they’d settled back into their room, her nephew took a bath and she tried to remember how to work the television. He came out in his pajamas, and got into the bed next to hers.

“Aunt Confusion,” he said, “Will you do me a favor?”

“I’ll try,” she said, but she wasn’t sure what he could possibly ask her to do.

“When we get home,” he said, “Could you please tell my mother you think I’m Forlorn?”

She didn’t know why he’d want that. Forlorn was not something anyone should aspire to be. Her nephew then tried to explain to her the value of being forlorn, but it all came out sounding like an underwater typewriter. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and because, when in doubt, she deferred to personal feelings, she told her nephew that she would tell his mother anything he wanted her to be told. If she was a good mother, she would learn in time whether or not he actually was Forlorn, and when she did, she would simply chalk it all up to her older sister being baffled, per usual.

Her nephew sussed out how to work the television, and they watched a program about a cult. She didn’t really understand how anybody could find themselves in a cult, but her nephew gave her his best guess, and she realized that, in some ways, they were like magnets. He would always be very good at explaining things, and she would never be able to truly understand anything. It was interesting that she could love someone who was not only different from her, but composed of elements that were the opposite of hers. When she looked over and saw that he was asleep, she turned off the light, and tried to fall asleep.

The noise of the city carried itself into the room through the thin glass that made up their one window. She walked over to it and parted the curtains. Down on the street, she saw two young women running down the street away from…what? She couldn’t tell. Under an awning on the other side of the avenue, there was a couple debating whether or not to kiss. Or maybe they were having a fight. She wanted so badly to know what she was looking at, but it wasn’t in the cards and never had been. From behind her, she felt a presence.

She turned around and saw that her nephew had quietly gotten out of bed and put his glasses on. He walked over to her and looked down at what she was seeing.

“Do you want to explain to me what’s going on down there,” she asked.

“Do you want me to,” he asked.

“I’m not sure you can,” she said, “But I don’t know if that’s the same thing as not wanting you to.”

“Then,” he said, “We’ll just keep looking. Would that be all right?”

She said it would, and they stayed that way for a few minutes. The couple across the street were celebrating their anniversary. One of them was Considerate and the other was Concerned. The women running away were Frivolous and Charismatic. The man Confusion’s nephew had spoken to earlier was sitting in a nearby park trying to remember what he was. This would pop up from time to time. He would have a sense of things, and then it would go away. It might mean that he was Forgetful or that he was Memory since Memory was notoriously unreliable. He remembered feeling a sense of gratitude to a young man.

Is it possible I’m Grateful, he thought, For the first time in my life, could I be grateful?

But you see, it wasn’t the first time.

It was just the first time he could remember.