The Incident (This Adventure is in Black & White)

 

By the time I arrived, there was an entire crowd around him. “What happened?” I inquired. The stranger next to me turned and said, “Someone has taken his pulse.” I was shocked. “Something like this happening right here on the street—what’s this world coming to?” “Someone said it was a lady dressed as a nurse.”

I realized I’d asked too many questions. People were turning, staring. “Where you from, anyway?” someone asked. “I’m from Smithereens.” He sneered. “Well, you must’ve been born there, Pal. Nobody goes there on purpose.”

I wanted to slink away. But then a voice from my left asked, “Hey, what’s that you’ve got there?” “It’s an inkling.” “You can’t have that out here. Just what do you think you’re doing?” Now the crowd had turned from the man on the pavement to me. “It’s just an inkling,” I said. Even the man on the pavement spoke up. “I bet he has a notion as well.”

I panicked. Across the street I saw Peril Drugs. I was in Peril. I’d gotten on the wrong bus. I pulled the ticket stub from my pocket. SAVE THIS TICKET was all it said.

“You got on the wrong bus, didn’t you?” A redhead in heavy makeup, cigarette bobbing from her lips, stepped forward. 

“Yes,” I replied. “This was supposed to be a one-way ticket to Palookaville.”

“What’s your name, honey?” 

“Chump. My name is Chump.” 

“Well, Chump, I’m Floozy. You can call me Ethel. Let’s get you off the street.”

“I could use a cup of Joe.”

 “You married, Chump?” “No.” “Divorced, honey. I made really bad coffee.”

 “Your husband divorced you because of your coffee?”

“That’s right. One sip and the judge said it was grounds.”

We headed to the Café.

The Café was dimly lit, secrets steeping longer than the coffee. Ethel led me to a booth in the back. “Sit tight, Chump,” she said. “You want it with cream and sugar?”

“Black,” I replied. “Like my luck.”

A man in a trench coat slid into the booth across the aisle from me. “You’re not from around here,” he said.

 “I’m from Smithereens.” 

“That explains the inkling. They leak out of the cracks there.”

Ethel returned with two steaming mugs. “Drink up, Chump. You’ll need it.”

 “What’s going on here?”

“This town’s allergic to ideas,” she said. “You show up with an inkling, they assume you’ve got a whole theory.” The trench coat nodded.

“They’ll come for you soon. Not for what you did—but for what you might do.”

He handed me a napkin map—scribbled in coffee stains and lipstick. It showed a route through Peril: past the Forgettery, under the Bridge of Doubt, into the Bureau’s basement. “Don’t lose that,” he said. “The Bureau erased the rest.”

We stepped out into the alley. The sky above Peril was gray, like a thought waiting to be finished.

The Forgettery looked like a library that had given up on literacy. Inside, jars labeled Almost, Used to Know, and Could’ve Been lined the walls. A clerk stamped papers with Never Mind.

“We’re looking for the Thinker,” Ethel said.

 “He’s not here. He forgot to show up.”

“But we have a map.”

“Maps suggest direction,” he sniffed.

“We’re here to remember,” Ethel said.

He pulled a file labeled Chump. Inside: a coffee-stained receipt and a photo of me holding the inkling. “You’ve been here before,” he said. “You just forgot.”

He handed me a key. “Basement. Bureau. Third door on the left. Don’t open the second.”

“Why not?”

“That’s where they keep the regrets.”

I opened the second door.

Inside: mirrors made of memory. One showed me boarding the bus to Palookaville—but hesitating. Another showed me handing the inkling to someone. A woman. Her face vanished before I could see it. One last mirror showed me in the Bureau, handing over my notion. The Thinker stamped it Unrealized. But someone took it and ran.

“I’ve been here before,” I whispered. Ethel nodded. “Then maybe it’s still here.”

The inkling pulsed stronger now. “Let’s find the Thinker,” I said. “I’m ready to remember.”

The Thinker sat cross-legged in a pool of soft light. “You brought an inkling,” he said. “Let me see it.”

It unfolded like origami in reverse. “This inkling is old,” he murmured. “Someone tried to file it under Unrealized Potential.”

“Can it still become a notion?”

“It needs context. What were you trying to understand when it first formed?”

“I don’t remember.”

Ethel said, “He saw something. Asked questions.”

The Thinker pulled down a Thought Strand and wrapped it around the inkling. It pulsed, then spoke.

“I was born when Chump saw the man on the pavement. Noticed the crowd. Asked questions.” “Curiosity,” the Thinker said. “That’s a strong foundation.”

“But then I was doubted. Threatened. I shrank.”

“You let fear shrink your thought,” he said. “But now you’re here.”

The floating fragments swirled around us. The inkling absorbed them. And then—like a flash of caffeine clarity—it became a notion:

What if fear is just a symptom of suppressed thought?

The Thinker laughed. “That’s dangerous, but beautiful.”

Ethel clapped. “You did it, Chump.”

The Thinker leaned close. “Now you have a choice. Hide it. Or share it.”

I looked at the notion. “I think it’s time Peril remembered how to think.”