Coffins of Styrofoam

(a fairy tale)

In a shrinking studio apartment lived Hank. Hank’s room overflowed with trinkets and detritus and all the things he could never bring himself to get rid of. One day, a wealthy property developer purchased Hank’s apartment complex. Eager to make good on his investment, the developer posted a sign in the weeds beyond Hank’s tiny window, which read:

In 60 days, the structure at this address will be removed to make room for a bank.

But Hank never saw the sign. He went about his business, accepting Amazon packages pushed through the swollen slot in his heavy front door, stacking shipping boxes on top of other shipping boxes until columns of cardboard embraced the ceiling. He went to bed the moment the sun fell out of the sky. That night, Hank dreamt, as he often did, of a castle. A stately castle with a thousand rooms, fifty-foot ceilings and more than enough room for his stuff. His stuff and the stuff he didn’t have yet. That night a knight arrived at the door of Hank’s castle. He climbed down from his horse—and he knocked at the castle door. But Hank didn’t answer.

And on the morning of the sixtieth day, Hank unwound at home, hemmed in by his stuff. He could scarcely move without bumping into cobwebby filing cabinets, musty magazines, and distended manila folders full of broken rubber bands, receipts and chits and quittances. Hank was up up up, on the tip of his tiptoes, topping off a teetering telamon of travel guides when he swore he smelled smoke. 

Shove-grunting the guides beside his heavy front door, Hank rested his palms on its frame. Peering through his engorged mail slot, he made out the tall and sobersided profile of a prolific property developer, gliding astride a yellow bulldozer—all but a few fragmented yards from Hank’s front door.

Revving the bulldozer’s engine and puffing an enormous cigar, the developer screamed: “I’m here to have what’s mine, you lout. Get out, get out, get out, get out!”

Hank had no idea his home was in danger of gentrification. He hadn’t seen it on the news; he hadn’t read it in the local newspaper, and he never noticed the yellow breeze-blown sign in his yard. Hank was, by all accounts, innocent of such destabilizing information. Such a fact would have been sure to give him nightmares. But Hank was wide awake, and it was true and there was nothing he could do. So, he cleared his throat, turned on his squeaky voice and he pleaded with the developer: “At least let me grab a few things.”

And then looking around, as if for the very first time, Hank could suddenly see the crates and compartments, the pyramids of prickly, Pepsi-stained paperwork. The mountainous and (to Hank’s mind) pulchritudinous pile of prizes pulled from the gullet of gumball machines, and figurines engulfed in coffins of Styrofoam. The cartons of shoes he’d never worn, the books he’d never perused or even opened.

“I’ll be right out,” he shouted, heaving a Hefty bag full of photographs over one shoulder. And with a great grueling yank, Hank pulled on the front door with all his strength. But as he pulled on the door, the tower of travel guides toppled, trapping him beneath. He made a murmuring sound no one could hear beneath the mottled rubble.

Incensed by the delay—he had a round of golf to play that day—the developer bit down on his cigar, revving his bulldozer, stomping the gas pedal, releasing the clutch, and plunging forward toward the formidable front door.

Survivor of a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic epilepsy, Seattle writer Jason M. Thornberry’s work appears in The Stranger, Praxis, Dissident Voice, Entropy, Adirondack Review, and elsewhere. His work examines disability, family, and social justice. Jason taught literature and creative writing at Seattle Pacific University. He reads poetry for TAB.