A story by Leo Gonzales

Image: Untitled by Leo Gonzales

I. An inventor lets his garden wall grow along a fence line, and he reads Plato, contemplates the garden wall as he waits for a patent request from the patent office. He considers the way it is written, the property as his property as he waits for permission, reads upon the concept of a republic and how limited his own knowledge is of bronze. Over time, the garden wall grows and he connects idea after idea, creating an invention that is essentially an extension of an existing familiarity. The invention is essentially a bubble mirror that fits into the corner of any room, and when pressed upon is also a light. The inventor wonders if it is a thing and is sure it is a thing.

II. After the office approves his patent, he works on his invention on paper. Walks along the garden wall, gets an idea. He continues to water his fence line as he manages his property, what is left to build on his property. As he walks along the garden wall, he continues to refine the details of his invention. Perhaps a bronze coating in a double-sided way so that when pressed upon it appears as if it weren’t bronze at all. And then the composition of color schemes presents itself to the inventor, how the possibility of beauty can offer itself so fluidly with coating in mind.

III. His neighbor is in gig economy, and he discusses the nature of how easy it is for adventurous people to develop a stable income. He considers sharing his invention idea with his neighbor amidst the air of innovation but decides to keep the concept on paper. On another paper, there rests the moment he decides to remember the day he decided to go forward with his idea, an intrinsic note that he hardly understands but recalls with a painting beside his bedside. He listens to his neighbor continue to discuss the nature of his role in gig economy, how easy it is to make a decent income in just a four-day work week, and the passion that comes with attention seeking.

IV. The inventor understands his idea is as simple as nature and is excited to go to the patent office and share his invention. As he returns to his office, he allows a bit of pride to gather onto his work and he begins to have a very good feeling about what he’s working on. What he’s working on, a task that requires a finite amount of energy, is something that in time and in effort only requires showing up. An overcast covers a few days of work and the worker reminds himself that the quality of the button sounds awful when you describe it to someone. He walks toward his vines and feels an uprising of happiness as he remembers the possibility of all good things coming to him as much as they can.

V. He can’t help but love his neighbor as he walks along the garden wall, and his neighbor can’t help but want to talk to him. They are attracted to each other in the most love-thy-neighbor way, and in some faith alone he finds a way to generate enough energy to finish a product but keep focus. They talk to each other every day about the most basic topics – the reliability of an app and how you can customize your life to work around its demands, whether the coffee from the store was as good this week as last week, and the newness of accidentally creating a cool tie dye shirt.

This work was featured in issue #11