The Schwa Was Here

. . . And there, in that darkened room, where I couldn't see the color of the sky or anything else in his eyes, the Schwa told me his deepest, darkest memory.

*** 

"I learned about the Schwa Effect when I was five," he said, "al­though I didn't have a name for it then. I didn't have a name for it until you gave it one, Antsy. But I was five when I first re­alized that something was wrong.

"I can't remember what my mother looked like, but I do re­member the last time I saw her. We had gone to Kings Plaza, and she bought me clothes. I was about to start kindergarten, and she wanted me to be the best-dressed kid in school. She wanted me noticed.

"I remember she was sad. She had been sad for a long time, so I didn't think it was anything unusual. On the way home we stopped at the supermarket to pick up something for dinner. I sat in the little kiddie seat of the shopping cart, and we went down all the aisles. It was this game we played—even when she just had to pick up a few things, she would take me down all the aisles, and I would try to name all the food. Ketchup. Pick­les. Spaghetti.

"We got to the frozen-food aisle. Outside it was a summer day, but in there it felt like winter. I can still feel that chill. Then she took her hands off of the cart. 'I'll be right back,' she said. 'I forgot the beef.' She left, and I waited. Peas, corn, broccoli. I started naming all the frozen vegetables. String beans, spinach, carrots—and for a moment—just the tiniest moment, I forgot why I was there. I forgot who I was waiting for. I forgot her. Just for a moment—that's all. And by the time I remembered, it was too late.

"But I didn't know that yet. So I sat there in the little kiddie seat, strapped in, freezing, and kept waiting. Lima beans, cauliflower, asparagus. She wasn't back yet. Not in five minutes, not in ten. There were no more vegetables left to name.

"That's when I started crying. Just whimpering at first, then getting louder. Crying out for anyone to help me. Someone, please find my mommy. She's just in the next aisle. I cried and cried, and you know what? You know what? No one noticed.

"There I was, crying my eyes out, alone in a shopping cart, and people just walked on past like I wasn't there. Not the other mothers, not the stock clerks, not the manager. They didn't see me, they didn't hear me. People just grabbed their food and went. And that's when I knew it would be like that al­ways. Someday there'd come a time for me, too, when no one remembered me—not a soul. And on that day I'd disappear forever, gone without a trace. Just like her."

***

I listened to his story with my heart halfway up my throat. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to sit in a shopping cart, alone in a crowd of people, waiting for a mother that never came back.

"Schwa," I said, slowly, "people don't disappear just because no one remembers them."

"If you can't remember them, how would you know? Think of the tree, Antsy. The tree falling in the forest. If nothing and no one is there to hear it, then it doesn't really make a sound, and if nothing and no one remembers you, then you were never really there."

I couldn't say anything. In the dim shadows of the room, and with what I already knew about the Schwa, it almost seemed possible.

"But. . . you were there, Schwa—someone did notice you in that shopping cart, otherwise you'd still be sitting there today, blocking people from getting their lima beans."

"I don't remember that—ail the rest of that day is a blur. The next thing I remember for sure, though, was being in the police station with my father, answering questions and watching him fill out papers. I kept quiet mostly. I got the feeling that the cop didn't even know I was there, and it made me mad. So 1 took something. Something he wouldn't notice, but something that would prove I was there. When he picked up the missing per­sons report, all the pages slipped out and flew all over the ground, and I laughed. The cop didn't know why the pages had fallen, but I did."

"The paper clip!" I said. "You took the paper clip!"

"When we got home, Dad acted like everything was normal. It was before his accident, but he acted like he couldn't remem­ber her. From that moment on, he never talked about her. Her pictures disappeared from the walls, and soon everything that reminded me of her was gone. Everything but this."

Then he reached beneath his mattress, fished around a bit, and pulled out a little plastic bag. "I don't keep this one with the others," he said. He handed me the bag and I held it like it was a diamond. As far as I'm concerned, that paper clip was the most valuable thing I'd ever held in my life.

"I don't care what you say, Schwa—you're not going to dis­appear. "

"That's right, Antsy, I won't. I'm gonna make sure of it. I'm gonna do something that will make me so visible, no one'll ever forget."

"What are you going to do?"

I couldn't see if the Schwa was smiling, but somehow, I don't think he was.

"You'll see."