American Elsewhere

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR




It is then that, as is so often the case in Wink, things begin to happen in two places at once.

On one plane, Mona Bright sits on her mother’s couch, with her mother across from her in her chair. But as Mona whispers Boom, her mother looks up, as if she can hear something happening outside this dream house.

“What was that?” she asks softly. “What have you done?”


On the other plane, back in the smoking city, with the bloody woman on the rooftop and the giant standing in the park, something begins to poke its way out of the tiny hole in the skin of the dome: a long, black, gleaming claw. It makes the hole bigger and bigger, then slashes down, straight down, nearly splitting the dome in half…


Mona’s mother sits up. “What have you done, girl?” she asks.

“I let him out,” says Mona.

“Who?”

Mona does not answer.

“Who?”

Something changes in the air of the house. It is as if another room has just appeared, connected to their pleasant living room; a room small, dusty, yet invisible; but they can feel it, a hall or a chamber just nearby, always glimpsed out of the corners of their eyes.

Then Mona sees him.

He stands in the dining room, watching them. A still figure wearing a filthy blue rabbit suit, and a strange wooden mask.

Mona’s mother sees her looking, and turns to see. When she sees this strange man standing in the dining room, she seems to deflate a little.

With quaking legs, she gets to her feet. “Oh,” she says in a crushed voice. She begins taking shuddering breaths. “It’s you.”

The man does not move. Mona becomes aware that whatever relationship she has with her mother, there is so much more—both in quantity, and in tortured complexity—between her mother and this new figure.

“You’ve… you’ve quite outgrown me, my boy,” whispers Mona’s mother. She stares at him, then slowly looks back at Mona. “Please, don’t.”

Mona is quiet.

“Please… please don’t let him hurt me.”

“I can’t tell him what to do,” says Mona.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t.”

There is a flicker. The man in the filthy rabbit suit is now standing just behind Mona’s mother.

“Please don’t,” her mother says to her. “Please… I just wanted things to be right. I just wanted things to be as they should have been…”

But the man in the rabbit suit reaches out…


In Wink, something long and skeletal begins to emerge from the broken dome. It is impossible to truly see it—it is somehow even bigger than the colossal giant standing in the park—but it only partially emerges, as if just poking out its hand, and its head…

And though no one in Wink, even the People from Elsewhere, can really understand what they’re looking at, those that see think they see a long, thin skull, and two tattered, pointed ears, and a bony, clawed hand reaching for the backs of the giant’s ankles, as if to slash at them…


Tears fall and strike the living room carpet, a soft pat pat.

Mona’s mother, quivering, makes a fist and holds it to her lips.

The man in the rabbit suit touches her shoulder…


The claws strike home.

The giant begins toppling backward, moaning in dismay…


Mona’s mother, beautiful and perfectly arranged, falls backward, her red dress rippling like a flag as she tumbles…


The giant is so vast, it takes nearly twenty seconds to fall.

It falls in such a manner that it practically eclipses the park, smashing the courthouse, barely missing the dome, its broad back hurtling toward the dark, lacquered splinter of a tree on the north end of the park…

The tree stabs up, piercing the giant’s breast, poking through its chest just where its heart would be…


Mona’s mother gasps. “Oh,” she says, and touches her chest.

There is a spreading stain of bright red blood there, seeping through her dress.

“Oh, no,” she whispers. “Not like this. Not like this.”

Mona and the wildling both stand over her, watching. She looks up at them, eyes brimming with tears, but she cannot see either of them anymore.

“I just… wanted things to be perfect,” she whispers. “Just the way I wanted them… is there anything… wrong with that?”

She moans a little. Then she is still.


In Wink, the people from elsewhere stare, horrified, astonished.

“No,” says one. “No. No!”

On the mesa, Parson lets out a huge breath, and says, “Yes.”


Mona and the wildling stare down at their dead mother. Then, slowly, the wildling kneels and reaches out with trembling hands to caress her still, pale face.

Mona understands. She still feels the same, despite everything: she wishes her mother were here, alive, healthy, and that her mother loved her daughter with all her heart. Such desires can never really go away, no matter what you learn about your parent.

The wildling looks up at her, and though his wooden face is as inscrutable as ever, Mona thinks she understands him. He is asking—What now?

“I don’t know,” says Mona. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Crushed, the wildling looks back down at his mother. Then, slowly, he gathers her body in his arms, stands, and carries her away, away from this perfect living room, down the hallway, and out of sight.