it's unfortunate, because the cool thing about this one was the way it looked

4/13/2006

part I:
i was hanging out in a wooden room with about ten people at some sort of family function. everything, including me, is animated and narrated in the style of chris ware. i think i must have been invisible, because no one really talked to me or seemed to notice me. i mostly floated around absorbing the life story of a girl named juliana, an unbelievably talented artist and photographer who never did anything anymore except push her aunt luisa around in a wheelchair.
aunt luisa had red curly hair like orphan annie's. she never said anything, and she habitually wore a mask like the one no-face wore in spirited away. juliana pushed luisa around the cabin and relatives held conversations with her as if she were talking to them. the relatives began to ballroom dance, and continued formally and silently until they all became tired and fell asleep where they stood.
juliana walked outside to the perfectly transparent charles/chicago river. the night air was warm and smelled lovely, and the two women watched the blue, orange and yellow city lights across the river. juliana let go of luisa's wheelchair for a minute to remove her camera from her backpack, and luisa began to wheel herself toward the river. j. looked up just in time to see her aunt sink into the water. she put down the camera, ran to the river and jumped in, but she could not lift the heavy chair, and luisa remained as if she were welded into it. without any other ideas, juliana swam back to the surface and waited on the riverbank.
after a minute the wheelchair, the mask, and a hard colored-plastic cast of luisa's clothes rose to the surface. juliana looked into the river and saw nothing but the sandy bottom.

part II:
there's a really bland fight club in the burton-judson attic (which looks much like the wooden room from part I). members of the jujitsu and aikido clubs stand by to make sure no one is too seriously hurt, and you can finish someone by casting a spell at them with a wooden toy harry potter wand. the spells don't actually work or anything, but if you successfully "cast" one the person stands up, shakes your hand, and acknowledges their loss.