An Epic Quest (to Paris)
Kara Tsukashima
I will go to Paris, John decided one night. Paris is the bomb.
At breakfast the next day, his waffles were soggy. If he were in Paris, he knew, his waffles would not be soggy. He announced his intentions to those present.
“Why?” asked his mother.
“Because it’s the bomb.”
“Actually, it’s a city,” his mother said as she buttered her toast. She did not like waffles. She just made them. “A bomb is an explosive device.” John did not appreciate it when his mother was literal at him, and put extra butter on his waffles to communicate this.
“It’s overrated,” said his father. “Most cities are. Everywhere is, really. Even Paris. These waffles are excellent, by the way.”
“Oh, thank you.”
John did not think Paris was overrated, but he intended to see for himself.
So he gathered:
1 backpack
1 carefully-made copy of the Paris map in the atlas, done in No. 3 pencil
1 compass
1 can opener (manual)
2 cans French onion soup
1 copy Les Miserables, which he knew was about Paris and thought might be helpful
2 outfits, including underwear
But he was short one important item.
“The most beautiful thing?” repeated his mother. “Personally I’m quite fond of the Fibonacci Sequence. Or a really big prime number, maybe.”
“Anything by Sartre is pretty nifty,” said his father.
These responses were unsatisfactory. He took the frog-toaster figurine off the mantle. It would fit in his backpack and it was very shiny. Everyone liked shiny, he knew. Even in Paris.
And now he had an offering.
And now he was ready.
And now he left.
“Have fun in Paris,” said his mother.
“Bring back some milk; we’re out,” said his father.
John thought that perhaps they did not believe that he was really going to Paris. But he would bring back some milk anyway. It would be the polite thing to do. He was careful to close the gate behind him. Once on the street, he checked his compass and headed as close to due east as the streets allowed. Paris, he knew, was east. That was logic.
The first interruption occurred two and a half blocks from his house.
“Hey, kid, where’re you going?” A big kid, maybe from second grade, directed this question at him. John stopped and answered.
“You’re a moron, kid. There’s a great big ocean in the way. What’re you gonna do, swim?”
“There are boats,” said John. “Boats cross oceans.” This big kid could not be very smart, to miss something as obvious as that. He started walking again.
“Dumbass,” said the youth, and lost interest.
The second interruption occurred as he was walking along a larger street. A car slowed to a stop next to him. He stopped also. If people kept stopping him, he thought, he would never make it to Paris.
“Hey kid,” said the lady who stuck her head out the window, “you okay?”
“Yes,” said John.
“Where’re you going?”
“Paris.”
She pulled back into her car briefly. “The one in Indiana?” she asked.
“No.”
“All righty, then, you’re on your own,” she said, and rolled her window back up. John noticed that the driver did not use his turn signal before pulling back onto the street. He decided that this must be optional.
The third interruption occurred at an intersection. John was watching all the cars not stop at the red light before they turned. Driving, he thought, was obviously more complicated than he had believed. Perhaps in Paris they would let him try.
The next time he knew the car that pulled over and the lady in the passenger seat. She got out.
“Hi, Mom,” John said. “Hi, Dad. Are you guys coming to Paris too?”
“Oh, John,” she said, “I looked out the window and you weren’t...” and then she hugged him so hard he wondered, just for a second, if he was being punished.
But he let her.
And then he hugged her back.