O:JA&L Prose Discourse to 10,000 Words
Fiction
Craig Proffitt
A HOUSE BUILT FROM THE UNIVERSE
Black line through scrubland. Desolate. Dull. A somber New Mexico winter morning. Sunless. Sky is a sad gray rag. Everything shades of listless gloom. No trace of the pretty pinks and yellows underneath. A cartoonish tumbleweed shatters on my flimsy plastic bumper. Radio is broken. The soundtrack of this journey is the drone of my treads.
Respite from the sameness when the highway curves around a craggy mountain. No guardrail to my right to safeguard from plummeting down the rocky slope. I miss the dullness of the black line. My feeble slob of a car chirrs and shivers up the hump. The wind nudges me toward a roadside boulder. A current of panic surges from my tailbone to my neck. Adjust the wheel with a tug. Unswerving now.
I spot weary, idle, insignificant Bilabo from the summit. The town looks pocketable from this distance—like a pinch of confetti scattered on a brown wool blanket. Must be a hundred miles away.
Quickened by gravity, my galumphing machine feels fresh speeding downhill. A crow in my cross hairs flutters from roadkill. Think of my mother in Louisiana trying to stay in her home. She communes with it in her lonely way. Katrina’s wind and rain almost killed her. The swamp wants to swallow her home, but she stays. Mortgage is paid off. Utilities and food are a struggle I take care of. She wades through her vulnerability. I give her what I can, but it’s not enough. The hole gets bigger. She should sell. Stubborn old lady living with ghosts. Nostalgia is her poison. Still, her house keeps her soft. Brave. Keeps the hands that hold my face when I visit supple and warm. I like her quiet joy. If I close this deal, I can give her more.
Grab my coffee from the cupholder. Scorching. A ping from my phone rattles. Reflexes crush the cup. Coffee spills. Burns my crotch. Pelvis winces. Swerve. Flimsy bumper murders some sagebrush. The Tuffin Curse.
I adjust. Back on the black line. Roll down my window in a rage and hurl the cup. Regret littering this beautiful landscape for a moment. Grab my phone from the passenger seat. Ping was from my wife. A heart emoji. Cute, but saccharine.
Another text from my wife: My love is with you.
Her fussing annoys. Amy is dull as the black line. Nerdy. Kiss ass. Hard to respect someone who throws themselves at my feet for the pleasure of licking my boots. My mother was like that with my father. She deserved better.
Phone rings. Tatiana says, “Tell me you got the deal.”
“The customer moved the meeting to ten.”
“It’s five to ten. Why are you still on the road?” She is tough at work. Servile in bed.
“I’ve been driving since seven. I’m almost there.”
“You need to close this time.” This is tough Tatiana. “Your employment depends on it.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s not me, it’s Jeff. You blanked last month.”
“I sold a printer.” Sold a scam to my company.
“So what? Quota is forty thousand a month.”
“I haven’t even been on the job sixty days.”
“Doesn’t matter. You need to close at least one copier per month to keep your job. A printer is chump change.” She is channeling Jeff.
“The hospital is ready to close.”
“You’ve been saying that since your first week.”
“And I’ll probably close Bilabo Helping Hands today.”
“You were hired to find customers. Bilabo called in. And it’s a nonprofit. Jeff said this deal is easy pickings.”
“Closing is the hard part.”
“You haven’t closed them.”
“Yet!”
“I’m not supposed to tell you, but Jeff is testing you with Bilabo.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to fire you, but I said you were a closer. The test is a favor for me.”
“You sleeping with him too?”
“Jealous?” She giggles. Waits for my reaction, but I offer none because I don’t care. Tatiana is a side dish. Dinner is at home. “Seriously, I’m not sleeping with Jeff. Gross.” Her voice is brittle with insecurity. “You know I only want you.” This is servile Tatiana trying to claw me back.
“I’ll call you after the pitch. But if I close, I expect a celebratory bonus at your apartment.”
“I don’t want you celebrating on me.” Can’t read the tremor in her tone. Could be angry. Could be nervous. “Come to my place because I’m your girlfriend, and sleep over this time.” I’m silent. “I’m your girlfriend, right?”
“It’s only been six—” I shut my stupid trap and stop tap dancing on this minefield.
“Only six screws?” erupts out of Tatiana’s mouth.
“Only six dates. And you’ll never want to see me again after you hear me snore.”
“My ex snored. I’ll wear earplugs. Got tons of them.”
“Let’s talk about me spending the night when I stop by.”
“Whatever, Wade!” Tough Tatiana. “Just close the deal!”
She hangs up.
Sluggish Bilabo is the color of dust and blight. Frail clapboard houses cringe into themselves. Crumbling adobes. Stick fences bound with wire. Bony dogs sniffing around. A solemn rose-colored church witnesses the decay.
Bumpy dirt parking lot. The building is a cube of flaky turquoise stucco. A recent mural on its face by a talented novice of cupped hands painted in primary colors signed Hector. Above it, printed in alternating red, blue, and green letters: Bilabo Helping Hands.
I step out of my car. Can’t believe how cold it gets in New Mexico. Wish I had read up on the high desert winters before moving from Tucson. Wipe the coffee spill on my lap as best I can with the brown towel I use to keep the sun off my dash. Wore my black suit fortunately. My shirt has splatter. Doesn’t look awful if I button my jacket.
Grab the manila folder with my proposals from the back seat. I never carry a briefcase or bag. They are barriers between me and clients.
Pangs of anxiety in my chest. Walk to the gated front door. My roof and my family’s welfare depend on this pitch.
Phone pings before reaching the door. Text from my wife: I know you’ll get the deal. Good things happen to good people.
What does that mean? Bad things happen to bad people? Bad luck happens to unlucky people? Why is she constantly fussing on me?
Hunt for my father’s lucky dollar in my wallet. Gone. Did I spend it on that coffee? The Tuffin Curse.
Tatiana’s image makes my mind groan. Does the fun of a girl on the side outweigh the threat of a wife finding out? I want a baby. It’ll bond me with Amy. Stop me from being nomadic.
But am I willing to give up the fun? Tatiana is amazing in bed. And she protects me from being fired. Without her, I might lose my paycheck and the rental house my wife loves. Won’t be able to buy my mother food. Have to wait for the baby. Have to go nomadic again—like when my father took me. Ironically, continuing the affair until I find a new job is better for my family.
Almost at the door. Can’t lose this deal. Shut off my phone. No distractions—just sell.
The door’s gate—probably a relic from a time when this place was a liquor store or pawnshop—warns me to announce myself. I cock my fist to knock. A box thuds on the floor inside and spills its raucous contents. I bang on the gate.
“Come in,” says a fiery feminine voice.
Find a room crammed with chaos. Boxes of canned goods. A heap of winter coats in a corner. Stack of blankets in another. Pairs of well-worn shoes arranged against the wall by size. A jungle of entwined used clothing on racks. Heartstring-tugging posters of shivering children and dew-eyed elderly on the walls.
A clearing in the jumble. The copier’s door is open. Know little about those machines but can tell this one is old. No screens—just buttons. Plastic shell sun yellowed from a decade or more by a window. The box that tumbled from the stack next to it rests sideways on the floor with the landline phones it held purged from its maw like sick.
Woman in sweatpants, flannel shirt, suede ankle-high winter boots. On her knees yanking on a sheet of blue paper jammed between the rollers. She looks pleasantly round in all the right places from behind. A single braid follows the curve of her spine and whips her bottom with every tug. Hope her front doesn’t disappoint.
Paper rips. She falls on her butt. Grunts, but wants to unleash a swear. Turns to me. Her front is better than her back. Blows a wayward forelock from her face. Pretty without makeup. I am aroused, and I’m sure my grin shows it.
“I’m here to see Mister Raspberry,” I say, offering my hand to help her up. She takes it. Her skin is smooth and warm.
On her feet. She smells of soap.
“This was a terrible morning,” I say, “until I saw your pretty face.” Expect her to accept the flattery with a bashful smile, or an awkward one if she is uninterested. The brick wall I get—eyes like flint and tight lips—is unexpected. I hope to release the knot on her expression with: “What’s your name?”
“Missus Raspberry.” Her prettiness wilts. Her cracked lips recoil into a backward pucker. I feel appraised by her stinging glare. “Copier sales, I presume.” The sharp strum of her delivery declares me a stereotype.
“That’s right.”
She turns to a half-open door that leads to a room as cluttered as this one and yells: “Copier salesman is here!”
“Please send him in,” sings a mellow voice with a hint of a smile.
I sidle through a labyrinth of boxes in a poky office to a space around a stout, scratched-up oak desk. Raspberry, tiny and unremarkable, peers over his reading glasses at me. Green fluorescent light flickers off his bony, bald, freckled crown. He spreads a childlike smile that makes his ordinary face extraordinary. My father had that smile. He used the gift like a snare.
The tiny man’s swivel chair chirps when he leans back. “Hope you can rescue us from our mischievous copier, Mister Tuffin.”
“I’ll do my best. But please call me Wade.”
I draw a business card from my shirt pocket. The tiny man takes it.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he says gesturing across his desk to a scuffed red dining chair with a tattered pillow.
I sit. He studies my business card.
“Tuffin,” he says with a glimmer of recognition. “From Texas?”
“Louisiana, originally. Arizona, recently. Been moving around but never landed in Texas.”
“A fella named Tuffin sold me a used car in Austin decades ago. Wonderful fellow. Terrible vehicle. You have relatives in Texas?”
“Don’t think so,” I say. But I’m not sure. Heard a rumor from a cousin that my father lived in Texas.
Spot a toy in a box full of junk beside me. A tin red horse with a jockey atop who wears the number eleven. A memory from my youth floats. My father had one just like it. Carried it in his pocket for luck until I destroyed it. It never helped him win at the racetrack. Looked the toy up years ago—worth a small fortune because of the eleven on the jockey.
Time to build rapport with humor: “How does a nonprofit stay in business without making a profit?”
“By not being in business,” he chuckles. “But seriously, those that have, give. And those that …”
The little man jabbers on, but I’m not listening. I’m nodding and glancing at that red horse and jockey. No kid should play with that vintage toy. It should be on a shelf behind glass or in a museum. Or in the pocket of someone who needs luck.
My mind returns to the conversation. I catch the little man say: “A lot of faith, some good fortune, and word of mouth keeps our doors open. Word of mouth and fliers. That’s why we need a less mischievous copier. What will a new one cost?”
The proposals in my manila folder range from zero profit to ten percent above MSRP. I choose which one to deliver according to how sophisticated I suspect the customer to be. This guy is naïve. A pushover. I pluck my third proposal—the one above retail—out of my folder. I reach across the desk and say as he takes my submission: “Here is the solution to your mischievous copier.”
He leans back in his chirpy chair. The little man’s shiny forehead creases as his eyes swim over the proposal. His face pinches. I’m worried. My pulse is in my throat. He gapes at me and says with suppressed outrage: “Seventy-thousand dollars?”
“I know it sounds expensive—”
“Because it is.” A weight bends the little man and puts a languid timbre in his voice: “But I’m sure your price is fair. However, we rely on donations and just can’t afford what you’re offering.”
He stands. Anxiety ripples in my belly. The fish took the bait but broke free. The little man plods toward me, holding out my proposal. I crook my feet around the legs of my chair. Must act quick. I spit out my training: “But most customers lease.”
“Lease?” He leans on the edge of his desk to listen.
“It’s the smart thing to do. Use tomorrow’s money to build today. I could put you on a five-year lease, and then you could have your copier for just twelve hundred dollars per month.”
He stands. “That’s still too much.”
“Or I could put you on a ten-year lease and cut your payments in half.”
“Six hundred per month?”
“Yes.”
“But I still have to pay for maintenance.”
Of course, he does, but he won’t sign if I say so. More ripples in my stomach. Have to land this fish to keep my roof. Need to close to feed my mother and for the baby Amy and I hope to have. But don’t want to be a cheat. Why does fate offer me impossible choices? The Tuffin Curse is powerful. I fight for survival with a half-truth: “Maintenance is included.” Grit in my mouth.
He looks at the proposal. “Where does it say that?”
“Article four of the contract at the back.” Not a total lie. The copier comes with a one-year warranty.
He flips through the proposal until he lands on the contract. “Says one-year manufacturer’s warranty. What happens the next nine years?”
“That’s if you buy it. But if you lease, service is extended for the life of the contract. Standard practice since we really own the copier, and we don’t want our property to break down.” The fib leaves more grit in my mouth.
“That’s prudent.”
What he’s saying is: I like free stuff! Grit dissolves.
“But we still have to pay for toner and paper,” he continues.
Of course, he does. He’s groping greedily for more free stuff. Need to close for my family’s sake, so I tell him what he wants to hear: “Paper and toner are included.” Grit is back.
His eyebrows rise briskly. “Is that true?”
“Part of our leasing policy.” More grit.
“We use scads of paper. Five reams a week sometimes.”
“We have lots of paper.” That’s true. “Get it free from the manufacturers.” Untrue, but sounds good. More grit.
He has the wary eyes of a teacher who has caught a pupil in a lie. A heavy sigh carries: “Is that so, Wade?”
I suspect this fish is a shark. Greed is its weakness. I throw more chum in the water: “You get unlimited paper and toner for the life of the lease.” Must put some rain in this rainbow to make my story convincing. “That’s why our price is so high.”
He thinks. He shrugs. He smiles. “That’s a wonderful deal. You a nonprofit like us?” He chuckles.
“We make a little profit on a lot of volume.”
I’ll pay for three months of paper and toner out of my commission. By the time this sale implodes, I’ll be at my new job.
“I guess it’s time to give you my autograph,” says the little man.
Justice in the world. The ripples in my stomach fade.
The little man sits behind his desk to sign. I glance at the tin horse and jockey in the box. Think about the fella in Austin who sold Raspberry the car. Did fate deposit the toy there? Maybe it was my father’s ghost. Need to save my good-luck charm from a brat who’ll stomp it flat and leave it in the rain to rust.
I keep my eyes on the little man as he initials pages. Pluck my toy from the box. It’s in my jacket pocket.
The little man signs with a dramatic stroke that ends with the pose of an orchestral conductor.
I walk out the gate and turn on my phone. The cloud-knobbed sky is weighty and brooding. Purples and blacks. Like twilight, but it’s noon. Flash of lightning. Weird in winter. Gnat-sized flakes descend from the menace above.
My breath fogs the air as I walk to my car. Drop into the driver’s seat. Cold vinyl bites my rear. Start my engine. Rub the lucky charm in my jacket pocket and feel a smile.
I exit the dirt parking lot and debate seeing Tatiana. Guilt ripples in my chest. Shame for toying with her. Shame for cheating on my wife. The tug of war between the rippling in my chest and the buzzing in my crotch arouses.
In less than five minutes, I’m on the long black line. Why am I alone on this road? Grape-sized snowflakes zoom at my windshield like stars at a spaceship going light speed. My mind talks me out of seeing Tatiana, but my crotch won’t listen. The Tuffin Curse.
My cell rings. Draw it from my pocket. It’s Amy. Hit the speaker. She says: “A woman called the home phone.” The notes of her words hold a clench. “She wanted to talk to you. I said you went to work. She asked if I was your wife. Said I was, and she called you a dick.”
My mind flicks through images of crazies from the past. Time to deflect. “Had to be a crank. Probably got my name and number from one of those Dark Web sites.”
Her voice loosens, and she exhales with: “That’s what I thought.”
Time to change the subject. “Aren’t you curious about my deal?”
“Of course I am.” Notes of expectant joy in her tone. “How did it go?”
“Closed it.”
“Yay!”
“Sold at ten percent above retail. My commission and bonus will take care of a mountain of problems.”
“Can you sell above retail?” Her notes are dark.
“There’s no law that says I can’t. And we can finally pay back rent. This is huge!”
“Big things, like closing a deal, are loud and fleeting.” Here comes the lecture from Amy’s latest self-help book. “It’s the little, quiet things that bring joy. Stars. A kiss when you come home.” Her syrup makes me recoil. “An unsullied conscience when your head hits the pillow.” She’s driving a drill into the back of my skull. “And all you have to do to see the little things is live a decent life and have blind faith that good is coming for you.”
The ache in my cranium drops to my crotch and makes it twitch. Still I say, “I get it,” to shut her up.
“We want to be the kind of people who do what’s right.”
“I said I get it!” Throttle down on my aggravation. “I’ll fix the deal when I get to the office.” Grit in my mouth.
“I’ve been doing some thinking. It’s time to have a baby.”
It’s the crank call. Amy wants to claim me with a child. “After I close a few more deals and we’re financially stable.”
“You didn’t hear anything I said.”
“About what?”
“Faith.”
I rewind her lecture, then compose a reply: “You want a baby and for me to have faith that things work out. Right?”
“Can you have faith?”
“Sure.” Grit in my mouth. My decision about seeing Tatiana is made. “Might be late because I have to rework the deal in the office to make it fair.” More grit.
“Oh.” A gloomy note.
“What’s wrong?”
“Miss you.” More fussing. More claiming. More quaking in my crotch. “And I’m worried about you driving in the snowstorm.”
“Snowstorm? In New Mexico?”
“Just heard about it on the news. Apparently we can expect a handful of big ones per year at the higher elevations.”
“But it’s March.”
“It’s still winter. News said it’s an arctic front. But it’s sunny at the house. How’s it where you’re at?”
“Dark skies. Some flakes. And saw lightning. Isn’t that weird?”
“News also said we might get thundersnow.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Welcome to wackadoodle New Mexico.”
“I think I’m right under the storm. I’ll step on it.”
“Don’t speed. Just drive carefully. Love you, darling.”
“Love you too.”
Hang up. The snow is sticking. It drones under my treads. The black line is gone. No tire tracks to follow.
Spot a red pickup about a mile away in my rearview. Its companionship comforts me. Worry about the storm again.
Ringing phone interrupts the dreadful thoughts. It’s Tatiana. I answer. Before I can speak, she yells: “You dick!” She’s the prank caller. Tatiana must have gotten my home number from my job application. “You said you were separated!”
“I am. Can’t afford to move out now.”
“I’m a hot chick!” she slurs. “I don’t have to date a married jerk. I can get any guy I want!”
“Have you been drinking?”
“So what?”
“At work?”
“There’s a blizzard coming, you moron! Everyone went home.”
I see the bend around the craggy mountain ahead. Snow falls earnestly. My windshield wipers struggle to keep up. Bilabo in my rearview seventy miles back. Need to find somewhere to U-turn.
“Why did you call my house?” I ask.
“Because you didn’t answer your cell, and your voicemail is full. I thought you’d rather hear that you’re fired from me than from the text Jeff is going to send.”
“I closed at ten percent above retail. Jeff isn’t going to fire me.”
“Doesn’t matter. He found out about your printer scheme. It got returned today. You should have picked a cousin with a different last name to sign the paperwork. You’re a crook, and a cheater, and we’re through!”
She hangs up. Haven’t digested the miserable meal she served when my phone pings. The text from Jeff reads: You’re fired.
Look up expecting to see the craggy mountain, but it’s not there. And neither is the road. My tires are silent. How come all I see out my windshield is a silvery-white valley? Because my car is an airplane with no wings.
I wake upended on the rocky hillside. My cheek is on the headliner of my overturned car. Shards of glass pinch my face. Can’t move. The Tuffin Curse is powerful.
See a river ten yards below through my shattered windshield. Appears like a black line against its snowy banks. A boulder crushed my passenger door and saved me from dropping into the fast-flowing current.
I am broken in several places. My left arm. My nose. Suspect my legs but can’t feel or move them. Should add my spine to the inventory.
The river’s chatter comforts. It speaks to me in a language I don’t understand. I imagine the water would be pretty if sunlight shined on it—caramel colored—sparkly, I’m sure.
A human voice, male I think, calls to me: “Are you okay?”
Footfalls skidding on snow. A man on all fours with a freckled bald head peeks in through the driver’s window. “It’s you,” he says. I don’t recognize the face. My brain is a mess. “Are you okay, Wade?”
I must know him. My memory jumps back like a record needle. I remember the little man’s face.
The black clouds keep pouring all their white. The snow is a foot high. I’m sleepy.
“Wade! Wake up!”
My eyes grow enormous. Hear myself bark: “What?”
I am a spectator to this encounter. Not in my flesh but joined to it like a shadow.
“Can you move, Wade?”
“No,” croaks my other self—the one that inhabits my body—Second Me.
“I can’t pull you out alone. I’m going to get help.”
The little man spots something in the snow near my back door. Snatches it. Shoves it in his pocket.
“What you grab?” asks Second Me.
“Nothing. Going to get help. Can you hold on?”
He means can I stay alive. Second Me gives him a thumb up.
The little man scurries up the hill. His engine rumbles. He is gone.
Second Me wants to go, but I want to stay a little longer. It’s not so bad to be just Me. No body. No pain. But I’m still able to see the pretty river. And sense the snow’s prickle. And hear the quiet. So much magnificent quiet. Quiet lets a mind know itself. The chattering water and breeze whistling over the snow-covered hollow promise that more beautiful quiet awaits. But I’m content with this particular vocabulary of quiet for now.
Second Me wants to go. I still want to stay. He scrabbles in his jacket pocket for the good-luck charm he stole but can’t find it. His paranoid brain gropes for an answer to its disappearance and convinces him that the little man took it, and revenge will keep him from returning with help. So much to worry a worrier. If his vision wasn’t clouded by greed and suspicion, he would have seen into the little man.
Second Me wretchedly mumbles Amy’s advice about blind faith and tries to believe that the little man will come back. But Second Me doesn’t trust the words. He wishes he had his lucky charm—that’s where his faith is.
But what Second Me is not thinking about, because his thoughts are full of doom, is what Amy said about little things. Trillions of snowflakes are falling on this valley, but he can’t see the beauty because his brain is busy fabricating misery. If he could stop brooding over the big thing that just happened, he would appreciate that beyond the heavy clouds, a ball that dwarfs this planet blazes in a vacuum almost a hundred million miles away. And beyond, there’s more amazing stuff that exists in unity with his accident and with everything there ever was or will be. The completeness of the chaos is perfect and thrilling. And if he wasn’t preoccupied with his agony, Second Me would realize that he is a house of cards that is part of an infinite house of cards built from the universe’s chaos. Fear, hope, lust, love, hate, kindness—they support each other. Remove a card, and the house collapses. If he could grasp that his suffering is just one card of many, he could see the opposing card that tents his suffering—this is the card that lets him see the beauty of the little things Amy talked about. But he wants to be sightless. What can I do?
Second Me begs to go. I give him what he wants and make my way to the river. I’m awestruck by this thing that can save a person with its nourishing water or snuff a life submerged. And speaking about submerged, Second Me’s car just rolled into the current with him in it. But he won’t drown.
About the writer:
Craig Proffitt is an award-winning writer and Pushcart Prize nominee. His fiction has been published in TMP Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and Flora Fiction Literary Magazine. He is also the author of the novel The Opulent Life Option and The Rise of the Light Catchers series. Puerto Rico was Craig’s home from birth until he was nine. He now lives with his family and a reasonable number of cats in the Pacific Northwest and Santa Fe. Proffitt received a BFA from Pratt Institute and a JD from Loyola University College of Law.
Image 1: Kokopelli Pochteca (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via MidJourney AI.
Image 2: Kokopelli Emasculado (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via MidJourney AI.
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