The CuisinArt

New from Dylan. Part 1…

The crate blocking Raymond’s front door stood almost six feet high and was made up of long planks of wood. Raymond wasn’t expecting any packages and it was far too early for the mail to have been delivered. Still, here was this thing.

His body tensed as the cold air chewed his skin.

Morning had come, as it had well over twelve thousand other times in Raymond’s life. But this was the first morning where there was something he couldn’t explain.

The sun had risen (as it had the tendency to do) and Raymond’s mind was lightning. In bed, on his back, head hanging off the side, he scribbled manically on a yellow legal pad. Quickly drawing diagrams and labeling them before their meaning was forgotten. Rough sketches of sculptures to-be. His hand almost couldn’t keep up.

That time of day was “dreamscape,” as Mkei had taught Raymond. Mkei was an underground African sculptor (who only went by his first name). He was Raymond’s favorite. At a seminar, Mkei had said to write when you first wake, when your mind is still somewhat in the dream world. Unfettered from daily hassles.

This particular morning, Raymond’s dreamscape session raged on for twenty sweat-filled minutes before his head felt about to burst with blood, forcing him to sit up and stumble down the stairs in a daze to grab the morning paper.

That’s when he came upon the delivery.

The crate with the red stamp on the side - a big circle with three lines through the middle. Below that, Raymond’s full name and address.

No mistake. Whatever was in there, it was for him.

“Embrace the unexpected,” Mkei had said once.

So Raymond figured the box should come inside. Lifting it was out of the question (far too heavy), so he tried to push it through the doorway. He positioned his hands along the beast’s sides and leaned into it. The box began to tip. Raymond struggled to keep hold, failed horribly, and the crate crashed down on top of his living room coffee table. The table’s legs snapped upon impact and the glass face smashed into a hundred pieces.

Raymond breathed out in frustration and looked behind him as if someone were there not bothering to help. That once notable piece of furniture had been rendered garbage. He’d be picking glass out of the carpet for months. But the crate was inside.

Step one complete.

“Always go one step beyond safe,” Mkei once said.

So Raymond squiggled his fingers between the planks and with a considerable amount of effort, ripped the top end off. Reaching in, he found a slew of loose nails and screws. Behind them, pipes. Even deeper, a set of gears. The box held the most vast array of mechanical parts Raymond had ever seen. Rods, cables, belts, wheels, wires, sprockets, coils, burners, sheets of metal, a surprising number of light bulbs, grates, blades…

Some objects were completely foreign to him. There was a cylinder of sorts with different sized teeth jutting out its sides that, to Raymond, had no conceivable purpose.

Toward the back of the crate, were the tools. Wrenches, screwdrivers, chisels, calipers, knives, a vise, clamps, saws, drills. Finally, a smaller box with a set of gloves, earplugs, a small surgical mask, safety goggles, and a tube of glue.

Raymond sat on the crate, exhausted. The living room turned to a junkyard. He scanned the spare parts, trying to piece it together. Nothing.

“Art is invention,” Mkei had once said. “And invention is expression of self.”

Raymond rose to his feet, lifted the empty crate with both hands, took it outside, heaved it over his head and began to shake it with frustration.

“The only time you’ve failed as an artist,” Mkei had been known to say, “is when you succeed on something that didn’t come from you. Unearned acclaim means nothing. Personal promotion is artistic death.”

Just as Raymond was about finished with his spleen venting, an envelope flew out of the crate and landed in the grass at his feet. Raymond dropped the box, picked up the envelope and opened it.

No note inside.

Instead, Raymond found a small handbook with the title “Gloxy Oxtornity Device” printed on its cover. The inside pages were a detailed set of instructions. Diagrams plotting out the construction of some sort of machine.

Raymond looked back in through his house’s open front door to the metal mess inside.

“Success and mass acclaim,” Mkei had said once, “is irrelevant to artistic growth.”

“Lovely day!” A neighbor on his morning walk called to Raymond as he passed by the driveway. And Raymond waved to the neighbor, though the wave meant nothing to either of them.