Mr. Arnold blew his whistle. He froze and we looked and there we saw it, atop the trash-bin, like a star on a Christmas tree. Never mind that tree would raise serious health violations. For art can be found in the most unlikely places—

​

     We inched closer to the bin,

And I discovered it was one of my own.

(ketchup with fingers, paper bag, brown.)

​

     ...Which the muses commanded through me in angst before recess, while I contemplated the mysteries inside my lunchbox.

​

     Mr. Arnold rubbed his eyes.

​

     Then he scuttled off, revealing too much of himself again through his much-too-short gym-shorts. Seriously, why? And he returns moments later with the music instructor, the English teacher, and the school nurse—

 

     "No, not crazy," they tell him, examining my work.

 

     "Who's got the hall-pass, I need to pee!" cried little Suzie, but the adults attended to more pressing matters.

 

     #masterpiece #gifted #sistinechapel #blessed,

 

     ...they hashtagged on their phones.

 

     The very next morning someone flew in from

the Döss Hossenheïmer Gallery of Tribeca, Manhattan.

The curator unbuttoned his purple suit (lined inside with golden Wonka tickets) and got me to sign on the spot in his trash-themed notebook—

 

     "Sign right here, in my postmodern avant-garde Picasso-inspired ethereum crypto-memorandum!" he offered with his hook, and cast, line, sinker! —I obliged, signing away my dignity.

 

     I became an overnight celebrity.

 

     The school principal gave beaming interviews to Channel 9 News, on my behalf: "Behind that knuckled-breaded Snorlax-skulled idiot always lurked some dull barely fathomable glimmer of genius, I always knew it!" he bragged with giant ceremonial scissors in hand—

 

     ...Then he cut the ribbons while a little statue in my likeness is erected between the juncture of Elmherst and Bergen, in front of town-hall, so that visitors coming in and out of town can point to my little bronze bust, its one arm gallantly stretched forward and its sightless eyes penetrating intently into the selfie-lens of its replica iPhone—

 

     "Why, isn't that that famous prodigy, the artist...?" "I didn't know he lived here! And so close too." "He makes me believe anything's possible!"

 

     I was commissioned by the IFLM (International Foundation of Laundering Money) twelve new pieces by July... to be escorted unannounced in one of six unmarked black vans leaving for the airport on an inconspicuous Tuesday afternoon, then handcuffed to the wrists of four Sumo wrestlers while they board blindfolded into a private B-2 bomber with the impressive résumé of transporting emeralds the size of cantaloupes out the Congo, and unidentified body-parts out of Disneyland.

 

     They will make their way from Milan to London, Paris to Istanbul and, of course, across all known galaxies of the metaverse...

 

     ...Alas, at the unveiling, the critics were unamused.

 

     They found my twelve-piece series on 'the pathos of household goldfish' lacking, but luckily I've done my research—"That one by the bubbler? I think it's a hermaphrodite. And that one's black, but polite," I explained while pointing to my stick-figured fish.

​

     The critics perspired.

Then they played along.

​

     "Oh yes, yes of course..." "I see it now!" "Such bold strokes," "Raw truths..." "Refreshing originality!"

​

     They fed off each-other, parrots on trampolines while I—click, click! —salute before the flashing cameras, but, something is amiss. Into the lens I saw reflected the face of my Jungian conscience, just some grubby-cheeked kid inside: something the adults had forgotten grown callous or greedy with age...

 

...What would I say to my classmates?

 

     I resigned from the throne the very next day.

 

     The collectors had a field-day.

 

     Prices soared through the roof—literally. Of course a few of my less remarkable earlier works will be vacuum-sealed and transported to national British museums and the Louvre, where they are currently on display behind eight-inches of plexiglass... but the rest will be shipped off to the moon, hoisted up and propped by space-drones to stand for all eternity, right next to Buzz Aldrin's bleached-out American flag. 

​

     Meanwhile I contemplate the meteoritic rise, and inevitable return, of a dying star—

​

     I look back with fondness and the slight twinge of regret. "A life well lived," I convince myself, "...and a journey not yet over." "Finish your cereal!" Mom screams. She closes the lunchbox and sets it on the kitchen-counter while pointing to Old Ben, our grandfather-clock—

​

     "The bus is arriving in five minutes!"

​

     But I barely hear her, so deeply am I withdrawn to the mystery of the lunchbox, contemplating what is inside.