Episode 65 - Reinvent

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  Welcome back to the podcast. Not to another season but another segment of the season, you could say. Part B…. If that’s how the organizational system goes in this situation. 

For the most part, podcasting has seemingly borrowed the lingo of television. Or at least, from what I can piece together it has. And I’m not sure why. There’s likely room for an entire book or series of books on how podcasting started and what the shows themselves have become. And in that study, I wonder what the exact influence of television was on the medium. Was the language just ingrained in us, enduring from radio days, or was this a more conscious choice on our part? Did we decide that this medium was a sister to something we already knew as opposed to something wholly new? 

The former makes sense to me, but it also seems to be a limit of the imagination because yes, podcasts do remind me of old radio shows and talk shows, but couldn’t we have done something else with it? 

Not that I know what, per se. This might just be me being a bit pretentious or something of the sort. I just think that whenever we open a new door that there’s a moment when we are awash in possibilities. A sea extends out before us, its boundaries not yet defined. When we call out, the line will be laid down, influenced by what it is we yell. But there’s a moment before then when limits have yet to be defined. We alone have that ability, but we hesitate on our brush strokes and make them much smaller than they could otherwise be. 

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  Not that I could have done much better, if I had been the one standing at the threshold, swinging open the door onto this new frontier. Sometimes I have a sense of possibilities of what could have been. And if I truly commit to it, that might be enough to instigate some sort of change, some sort of new horizon.

  Which likely makes me some sort of hypocrite, I imagine. It's likely poor form of me to insist that we should have done more when I cannot even come up with any sort of alternative or possibility that we should have been exploring and can explore now. I am criticizing the lack of something I cannot picture or name. That's kind of a jerk move if there ever was one.

  Or--if I wanted to be more charitable with myself--I could say that this is the dreamer in me, this is the sort of youthful and idealistic soul that wants to push humanity to new heights. I want more for us. I won't settle for anything less than ideal, you could say. I want more. I think we should pursue more. I just need help coming up with what that more is.

  That doesn't seem right or possible, though. The more youthful, dreamer, idyllic part of my soul has long since been smothered by a cold and unfeeling world. Or the people in it if you want to be a tad more generous. Like maybe you think it's better if it was a person with the ability to make choices and to act that hurt me and not the mere fact of my existence. If so, I can see your side of things. It's not something I can always believe, but I do see it at the very least. I can pretend I understand it, if only for the moment.

  There is something to be said about this hope, however. If there is a range of possibilities out there--defined or not--then maybe there are cures or solutions to ills or problems that plague us. Maybe the lack of certain things is more a case of "not yet" than it is a failure being some sort of inevitability. It's just a matter of finding the right road that definitely exists. Sure, that version of the task is more daunting. It's more work on our plates, but even still, that's preferable, isn't it? Or am I just the weird sort of person who does better with a task, a trait I share with hardly anyone else? Frankly, I could see it going either way, but as someone who finds comfort in doing something, in the act of having something to do, there's an appeal in not being helpless. It might mean you have to shoulder the blame later, but it might also mean that you can change the outcome, that you can be successful, however it is that you want to define that.

  Or I imagine that's how it would be. I would assume that success is somehow possible, that it is inscribed as a possibility in whatever grand record exists, the sort of thing that actually does limit us and what can happen. But I wouldn't know. I don't have any experience with something like that.

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  So, another episode of this mysterious show, one that I might remember better than the other or at least to a passable degree... That's hard to say.I don't know how many episodes of this show there were and my memory is incredibly patchy, but I think I do recall an episode that was vaguely like a Western. You know what I'm talking about, right? The image that comes to mind of the Wild West with its wooden, shaky buildings and tumbleweeds jumping across frame. The roads would be dirt. Everything would be dirt. Or sand. The color palette offered all the browns and beiges that anyone could want. Other characters wore cowboy hats and boots. They had spurs on, even when that didn't make sense. And I think they also had chaps, not that I knew what chaps were, exactly. The vague shape of something that covers the thighs and legs comes to mind. Oh and horses. There were also plenty and horses and those bars out front of establishments that you could tie the horse to. Which was an arrangement seemed so impractical to me. In real life it might have made sense. But maybe that just wasn't how things went at all.

  Jade found herself in that world once. And that's the part of the episode where the memory starts. Yes, there should have been a before. There should have been some set up and a small calling that took her away. There must have been some... Well, inciting action or item doesn't feel like the right term when the framing device is so separate from the story that is contained within, but I digress…

  Jade found herself in that Wild West, and she was wholly unmoved by the sight. That makes sense for her, you could say. At no point in any of the stories or episodes did she really seem to react to the new world she found herself in. That was simply her new reality, and she took it for whatever it might have been worth. But despite the lack of water or the threat of the sun beating down on her from high overhead, she continued forward without a second thought.

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  I often wonder where we get our popular image of what the Wild West looked like. It's the sort of thing I could look up, but there is something about curiosity itself that amuses me. There's something about wondering that I just can't shake. There's something about the urge to know more that is so remarkably human that we need it, in some way. We are curious. We want to know more.

  And maybe that is also at the heart of our fascination with true crime. It's not just this deep seated urge to understand the evils of the world so we can defend against it, so that we can rise up and protect ourselves from enemies that we know and somewhat understand. Maybe it's not some existential fear of what we could have become if the circumstances of our lives--something we have no control over--were different than what we had known. Those things are relevant, I would venture, though the exact degree is still up in the air. But there always had to be more to it than that. This puzzle might have been poorly assembled, but it was made up of a whole host of pieces.

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  On the other hand, no one ever really reacted to how out of place Jade might have been, and granted, there were times or places where the sudden appearance of a child isn't so jarring. Children are people too. They have to move about the world, and the difference is merely in that they are also actively learning while they are doing. They are learning how to be while also trying to be. So for that, we have to give them some slack. Many of the people or creatures of these other worlds where Jade found herself were willing to grant as much, expressed through a general disinterest. They didn't stare at her. It would have been rude to stare. So instead, they merely watched from a distance as the child moved through the world ready to intervene if the need well and truly struck. It just didn't strike until the story demanded it, and when that time came, there was someone there who might have needed some of Jade's attention or assistance. So the reaction is built into the story.

  Also, it never really took that long for the right adult to run into Jade. Usually, she would notice them first, however. She would see someone in need of the quick fix a child with enchanted art tools could provide and she would pull out whatever she had with her and craft the solution to the mild ailment.

  In this episode, it was a broken wagon wheel. You know what I’m talking about, right? The large wooden-esque wheels that were attached to stage coaches, as I think they were called. They were almost like the compartments of the cars we know but pulled by horses. Jade saw one, and the markers she had with her were the exact fix that the man bent down by the wheel needed to get a new wheel. He just didn't know it yet.

  But as he crouched down, lamenting over the damage and the consequences as such, he seemed to spot Jade in the crowd, amidst the many other adults dressed for the time period in their earthy tones and muted colors. The bright green ribbon in her hair likely jumped out at him from a sea of all that.

  But come to think of it, though, I don't think the wardrobes of those background characters were accurate. I think there was some color in the Wild West. It might not have been as vibrant or varied as we know today, but it wasn't the endless sea of muted earth tones that surrounded Jade. It was as if the rest of the world had faded to a pale brown, just to draw attention to her.

  But that wasn’t necessary. She was also the only child around. I don't think that was accurate, but child care and wrangling has always been a bit complicated, though. So who is to say where the small children might have been when the threat of the sun overhead could have been some deterrent from letting them run free outdoors. But then again, where else would you let your children be but outside? They might need to venture out for their chores or for you to do your own. It's all hard to say. But when the Wild West is portrayed on television or movie screens, that is a detail that is seldom included, at least from what I've seen. And that makes some degree of sense. These were shows for adult audiences, showing them what life could have been if they had been born in that era. Allegedly, of course. What life allegedly could have been. I doubt it would have been as whimsical.

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  Sometimes things just come to me. I don't know how else to explain it, but I can say that it makes creating somewhat difficult. Sometimes an idea just strikes me, and if I have the great misfortune of working on a project when it comes, then I have to redirect the ship midwave. It's not as easy to do as you might think. At least, it has never been for me.

  But it is doable, I suppose. You're listening to proof.

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  The man lifted his hat to Jade in the standard polite gesture of the day. A respectful nod to the young lady coming towards him with something in her hand. He wouldn’t have known what a marker was, not that he ever bothered to ask. 

  Jade did not really react to the gesture. She was too focused on the wheel, on wanting to help. Her assistance was her introductory gesture, as it were. It was the sort of thing that was supposed to prove Jade's worth and power to the rest of the world, to that place that had never seen her before. It was a part of the routine, a step in the story that the other episode I mentioned was missing.

  Either way, Jade clutched the marker in her hand and began the process of tracing out the wheel. There was no need to reinvent it, after all. 

  Meanwhile, the man watched her as she worked. He watched her with the sort of fascination one would expect when witchcraft was essentially being done in front of them. But all the same, a small smile crept onto his face as Jade worked.

  "That's a neat trick," he said as the new wheel materialized in front of him.

  Jade's sketch hadn't been the right size. It was a bit too small, an error likely created by her size and perspective, I would suppose. Either way, the transformation from drawing to reality corrected the error, and the wheel that came to be was perfect for the man’s wagon.

  Jade took it in her hands for a moment before gesturing for the man to take it. As he did so, his hand was hesitant. His touch was weak as he could seldom believe this was something she had done. She hadn't just made the image of the wheel. She hadn't just created art work, but she had made a wheel itself, seemingly out of nothing. Laws of matter, if that's what they are called, be damned.

  The man accepted the wheel, but he looked around before he said another word to the girl. She was owed some gesture of gratitude, some acknowledgment for what she had done, a small expression to serve as a faint token of appreciation. But he couldn't muster it. His mind was elsewhere. It was focused on something else entirely.

  He looked about again, doing one last round over his surroundings before he turned to the girl and asked, "Where are your parents?"

  That's the golden question, isn’t it?

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  There might have been something narratively significant about Jade's parents being missing or the Rugrats who went on adventures without their guardians or seemingly in direct defiance of said guardians. But it goes back to the point of children's literature or television. It has to teach, and one of the things children need to learn about or learn to exercise is their sense of autonomy. They have to learn that they can exist separate from their parents if only so that they know they can do some things by themselves.

  There is a limit to that, of course. You don't want children literally doing the sort of independent exploring or outright escaping that the Rugrats did, but you would want them to show that degree of problem solving, the ability to look at the world as some sort of puzzle that they can navigate with the right tools. You don't want them taking it too far, but you also don't want them to not attempt it at all. Learned helplessness isn't the sort of thing you should be promoting, after all. If you did, you might end up with a child who has the great misfortune of turning out like me.

  So Jade couldn't really have her parents with her, right there. She needed some degree of independence as she confronted the world. But as the man seemed to be saying, there was a line. And Jade's situation was likely on the wrong side of it.

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  Jade regarded the question with a degree of confusion. It was as if she didn't have parents, which wasn't true. We--as an audience--knew that she did. We had seen them, though we had seen them be negligent in a way. In all likelihood, she just assumed that question had no merit because--while she obviously did have parents--they obviously were doing the thing she thought all parents did: dissociate.

  The man took a sharp breath in at the blank stare Jade returned to him. That wasn't a good sign, he knew. There were many reasons to be concerned, he also knew. But right then, he was limited to what he could do.

  With a sigh, he said, "Alright. You'll come with me, then, but let me change this wheel."

  And Jade did not object. Why would she?

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  Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or post about it on some mysterious online forum. You do you.