Penelope

“Penelope Persimmon began life as a normal child,” an epologuian beginning to many a fireside tale. Many of those who professed to developing Penelope, did so out of a sense of self-aggrandizement. They, in no uncertain terms, were to create a child that would be, all things to all people. A daunting task for any conjurer of fictitious characters. Even more so, when dredged from the annals of humdrum lives that fed off the uncertainty in their own existence.

Abel Bennet was not fond of pretending to be something he was not, but had accepted the responsibility only as a temporary means to financial survival. He’d been told since his childhood, he was not quite right, but not to worry, “God had a plan for everyone,” all he had to do was determine what that plan might be.

Although Abel nearly failed Kindergarten because of his inability to remain within the lines of conformity. He preferred to extrapolate the essence he perceived in a picture, rather than be confined by it. The black lines that traveled about the paper outlining the parameters for his crayons, seemed incapable of incorporating the imagination he wished to attribute to it.

It was this ability that allowed him, after escaping the clutches of Sister Mary Magdalene, to follow a non-distinguished path through the remaining twelve years of static education, and emerge no more harmed by the process, than the average student who found conformity necessary, if equality was to prevail.

His talent was discovered by a convenience store attendant, Bygone Heffner, who noticed after Abel had departed the restroom of the store, paper hand towels covered with what looked to be cryptic images hung from the dispenser.  They not only depicted the essence of the towel dispenser, but exposed its very soul.

Bygone collected the towels and showed them to an antiquities dealer in the mini mall, who had a self-proclaimed instinct for recognizing indigenous talent. They agreed, Bygone was to alert him the next time Abel returned to the store.

Rudolph Templeton waited patiently for the portrait of Saint Pompeii to be displayed in the window of the store, before placing himself in the path of the escaping ingénue.

Able replayed his spiritually enlightening ritual, asking for key, returning it a short time later, with only the inspiration drawn from the porcelain fixtures to verify, he was ever there.

    the meeting led from one thing to another, as clandestine meeting often do.  Abel, who believed himself unemployable, was hired by Rabbi Templeton to reinterpret masterpieces using his own uniquely disturbed talent. It was from his interpretation of the Last Supper that he became recognized by Rudolph Templeton, art collector and backroom author, to be a nonconforming savant.  He entered Abel in a contest dedicated to the creation of a fairy tale about someone, “Who did not fit in.” He persuaded Abel to expand his repertoire of images to include, thematic stories associated with the characters depicted in his drawings.

Abel was not certain he had the imagination it took to put his drawings into a literary form, but he would do his best as he believed Rudolph Templeton, had in a way, saved his life. Rabbi Templeton could only imagine the uniquely inspired interpretations that would flow from the back of his simple establishment and the monetary rewards that would accompany them. 

Abel being a literalist, found the challenge to be basically pragmatic, and therefore no reason to seek further inspiration. Someone, “Who did not fit in!” He would pattern his renderings and story on Penelope Persimmon, a young woman he’d met at a palm reading convention in Upper Poughkeepsie. 

Infatuation was something unfamiliar to Abel, and given his insecurity, he tended to embellish the importance of things he did not understand. Thus the story of Penelope Persimmon evolved in the deep and dark recesses of Abel’s unhindered mind.

Penelope became the girl who continued to grow, beyond the limiting factors of the renditions of a normal human girl. By the time she was five, she could no longer live in her house, as she was unable get inside without extensively damaging the homes interior. Her father purchased a circus tent from a local distributor of Big and Tall accessories in an attempt to rectify the situation, and provide the parental duties expected of a picture book.

She, by the time she was twelve, had been moved to the fairgrounds, where a tent resembling the Super Dome in New Orleans was erected by the town for Penelope, in hopes of cashing in on this newest of attractions. Hosting the last Buggy whip factory museum remaining on the East Coast, had become a liability to the city, but had remained their only source of discretionary income.

Penelope’s inability to stop growing had captured the attention of Industrial Crane Company. They envisioned the potential for her talents as limitless, and began contributing boldly to the mayoral election campaign of R.R. Templeton, newcomer to the game, but with bold new ideas that would lower their taxable status.

No one of course had bothered to ask Penelope how she felt about being used as a replacement for the buggy whip attraction. Penelope being a shy person by nature, simply wanted to disappear, or become a normal indistinguishable person, accepting the restraints of conformity, willingly. 

One day when she was installing the passenger baskets on the new Ferris Wheel, an integral part of the envisioned theme park. Abel Bennet, had evaded the security measures meant to keep Penelope isolated from the prying eyes of the non-paying public. He frightened her with his unannounced appearance. In her confused state, she stepped on two clown cars and kicked a fire truck into the nearby river.

Abel upon imagining Penelope’s predicament, and himself being unsure of his artistic abilities, felt an immediate connection to Penelope. After her initial shock of being stocked by an uncelebrated artist, she agreed to be interviewed by him, if he promised to portray her, should she agree to participate, as being only unusual when placed in a dimensional environment not suited to her status.

    Abel agreed on one condition.  She could pretend he was not there, as she preferred to be captured as a subject in her natural state of emotional anonymity. She also insisted he agree to loudly announce his presence when coming into the immediate vicinity. She would need time to insure she was presentable. He insisted that she be more cautious when excited. They compromised on him using his imagination in her favor, and she pretending she could see him, without prejudice. 

The sessions, two a day, for three weeks, produced an abundance of drawings and stories that Rabbi Templeton found extraordinarily innovative. He began to envision story books containing the histories of Captain Hook, Horatio Alger, and even President Eisenhower, who was considered by many as having no imagination. 

Abel’s ego, having been massaged by the Rabbi Rudolph’s encouraging words, and scrutinized for accuracy by Sister Mary Magdalen, had wished he had not asked the fatal question all mortals ask of their imaginary subjects, “Why?”

Penelope Persimmon, having become used to the daily sparring that accompanied their meetings, was taken aback by the question. “Why, what?” Her question sending Abel in search of a rational but kind response. 

He began the soliloquy that would change not only the storybook world, but Penelope herself.

“You have, and always have had, the ability to stop growing whenever you chose to. Subconsciously we all imagine ourselves differently, than how others perceive us. For that to change, you need to believe in yourself as the conformist I know you to be, and allow yourself to return to the bland existence from which you sprang.”

Penelope looked down upon her little artist who had become no more than the size of bed bug in Penelope’s world, and screamed, “Get out,” with the force of an imagined nuclear explosion. The velocity of the intent blew not only Abel’s renderings, but the tent and notebooks of his imagined possibilities into the Atlantic Ocean, sinking several cruise ships, and covering the Statue of Liberty with a canvas robe exhibiting the colors and stripes of a circus tent.

The moral of the story, as told by Rabbi Templeton was that those who believe themselves to be larger than life, should be prepared to find themselves not only alone, but naked.

Abel got a job after he recovered from his injuries as a designer of paper towel motifs, for the Jack and the Bean Stalk Corporation. Penelope walked out into the sea in search of Godzilla’s little sister, in search of a pet, and was only seen once again, while visiting the grave site of the Titanic. Bygone sold Abel’s paper towel doodles to Hallmark Cards, and now lives on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Rumor has it, Alcatraz.

So, all’s well that ends well, for those that imagine imaginations of stories, that are larger than life.