Excerpt: Humankind is an Oxymoron

She thought of old friends, no acquaintances, she reminded herself, from her first origami club who turned out not to want to become actual paper folders, not in the professional sense, but who were in love with the idea of acting like professional paper folders. All their ‘folded paper attire’ – crisp satin smoking jackets with turned up sleeves and comfortable loafers, taking a little nip of Saki while sitting at an vintage Japanese table with thin strips of hand-pressed paper imported from Sumatra, and lamenting about style differences from Sakomora’s time to the cheap, pointless crap the CEO of Cost Plus World Market now desired.

“No, I will not go down this path. I will be an Origamist, a Master Origamist, with my folded works featured in a magazine. Someday.”

Someday is today, her dead mother said. Someday was yesterday. It sure as fucking hell isn’t tomorrow.

The whining started back up in retort like an ancient child’s wind up toy, partially rusted from years of childhood fever and bedwetting.

“I know I can fold better than most of the local Origamists I know. The ones who rapid-fire bend foil and tissue into that fairy crap. I know I can create better art but I don’t want to churn out the same stuff to prove it. Therefore, I have to think up and fold something different and I just can’t figure out what that different thing is. When I try to figure that part out, it all gets too overwhelming and my brain hurts. My eyes ache and little crocodile tears dribble down and wet my papers. I give up and find comfort in video games.”

It’s not meant to be easy, honey. If it were, everyone and their mother would do it.

"Practically everyone and their mother are doing it now, mommy, doubly so if they’re famous and got a paper cut and survived to tell about it. Craft publishers will give a million dollar contract to nearly anyone nowadays if you’ve found your fifteen minutes of origami fame. If that isn’t a depressing state of paper folding affairs, I don’t know what is."

Then if that what’s got you blocked, go ahead and quit. Don’t fold another thing. Don’t touch another piece of paper. I guess there’s no point, is there? Give it up if you’re so convinced you can’t.

“I won’t be able to live with myself then, mommy. I can’t go through this life after all I’ve been through to die a nobody,” she whispered aloud. “I have a thousand cranes in me I want others to see. I have to give it a shot.”

Good for you, sweetheart. You’re a tough cookie. Now shit or get off the pot, shit or get off the pot, shit or get off the pot…

She smiled, thinking of a future when she’d be interviewed by someone for some major publication and were asked, “Why do you fold paper?” (Not that in a million years would she believe anyone ever would actually ask her or any Master Origamist that exact question). She’d pause as if reflecting, as if looking through wisps of fog at a shining, golden maple bending over a still pond, and would say something to the effect of how interesting a question, how refreshing, and that no one had ever asked her such a thing.

“I fold because I have a thousand cranes in me that I want others to see. And I dreamt of my mother once, after a day of lamenting the point of it all. She came to me and said as clear as an Asian bell, ‘Shit or get off the pot.’”

Undoubtedly, the interview would end abruptly shortly thereafter, having gone downhill in a hurry because she will have broken out in hysterical laughter that ended in hives and hicups and the interviewer would mumble something about not being able to publish that. Obviously, she’d have to reserve that little tidbit line from her dead mother for a more appropriate interview, some kind of interview opportunity that was light and fun and definitely not for The New York Times Arts and Leisure section.