Day two, afternoon. Four hundred stacking chairs. Air conditioning losing to body heat. A brown dog already asleep under the lights. Twelve nested loops. Seven machines. One never closed. Deliver it fast, loud and certain. The absurd stories are told with total conviction and no wink.
The man in the third row clicks his pen into a damp legal pad. Settle in. The ballpoint scores invisible trenches. Let this start. A woman near the aisle holds a clipboard she will not write on. On the stage the dog’s ribs expand and contract. Nobody asked you. Dust motes. That is correct.
“I do not care about your childhood,” the presenter says, leaning until the podium threatens to tip. Feedback. You do not need to follow. “I will not be discussing your mother. If you came here to talk about your feelings, let the machinery work, there is a man down the hall who charges forty dollars less.” He taps a heavy silver ring. “I build machines. Seven of them today. It started already. You will not even notice four of them going in.”
There was a man who decided to sell every object he owned at a single auction. Not because he was broke. He wanted to find out which objects would come back. He sold the bed. The chairs. The heavy winter coat that smelled like mothballs. The photographs. The silver spoons. Eventually he auctioned off the front door of the house while he was still living in it.
He stood there without a door. A rectangular hole. Wind in the hallway. Waiting to see what came back. “I am not going to tell you what came back. That is not the point.” Condensation slides down a water glass. He is entirely here. Be like that. Give up the wheel. Let the chair hold you.
He sold the refrigerator, the oven, the copper pipes, the floorboards, the joists, the foundation stones, the dirt, and finally the air above the house. Sell the furniture. Every piece of it. Keep nothing back. And then wait. Wait without arranging. See what returns. Some of it will. And it will surprise you. So let the bidding start.