piles of newspapers

A man and a women fall in love, buy a house, and dedicate themselves to filling it with piles of newspapers. "Our love is eternal," says the man. "We need a subscription," agrees the woman.

The secret to not throwing out the paper is that it prevents the day from ending. Whereas before, time might have been a succession of days, one leading to the next, now it should be pictured more as a kind of revolving door. By staying longer in the door, you end up right where you started. Time stops: Nothing can hurt you, nobody dies, and love never ends.

There are marital relations between the man and woman, and they have 2.5 children. When the piles grow too high they carve paths with a hedger. When that becomes unsustainable they pitch a tent in the backyard, sending the half-child into the house on slender missions to find somewhere, anywhere, where a newspaper can be added.

On one such mission the half-child disappears and the marriage of the man and the woman faces its first crisis. It's the man's thought that the game is up; that they must empty the house of newspapers in the desperate hope of finding their beloved half-child. The woman sees his side, but believes that altering the process now would renew the passage of time, thus re-opening their lives to pain, death, and disappointment.

(Or, what's the sense of regaining a half-child, only to see the entire family threatened by the vagaries of chance, desire, and destiny?)

In the backyard camp of the man and the woman a quiet argument rages, while little ones dream Morse code from a brave half-sibling. By dawn a compromise is reached. Cranes remove the roof of the house, and the man and woman find the half-child -- malnourished, scared, and over-read, yes, but very much alive.

The love of the man and woman blossoms and their pile of newspapers grows to tower over the whole neighborhood. A beacon of hope and truth in a decaying, dangerous world.