“Time to vote. Time to vote.” The man in the Uncle Sam costume declares as the statuesque woman at his side, who bedecked herself as the Statue of Liberty nods in agreement. “Make us proud and make the right choice.”
I smile beneath my mask as I step past them into the school. The line in front of me weaves up and down hallways. Some people adhere to the reminder to keep six feet between each other. Others can’t abide with rules. The man and woman behind me keep leaning into me as they talk, inadvertently including me in their conversation as they continuously brush against me.
“But I think William Parson means what he says. He will make things right for our city.”
“Don’t be silly, Carson Cobb is the one who will change things for the better.”
“And he looks so dashing in a suit.”
“You know that has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s what my grandmother said when she voted for Kennedy.”
‘Well, if that’s what you think of me, I can go stand with someone else.” She jostles me as she edges in front of me.
My gasp of surprise and annoyance goes unnoticed.
The man reaches for her, pushing me out of line as he grabs her elbow.
“Hey, now.” I mutter.
“Sorry.” He looks at me sheepishly before turning his attention back to his female companion.
“Was that for me or her?” Even with a mask covering half her face, she obviously sneers at me as she tries to take her arm back from him.
“For her. I don’t owe you an apology. I am entitled to my own opinion.”
“As am I…”
They stare at each other for a moment.
“That’s true.” He concedes.
She regards him a moment longer before rejoining him. She bumps me again as she does so but doesn’t offer an apology. I shake my head and gratefully follow the slow moving line toward the cafeteria.
Finally, I reach the front of the line and offer a silent prayer of gratitude that I will no longer be subjected to the arguments of my two new acquaintances. As the poll worker shows me to a booth and pulls the curtain closed, the world wavers for a moment. I close my eyes to combat the wobbly feeling in my stomach.
When I open them, I find myself in a small room. A narrow counter height table holds just two items—a small hammer forged of gold or gilded to appear so and a plain stone goblet filled with clear liquid. The wall behind the table shimmers and words appear, etched by an invisible stonemason.
Choose carefully. Your choice proves whether you are ready or not.
“What on earth?”
I glance around the room again. Then I close my eyes again. Upon opening them, the room remains, so I pinch myself hard enough to cause a squeal of pain. Expecting to be shushed by another voter or a poll worker, I continue to be disappointed.
“Where am I?”
I turn around to find a solid stone wall where the curtain swished closed moments before. I gape at the wall as words slowly appear.
You must choose.
“Oh, must I?” I frown and turn back to the hammer and goblet.
I frown at my choices and ponder what all of this could mean. Unable to come up with a logical hypothesis, I turn my thoughts to figuring out this riddle in the hopes of waking up in bed with the joy of voting still ahead of me. I lift the hammer, feeling its heft in my hand. The hilt warms under my touch. I drop it quickly. I lift the goblet, letting the cool stone sooth my heated appendage. I drop one of the loops of my mask from an ear and raise the goblet to sniff the clear liquid. No aroma rises up to assail me. I glance at all four solid stone walls in search of more clues. This times, they don’t speak to me.
“If the hammer weren’t made of gold, I could use it to beat my way to freedom.” I ruminate, looking at the goblet in my hand, “But in one of my favorite movies, water helped everyone but Chunk escape the Fratellis.”
I nod my head and dump the contents of the goblet on the floor at my feet. Instead of puddling there, it slowly trickles toward the left wall. I follow its flow with bated breath. As it reaches the wall, it doesn’t puddle there either.
“I can’t believe it.” I whisper and approach the wall. “It worked.”
As I look for a crack between the wall and the floor, letters appear:
Choosing not to destroy shows wisdom. You are almost ready.
The words fade away to be replaced with another invective:
Show faith.
I take a tentative step toward the wall. Then another. I pause as my nose almost grazes the rough stone and then take one more step.
A curtain rustles behind me as I step up to the voting machine. I shake my head to clear the weird daydream and carefully select the candidates whose beliefs most match my own. I step out of the booth. The poll worker thanks me for my vote and wishes me a good day. I nod my head and repeat the well wishes as I head out to my car, replaying the events in the voting booth. It didn’t feel like a dream, but it couldn’t have happened or someone would have noticed something amiss.
Having convinced myself that recent stresses at work brought on my strange daydream, I slide into the driver’s seat of my car. I reach into my purse, hoping a drink of water will calm me. My hand brushes up against something solid and warm. I lift it up, feeling a familiar weight to it as I draw my hand out. The golden hammer gleams as it catches the sunlight. I turn it over in my hand. As I contemplate how it came to be in my bag, I notice tiny words etched into the handle.
Choose to be the best person you can be and the world will also be its best.
“What does that mean?” I ask the empty air.
“You have more to offer the world than just the wisdom of a vote.” A voice responds from the backseat.
I squeal and drop the hammer. Turning slowly, my eyes blink in bewilderment at a tiny little man. My brain instantly dubs him Tom Thumb. Luckily, my shock temporarily silences my voice, so I can’t embarrass myself further.
“Don’t be alarmed, When you passed the test, you earned a spirit guide.” He grins at me as he shakes his curly red locks with the nodding of his head. “It’s me. You are pretty lucky.”
“I am?” I squeak. So much for not embarrassing myself.
“Of course. Other spirit guides would be offended to be named Tom Thumb, but I like it. It has a fun history to it.”
My mouth drops open.
“I can’t guide a spirit that I don’t know.” He winks as he imparts this information. “So knowing your mind will come in handy as I guide you through the next few years.”
I continue to stare at him blankly. As he stares back expectantly, I wonder what he could want from me. I am barely out of law school and working for the public defender. I don’t have money or fame or aspirations for office. An incurable social awkwardness contributed to my choice to help those who can’t afford to pay someone better, so such goals would be foolish.
He frowns and shakes his head. “That is the first thing we need to work on. Your self image is all wrong. You choose wisdom over violence. You choose truth over fame. That is the kind of leadership your world needs right now.”
“My world?” I parrot back to him.
His frown deepens until his eyebrows appear to be trying to meet in the middle of his forehead. “I wasn’t supposed to mention that. Just forget that.” He raises his hands and whispers something unintelligible.
“What the…!” The hammer whizzes past me, slowing as it nears his outstretched hands.
He reaches out to grasp it awkwardly as it is about a third of his size. “Let me tell you about the hammer instead.”
“Instead of what?” My befuddled brain can’t keep up with the trajectory of this bizarre day.
“The hammer summons me. If you hold it and think of a question, I arrive to answer it.”
“Oh? But why?”
“Because you need to help make your world better. At least until you come into your confidence.”
‘Surely…”
He holds up his hand. “Your inability to accept that you are the right person to make that happen is why you are needed.”
“But I…”
“Can think of a dozen other people more suited to this job.”
I nod and try to continue. “And…”
“You think you will mess it up. We know all of that. Instead of thinking of me as a spirit guide, you can think of me as your confidence. I am always just a question away from reminding you that you are worthy to become mayor and perhaps more.”
“Mayor?” I gasp out the word.
“Of course. But first, you need to help the little people and learn what your world needs.”
My lips tilt upward. “The little people?”
“Not my people,” he frowns at my attempt at humor. “The people who can’t afford to help themselves…” He pauses. “Yet. You will help them learn to help themselves and maybe they will help you see yourself through their eyes.”
I stare at him for a second and then close my eyes, willing the hallucination to go away, so I can drive myself to the nearest hospital. When I open my eyes, he is watching me calmly. He has gently lowered the hammer to console and sat down on it.
“I told them the wall wasn’t a great enough test of faith. Just pick up the hammer when you realize I am real and you have so much more to offer the world. Okay?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He disappears. I close my eyes and open them again, expecting to find myself surrounded by padded walls. Instead I see the interior of my car and the gleaming golden hammer.
~~~~~~~
A week has passed since the oddest Election Day to date. All the candidates I voted for won the position they coveted. Some have even begun to fulfill their election promises—those who managed to retain seats they already held despite harsh competition. The others still have a lot of work ahead of them, and I still have my hammer to guide me.
It sits on the coffee table most of the time. I don’t dare pick it up because I am not sure I can handle more cryptic conversations with Tom Thumb. Sometimes one meeting gives enough information to judge whether any kind of relationship can be tolerated with another person. I know that trying to become friends or mentor and mentee with the tiny man wouldn’t work out. Aside from that, I have no idea what high expectations he and whoever he works with expect of me. I just know it exceeds my abilities. How could they see anything more than what I see in the mirror each morning?
These same contemplations have dominated almost every waking moment of the past week. Even as I listen to stories about malfeasance and honest mistakes and formulate a defense that will mitigate time served and assure better choices in the future, the golden hammer dances around these thoughts, so these thoughts have particular power when I have a moment of quiet. I gaze at the mysterious object with a million questions in my head for the twentieth time today. As if my attention awakens something inside its gilded structure, the hammer rises from the table and flies into my hand. I try to drop it, but the handle sticks to my skin.
“No. No. No. Let me go.” I plead with it quietly, looking around the room suspiciously.
“You’re holding it. Maybe you should let it go.” Tom Thumb chortles from somewhere above my head.
I scan the room until I find him perched on the top shelf of my bookshelf. He grins and waves.
“We needed to check in, so I might have…” He pauses for a moment. “Tipped your hand.” He snickers as he waves his hand and the hammer pulls my hand downward.
I frown. “What do I have to do to be free of you?”
He rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as if in deep contemplation. I raise an eyebrow and lower my hand to the table, hoping to leave the hammer on the coffee table once more. Disappointed yet unsurprised, I raise my hand with the gleaming hammer still attached.
Tom snickers and hops down from his perch with surprising grace. His tiny feet carry him over to the couch where he holds hands up to me.
“A little help, please.”
I sigh and offer him my free hand. He hoists himself up to the couch at my side. Then he looks up at me with a confused look on his face and turns to shift a couple of throw pillows around. Balancing on them and apparently content that his face is close enough to mine, he peers up into my eyes.
“So how am I going to convince you to take the path of most resistance?”
“I don’t think you can.”
“That’s because you don’t know me yet. I am very persuasive.”
“So you think getting to know you will make me qualified to run for office?”
“No. I think getting to know me will reassure you that I know what I am talking about when I say you are already qualified if unrefined. Otherwise, the hammer wouldn’t have chosen you.”
“So how do I get it to unchoose me?”
Tom responds with hysterical laughter that ends with him nestled between two decorative pillows clutching his sides. I sigh and raise my hand to my forehead, forgetting that the hammer remains attached. As I realize my mistake, the hammer floats to the carpet at my feet as if it weighs no more than a feather.
“I am never going to figure this out,” I mutter to myself.
“Not with that attitude.” Having recovered from his fit of hysterics, Tom stands up tall and puffs out his chest proudly. “But you are lucky enough to have me to assist you in changing your perspective.”
“But I still don’t know what you want from me.”
“Just work hard and stay honest.”
“That’s all?”
“For now.” And he blinks out of view again.
“Looks like I might be voting for myself in the next election.” I call out after him.
His laugh echoes in the air around me as I sit down and pick up the golden hammer.
~~In light of election day being this past week, we all need a reminder to make the wisest choice we can with the facts we have. Of course, it is important to seek those facts from reliable resources, and seek them in advance, so this might have been a better statement for last week, when we were all obsessing over candy, costumes, and carving (hopefully just pumpkins unless you wanted to roast a practice turkey.)~~
