Cardboard Questions by Amanda Kluveld

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    On a Wednesday, or maybe it was a Thursday—time blurs in the city—I wandered through streets that tangled like thoughts half-forgotten. There, towering amidst the steel and concrete, was a colossal plush chick, vivid yellow against the gray, clutching a cardboard sign. The words on the sign were not fixed; they shifted and bled into one another—Where are my brothers? No, wait—Who am I? Children gathered around, their laughter a bright dissonance against the city’s hum, their hands reaching to touch the soft, yielding feathers. A mother in a hijab watched with a quiet smile, her phone raised to capture the moment, her children flanking the chick with faces alight with delight.

    The plush chick, seemingly bewildered by the attention, struck a whimsical pose, lifting one orange leg as if to dance. For a moment, it seemed to forget its solemn mission, distracted by the unguarded joy of the children. But as they reluctantly retreated, leaving the chick alone in its solitude, the illusion of connection dissipated. The chick’s feathers began to shed, falling like autumn leaves to the pavement, and the sign slipped from its grasp, spinning slowly on the ground as though trying to decide what to say next.

    I felt a sudden urge to ask the time, though I didn’t know why. The chick turned to me, its eyes—plastic and empty—locking onto mine as if understanding my unspoken question. "Do you know what time it is?" it asked, its voice muffled, mechanical, yet carrying a strange intensity. I froze, unable to answer, the weight of the question pressing down on me like an invisible hand. The chick waited, the silence stretching between us, before it spoke again, this time with a note of resignation, "You don’t know much, do you?"

    The words stung, and I found myself retreating, the city’s pulse guiding me away, pulling me back into its relentless rhythm. I left, though a part of me resisted, the chick’s question echoing in my mind. The next day, or maybe the day after, I returned, drawn back to the place where I had left something behind—something vital. But the street was empty, the chick gone, leaving only a few stray yellow feathers scattered on the pavement, fluttering in the breeze like forgotten memories.

    I hesitated, torn between leaving and the inexplicable pull to stay, to understand. The chick had begun to shrink the day before, collapsing in on itself, the once-vivid yellow dimming into a dull gray. I recalled how I had approached it cautiously, each step heavy with the weight of something unspoken, something lurking beneath the surface of that strange encounter. The chick, now no bigger than a child’s toy, had gazed up at me with plastic eyes that reflected nothing but emptiness. I reached down to pick up the sign, but it crumbled to dust in my hand, leaving a faint trace of ink on my fingers—Why didn’t you help?

    The mother and her children had been gone then too, the street empty except for the fading light and the echo of distant laughter. The chick let out a low, mechanical whirr as it slumped to the ground, and I knew—this wasn’t just a costume, wasn’t just a protest. It was something else, something living or once-alive, pleading with me in a language I couldn’t understand.

    The city around me warped and twisted, buildings bending toward me as if they too were accusing me of something, their windows turning into eyes that blinked in unison. I tried to move, but the ground beneath me melted into a thick, syrupy substance, pulling me down, down into a dark, subterranean place where echoes of my own voice—panicked, desperate—bounced off the walls. The chick was there too, its size shifting wildly, one moment towering over me, the next shrinking into a speck.

    "Where are my brothers?" the voice asked again, this time from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating through my bones. "I don’t know!" I screamed, but the words came out as a whisper, barely audible over the drumming of my heart. I looked down at my hands, the ink from the sign now spreading up my arms, a creeping vine of guilt wrapping around my skin, tightening with every beat.

    The ground finally gave way, and I fell into a chasm, the city’s distorted skyline vanishing above me as I descended into the void. The fall seemed endless, a sensation of weightlessness mixed with terror, and then I landed softly, not on stone or earth, but on a sea of feathers, yellow and gray, stretching as far as I could see.

    There, in the center of this impossible landscape, stood the chick—restored to its colossal size, eyes no longer plastic but dark, deep, and full of understanding. It held out its wings, not in accusation, but in a strange gesture of offering, or perhaps forgiveness. "Why didn’t you help?" it asked once more, but this time the question was different, softer, more human. The words no longer burned, but instead settled into my mind like a long-lost truth.

    I opened my mouth to reply, but the feathers began to rise, swirling around us in a cyclone of color and light. The chick dissolved into the storm, its form dispersing into the air, and I was left standing alone, the sea of feathers lifting me higher, back toward the surface.     As I broke through, emerging onto a familiar city street, everything was as it had been—normal, mundane, except for one detail. In my hand, I still held a single yellow feather, warm to the touch, pulsing with the faintest rhythm, like a heartbeat or a ticking clock.

    I slipped it into my pocket, feeling its warmth spread through me as I walked away, back into the city’s ceaseless hum. But the question lingered, hanging in the air behind me like a shadow that would never quite fade—Why didn’t you help?

    The next day, I found myself wandering the city streets again, half-hoping, half-dreading what I might encounter. And there, around the corner from where the chick had stood, I saw it—a giant plush rabbit, soft gray and blue, its long ears drooping under the weight of a new cardboard sign. As I approached, the rabbit looked up, its button eyes filled with the same eerie emptiness I’d seen before.

    "Have you seen my brother?" it asked, the voice faintly mechanical, but tinged with something that might have been desperation. "A plush chick, about this big," it gestured with one oversized paw, indicating a size that matched the chick exactly.

    I hesitated, my mind racing. "I—I really wouldn’t know," I finally said, my voice faltering. "Is it the one who always wants you to help? Maybe I did see him." The rabbit gazed at me, the emptiness in its eyes seeming to deepen. "Maybe," I repeated, but the words felt hollow, like an echo of something I had already lost.

    As I turned to leave, the feeling gnawed at me again, as if I had missed something—a moment, an understanding, or perhaps a connection that had slipped through my fingers. The city enfolded me once more, indifferent and unchanging, yet I felt as if somewhere, somehow, I had failed to grasp the meaning of what had happened, or what could have been.

    The next day, I avoided the streets where the chick and rabbit had appeared, not wanting another strange encounter. Instead, I found myself in a different part of the city, somewhere quieter, where the buildings didn’t seem to watch me, where the ground didn’t feel like it could give way at any moment. That’s when I saw it—the enormous pink umbrella, half-opened and lounging against a lamppost. I slipped past it, eager to leave these strange days behind, but as I stepped forward, I felt something beneath my foot. Looking down, I saw it—a piece of cardboard, the ink fresh and sharp against the surface: I am sure nothing is expected of you, whatsoever.

I looked back, but the umbrella pointedly ignored me.