The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

“Fluxus, man. Subversive shit. They think she’s a bad influence, taking the piss out of the system and not taking her own mental illness seriously.” Benny didn’t understand what Fluxus meant. He’d never heard of the radical political art movement from the sixties. He just thought it was a cool swear word that Mackson was using. But he did understand something important, another rule of the ward: the punishment for subversive shit is that they make you grow up. Fluxus, man. The ward felt different after she left. Hollow. Muted. Dull. Later that day, during art therapy, Benny swiped a glue stick, and when he was back in his room he glued all the slips of paper into his Composition notebook. He wasn’t thinking of it as art. He just liked the way they looked, all lined up neatly in a column.