CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

While never named in the story, it can be inferred from the title that the 92-year-old female protagonist of this narrative is Mary. Mary works at a sort of all-encompassing interactive museum that is never named in the story itself. This museum includes myriad displays: a miniature castle; cows that have had a Plexiglass window surgically implanted into their side so that viewers can see in; an exhibit of deformed babies that have been pickled in formaldehyde; and a “functioning scaled-down coal mine” (85), among other attractions. Metaphorically, one can view the “museum” as America.

Mary spends her morning preparing “the Iliana Evermore Fairy Castle” attraction. A group of rowdy kids come in and “run wild, indiscriminately pushing the interactive exhibit buttons” (79). One of these kids steals Mary’s fairy wings. Just as Mary is about to get her wings back, ”the supervising adult comes rushing up and says how dare [Mary] hamper the child’s self-esteem by being critical of her impulses” (79). A pair of replacement wings will come out of her paycheck and Mary goes to Administration to tell “Mr. Spencer, Cleaning Coordinator” (79), about the loss of the wings. Spencer says he’ll give Mary “two weeks to pay for the wings” (79) before she’s fired.