I met Theodore Swingline in the autumn of 1931. I was seated on a bench in Central Park, enjoying the afternoon sun, when I noticed him strolling along a cobblestone path. Theodore—or Teddy, as he liked to be called—was dressed impeccably. He wore a grey wool suit with a perfectly centered pleat in the legs of his trousers. His herringbone-speckled jacket fit snug around his shoulders, and a crisp white shirt shown through. Beneath the shadows cast from the half-bare trees, he stopped and removed a notebook from his jacket. His brow was furrowed. A contemplative frown stretched his lips. I cleared my throat and inched forward on the bench seat. When I was sure I had his attention, I spoke. “Pardon me, sir. Do you have the time?” Teddy snapped from his reverie. He pulled a gold-plated pocketwatch from his vest pocket and flipped it open. “Quarter past three,” he said. His voice was thick and smooth, like cake batter poured into a tin. “My, is it that late already?” I stood from the bench, hitching my shawl tight around my upper arms. “The afternoon is getting away from me.” “Easy to do in a place like this,” he said. “Sometimes, I’ll come here and walk the paths for hours.” I took a step closer to him. Dry leaves softly crunched under my feet. The notebook he carried was bound in black leather—‘T. SWINGLINE’ was etched into the cover. “Sounds like a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Mr. Swingline, is it?” He looked at me with a peculiarly raised eyebrow. But when he remembered he was holding the notebook in full view, he softened again. “Ah, yes. Theodore Swingline, but please, call me Teddy.” “Mary Williamson.” I reached out my hand and he took it. “Such a pleasure to meet you, Teddy.” “The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Williamson.” “Miss Williamson,” I said, correcting him with a touch of nervousness clinging to my voice. He smiled at me. “Very well, Miss Williamson,” he said. We were both silent for a while. On closer inspection, I noticed his fingers twitched and his eyes often wandered. The notebook that he held was unkempt. Discolored, dog-eared papers spilled out from beneath the leather bindings—yet he clutched that ragged book like it contained the secret to eternal life. “Call me Mary,” I said at last. “Very well, Mary. I know it’s late in the afternoon—and you are probably eager to get home—but perhaps I could escort you there? If I’m not being too forward.” “I would love a walk home.” The sun felt warm against my blushing cheeks while we set off along the path to the western edge of the park. “So tell me,” I said as we began walking step-by-step alongside one another. “What do you do for work?” “I’m an inventor,” Teddy said. He mindlessly tapped his fingers against the notebook. “How interesting! Have you invented anything that I might’ve heard of?” “A few things, yes,” he said with a smirk. “I’m sure you have a Tumble Trigger in your home, right?” I tugged at the edge of my shawl. “Well, no. I don’t believe I’m familiar with a… What did you call it again? Tumble Trigger?” “Not up on the latest trends, eh?” Teddy teased. My face flushed, and I looked down at the cobblestones. “I’m sure you’ll have one soon enough,” he continued. “The Tumble Trigger is a revolutionary new design, consisting of an array of domino-like towers, arranged in a particular proximity and fashion—then toppled in sequence from one end to achieve a specified goal at the other. For example, you might set up your Tumble Trigger to turn on the radio, and then you could turn on your radio while standing at the opposite side of the room!” As Teddy described his contraption, his tone shifted from soft smoothness into a shrill whine closely resembling a carnival barker. I shuddered, keeping my eyes low. “And then what happens?” I asked. “What do you mean? Then the radio is turned on.” “Well, yes, but what happens when you need to turn the radio off? Wouldn’t you need to set the dominos up again?” “Of course you need to set the dominos up again! But you’re missing the point. With the Tumble Trigger, you can turn on your radio from the other side of the room!” “Isn’t it easier to just walk over instead of—“ Teddy scoffed. He crossed his arms and held the notebook tightly to his chest. “Well, if simplicity is all that you care about, perhaps you are familiar with The Kickstarter?” I was, all of a sudden, very aware of the long walk to my apartment building that still remained. “Imagine this.” The carnival barker voice was back. “A piece of ordinary footwear suspended by a cord, high in the air. When engaged, the device propels the footwear forward on a predetermined path, causing it to strike something. With The Kickstarter, you could turn on your radio from the other side of the room!” “It’s a shoe on a piece of string that kicks something?” “That is, perhaps, the most obtuse oversimplification I have ever heard! It could be a shoe, or a boot, or… something else.” Teddy shook his head. “I’m sorry, Teddy,” I said. “I don’t mean to insult your work. It just all seems so… unneccessary.” “You haven’t considered the possibilities! With these inventions, you could do anything. Mow your lawn, cook dinner, pay your taxes—you could even turn on your radio from the other side of the room!” Teddy took a breath and composed himself before continuing. “Forgive me. I’m the one that must apologize, Mary. These inventions are my life’s work and sometimes I can’t help my enthusiasm for them.” He was blushing and held the side of his face in his hand. “It’s all right,” I said. “I understand—inventing things must be exciting work.” Teddy stepped closer and whispered low. “Would you like to see what I’m working on now?” The way that he said this immediately perked me up. “If you’re open to sharing it, sure.” He turned his head to look one way, and then the other. Satisfied that no one was near enough to eavesdrop, he opened his notebook to a middle page and fanned it out. On the page was a engineer-style drawing of some type of clamp mechanism. It was labeled ‘Swingline Stapler.’ “My pièce de résistance,” Teddy said proudly. “You see, there’s a reservoir of metal brackets that are fed to the nose of the device by a spring. And when you apply preasure, one of the brackets will eject and travel though a stack of papers placed beneath.” Then, suddenly, the excitement drained from his face. “But it’s only a prototype. I can’t figure out how to make the binding permanent. Once the brackets go in, they always slip back out.” Teddy slammed his notebook closed and tucked it back inside his jacket. The remainder of the walk to my apartment was done in silence. I wondered whether I did something that caused his sudden change in mood. Nonetheless, I was relieved that my encounter with this strange man was ending. “Thank you for the escort,” I said, stepping onto the building’s front stairs. Teddy noded politely, then began to turn away. As he did, something made me call out to him. “You should bend them.” “Bend what?” “The metal brackets. If your machine bent the brackets, they would stay in place.” Before I fully appreciated what was happening Teddy took off running down the street as fast as an olympic sprinter. I heard him yelling at the top of his lungs, “Bend them! We have to bend them!” At three in the morning that same night, I was awakened by frantic screaming and a rhythmic clicking noise outside of my window. I peered out and saw Teddy Swingline standing in the glow of the street lamps, holding a stack of papers. He looked odd, even in light of the circumstances. His hat, the black leather notebook, and the papers he held were all bent in half. His formerly prestine suit was slashed with thick creases, as if it had been folded in strange ways. “Bend! You have to bend!” He cried. “Mary, you have to bend them!” Teddy’s wild outbursts were emphasized by the clicking of a handheld mechanism against the stack of paper. It took approximately thirty minutes for the police to arrive. And approximately two minutes later, Teddy was shoved into the back of the police wagon. I did not sleep a wink more that night. The fear of this strange man spun my imagination out of control. I could not bear the thought of being alone in my apartment, so I made immediate arrangements to stay with my mother in Chelsea. When I arrived, she greeted me with open arms and a fresh pot of coffee. I told her of the strange Mr. Swingline and we talked at length about everything that had happened. But by the end of the week, I began to feel better. That peculiar afternoon started to feel like the remnant of a dream. I decided it was time to go home. The apartment building was exactly as I had left it. Still, an eerie feeling crawled into the base of my spine as I entered. The wooden stairs moaned under my feet—and when I opened the door to my apartment, my heart sank and my face washed ghostly white. Endless heaps of miscellaneous junk were stacked everywhere. Metal tracks lined the walls and clotheslines zig-zagged across the room. Bowling balls, bicycles, candles, dominoes, marbles and great many other things were haplessly strewn about. Teddy Swingline lay in the middle of the room with both legs bent perpendicularly away from his knees. My piano was strung up from the ceiling directly above him. “Teddy?! What in God’s name are you doing here?” “Mary, you’re standing by the Tumble Trigger. Please don’t—“ As Teddy began to speak, I stepped forward and heard the gentle tinkle of falling dominos. “Oh God,” he whispered. “Teddy, why is my piano on the ceiling?” The string of dominoes collapsed in sequence until they toppled a book, which toppled a broom handle, which sent a bowling ball rolling down a metal track. “It’s too late for me,” he said. “But don’t worry, I forgive you. I just needed to show you my inventions. You hadn’t considered the possibilities.” The bowling ball rolled to the end of its track and hit a golfball, which in turn rolled down a smaller track. “What are you talking about? Just move out of the way!” The golfball rolled into a house of cards, which fell down and sent a fishing lure shooting upward. “I can’t. I bent my legs to better understand the stapler.” The fishing lure tugged a shoe on a clothesline and made it kick a boot on a clothesline. The boot kicked and spilled a cup full of marbles. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose between two fingers. “Fine. Then tell me what to do.” “You can’t stop it. There’s no time.” The marbles fell down a ramp and filled a different cup, which weighted a scale and caused a lever to rise. The lever switched a gramaphone on. “Theres been so much time while all this ridiculous stuff is happening!” As the wheel of the gramaphone turned, it struck a match, which lit a candle below the rope holding the piano to the ceiling. I took a step forward, but froze when I heard the rope crack and begin to fray. “Tell my story,” he said. “Oh, and my name’s not really Theodore Swingline. It’s Rube Goldberg.” The rope snapped and the piano belched a G-minor chord as it crashed down.