Side A:
Amelia K
shroud trick
Step 1. Start with a square sheet of paper with the white side facing up. Fold the paper in half horizontally. Crease it well and then unfold it.[1]
Step 2. Fold the paper in half vertically. Crease it well and then unfold it.[2]
Step 3. Fold the corner of the paper to the center. You’ll do this on each of the 4 corners.[3]
Step 4. Fold the next corner to the center of the model.[4]
Step 5. Fold the next corner to the center of the model.[5]
Step 6. Fold the final corner to the center of the model.[6]
Step 7. Rotate the model 45 degrees so it’s square again.[7]
Step 8. Fold the top part of the model along the dotted line to the center.[8]
Step 9. Fold the bottom part of the model along the dotted line to the center.
Step 10. Crease both these folds very well and then unfold them.[9]
Step 11. These next 2 steps technically aren’t necessary but they make 2 later steps slightly easier. Fold the left part of the model along the dotted line to the center.[10]
Step 12. Fold the right part of the model along the dotted line to the center.
Step 13. Crease both these folds very well and then unfold them.[11]
Step 14. Unfold the top and bottom triangles of paper.
Step 15. Fold the right side of the model to the center along the dotted line. Part of this crease is already here which will make it a bit easier.[12]
Step 16. Fold the left side of the model to the center along the dotted line.
Step 17. Slowly pull the model open at the top following the dotted lines. The creases here are already made.[13]
Step 18. When you pull the model open it should take a shape that looks like this. The creases are all already made so everything should fall into place.[14]
Step 19. Fold the flap of paper down along the dotted line that intersects the two triangles. This will form the edge of the box. Fold the top triangle of paper up a little bit to fit into place at the bottom of the box.[15]
Step 20. Fold the other side of the box now along the existing creases like you did in steps 17 and 18. The paper should fall into place and give you a shape just like in step 18.[16]
Step 21. Fold the top flap of paper down along the dotted line to form the edge of the box. Fold the top triangle of paper up a little bit to also fit into the bottom of the box, just like in step 19.[17]
Mini-interview with Amelia K
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
AK: This started, years ago, as a story about a woman who wakes up in the woods and can’t find her way out. She wants to lie down on the ground and rest, but she becomes a stream that can’t stop moving. She wants to climb a tree to escape the ground and becomes a bird with broken wings, etc. All her desires are diverted. Finally she comes to the heart of the woods—a gorgeous, pitch black cave, no sounds, no sights—and lays down and wants nothing, and finds herself back home. I realized halfway through that I had been writing “I” instead of “she,” and that I didn’t want to tell my story through her. I gave her a good burial and let myself live.
HFR: What are you reading?
AK: Go Ahead in the Rain: Hanif Abdurraqib
Uncreative Writing: Kenneth Goldsmith
Visions of Excess: Georges Bataille
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “shroud trick”?
AK: Penelope weaving and unweaving, what the mirror sees, corners rounded, long hallways, short laughs.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
AK: I’m submitting a proposal to the 33 1/3 series. Wish me luck.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
AK: Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) / Navajo Water Project / Break the Silence
Amelia K lives in Georgia with her son. Her work is set to appear in Wrongdoing Magazine.
Sources: origami-instructions.com / origami.me/box
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____________________________
[1] Make no mistake: you were not wanted. That’s the crux of it, really. You wanted to be wanted and the fact that you weren’t hurt worse than anything he could have possibly done to you. You know now that this is what abusers look for; what you don’t know is how he knew this. You were his first relationship. Who taught him these rules? Where did he learn these folds?
[2] Behind the fist raised against you is, sometimes, another fist. But what this means is that the person raising a fist against you has intimate knowledge of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that fist, and has chosen to raise it anyway.
[3] Fool me once. Fool me twice. Fool me a hundred times, a thousand times. Fool me in public and in private. Fool me with blood and roses and stitches. Fool me so completely I don’t realize I’ve been fooled. Until I beg you to fool me and no one else. Until I take over and fool myself. Until nothing but the shame remains.
[4] because he was sane because you were crazy
[5] because he wanted to because you deserved it
[6] because he was normal because you were weird
[7] Weird Amy and her books. Weird Amy who is haunted in every tense. Weird Amy and her butterflies and bones and rocks. Weird Amy who walks among snakes and is not harmed. Carrying rain water in a mason jar and calling it God. Lifting the veil for the great uncovering and kissing the face beneath it. Weird Amy and her stories. Weird Amy who endures. That was what they never understood about Weird Amy: every time the world turned, it was trying to catch up with her. Wherever you go, there she is.
[8] The systematic erosion of the self. The things you like are bad. The things you say are not true. The things you remember did not happen. You look ugly when you cry. You look ugly when you smile. Your friends don’t love you. Even your pets don’t love you. Your family doesn’t love you. You couldn’t trust your own mind—it needed a caretaker.
[9] In the sense that every thief is a caretaker; there is care, and something is being taken.
[10] “I’ve taken to the high road that it’s better to be type-cast than not to be cast at all.” —Jonathan Frakes
[11] The fear that if we do not tell our story, it is not real. The fear that when we tell our story, it is no longer real. The fear that the story we tell is not real. The fear that we are not real.
[12] The I who writes is not the I who is written. When I say: I was hurt. I was sad. I ran. I fell. I am talking about a different I, one who has been made small enough to fit into a single line. The I I am placing down is the past made present. I cannot be comforted. I cannot be touched. I can’t give her a different story and still tell the truth. I am trying to place her down gently, regardless.
[13] How gently he held you the first time! Even now you search for, but cannot find, such humble tenderness. Only I love you. You love only me. It felt good to be empty. It felt good to be loved. It was good that he was holding you, or you might have just flown away.
[14] Anyway: the real question isn’t why you fell for it, or why you thought he would Playfair. The question is why you think it matters. You’re a a sitcom character—the luckless one, the brainy but clumsy one, the over dramatic one. Every week you make the same mistakes. Every week the same laughter. You reach out to your friends for help. Out of desperation, you reach out to his friends. And this is what you hear, over and over: but he’s so funny. Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe it was just a joke. Nobody seems to understand that the first person abusers manipulate is their audience. And what an honor it is, to be in his audience. What you learn is that nobody has time for your pain, but everybody has time for the punchline. So of course you step into the spotlight. You could almost mistake its warmth for love.
[15] OQ B SEQLG VSNCF XTDEC
UFULER NBT EDVVO QDM
UGX CBPG BS ZBA LQOOQD
TM QNB TOBEST
BQ SBTOAR DRVO OQ NBQ
EV VKYRBR KWWM
OT PGX. BQ SBTOAR
DRVO OQ NBS
XQP AKC RKK BQ AZ
ZBI XKC TCG RLWAR NBSTAIM
QQ ONB IBNFUBER KBC
EV VNB OQL VM QNB TOBEST
ECBFBSLG
K AQSRPL SG FGXECRGQ QAREFCR
TOESQBER OQ GOW AC PGX CBEQ
BQ SBTOAR DRVO OQ NBR
[16] The water will never run clean. The creases cannot be undone. I can’t see you any way but clearly now.
[17] Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, isn’t that what hell is? I have decided instead to preserve you in an observatory of your sins. Paved with good intentions, like the the road to insanity.
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