The Dark Duplex - map 2, january 2005

Fast-forward nine months later, when I instructed Atom to make a second version of the same street, without forewarning or letting him look at the original. I wanted to see how much of the earlier map he really knew and could instantly recall from his memory.

After about twenty minutes, he presented me with his new version and we compared the two. The differences we had found, and his very obvious consternation over a few extra houses in one area, a missing house in another, and a few scrambled/mismatched names, made the exercise more rewarding than I could’ve guessed.

The Jones house in the first version was now “The Dark Duplex.” The Anderson house was now the Johnson house (he slapped his forehead over that one: the original was correct; the Johnsons were just school friends who lived in a different neighborhood). The height of my map maker’s growing disquiet was a mysterious new addition to the second map: a house marked “Grimes,” in which he seemed to have no idea if that actually existed or even the reason why he had just inserted it there 10 minutes ago. After a few moments of utter confusion he vowed to call his mother to find out (I haven’t followed through on that part.)

The improvised second map also included more information about the surrounding area: a steep hill, arrow towards Lake Harriet, the torn down Lake Harriet School, Queen Street where the Kreuger mansion stood.  His childhood home, "Paul" is slightly more prominently marked with an X.