48.2

Examples of House-Tree-Person Test follow-up questions: After the House: 1. Who lives in this house?

2. Where do we go when we are not here?

3. Where does the house go when we are not there?

4. Whose window is/was that?

5. How many children per room, head to foot?

After the Tree: 1. What kind of tree is this?

2. How much of it was cut down to make the house 3. And how much to make the fire 4. And how much to make the maypole?

5. Does it have fruit or flowers or leaves or nothing?

After the Person: 1. Who is she?

2. Is she young the way we remember her, the way we remember certain books we read when we were young?

3. Isn’t it true that the books we liked as children seem so narrow now?

4. And isn’t it also true that once-in-a-while, a person strikes us as being the house and the person and the tree simultaneously, 5. And shouldn’t we admit that this is just another holy trinity? // A house can transcend its foundations and menace the street like a naughty kid. A house can show you its legs. A house can drape itself in lace and light a candle inside its skull.

NONFICTION | 45