The Cloud

I was out for a walk when I heard from above, “Look who thinks he’s Mister Big Deal.”

I glanced up and saw a cloud glowering back.

I kept walking.

The cloud said, “Hey, don’t ignore me!”

I didn’t look up.

I heard a rumbling and then thunder as lightening struck the top of my head. Smoke was coming from where my hair used to be. I patted out the fire.

I looked up at the cloud. I said, “Hey! What’s wrong?”

The cloud did one of those things people do when their face trembles as they fight back tears. Suddenly rain came pouring from the cloud.

I said, “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

The rain came down harder.

Warm

I got eaten by the frog. Its long tongue shot out and I was swallowed. Once inside I was comforted by the frog’s wet and warm stomach. I fell asleep.

I dreamt of sitting on Abraham Lincoln’s lap. He patted my head and told me things were going to be okay. I saw a tear coming from his right eye. Inside the tear I saw the glow of cities on fires.

I was woken from the dream by another person being deposited into the frog’s stomach. He was panicked and said, “Oh my God, what’s going to become of us.” I said, “Just wait.” He fell asleep.

My job

I dug a grave for 2019 and waited. At midnight, 2019 fell into the grave. I put the dirt I’d dug out on top of 2019.

In the gap in-between I had a spaghetti dinner.

Then I midwifed the birth of 2020. I said the usual, “Best of luck this year.” 2020 nodded and waddled on its way.

I went to bed. It was daylight. But I was tired and fell asleep quickly.

In gratitude

I became a park bench overlooking the lake. I liked the feeling of people’s warm butts sitting on me. It brought me comfort during a difficult time.

Gathering together

I went around the house gathering pieces of dust that used to be me. I took my time. Eventually I’d collected enough and went to my desk to work on the assembling. When I was done, there was a second me.

I put a shirt and a pair of pants on the duplicate. I stuck its pointer finger in the socket. The second me eye’s opened and blinked. It looked at me.

It nodded. I nodded.

I said, “What do you want to do?”

The second me said, “I’d like to get a pound of red Twizzlers and eat them while watching the Rolling Stones in concert on YouTube with you.”

I said, “Me too!”

I’d prefer being a duck

I wanna be a duck. I like how they can live on top of water and not get wet. The water falls right off them. I’m tired of having to dry myself off whenever I have any kind of contact with water.

I’m not sure how to become a duck. I might try thinking about it a lot and really hard. The mind is powerful. The thing is, if I instantly become a duck through mental means, and I’m in my home, how will I get to the lake? Ducks can’t open doors. I guess I might get lucky and suddenly become a duck while I’m driving. I always drive with the windows down. Once a duck, I can fly out the window and look for the nearest lake.

Another thing I would like about being a duck is they quack. That’s an extremely simple way of communicating. English has so many words, and since I’m not good at making decisions, it can take me an awfully long time to write or say something. It’s taken me over four hours just to get to this place in the story. As a duck, this blog post would be, “Quack, quack, quack.” Or ever better, I wouldn’t write anything because ducks are disinterested in electronics.