Trisha and the
other members of my multicultural book club watched me, their arms crossed
with annoyance.
I tried to pay attention to our meeting,
which took place today in the otherwise empty, stadium seating in the UCF
football arena, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the combat that occurred on
the field below us.
Ever since the sky
darkened to the color of blood, ripped open, and crapped a giant wolf’s muzzle
covered with hyperactive tentacles, an army of freaks appeared on the football
field.
The guy with the
oversized claw hammer struck another man in the face, which detonated in a
spray of raspberry jam.
Eagles (armed with
switchblades) swooped down and attacked the guy with the head of a donkey. Donkey
spat a cone of blue flames at the eagles, which dodged their doom with
inflight, evasive maneuvers.
Trisha’s foot
tapped. “Earth to Joey. Come in, Joey.”
I forced myself to
face her while a mammoth worm erupted from the ground and swallowed someone.
“Sorry,” I said. “I got distracted.”
Troy served as the
book club’s treasurer. He never displayed the slightest patience for my
lack of attention. He gestured towards the battle on the football field. “We
need to discuss My Pet Goat, Joey.”
I opened my copy
of the book, tried to say something that would prove my focus. “I really like
the chapter where the goat—”
An elephant made
of twisted tree trunks trampled onto the field. A bark-covered cable slithered
from its side, snapped around the throat of the one-eyed woman, and lifted her
into the air.
“OMG!” I cried
because I often say dumb stuff like that. “She’ll choke.”
The one-eyed
woman, much to my relief, broke the vine around her neck with some sort of
flaming karate chop.
I returned my
attention to Trisha. “Perhaps this isn’t the best place to hold our
meeting.”
Trisha produced a
dramatic sigh that told me how impossible she found me. “The library’s closed,
Joey. Where else could we go?”
I shrugged. “I
just think all of this—” I waved at
the chaos below us “—seems a bit distracting.”
Trish placed her
fists upon her big hips. “That’s because you lack focus.”
The one-eyed woman
gave birth to an owl, which immediately spun around itself a silvery cocoon.
I reconsidered
those pills Mom always suggested. The ones that help a person pay attention.
The owl’s cocoon
tore. Blue light pulsed from it. So did a reindeer with nine legs.
“Holy cow! Did you
guys see that?” I asked.
Trisha and the
others rolled their eyes.
Yep. There I go
again. The littlest things distract me. It seems a wonder I manage to make a
P&J without some shiny object commanding away my attention.
The one-eyed woman
mounted her multi-legged reindeer and flew into the sky. She dodged the giant
worm, which snapped at her, tossed thick cords of drool.
The airborne
wolf muzzle split the sky wide open. Its tentacles slapped around the one-eyed
woman and her mount, reeled them between its jaws, which slammed shut.
The man with the
oversized claw hammer dropped to his knees. “Nooooo!” He slammed his weapon against the ground. Lightning blasted from the
impact.
Trisha waved her
hand in front of my face. “Joey? Troy just mentioned an interesting point about
My Pet Goat. He asked if the goat
truly existed as someone’s pet, or if society just wanted us to think so because
we’re all someone’s pet goat.”
I blinked. A lot.
“I. Um. Guess that sounds right.”
Trisha and Troy
exchanged annoyed expressions with the other members of my book club.
“Perhaps this association
isn’t the best fit for you,” Troy told me.
“I’m the vice president.” I hated how whiny I
sounded just then. “You have to admit—” I pointed at the massive, sky-borne wolf muzzle, which
decided to swallow the moon, “that’s a hell of a battle.”
“It doesn’t
concern us one bit,” Trisha said. “Focus on the task at hand. The proper people
will handle—”
Darkness swallowed
the world.
“Trisha?” I asked.
No answer.
I felt hands
stretch from the ground. They groped my ankles while rabbits that glowed green
hopped across the wrecked sky.
I could see
nothing save their green bodies, which flew towards each other, and, combined, formed
a face. The green, luminous face of rabbits sneered at me and screamed,
“Let the new world blossom!”
The rabbits—and
thus the face—vanished. I felt myself float in cold air. Total darkness. Total
silence.
I waited.
I finally heard
police sirens, songs of grief, and the sound a glass building might make while
a giant tarantula humped it.
Help us, a sweet voice echoed in my
head. Help us eat the sun.
A flock of owls floated
past me. I drifted after them. A speck of light glowed in the distance. The sun
grew closer. My mouth stretched into a wolf’s muzzle. My stomach growled for
delicious heat.
The flock and I
flew faster. We would eat the sun until nothing remained. Nothing to see.
Nothing to hear. Nothing to distract us.
I somehow knew
that with every inch of distance I flew, I erased time. My car: never made.
Trisha’s Zelda games: never programmed. Me: never born. Life: never happened.
Even the cold
would soon cease to blow.
I wished I could
prevent it. I wanted to keep something, even pain. Torture seemed preferable to
oblivion.
The sun blazed
before my flock. We attacked it as ants upon a dropped wad of ice cream,
nibbled away the light, then each other.
My final memory (a
baseball game I watched with my father) screamed for salvation before it, too,
vaporized in the span of a whimper.
I publish my blogs as follows:
Tuesdays: A look at the politics of
the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.
Wednesdays: An inside look at my
novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at
Darkwana.blogspot.com
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