T’was your average suburban summer BBQ at Barbara’s. The light bulb was shining on us, casting blue shadows on the turf. The condensation trickled down from the punch bowl, and at that moment, we realized that all our hearts had fused together as one. This came as a bit of a shock to us, considering that some were planning to go to the movies later while others full head expected to stay home and take a nap.

Instead, the government immediately put us to work brokering housing deals or, chasing down dangerous fugitives with our bear hands. Pouring macchiatos, and pushing various bills through congress.

Life was crazy. The days were long and sharp and pointy, and many people died by them. Hundreds of oceans dried up. Rivers reversed their directions, and so did the flushing of toilets. Stars merged in the skies. Constellations fought tooth and nail for ad-space.
And there I was.
On my own.
Just a kid.
Caught in the middle of it all.
4 watches on each arm, each one set to a different time zone.

I found comfort in the reliability of meteor showers forecasted far ahead of time in addition to the same faces in the trees in the park where I used to go walking just to catch a few fleeting gasps of unfiltered air. I liked it there in that park, and almost every time I saw the same dog being walked by the same person and I would wave at the dog and the dog would wave back and ask me how my day was going, but unfortunately I never really had a good answer.

Yet I think now, if could I ever go back, I might finally have something a little less downtrodden and resentful to say about the state of things in general. What with all the arctic dust storms, inky seepages here and there and the occasional lost chairman of the board roaming down longer hallways then they can chew on (and then the even longer hallways being carpeted with not nearly enough carpet) it’s no wonder we all resort to toasted bread and butter for safety. When you see travesties like that, you know we all really just need more soft carpets.

We need more umbrella hats. We need more corkboards covered in creepy clippings. We need new ancient traditions and more intriguing engineering, more crowds cheering, and perfect forest clearings where there are little brooks that glimmer and tall grass hiding polaroid photos and pop can tabs, and the river rocks where I used to catch little chachkies. And that one good ol’ time I wrapped a bunch of fishing line too tightly around my wrist and I got quite scared for a minute or two.

We need more bathroom stalls in malls. We need more cracks in sidewalks, more analog clocks, more graffiti signatures that I really wish I could decipher, more tiny-palm-sized notebooks, more fountain pens to write with while sitting next to fountains, more mountains with more flags on their tops, more empty wine glasses, and cool looking sunglasses, and more taxes for a government with a better distribution of finances, and most of all, we really just need a whole lot more pottery classes.