Gentle lemonade waves wash gently
on the Sherbet Shore. A soft cinnamon breeze curls from the West while
chocolate-chip starlights flicker in the East. Although unmoving, each horizon
seems to bow to the other and smile.
The water is amazingly calm and
barely whispers with every trickle of a wave. From the East, two bright beacons
shine in the horizon, interrupting the gentle twinkling of lights. The SS
Falkori, usually a dragon boat that slices through water like a
well-intentioned guillotine, was nowhere near water. It, or more so he, for
dragon boats have names, personalities and capricious tempers, had sprouted
four large water balloons that now carried him it across the skies.
Behind the wheel, Captain Phish held
a steady course dressed in his regal outfit while the young woman stood as she
usually did, at the bow. Holding a purple umbrella in her left hand, she also
held out a heart shaped compass in her right hand. The gentle air was soothing
on her cheeks, while a distant something purred contentedly, as if the night
itself was taking a nap from the day. Her dress was made of hundreds upon
hundreds of black and purple feathers whose color shifted as light refracted on
her, even if the moon had not shown yet.
“Miss Claudette, are you sure
he’s going to show?” puffed the fish captain, “He is rather late.”
“Patience, my sweet captain,” she
replied sweetly. “Don’t let your resolve flounder now. I’m sure he’s just lost
somewhere in his stories... or so I hope. It would be sad if this delay were
due to something as frustrating as the job floods and mundane slides.”
“Ahoy!!!” called a squeaky little
voice from the crow’s nest. Claudette turned up to look at the second mate who
also happened to be a three foot tall crab. “Miss, a distress flare shines from
the East!”
The young woman gave a curt nod
towards the captain who immediately rang a large bell pepper that hung to his
right. “Chips!! Get the emergency burst ready!!”
“Aye-aye Capn’,” said the man-sized
and unfried shoe-string potato. He quickly flipped over the rail and started
running on the furrier parts of the floating dragon boat.
The captain puffed his cheeks and
bellowed: “This is a dream people! We don’t know what will happen now, so
batten yourselves down and kiss yer arse goodbye just in case!!!”
Claudette had been gritting her
teeth all while the captain screamed: “It’s just us three Captain, no need to
shout.”
“Yes, madam!!! UNDERSTOOD!!” he bellowed
again, apparently unable to lower his volume in the excitement. He looked
towards the hesitant potato and gave the signal. When Claudette looked at
Chips, she suddenly realized the gravity of the situation. The large potato
held one end of a 7-foot strip of vodka tape because they’d apparently run out
of scotch. That’s when it came to her attention that the sweet, subtle purring
was not the night itself, but the Falkori who had allowed itself to drift off
into sleep, and off course no doubt. She had just folded her umbrella, and
clutched onto the rail when she heard the rip from the direction of Chips and a
roar as if a lion that sung opera had just sat on a crooked nail.
****
Chest-deep in a muddled mash of
slimey paper, JD stood cross-armed as more clumps of paper mud fell from the
sky. He clicked his tongue as a little goblin with green skin and a little
brown nose cackled in delight as she floated in a cloud and kept tossing the
clumps at him.
“Keep it up, Ematine, eventually
all this will catch up to you.”
She cackled even more obnoxiously
while blowing raspberries and continuing her air assault. It was truly great
fun for her, that was until she happened to hear a massive fire siren coming
from deep in the East horizon.
JD called to her: “Umm, Ema? This
would be things catching up with you.”
Before the little cloud goblin
could realize what was happening, she had been blindsided by the SS Falkori and
knocked far away to the south horizon. JD smiled as he recognized the Falkori
and the sweet young woman that stepped off the rail, opening her purple
umbrella and floating down with the patience of a birthday balloon. JD pulled
off his coat in the muddy paper waters and set it next to him. She landed with
the slightest tap.
“I was wondering where you were,”
she said, reaching out a helping hand to pull him up from the paper waters.
“Sorry, luv. I got swamped with
work and you know how things are, apparently they want to test the capacity of
one’s ability as well as one’s patience.”
“Don’t get me started.”
“No worries, he replied, “I
won’t. Good to see you, luv.”
“Same here, I thought you were
going to be a no-show.”
JD shook off pieces of paper,
post-its, staples and excel sheets that still clung onto his clothing. “The
only reason I wouldn’t make it would be an exterior reason. Did the compass
work?”
Claudette pulled out the little
heart shaped compass and handed it to him. “Not really, it was very hard to
pinpoint.”
“Sorry about that, I mustn’t have
had my heart in the right place. You know jobs tend to do that to you.”
From high above, the Captain
called out below: “Is all well, Miss Claudette?”
“Yes, Captain. As we feared, it
was the job thingy again.”
“AH blasted be, master Estrada!
Good to see you well, although you should speak to Master Odstein to see if he
speeds up his pro-cess so that you may leave that soul sapping courtyard.”
JD smiled and cupped his hands to
his mouth. “Very kind of you to worry, good friend. Trust I’ll speak personally
to Fäet to see what we can manage.”
The fish captain called again:
“Is the Lady Jane all right?”
“Yes, Captain. She escaped the
Mundane Caves a little earlier than me and she sends her regards.”
“Lovely!” called out the fish
captain. “Will you be needing any assistance?”
Claudette looked at JD and
shrugged as if to ask if they needed anything. JD called out again: “No need,
Master Phish. We’ll just go by to the Parched Pumpkin for a quick drink.”
“Very good sir! If you need
anything, use the flare again.”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” called out JD
once more before turning back to Claudette and extending his arm. “Shall we?”
“Why, yes we shall.”
JD Then rolled up his sleeves,
pulled out a deck of cards and began to shuffle them vigorously.
“What are those for?” asked
Claudette.
JD finished shuffling and held
the entire deck in one hand squeezing both ends so they could shoot out at any
moment. “Well, more than play bridge, you can also cross one, n’est pas?” He
then released the deck and a walking bridge stretched out until it reached the
purple sands.
He led her by the arm and they
crossed the bridge in a few moments, arriving to the beach. JD knelt and took a
pinch of sand and reached to his tongue to taste. “Grape melon, not bad at all.
Where’s the moon though?”
As he looked over the horizon, he
pointed to the North behind the young woman: “The Hoon moon blooms full.”
Claudette turned and saw that the moon was a huge watermelon with large blue
eyeglasses on. “You’ll have to forgive the moon, it’s just that he’s blind.”
Claudette couldn’t help but focus
on how well the blue sunglasses complimented the watermelon stripes on the
cloudless night. She turned back to JD, “Where are we this time?”
He opened his suddenly dry coat
and pulled out the Map. On it, she quickly found the Sherbet Shore drawn near
the center of the map and some other areas identified. To the East of the
Sherbet Shore, there were parts of the grid, there was a little area called Pie
Crust reef, and past that the Sea of Champagne. Just above and to the left of
the Sherbet Shore was a little dot labeled William Glasser’s house and as they
looked at the map, they saw as a cute little pumpkin faded into view just
beyond the house and beautiful letters being written slowly on the map that
read The Parched Pumpkin.
“So I’m guessing it’s that way?”
“That’s correct, luv.”
“Anyways to avoid Glasser’s? He
was in a bit of a mood last time and I thin we both have enough annoying people
in our lives lately.”
“Sure thing,” said JD, “let’s
take the side path.”
They walked away from Glasser’s
house down a dark winding path that coiled into a small glade next to a forest.
Looking around, it was rather dark so Claudette clutched to JD’s arm just a
little tighter. She heard a buzzing sound and something flapped near her ear,
causing her to give a jolt.
“Relax, luv. Nothing to fear.”
“But I can’t see anything.”
A little tinkling sounded as
something bounced off JD’s head. This is the Idea Dell, nothing to worry about.
“An Idea Dell?” she asked
perplexed.
In the dark, JD put both his arms
on Claudette’s shoulders and he spoke directly to her in a soft soothing voice.
“Where would you go if purple rain starting raining sideways?”
When Claudette answered with a
huh, at least eight switched on light bulbs in the middle of the glade, showing
that the winged creatures were really bulbs waiting to light up. “When you get
an idea, they light up and lead the way. You were a bit confused, so ask me
something.”
“Ummm... OK. What’s your favorite
color?”
“Blue,” said JD and one light bulb
shone. “You should try something more complicated than that. How about this,
what are you itching to paint soon?”
This time at least four hundred
light bulbs shone brightly and they both smiled as the glade lit up. “What are
you writing on at the moment?” Another two hundred light bulbs lit up and as
she stared in amazement all around at the flying ideas that lit up the way, she
couldn’t help but think aloud. “I wonder how many places we’ll visit in the
Sherbet Shore.”
At that moment, at least a
thousand light bulbs shone, clearly showing the way they had to go. “Shall we?”
asked JD.
Taking his arm again, they began
to skip like little children, passing a little lily pond, a small brook, and a
little hill. When they reached the top, they looked down and saw a huge pumpkin
with bright shining lights and an intricate sign that read the Parched Pumpkin.
Walking down they saw that the
crowd was still light and stepped into the pub. The atmosphere was lively and
they were playing a reggae dub version of the Mos Eisley Cantina song from Star
Wars. A couple of bugs sat in a corner booth and raised their glasses to both
of them.
“Cheers,” they replied in tandem.
They walked a few steps before
they both asked each other the same question: “Do you know those people?” This
naturally led them to snort in laughter before reaching the bar. In front of
them stood a very serious bartender, in classic garb, well groomed and
immaculately shaven.
“And you would be?” asked JD.
“On break,” replied the bartender
dryly.
Behind him came a large squid,
dressed just as immaculately. “Don’t mind Lloyd, he’s still upset he got
transferred from his hotel bar here. Maybe he misses them creepy twins. Who
knows? What can I get you?”
“Well I’m in the mood for
something curious. How about you Claudi?”
Claudette looked at the
overstocked bar and was overwhelmed with the amount of choices. “What do you
recommend?”
The squid looked her over and
analyzed her. “I could try and guess but the reality is that Curiosity Cola
Schnapps are two for Tuesday.”
“But it’s Saturday,” said
Claudette although JD managed to hush her enough to order their drinks.
The squid looked temporarily
confused before pulling up two glasses of dark brown liquid that fizzed and
popped sending little light sparks fizzing. “Salud!” the bartender said.
“To what should we toast to?”
asked Claudette.
“To the ones we love, that make
our lives whole, to great ideas and to good conversation.”
She nodded in approval, clicked
her glass against his and he reached up to taste the sweet cola when a loud
alarm went off inside the entire bar.
JD Looked around all confused. “what
the hell is...”
Before he could finish the
sentence, he was awake, holding his arm up as if a glass were filling the empty
space in his hand. He grit his teeth at having been denied knowing what the
cola tastes although comforted by the site of his wife sleeping soundly. “I’m
not sure if dreams have the best timing or the worst timing. Oh well.”
