I mentally replaced cars with boats recently and it’s been inducing nautical terminology everywhere I speak. Cap’n and Crew sounds great for this usage, it feels honest without the shock of great grandpa’s heavyweight authoritarianism. I usually wind up stepping down to Spongebob or Pirates to filter out seriousness too, as long as the packet arrives and the replicas are jolly.

There’s bacteria that grow in the roots of legumes that are capable of capturing gaseous nitrogen. That nitrogen makes its way to the soil, where the trees can suck it up to produce protein, like sunflower seeds. I eat those and by the time I urinate and die the nitrogen has been so concentrated within me that I burn a small hole in the ground for the fungus, sun, and time to decay and heal.

If I could photosynthesize the carbs needed to bootstrap this operation I would. If I could plant a piece of myself and feed it rainwater and atmospheric nitrogen to grow a steak I would. If I could leave behind shelter I wood.

They called themselves the Kool Kids but we knew them as the Terror Twins, the Masonic Menace. They’d force their way into any bit of joy or loss, a trail of rubble and scars bolstering their smothering presence, the moon’s the only force strong enough to pull them away.

At least that’s what some say happened the night Kool-Aid Man landed on the rocks. Everybody has their say on how he got there, but the facts of the matter are he did get there, the tides were shifting when he did, the moon was full and the sky was clear, and a group of yutes had just started a fire for a clam bake near where shards of glass were later found. All the king’s horses and men gathered to put him together again, but with one piece lost in the sand he bled out entirely.

The coroner informed Warm-Hinder, who froze in place. A sudden strong gust cracked his icy joints in half, sending his upper parts rolling down 95. When he finally thawed out somewhere near Maryland he dragged himself to the woods, to the remotest cabin of the least connected mountain in all of Appalachia.

Out front sat Marge and Paddy, who offered a refill to the dehydrated tumbler and pointed to the trail of sweet tears leading to the stranger on their porch. He drank deep then reached for a horseshoe on the ground near his foot, hurling it at the hosts’ hearts. A cloud shifted as he did, and a ray of light caught the glass in the old couple’s hands. A rainbow fired from between them blinding the guest, who fell to the floor grasping at his eyes.

“I can’t see, I can’t see!” he cried scrambling on all fours, kicking up dust and throwing what rocks his fingers could find.

“What is it you can’t face?” asked Marge.

“I thought if I tried hard enough,” he trailed.

Paddy chuckled through the break in the noise and shared a slice of moldy bread.

The two sat sipping in silence where they had been and where they’ll stay rocking. The one watched as the rain fell and the sea filled with boiling fire, and the earth pulled in closer still. He heard rhythm in his frantic breathing and saw seedlings sprouting out of softened soil. The beating of his heart filled his feet and he began to dance.

Night had fallen by then but the forest was bright and the path was clear. So he danced with the gravity pulling him through forest and flood and ocean until daybreak. And when he arrived home he saw the gates and gears of the city lifting and turning, and a river of Red 40 flowing through.