Pancake Pond

I loved my old couch. It was green and cheap and comfortable. It was stuffed with foam, white fluff, and bits of colorful fascinating junk I never tired of picking at. Not sure what that junk was really; an assortment of colored fluff. The couch was sturdy but lightweight. Old. Deep green like a wild shrub. Worn at the seams. Stained blue in parts. I had other bits of furniture in my apartment, but little stuff. I've never liked a room full of clutter, although I enjoy having a few interesting objects. And I always appreciated my objects. There is no contemplative break involved in my saying so. My appreciation for my objects was a certainty. I would often sink deep into my couch and stare at the objects in my room. Not thinking about them so much as appreciating the fact that they existed. They made me happy by existing. Sitting on my comfortable couch and meditating upon the carefully chosen objects I possessed was an activity I enjoyed more than any other. And then one morning awhile back, I lost all my cool stuff.

The morning began, much as they always did, with a visit from Janet. She began unpacking my best bong from the closet without asking permission. I, also without asking permission, took her bag of marijuana and broke up a small mound. Janet was a small girl with giant brown eyes. Huge. Enormous. Set beautifully in her face. I passed her the mound of broken-up marijuana and she packed us a bowl. She let me start it. She always did. I started with pleasure. I always did.

With the tip of a yellow flame from my orange lighter, I licked expertly a pie-slice-shaped patch of broken marijuana from the bowl. My bong hit methodology was a complex and practiced process which I'd perfected over the course of years; years which upon reflection would likely have been better spent paying attention to what was going on around me. Better appreciating what I had. But so it was. We got stoned, Janet and I. Afterwards she lingered around for awhile, like she always did. I'd say her presence was awkward, but I can't honestly do so, what with the drugs being involved. She left first. I took off a while later. And that was that.

When I returned later that afternoon my home was entirely filled with pancakes. Mound upon mound of pancakes, all heavy with butter and syrup. My stuff was gone, both furniture and objects. Pancakes had been used to replace everything that I'd owned. My couch, my dresser, my keyboard. My wood-and-metal thing, my saw, my best bong. Even my baseball signed by every member of the 1986 World Champion New York Baseball Metropolitans.

This is not to say any effort was put into making it so that the pancakes resembled the items they were replacing. Far from it. There was, however, a logic to the way the pancakes were arranged, and had one any knowledge as to the orientation of my belongings prior to their being replaced with pancakes, one would likely agree with me in thinking that there was indeed a method behind the arrangement of the mounds of pancakes. Everything I had was gone. All that was left was pancakes.

I was shocked. Lacking a suitable place where I might sit and consider the matter, a telephone on which I might call someone, or even a suitable set of utensils with which I might thoughtfully devour the short stack of pancakes where my clock-radio had once been, I was unsure how to proceed. So I stood there. I just stood there for awhile, taking it all in. The pancakes were fresh and their scent made my apartment quite pungent. Pleasantly so. The scent was enchanting, and I soon found it dulling my shock, but I did not allow myself to become hypnotized. I needed to act immediately. But where to start? What to do? I thought about digging amongst the pancakes. Perhaps I still had something hidden in the mounds? But I did not wish to dig through syrupy pancakes for my belongings. I wanted to lie down on my green couch, pull my cap down softly over my face, and let the sounds of the traffic outside lull me softly to sleep. This was not to be.

It was then that I realized how hungry I was. My guts moaned and squealed. Yes, I was painfully hungry, and my hunger was only further compounded by the inviting pancake aroma around me. I broke down and dug in. Into the pancakes, I mean. I'd never particularly cared for utensils, and lacking them was a minor inconvenience I was in no state to consider. The syrup was cold, but the pancakes were warm. And delicious, of course. It took me some time to realize this, however, as I was stuffing fistfuls of pancakes into my mouth and down my throat at an alarming rate and didn't pause to ponder their flavor until my guts were entirely swollen and my hunger eliminated.

After eating what I considered an incredible amount of pancakes, I glanced around my apartment in awe of how many pancakes were still left to be eaten. I wasn't sure what to do with all those leftover pancakes. As I was considering what to do, the pancakes I had eaten began to make me tired and I decided a nap was in order. To facilitate this I shifted around mounds of pancakes, shuffling and re-arranging them in order to provide myself with a suitable pancake-bed. And then I napped. Slept, really. I slept there for quite some time. Possibly the most refreshing bit of sleep I've ever had in the course of my life.

When I woke up, syrupy pancakes were stuck all over my body. The only parts of me you could see through the layer of pancakes were my eyes, the tips of my fingers, and one of my ears. I'm not sure which. The left one maybe.

I decided to walk to the park hoping that a flock of birds might decide to dine upon my accidental pancake prison. The sun outside was hot as it was a nice day. Unfortunately, a layer of pancakes and syrup stuck to one's body acts as an extremely effective insulator. It was really, really hot to be all covered in pancakes. Halfway into the park, I came upon a small pond. Cool water sang from its surface, too inviting to pass up. Gasping, sulking, and sweating beneath a layer of pancakes, I was overcome by the water's allure. I charged full-speed and dove in. The water was as cool as I'd imagined, and then some. A cool so wonderful it made my bones ache. I remained beneath the pond's surface for some time. As long as I could stand. Longer even. And slowly, the pancakes lost their grip on me and I rose to the surface, pancake-free.

I sat on the water's edge to dry myself in the sunlight, and while I did so several ducks plopped down onto the surface of the pond. Apparently a good deal of the syrup causing the pancakes to adhere to my person had remained upon the pond's surface because the ducks began sticking to one another. Feeling slightly responsible, I grabbed a nearby stick and attempted to separate the ducks from one another. Not only was I unable to un-stick the ducks from one another, but the ducks stuck to the stick and the stick stuck to my hand, so I ran around pancake pond several times with a stuck-duck stick stuck to my hand. The ducks began to panic. I began to panic. I ran back towards the pond and submerged the ducks, holding the throbbing mass of stuck ducks below the pond's syrupy surface until they were free of the stick. I then fled from pancake pond and the ducks with the stick still stuck to my hand.

After running for awhile I stopped and stood huffing and puffing upon an unfamiliar and ambivalent sidewalk. I was in no shape to be running. I planted the stick which was stuck to my hand into a bit of solid ground and leaned into it deeply, resting. It was a strong and limber stick, bending deeply without snapping. I had a great deal of confidence in the stick's give yet was unable to pinpoint from what exactly this confidence stemmed. As I rested, I saw a familiar creature appear near where I found my eyes to be lingering. The creature hazily poked my memory until, with slow microscopic precision, I made out the enormous brown eyes of Janet.  

Janet. She did not appear to be walking in the direction of the duck pond or my home, which I found disconcerting, never having considered there was another direction into which she might walk. I waved at her from across the street. I was impossible to miss, a damp winded individual waving a large stick in the air. And I don't believe she did miss me. I was certain that she turned around and saw me, but she just kept right on going wherever it was she was headed to. I convinced myself that Janet had not seen me. I then carved the incident from my memory. Not precisely or surgically, but quickly and violently.

My situation did not improve upon returning home. Unfortunately, in my zeal to remove the pancakes from my person, I had neglected to secure my new belongings. Nearly a dozen dogs, several cats, and a dusting of pigeons wandered around my quarters nibbling on the stacks of pancakes. This was a distressing turn of events, and yet one I had a hard time finding reason to discourage. What did I care who ate the pancakes?

As I walked further into my home to assess how many pancakes remained, I discovered a dog and a man in my kitchen alone together, the dog eating greedily while the man stood by watching.

"Excuse me!" I began tapping this man on the shoulder with the stick that was stuck to my hand. "You are in my home."

"What's that? Your home? Well I'm sorry there, hey. I just saw this whole group a' animals eatin' up pancakes and poor Wilbur, hey, " – the man motioned to the pig-faced orange ball by his feet which was feasting on the stack of pancakes where my refrigerator had once been – "he was just dying to check it all out. Little fella smelled this place out from – where were we, boy? What, five blocks away?" The man paused for a moment. He looked down at the dog and stroked his chin. He was bearded. The little dog stopped eating pancakes. Looked at him. Looked at me. Looked at the stick stuck to my hand. Looked back at him. He looked at the dog. I scowled at the dog. Then the dog resumed eating pancakes. "Your apartment, hey? Sure is a strange way to keep house." The man glanced at the stick stuck to my hand. "Pancakes everywhere and all that. Sure is odd." He looked around and scratched his chin again.

I sighed deeply. "Yes." I sighed again. Looked down. Scraped my foot awkwardly along the floor. "Yes, it is odd. Well, please be a sport and keep Wilbur there from further soiling what little integrity my home still has. Alright? I don't care if he eats up my joint, I just don't want any piles left behind."

"No sweat, hey! No problem, hey! Wilbur here already went anyhow. Several times on the way here! Fine dog, Wilbur. Damn fine. Mighty smart. Ain't never shat or pissed in no man's house ever. On my honor." The man crossed his heart with a ridiculous sincerity and continued. "Purebred. A hunter too, hey! Can't say nothin' for the rest a' those dogs. But you know how it is, right? Right?" The man beamed. Talking about his dog seemed to please him. I had no idea "how it is" and chose to respond with a painful twitchy half-smile, at which point the man's face contorted quickly into seriousness, his brain perhaps having conjured up another clever piece of Wilbur-related information to bestow upon me. I winced, tightly clutching the stick at my hand.

"Wouldn't have any utensils 'round here, would you?"

"Afraid not."

"Damn.… That a stick you got there?"

"Yeah."

"Nice stick, hey."

"I am not terribly attached to it."

"Right."

"I mean, I am attached to it. I mean, it's stuck to my –"

"Right, right. Happens all the time, hey. Sure thing. Your business, hey."

With this, I stormed from my home, my stomping feet startling several dining dogs and scattering the dusting of pigeons. I felt like an ass. I cursed the stick and considered snapping it over my knee. But no. Then I would be stuck to a broken stick. I sat gloomily on the sidewalk outside my home. Traffic was quiet. The sun was high. I tried vainly to pull the stick from my hand using the opposite hand. I tried the same with my foot. No luck. But I continued to try for several hours. I continued to try until it grew dark and the moon replaced the sun. My body grew weak and I lay down upon the ambivalent sidewalk outside my home. I wanted to sleep there on the sidewalk. I did so.

I woke with the sun high but silent. The stick was still at my fingertips. With a renewed store of contempt, I bore into the stick; with contempt, I thrashed it; yet by the stick I was easily ignored. Then I rose without the stick's aid and made my way back to the pancake pond. Several of the ducks were once again stuck to one another. Others floated lazily upon the pond's surface, while more still sunned themselves on the pond's perimeter. They ignored my approach at first, but as I neared they became increasingly curious and eventually began to approach my person. Several feet from the pancake pond I stopped before a throng of syrupy ducks.

The ducks looked at one another. Or maybe they looked at me. Their heads poked about in sudden and genuine ways, their flapping and quacking uninterrupted by my babbling. And they continued as I made my way into their pond. I was immediately greeted by that same bone-achingly wonderful water I'd experienced here the day prior. I submerged myself beneath the surface of pancake pond, where I felt the stick's grip slowly erode from my hand. Eventually, I managed to release the stick. It sank quickly to the bottom of the pond as if it had been loaded with lead. Soon the stick vanished from sight. I remained beneath the pond's surface for some time. As long as I could stand. Longer even.

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