They all stood round the 476-ringed stump that was the official table o’ the office o’ WWPO,—the Wasabi Woods Protection Organization—chattering their buck teeth & swinging their curved tails back & forth. The day o’ this announced meeting was Sunday.

WWPO ne’er had meetings on Sundays.

& then their Executive Leader, Madame Macadamia, set on the table the source for this untimely meeting & everyone understood: ’twas a white cedar branch.

Wasabi Woods ne’er had white cedars.

But they knew what did have white cedars: Worcestershire Woods right ‘side Verditropolis; & ’twas from here that everyone knew that the road had already been paved toward that unstoppable, incomprehensibly expensive war…

She stepped up to the counter in the middle o’ the mall with glances thrown all round. She felt as if her collar were thickening round her throat.

“¿How may I help you, sir?” said the attendant with a short tilt o’ his head. The way his bangs moved as he talked & the apple smell o’ his shampoo made her ache.

“I, uh, need to return these dresses…”

She quickly stacked 3 dresses—1 green, 1 grayish-blue, & 1 red—onto the counter. The attendant stared @ them with wide eyes for a second & then looked up @ her with sly lids. Without a word, he slid the dresses to his side & under the counter, & then slid from his side an unmarked envelope.

She took the envelope & quickened out the front, her clomping heels sounding like death nells.

She stood on the front, averting her eyes from all the passersby & checking her phone clock every second.

Then she saw it rise from the distance.

The air whirlpool.

The second they saw the sky grow orange after a millennium o’ perennial sun, the firs twisted the wind so that their limbs would smack onto the gabled roofs o’ Oranberry University, & that was when all the creatures o’ every kingdom, phylum, & class ventured toward the University o’er seas, deserts, & tundras.

—¿Están preocupado?—

—No.—

—¿Querría acompañarme para café?—

—Todas las horas…—

They all marched ‘way to the sound o’ pinecones thumping down on the gabled roof.

¡Oy, did the townsers have bacon on their faces!

They had heard from the bamboo vine that there was creamy platinum snug under the Geranium mountains, & so the machine the runs all the economies spun to produce for-profit colleges with cheap ads to enroll people in shoveling degrees to fill the hungry labor need till they had thousands o’ shovelers working for only 10 bottlecaps an hour digging.

‘Course this involved digging up all those Geraniums, which were crumpled & ripped apart in the process.

Now, the shame came when it turned out that there was nothing under the mountains but rock & dirt, all the way to the core full o’ molten cheese, which everyone knew was useless. Soon the demand plummeted & all those shovelers found themselves laid off & clogged with multi-thousand-cap debts that would devour them limb to limb in the next decade.

¿But who cares ’bout them? What embarrassed the townsers the most was that they later heard that they’d misheard the bamboo vine: ’twas the now destroyed & discarded Geraniums that were worth all the parentheses in the world. ¡What itches!

Hans felt his tie tighten round his neck with sweat.

“Come inside, come inside. Everything will be rubyish.”

Jared stepped toward the cottage made o’ Hershey bars & sour gummy worms with careful steps. He knew holes could be found everywhere: the price on the loan o’ acorns he took out could increase, the mocha icing on his roof could leak under the warm summer moons.

The realtor turned to him with a shiny smile & said, “What a wonderful place to raise a family.”

But all Hans could focus on was how much the realtor reminded him o’ that bank attendant…

He said he didn’t mean to eat the ring, but he said he couldn’t help it. Well, now he has to clasp his puzzle where he dropped the pieces. He said he thought the black aura it showed when he was feeling particularly gloomy would taste like licorice & would cheer him up. Thought its blueness when he was depressed would taste like blue raspberries.

Androgyn, was he wrong.

Now his intestines are packing their bags & going to go feed the duck.

But on their ‘scape from the placemat o’ the crime, the colony o’ roses were blocked by a long stream o’ salsa so hot it spit fire from the mouth o’ Mt. Rooster.

The lead rose, Erin, hastily pulled out her grass whistle. “It’s a good thing we found this in Rye Valley.” She blew into it, releasing a long stream o’ black light, but no sound.

A second after, a sparrow as gray as rain swooped down from the smoky clouds with a giant butter knife in its beak & proceeded to slice the river in half, leaving just raw cornflower crust in the middle.

Tom was normal in the center, but the center wouldn’t let him out. The center centered on him as he itched—¿or was it the center that made him itch? They said they had the cure for it.

Tom is normal in the center & feels centered in the norm. That’s where he locked up his calm when he needs—hey there, planted pot. Watch that.

Tom has been normal in the center, & he promises to continue to be so if his center stays round.

Tom will be normal in the center.

but though they still worked, the looseness o’ the bolts sickened it constantly with their always greasiness, to the pinnacle that it wished they didn’t work @ all. How it wished it could tighten them; but whenever it tried, its turnings would always be off, or something else would then move out o’ place. Usually things became looser.

So now it no longer tried. Now it tried to ignore the grease as much as possible. It tried to keep all its focus on its oxygens & its lizard songs, but the greasiness always slipped through…

Though she didn’t recognize the smell, she knew by its tanginess that ’twas healthy. The fall’s gurgling filled her with mo’ caffeine than a hundred coffee cups.

After having sat on her knees & gazed @ her short-circuiting face’s reflection, she plunged forward, splashing rainbow water all o’er herself. She could feel her nose fill up with all the poison, ready to be smeared ‘way in waves. Sparks shivered into her from the water, ice, & snow, stitching muscles spent.

But she didn’t have much time…