Last weekend, Sarah, Jen, John and I met up to hang out for an evening before going to Travis‘ place. We went to a Thai food restaurant where John appeared a fool to the waitress after ordering sweet-&-sour sauce “on the side.” However, I think I appeared disrespectful when I said, “I’ll stick with water, thanks.”

After we left the restaurant and Jen and I wrestled John for his fortune cookie, we squeezed into John’s two-door and made our way back to town. However, when the appropriate exit appeared, John seemed to miss it and turned his way onto the south onramp, going against the direction which lead to Travis’ apartment.

“John! What are you doing?!” We three girls squealed.

“What? What? Oh no! Did I miss it?!” John said with a smirk.

“Seriously, John! What are you doing?”

“I dunno! Where are we going?”

“John is kidnapping us,” Sarah piped. “This should be fun.”

So, John took us “against our will” to the Kirkland Waterfront, which he later said had been one of his favorite places to visit. He had no reason to take us that night, but felt like being spontaneous and fun and thought we would enjoy running along the docks and chasing the Canadian geese. I certainly did. However, the geese did not satisfy my pleasure when they didn’t decide to get up and waddle away until I was within two inches of their feathery behinds.

“Get up, you geese! Go! Run away! Fly!”

There were four of them and they sat comfortably on a small patch of sand, just where the water stopped coming in. They all eyed me, those black beady eyes, and lazily sat up and entered the water, only to paddle away even slower.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! I’m threatening your lives! Don’t you understand?!” I said blunty to them, waving my arms and stamping my feet. I can imagine their conversation, silent to my own ears.

I wonder if she knows how stupid she looks.

Why is she waving her arms? We can see her just fine.

She’s trying to make herself look bigger than she really is.

So she’s harmless.

Basically, yeah…

That’s what I thought…

Afterward, we four friends gathered at the edge of the dock and talked of many things: of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages, and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. Amidst all our discussions and prancing around, I looked to the sky and saw a large light moving rather quickly through the clouds.

“What is that?” I asked no one.

Everyone turned and looked at the large, round light and only stared for moment.

“It’s an airplane,” John said.

“Are you sure? It doesn’t look like an airplane.”

“Yeah, it kinda doesn’t, but it’s definitely an airplane.”

I stared at it for a moment longer and images of nuclear war started to race across my mind. Mushroom clouds and the effects of radiation on the human skin. Suddenly, the orange bar of terrorist attacks boosts up to the red bar and even makes a little “bloop” noise as it does so.

Please, be an airplane. Please, be an airplane. Please, be an airplane. Please, be an airplane.

It was an airplane. A happy little airplane with a happy little light at the center of its happy little frame. No need for paranoia or worry. Although, soon after that, I desired nothing more than to make it safely back to Travis’ apartment where we were ought to be, where we were originally supposed to have gone.

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,

“You had a pleasant run!

Shall we be trotting home again?”

But answer came there none—

And this was scarcely odd, because

They’d eaten every one.

The Walrus and the Carpenter

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