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> I dreamt I was in a phone booth… Remember those? Shows what a living fossil I am!
. So, I’m making a call about a plumbing problem at the hacienda, when I noticed water on the floor. Quite a bit of it. I was having a hard time hearing the voice on the other end, and I was so focused, I didn’t notice that the water level was rising until it began to rush in the tops of my shoes. Fuck! I looked around, but could not seem to locate the source. Outside the booth was a warm, dry day. No water anywhere, but before I knew it, the water in the booth was up to my knees! I hung up the phone and pushed the door to get out, but the motherfucker would not budge! I began to panic as the water rose to my waist, my chest, my neck! I pushed and pulled like mad, but the door would not give way, and in an instant, the water was over my head, and a big fat blowfish swam up to my face and said: “Chill, dude. You’ve got gills. You’ll be cool”. And damned if the pointy little feller was not right! Gills! On my neck. How did those get there? Then, without warning, the blowfish suddenly began to expand, filling up the space in the coffin-like booth until his big spikes were inching toward my face! Then: POP! The whole booth exploded in a dandelion of glass and the water ran out from the booth. I thought the soggy episode was over, but the water kept pouring out from that booth, gushing like crazy! And the water turned to the most vile sewage imaginable, drowning the neighborhood, before swamping the city, the state, the country, and finally, the entire friggin’ globe was completely enveloped by a putrid gusher of nasty filth! People lived in boats now, with clothespins on their noses, eating mostly the dead birds that fell from the sky, felled by the noxious fumes. That damn blowfish (or maybe it was his brother- all blowfish look alike to me), jumped into my boat while I was eating a pigeon and began to swell up again, until his giant spikes pierced the boat and sent me careening into the sea of repulsive slime. I remember thinking: this might be a good time to wake up!
. And I did. Right at 4 AM. I seem to be hard-wired to wake up at 4 AM. I hate it, but what are you gonna do?
. At times like this, I can telepathically hear my leftovers calling to me softly but persistently from the fridge. Tonight: General Po’s Seafood Wonder was singing an aria.
. Covering myself with my old robe, I slipped into my slippers at the foot of the bed and they went SQUISH, SQUISH! Waterlogged. They were waterlogged! How’d that happen? Switching on the light, I could see that the entire floor was covered in at least an inch of water. Crap! That would be an awful lot of water if it was coming from the water heater in the garage! My homeowner’s insurance would surely rise again, in the aftermath. Fuckity-fuck-fuck!
. I marched through the house looking for the source of the leak. (No need to take the slippers off, they were already as soaking wet as they could possibly get!) And with each step: SQUISH, SQUISH, SQUISH, SQUISH. Sure enough: water everywhere! For the love of God! Into the garage I went, but the water heater looked fine. It was kind of hard to tell, because even with the light on, parts of it were in deep shadow. I figured I’d better go to the hall closet and get my high-powered flashlight.
. The instant I opened the door: WHOOSH! A fucking tidal wave of water came rushing out of my closet. A gusher! Torrents of water spewed out, like a dam floodgate thrown wide open! I was knocked backward into the wall, and flushed out into the living room where the gathering waters were swirling like an indoor whirlpool. I had no control of my body at all, and was getting bruised by bumping into submerged stuff I could no longer see. When I was carried past the big, blocky exercise bike I never used, I grabbed the handlebars for dear life and managed to hold on tight, as gradually, the angry nature of the deluge subsided, my house about two-thirds submerged in water. Seawater! I could taste it in my mouth. There was sand under my dentures. But the water continued to rise- higher and higher until the bike, too, was submerged and I was forced to let go and tread water.
. Very, very annoyed, I swam through my house from room to room looking for a way out. Nada! I tried every door, every window, every vent. I could not get out! And the feckin’ water was still rising! Finally, I found myself floating beneath my ceiling, with about two-and-a-half feet breathing room at the top. Just then, I felt something brush by my leg, under the water, and for the first time, noticed that along with the seawater, had come sea life! It blew my mind! My house had become a giant aquarium for all manner of ocean inhabitants. I saw sardines darting around me, tuna, jellyfish, halibut, squid, narwhal, starfish, sunfish, salmon, crab, lobster, Flipper- you fuckin’ name it! It was actually pretty awesome. While I don’t care much for humans, I’ve never had anything against sea creatures.
. Just then, a blowfish bobs to the surface right by my head and says: “YO! Dude. Remember me? From your dreams?” Holy crap. This was getting stranger and stranger. A talking fish! First time I ever had a conversation with a fish, though the whole thing was a bit soggy.
. I didn’t want to appear hostile, but I kinda did want to know what the hell the entire ocean was doing inside my house. Turns out, humans have polluted the oceans so badly that the denizens of the deep decided they’d be better off living in people’s houses than in what had become of the seven seas. Still, I felt kind of singled out.
. “But why my house? Why 327 Bluebell Lane?”, I whined, realizing that I sounded like a real NIMBY jerk.
. “Well,” replied the blowfish, “we had to start somewhere.” I guess he had a point. “Don’t worry,” he said cheerfully. “We made you a boat.” And from out of the kitchen floated a small vessel made entirely of seaweed, nudged forward my the new aquatic occupants of 327 Bluebell Lane. “You can go live on the oceans, since we can’t anymore. Good luck to you!”
. I have to confess, this was a bit much to process. “But what…” I stammered climbing into the little seaweed dinghy, “What will I eat?” With this, the biggest fish- a hammerhead shark, butted the French doors with all his might, and a tsunami of escaping water ejected me from the house, into my neighborhood, which was almost completely engulfed by rising seawater.
KPKworld 