Dear diary,
While walking along, my cows and I now stumble upon a golf cart that has been mocked up to look like a land-cloud. In other words, someone has glued large puffs of cotton all over the outer frame of the cart, so that when one climbs in and presses the accelerator, it looks like you’re flying a cloud around on the ground.
“Like what you see?” sez the goddess Athena. “I made that myself. I call it the Cloudmobile — clever title, eh? When you press the horn, it shoots out actual thunderbolts.”
“Yes, we like it very much,” I reply, patting the backs of my cows that flank me. Each beast keeps licking at the vehicle, perhaps thinking that it’s made of cotton candy. “Those puffs are the size of basketballs — where’d you find them?”
“They are basketballs,” smiles Athena. “I just coated them with smaller bits of cotton and kept gluing more and more on until each one looked like a giant version of the normal-sized cotton balls that you’re used to seeing between a woman’s toes when she’s painting her nails. My name’s Athena, by the way,” she extends her left hand, and I go down on one knee to kiss it; I also slide a ring onto her fourth finger.
She blushes and exclaims: “Wait — why did you do that?”
“When you give a woman a ring, it signifies immortal love,” I mansplain. “Immortal is another way to say undying.”
Athena stares at the glittering gem for a spell; then remarks: “But a bride and groom typically exchange rings during their marriage ceremony, after vowing to remain true lovers forever. And the fourth finger of the left hand is traditionally known as the WELOCK DIGIT. — Did you truly intend to send such strong suggestions?”
“Yes,” I smile while rising to my feet; then return to patting my cows on their backs, “that was my aim exactly — you see, I love that puffy little buggy that you invented, and I was hoping to entice you to make a similar craft for me, except, instead of using a golf cart as the core, my prayer is that you’ll glue some oversized cotton fluffs around the exterior of my pontoon barge; because I’ll never be able to squeeze my cows into this cart here — I need a Cloudmobile big enough for an army.”
Athena is still holding her hand up and admiring the ring that I gave her. While listening, she hasn’t taken her eyes off the gorgeous jewel that is mounted there. (It’s a rare element that I myself concocted in my alchemy lab.) She answers me now in a faraway voice:
“You want a larger, holier Cloud-cuckoo-coach that also drives on water?” Athena sighs. “I can do that. I will do that for you.” Then she snaps out of her reverie and sez: “But wait — if your complaint is that the Cloudmobile’s interior is not sufficiently roomy, then I think you might be mistaken: for I’m sure I can fit your friends into this cart,” she presses the nearest fluff-lever of the Cloudmobile; “look: the rear seats are easy to remove; I’ll slide them out, see? Ah, NOW there’s more than enough legroom in the back to please two cows. I purposely chose a model of cart with extra rear-storage — in my case, it was in order for my owl to have space to flap around.”
“No, no, you don’t understand,” I laugh; “for, if all I had were this pair of cows who follow me everywhere, then of course I’d just ask for your golf cart here as my dowry; but I have a whole NATION of cattle back home, who live in my cowshed. Didn’t you know this? Aren’t you the succubus who’s been visiting me in dream-visions nightly, out by the hay bale? My place is near the icy pond, about a catapult-launch away from the Mall of the Americas.”
Athena’s eyes widen: “Oh! THOU art my magus, le kow-boi fantôme? Ah, yes, now I see it — I didn’t recognize you without your cape.”
“Yeah, I knew we’d be practicing our figure-skating routine today, and I wanted to avoid having to mend its material again; for, last time we visited the roller rink, the cape got some scratches on it, and I had to apply a new clear-coat and then re-wax it. (Those derby girls are death-or-glory, forsooth.) But now, since we’re finished skating, I may as well retrieve the cape via the air-chutes; for I feel naked without it.”
I pat the haunch of one of my cows, which is our signal for “Go do the task that I just telepathically relayed unto your bovine mind,” and she wanders off in the wrong direction; so then I pat the haunch of my other cow, and she half-accidentally steps upon the button that I was hoping she’d go press: it’s labeled “Send requested item back from headquarters without any further delay.” And the little transparent bullet just misses my heart and boings off the structural wall to my right, causing the landscape to tremble. I open the cylinder and uncrumple my famous cape (thankfully it’s wrinkle-free) and don it triumphantly. It keeps flapping and flapping, despite the fact that there’s no natural wind nearby. “That’s better,” I say.
Athena can’t resist lurching forward and embracing me and kissing me passionately. Then she steps back and we continue our conversation.
“Where’s your pontoon barge at present?” she sez.
“I think I left it at my home pond,” I say; “either that, or it’s still rammed into the rear entry of the Mega Mall, with glass shards from the broken French sliding doors riddling the hallway and remaining unswept to this moment, because I quit my job as a janitor for the school-and-mall network when I decided to buy a rewarding new career as a magician, which I do not regret.”
After processing this information, Athena announces: “Well then let’s go get your boat.”
§
So we find my pontoon barge where I last left it, at Hoyt and Schermerhorn. Athena and I get off the A-Train with my cows, and we two humans push my barge to a busy intersection (with the cows following us at their leisure pace while lowing contentedly) so that we can begin to transform my pontoon into the Ultimate Cloudmobile.
With traffic zooming past and never hitting Athena or me (or either one my pair of cattle, who keep wandering into and out of the surrounding streets), despite the fact that we need to keep crossing this busy intersection at the least opportune times (during red lights and “Don’t Walk” signals, etc.) because we carelessly left our toolbox far away from where we’re performing our transformative operation (the keen reader will recall that we’re attempting to glue cotton-covered basketballs all around the barge’s exterior, like a parade float), we proceed to convert my previously boring silver pontoon into an extra-large Cloud-cuckoo-craft that can carry not just me but my whole herd of cattle. And, yes, Athena rigged it so that when you press its horn, it causes lightning to strike all the buildings on Planet Earth that are more than a single story tall.
“Thanks!” I say, when Athena steps back from the finished vehicle and announces: “Ta-da!”
Then Athena steps away from the pontoon barge that is now the Ultimate Cloudmobile, while I stride forth to pilot the machine for the very first time. I wave my two cows (who’ve been semi-watching us work on this project) onboard to join me. Then I start the thing up, and we drive slowly over all the oncoming traffic and smash thru everything in our path until we reach our pond-shore cow-shed.
Now I whistle a birdlike singsong trill, by inserting my fingers into my mouth and blowing hard, which alerts my herd of cattle to the fact that I, their Caretaker, Bryan the Abomination of Desolation and Consort of Athena, would like them to come out and join me on my newfangled speedboat. So my cows all emerge at once leaping and dancing joyfully from their shelter. Upon boarding the barge (they all fit easily, by the way), the sight of them genuinely does resemble Solar Kine on a Thundercloud; which is what I suggest you title your work, if you decide to paint a mural of this event. Then we all spend the rest of our afternoon cruising around the ocean at breakneck speed.
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