The whirl of a vacuum

As I have previously mentioned when I was in high school and college, I used to write intentionally bizarre poems and stories. (Remember the "Group sex" chanters in my previous story?)

Here is one that I wrote when I was a freshman in college:

The forest was especially green that day. We knew of no one, we heard no one. We just walked down the path, through the trees, the moss, and the animals.

I knew that the trees were not going anywhere, but still I couldn't help wondering why the birds didn't crawl. I guess there are some things that only God knows. Still, I wish.

As we walked on, we came to a hole in the soft earth. Not wanting to scare the squirrels, we jumped in. It was a short fall, but we were shaken up a little. In the hole, we saw a man wearing a vest made of nylon.

"Excuse me," he said. "May I ask why you are in my hole?"

We told him we were doing an experiment for German class. I think he believed us because he let us go on. The hole had a door in it, so we entered. Through the door was a room, and on the floor was a hula hoop and some carpenter's glue. We knew from our studies that this meant something more than it appeared.

"Remember what Mrs. Argolio told us about the ancient Forest Sweepers?" my friend asked.

"Yes," I replied, "but they used rubber cement. It was the other ones who used this kind of glue."

We looked around the room for any other tell-tale signs, but found none. We did find another door though. Through this door we saw a cardboard cut-out of Johnny Depp, and we thought our entire theory was shot. But we found the connection in the object on the floor.

"Look!" my friend said. "Over there, next to that mound of clay -- What is it?"

We examined it closely. We knew that this connected to the previous findings.

"Remember what Mrs. Argolio said about the butter?" I asked.


As we walked home, we knew. We knew that inside of our adventure that day there were a thousand more adventures, all dependent upon the touch of a claw, or the whirl of a vacuum, or the fuzz on a tennis ball.

We knew.