Wow, it is so nice outside right now! I threw my windows open and am enjoying a strangely sea-like breeze. It’s odd because I’m torn between being in a really good mood and feeling like a zombie because I slept so poorly last night. Whenever I’m away from my apartment for more than a day or two I have an awful time sleeping here for the first night. Also, my physics professor is making us take a diagnostic “what do you know from last semester test” if you did not have him for the first part of physics. Should I study? It’s not graded, but I don’t want to look/feel like an idiot if I sit down and don’t remember a darn thing.
I’m happy because I realized that the class that follows a massive five hour break in my schedule is literally in the building right next to where I live. What a break!
I was telling myself this weird, very short story last night while I tried to go to sleep, something I haven’t done since I was a little kid. So here is my first writing exercise.
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Sir Timothy Padsworth surveyed the scene below him with a sense of satisfaction. “Yes, my good man,” he said to the fellow beside him, “this will do quite well.” With that, Joseph reduced the flames that caused the hot air balloon to rise. It began to float lazily instead of drifting ever higher into the clouds. If it weren’t brightly colored with rainbow polka dots, the balloon could have been mistaken for a nimbus among its fellows.
“Are you sure you’re alright, sir? You’re making me nervous, sir, with all due respect,” Joseph drawled. The old iguana had a strange manner of speaking. His deep voice strung words together slowly and leisurely, even, it seemed, when he was distressed. He wore a straw hat and a pair of plaid breeches.
Sir Tim was leaning dangerously over the edge of the basket, his miniscule feet dangling in the air as he clung to it. His oversized mouse ear flapped wildly in the breeze, as did the white scarf about his neck. It seemed more than sufficient to send him soaring into the heavens, which would probably not be good for business. The mouse chortled at his companion.
“Never been better, old chap, not a once,” he replied, turning his head to face his captain. He brandished his cane at him in a manner that oozed good humor. “The view is spectacular. I envy you your singular position as a giver of these rides.”
“Yes, well, there are certainly worse ways to put food on the table,” Joseph replied. “But all the same I would prefer it if you sat down.”
“But then what would I see, my good fellow?” Sir Tim poked his forehead with the top of his cane. “You aren’t using your head, sirrah. If I sit, I shall miss the view, my being so small. And that I shall not risk. But if it will make you feel better, I shall don my knapsack, if you would be so kind as to pass it up.”
Joseph had no idea how a backpack would keep the mouse safe, but he knew better than to argue with a simple request from a client. He handed over the tiny bit of luggage and watched as Sir Tim threw it over his thin shoulders. For a while they looked on in silence.
Suddenly, Sir Timothy stood upon the edge of the basket and turned to face old Joe. “Well, sirrah, this has been a very pleasant afternoon, and I thank you. All the best, eh?” And so saying, he smiled, spun, and jumped from the edge, tossing a bag of coins as he went. It clinked against the bottom of the basket in a merry sort of way.
Joe felt his tired heart freeze as his client disappeared from view. He rushed to the side of the basket and looked down at the increasingly small blur that was Sir Tim. Already he was beyond the help of one old Joseph.
Sir Tim smiled at the scenery below him. The sun winked and twinkled against the surface of the lake, which, from here, seemed no larger than a bathtub. Although the shore around it was made up of more grains of sand than it had a right to own, it was no more than a step beneath his foot as he tumbled. Even the forest, which looked nearby (although Sir Tim knew it was quite the walk from the lake, having tried it once before, alas) seemed puny, like the little trees that flanked model train sets. He knew of course that counting the number of trees in the forest would be a task; in fact, counting the leaves on one tree would be onerous (it could, of course, be done, but only by a person of little importance and even less imagination). But, as he toppled in the air, everything seemed smaller than him.
Sir Timothy began to sense that the time was ripe to use his knapsack. He tugged upon a string hanging from it, and it vomited a parachute decorated with an eye watering combination of orange and green stripes. There was a sudden jerk on his shoulders, and his descent began to slow. Before long, the objects around him began to take on their usual proportions. Eventually his cane tapped against the earth, followed by one small paw, and then another. He sighed deeply, the moment lost.
For a while, however, he had been the largest thing in the world. Sir Timothy Padsworth grinned to himself as he stored this memory away, a ward against those pesky bad days to come.
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Haha, that was weird, but fun to spit out.
~Jen
