(FW) My Side of the Bowl 2

My Side of the Bowl
Part Deux: Below All things

The air hung humid and lactose heavy. Charlie begrudgingly pried his eyes open but only got them halfway; the light was giving him a blinding headache. “Back up! Give ‘em som’ room!”, said a hearty voice from behind. The other O’s shifted their weight on the constant but gentle tide of the milk below. “That was quite tha spill ‘ya took, laddy. Stupid really, but brave I’ll give ya’ that mooch.” His robust accent was gruff but jolly nonetheless. Charlie suspected that his wheat was of Irish origin. “How…how long was I out?” But before light could illuminate his questions, Charlie and those around him were suddenly scooped to the edge of the bowl. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see nearly a dozen of his fellow O’s begin to rise into the air, milk cascading over the rim of a massive stainless steel ship. “Farewell!” They shouted to those below. "The rapture hath declared us - the firstborn, elect above all others!” and then they disappeared into the air above. Zealot-O’s. Always declaring this birthright or claiming that predestination; Charlie was glad that they were finally gone and from the look of it so was everybody else. “Okay” He said shaking the last mothballs from his head. “You can do it Charlie, you’re ready.” This little self affirmation reminded Charlie of a particular Saturday Night Live episode he had once seen and it made him smile confidently.

Everything happened all at once, but at the same time, backwards and forwards and every other kind of “-wards” imaginable, yet it happened all the same.

The spoon-ship is now returning to the sea of O’s, their eyes wide, their mouths agape. It is coming right for him, but something is not right. He is looking at the bottom of the ship as it passes over him and in the convex mirror Charlie sees himself, confused and immobile. The ship dives into the O’s ahead, creating a massive shockwave both liquid and solid in form. He is lifted up and over the porcelain wall, teeters, and then falls. This is not like the fall out of the box. This is something rather alien and though Charlie searches for the word to describe it all (later referring to it as quintessential surrealism) he is at a loss for words, a loss for mind. So, he just falls, and while he does so Charlie decides the blame for all of this undoubtedly must belong to vitamin B6, and he remembers the omen from earlier that day. Then, in the moment before impact Charlie can think of nothing else and settles on a sigh and an inaudible “…figures” before he hits the surface below.

Hours passed. Charlie woke, convinced that this was some form of afterlife and had it not been for the throbbing pain in his side, his faith would have been complete. He was in fact, not dead and this new prison in which he found himself had been his savior; for the heal sole of an athletic shoe is rather elastic and forgiving, at least inasmuch as a falling cheerio can rely on. Gathering his wits, Charlie scanned for an escape route and, finding none, began to move toward the dark tunnel ahead. “What manner of place is this?” postulated Charlie “Where the earth is spongy and gives off a most offensive odor” He had heard of a place called New Mexico from a Pop-Tart at a distribution center, but quickly decided that this probably wasn’t it and considering the lack of credibility amongst fruit filled pastries, it probably didn’t even exist. Wherever he was, Charlie meant to find an exit and return to the bowl as soon as possible.
Ironically, it was the end of the cave that found Charlie before he found it. The all too familiar feeling of uncontrolled descent overcame Charlie for a third time and with his back against the wall a massive white sheathed five headed monstrosity entered the mouth of the cave and advanced on his position. “Back! Back I say!” but his voice could not match the courage of his heart, for it was saturated in dread and would not obey him. Charlie concluded that this was the end. He would be squished into a decrepit bran flake, his crumbs ground into dust. And to his shame, (which he told of to no one in his own account in later years) in the moment before the eyeless soulless creature devoured him, Charlie fainted and was thankful he did.