What Do You Mean I Didn’t Go On A Quick Ice Cream Run, But Have Actually Been Missing For Five Days?

Ding dong, I’m home. Marianne, I picked up vanilla ice cream at the drug store for root beer floats. I also refilled your… honey, why are you crying? What are these police officers doing here? What do you mean I’ve been missing for five days?

 

That’s impossible. Here look in this bag. It’s Haagen Dazs vanilla bean … oh god, it smells terrible. No, not because it’s been five days since I bought it. CVS must have put spoiled ice cream on the shelf.  Mystery solved.

 

Why have the police set up a command center on top of my Spiderman air hockey table?  No, I did not know a gravelly voice identifying himself only as The Sandman was calling every thirteen minutes. And I had no idea he was threatening my life if you didn’t acquiesce to his demand for a sculpture in his likeness made of gypsum sand and the blood of virgin stallions. Marianne, it was probably just some kid yanking your crank.

 

What’s with all the news crews in the yard? So, you’re telling me that the local TV station’s broadcast was interrupted by footage of me eating three pounds of rainbow fish tank sand then vomiting that sand into a crystal pool. And I did this over and over again until I’d filled the pool with enough bile and sand that I could dive in, burying myself like a little worm. Ok, my mouth is a little dry, but it can’t have been me because you know I would never appear on a FOX affiliate.

 

Honey, why are you dragging me to the backyard? Did Buster dig up the azaleas again? Last night someone coated every inch of our yard in sand, started a fire of 3090℉, transforming the sand into glass, turning our yard into a crystalline inferno. How could I have done this? I can’t even light our furnace’s pilot light. Baby, I don’t know how Buster was perfectly preserved suspended in the molten glass. Why don’t you ask this Sandman whose name everyone keeps whispering in tremulous tones?

 

Now we’re headed out to the front yard. Yes, that’s a 30-foot statue made from horse blood and New Mexican sand. I’ve got to say you really didn’t do The Sandman justice. He’s got twice that many arms and a quarter of those legs. But hey, those eyes, the infinite orbs of desert sand that steal the moisture from your body with a single glance, that’s spot on. Ok, just because I can describe The Sandman in exquisite detail doesn’t mean I spent the last five days in his company after falling into his quicksand trap behind the CVS.

 

Please, Marianne, no more cops, no doctors, all I want to do is sit down and have a root beer float with my wife. A video? It’s a video captured by a security camera behind the CVS of me stabbing The Sandman in the heart with a blazing sword, him dissolving into dust, and me picking up his crown of silt and declaring myself Sovereign of Sand. You know they can do anything with videos nowadays. I saw one where it looked like a dog was delivering Churchill’s Finest Hour speech. And sure, I am currently wearing a cloak made of constantly shifting sand, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I was wearing before I left the house.

 

Who cares if I was gone for fifteen minutes or five days or if time no longer has meaning for me as I now have possession of this, the original hourglass, that controls the flow of time. Who gives a flying toot? Marianne, don’t run away from me. Come on, stop! Oh God, what have I done? I’ve turned Marianne into sand. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted her to stop. Lower your gun officer or I’ll… sand they’re all sand now. Well, I guess I can still enjoy a delicious… crap, we’re out of root beer.