Spin, Donut, Spin

Jack Swain, staff writer

Jack lived alone in a small house at the end of the block, adjacent to the convenience store. Inside the convenience store was a sign shaped like a pink donut. The sign would spin, around and around, day and night, without stopping, for ever and ever. As Jack fell asleep, he would watch the sign spin.

“Spin, donut! Spin!” He would think to himself, sleepily.

Downstairs in the house, a little mouse was walking through the kitchen. She was fixing to make herself a cup of coffee. She was about to go to work. She had the grave-shift at the mouse-sized-convenience-store that was hidden inside the wall of the regular, human-sized convenience store. The mouse’s name was Tracy and she lived paycheck to paycheck.

Tracy left the house and walked down the sidewalk. The moon hung over the scene. It looked pink in the near dawn.

While he slept, Jack had a dream that he was the host of a game show. The premise of the game was that different people would appear on stage, and the audience would either praise or boo them based on how cool the person was. In the dream, Jack noticed that although the verdicts were mostly arbitrary, they were always extremely heartfelt.

Every contestant, no matter which verdict, would be put to death afterwards. It was a quick affair, not horrifying or anything, just calm and natural, the executions.

Jack didn’t remember very much of the dream when he woke up, just one woman who had been on stage. She stood there, and said that all she wanted was to be a kid again. She had tears in her eyes. Honest, pearly tears, sparkling in the pink stage-lights. Her name had also been Tracy.

The mouse Tracy sat behind the counter, writing in her journal. A customer came in. The customer was an older mouse, very clean and well-spoken. He approached Tracy, said “How Do You Do?” and ordered a blueberry kombucha.

As he left, he remarked to Tracy, “Happy Plant Appreciation Day.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Plant Appreciation Day? Why, it’s the one day a year we set aside to celebrate plant life. All that oxygen, you know. Carry on!”

The door tinkled on his way out.

Tracy sat back down, breathing a sleepy sigh. Her eyes fell upon the whirring donut sign.  Through the middle of the donut, although it was too far away for Tracy’s mouse eyes to see, there were two dragonflies, sitting, looking into each other’s eyes. Talking only to share with each other whispered descriptions of wild dreams. It was very beautiful.

Jack remembered for a moment a time when he was younger, when he floated down the Potomac river on a tube. The trees had shone golden in the light of the sun, and the water had felt cool and fresh around his feet. It had been a very nice day.

Outside of Jack’s house, a small sprout of grass popped up, as if from nowhere. Hello!

Meanwhile, the Earth turned around the Sun. The other planets watched the Earth turn. Everybody revolved around and around, tramping a perpetual journey, in the starry dynamo of night, distantly calling to each other….

“Spin, donut! Spin!”