I COME KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR
The green castle was tall and narrow. I walked across a yard of blooming pancake flowers. I knocked on the green door.
Knock knock.
Knock.
The green door opened quick, as if she had been standing on the other side, watching me through the peephole.
“Hi,” the pancake said.
“My name is Gaston Glew."
“My name is Fanny W. Fod.”
“I’m sorry if this is awkward.”
"It's not awkward."
We laughed nervously.
“We are sharing a first moment,” she said.
“This is good,” I said. “My life has been one long trail of snot and boogers. How about yours?”
“You’re not from around here.”
“I come from Pickled Planet.”
“How did you get past the sun? A few times in my life I have seen foreign travelers enter our atmosphere, but the sun always sends them on their way.”
“Oh, the sun and I cut a deal. I agreed to trim his mustache every morning in exchange for citizenship.”
“The sun was kind to cut you a deal. The sun never cuts a deal with anyone. He must have sensed you were special.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Do you have a place to stay on Pancake Island?”
“I arrived a few hours ago.”
“You must have arrived when the sun turned green. The sun must have really liked you to change colors. Maybe he wanted to cheer you up. Would you like to come into my kitchen? Here, come on.”
"Okay." I followed her into the kitchen.
She told me to sit on one of the potato chairs surrounding a pancake table.
There was a pawing and a scratching and a slapping at the back door.
“The Cuddlywumpus senses your sadness,” she said. She lowered her eyes and made an embarrassed facial expression. We were sliding into the pit of an awkward situation.
"Cuddlywumpus?" I said. "Is that what's at the door?"
"No, Nothing," she said. “It’s Nothing."
The Nothing howled. It made a sound like “Ra-ra roo! Ra-ra roo!” over and over again.
“That is more than Nothing,” I said. “I know what Nothing sounds like. This thing is more than Nothing and it's unhappy.”
“Unhappy? This is Pancake Island. Nothing is unhappy.”
The thing on the other side of the door sounded more upset now that we were talking about it. Nobody likes to overhear others talking about them. This was always the case on Pickled Planet, although none of us ever changed. We turned even sadder when we heard other pickles complaining about our sadness, saying things like, “What is wrong with Gaston Glew? He did not do what he was supposed to do today.” “What was he supposed to do today?” “He was supposed to attend a funeral.” “Did you attend a funeral?” “No, but I am superior to Gaston Glew and am therefore exempt from any blame.” “You are right, we must hold Gaston Glew accountable for the grievous error that is his life. We must punish him.” “He thinks we will let him off the hook.” “Let us punish him twice as bad for being twice as sad as us and thinking we will let him off the hook.” “Let us punish him for not being sad enough.” “We have such sadness to show him.” Mutual sighs. “Gaston Glew is a loser.”
“You need to leave,” she said.
The psychic debris cleared from my mind. Some anxious crumbs of thought floated across my vision. I raised my eyebrows, trying to look shocked and indignant. The Nothing in the cellar was screaming now. The Nothing in the cellar could not tolerate the presence of a creature as sad as myself.
I lowered my eyebrows and scrunched my forehead, as if puzzled, even though I knew exactly what was going on, perhaps more than she did. “What did I do?” I said. “I just felt a little distracted. Don’t you get distracted?”
“Pancakes are too happy in each moment to consider anything a distraction.”
“Doesn’t that mean everything is a distraction?”
She turned around and motioned for me to follow her.
“Are you kicking me out?”
“You can’t stay here, so leave. Go anywhere.”
“But we’ve only just met. I’m attracted to you, Fanny Fod. It’s you who called me to this place, not happiness.”
“You should explore your options. I am just a pancake. Happiness is happier than all the happy pancakes combined. You’ve upset the Nothing. I think it's neat that you match my castle, but I can’t let you ruin my life.”
“You owe me a chance.”
“Get out of my castle.”
“You’ll come to regret this.”
“How can I regret anything? I’m happy by myself. Plus, I don’t know even you.”
“Fine, I’ll leave,” I said, “if you show me your Nothing first.”
Blue tears welled up in her blueberry eyes as she began to cry. “Leave before the Cuddlywumpus dies. It senses your sadness. The Cuddlywumpus is everything to me.”
I should have tried to comfort her. I raised my voice instead. “What is this Cuddlywumpus? You told me there was a Nothing. A Cuddlywumpus is more than Nothing. You’re a liar. How can it sense my sadness? There is no sadness on Pancake Island. There is no sadness anymore inside my--”
“Get out! Your sadness is killing the Cuddlywumpus!”
She lost her composure. Like a pickle, she lost control.
“Fine, I’ll leave you with your beast,” I said. I turned and left through the zucchini door.
As I marched across the lawn, my footsteps left briny indentations in the ground. Pancake flowers near my dead footprints raised their heads, choked up greenish black syrup and collapsed in their own bile, like the cacti back home used to do.
The dead sun spit green phlegm across the horizon. I looked up at him and felt bad for what I’d done. I’d been on Pancake Island for half a day at most and I had caused a lot of damage. I hadn’t even thought much about what I planned to do here. I had not achieved the full happiness experience, but already I questioned whether that was what I truly sought. These pancakes obviously enjoyed themselves, but if all they did was feast and party every day, well, that was not really what I desired. I wanted to feel airy and relaxed forever, but maybe the sun was right. Maybe I was better off climbing into my rocket ship and heading back to Pickled Planet. Obviously I did not belong. It was probably better not to disturb these happy creatures any more than I already had.
But this pancake in the green castle, she seemed different than the rest. She seemed like someone I might be able to talk to. Just seeing her releasing balloons over the island made me want to climb up there and live forever in the castle with her. Despite the prospect of discovering even more enchanting pancakes on this island, and maybe getting to the root of happiness, I had lost my desire to explore. I'd found what I came for, and I was going to make her see that I hadn’t traveled halfway across the universe to be happy. I had traveled halfway across the universe to find her.
I turned around and marched up to her front door again. She was going to hear me out. She was going to learn all about the Eternal Plight of the Pickle and how she could cure me with her love.
Knock knockknock knock, knock.
Knock. Knock.
Knock, knockknock . . . knock, knock . . .
Knockknockknock.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK--
“Hey, what’re you doin’ there?” someone shouted, disturbing my knocking.
I turned around. The shouter was a pancake.
“I’m a door inspector. I inspect doors,” I said, and regretted saying it. I was on a mission. I could not let myself get distracted. Anyway, who knew if door inspectors existed on Pancake Island?
“Fanny Fod has a good door, doesn’t she?” the pancake said.
I was tempted to tell the pancake to bug off and return to my knocking, to rejoinder it this time with shouted professions of love, but I realized I had already c
rossed the line, banging on her door for an inordinate duration. The pancake was right, though. Fanny Fod had a good door.
“Have you tested my door yet?” the pancake said.
Having returned to myself and seeing the fool I’d been, I decided to play nice for a little bit. This pancake knew Fanny Fod’s name. I could dig into this pancake for more information. “I don’t know. Where do you live? I’m offering free inspections all day.”
The pancake giggled and shrugged as if I had said something very silly. “In my potato. Where else?”
I raised a tired arm and pointed at the sky. “Lead the way and I’ll inspect your door with twice as many knocks as I gave this one.”
“You’re so kind, Mr. Door Inspector.”
I put on a fake smile and hoped to end this soon.
The pancake took my hand and led me away from Fanny Fod's castle. I turned and looked behind me, hurting inside because I felt Fanny's blueberry eyes watching me. I probably looked like the biggest jerk, allowing this other pancake to take me away under the guise of being a door inspector only moments after trying to break down her door and say I loved her, even though we had just met.
"How do you feel, Mr. Door Inspector?" the pancake said.
"Um . . ."
"Um is a good way to feel. I am happy you feel um. Do you want to know how I feel?"
"I guess so."
"I feel happy. I feel liberated. I feel . . . excited."
"Do you feel that way all the time?"
"Of course. I am always glad. Are you glad?"
"I am glad."
"You don't sound glad."
"I am glad."
"It's funny that I should find a door inspector today. I was staring at my door for a long time yesterday and it was so fascinating. I thought a door inspector must inspect my door. Any door inspector who inspects my door will love it. I can't wait for you to love my door. It's a fascinating door. I sometimes miss the Ultra Yummy Happiness Parade because I can't pull myself away from the door. Sometimes I miss many parades in a row. I stare at my door for days, basking in the good door vibes. I think my door is a bunch of pancakes that fell so in love they became one pancake and they're always making love, having one constant stream of orgasms. When I'm not around my door, I like to think my door misses me. I like to think my door has orgasms in my absence."
I blocked out the pancake's door babble. I could stand no more. What was I doing here? This pancake only cared about finding happiness in her door. I only cared about finding happiness in Fanny Fod.
We walked through a field of pancake flowers that'd sprung up out of nowhere. The flowers turned green and pickled in my wake. The flowers frowned like ugly mirrors. I hated myself for killing them. Holding hands with this strange pancake, I calculated that I would hate myself for approximately forever. It was my duty as a sufferer of the Eternal Plight to hate myself. I mouthed the motto of Captain Pickle. Unchain yourself from this briny fate, oh pickled prisoner! But Captain Pickle wasn't real. He was make-believe. I did not share the privilege of being imaginary. None of us did, no matter how hard we tried.
"The flowers love you," the pancake said. "They are remaking themselves in your image."
Okay, maybe this pancake could teach me something about happiness. Maybe all pancakes were obsessed and in love with one thing and that one thing was the wellspring of all their happiness and maple syrup was what enabled them to love. Without maple syrup, they would be as sad as I was. Now the syrup had worked through me and I was in love and almost happy, but love had turned me crazy as a door creep. Now that I had experienced a little taste of happiness, I could remain neither happy nor sad.
Unchain yourself from this briny fate, oh pickled prisoner!
I walked behind her, up some steps carved into a giant potato. I was about to say something negative, out of habit, but I resisted. I had to act like a door inspector. Father was a door inspector. I just had to act like Father. We stopped on a stoop outside a brown and knotted potato door. The stoop was small. We pressed together. I considered stepping down to the stair beneath to put some distance between us, but the pancake wrapped her arms around me. She stared at me with unmoving maple eyes. "Do you like my door?" she said, her mouth unmoving. Stiff.
"I love it," I said. I couldn't look at her any longer. I couldn't look at the door either. I envisioned pushing her down the stairs and shouting, "Your door is boring! I hate your door!" I could rip the door from its weak root hinges and toss it down on top of her and kill her. I would not do that. That would be inappropriate.
"Kiss me," the pancake said.
I kissed her. I didn't know what else to do.
"Come on. The inside of the door is more interesting than the outside."
I kissed her again. Her lips were like a maple lollipop that happened to be attached to a living creature. It mattered little whether I cared for this pancake, or whether she cared for me. We'd made a silent agreement not to care about each other. Tasting her, I decided that I might enjoy her company in spite of my best intentions.
"Come on," she pleaded. "I want you to see the inside."
She turned away from me and opened the door and walked inside. "This will end badly," I mumbled.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing," I said, and followed her into the potato house to learn the wonders of her crappy door, and maybe suck on her lips a little.
Oh Fanny Fod, I thought, I'm sorry.
I entered her potato and closed the door behind me.
*
Beyond the potato door, the beloved object of this pancake whom I shortly expected to screw in exchange for information, a mountain of doors greeted me. Each potato door squirmed against the other doors.
Red gravy bled from the doors.
The house was wet and smelled like bleach.
"Don't you love my door?" the pancake said.
"Well . . . it's not just one door. It's many doors, and none of them are connected to the door that leads outside."
The pancake laughed at me. "Oh, you're silly. All doors are connected."
"Maybe, perhaps." I had to act like a door inspector, like I knew what I was doing. "But what are potato doors doing on Pancake Island? What do potatoes have to do with pancakes and doors?" I had failed to find the right moment to ask these questions until now.
The pancake did not question why I was unaware of facts that must have been common knowledge to all pancakes. She was that oblivious. She told me a pretty good story the pancakes told each other about their castles. The story went that once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a race of pancakes who were made out of potatoes. They decided to evolve for some reason or another and died in their potato forms to reincarnate as hip, happy, modern day pancakes. That is why so many potato castles sprouted up in the syrup-rich soil of Pancake Island. According to the story, there was an even older race of pancakes: the zucchini race. Zucchini pancakes did not exist for very long. Some believed that the zucchini pancakes migrated from Pancake Island for one reason or another. Fanny Fod lived in the only zucchini castle left alive.
"So how about it?" the pancake said.
"How about what?"
"Are you going to inspect my door or what?"
"I said I loved it."
"That's not your full inspection, is it?"
"Let me see."
I circled the mountain of doors, occasionally leaning over and making a ticking noise with my tongue, pretending to be deep in thought. I ran my fingers along the edge of several doors and everywhere my fingers touched, turned green. That really impressed the pancake. "Yes," she said. "It needed that extra flair."
"Leave it to a door expert," I said.
I walked around the door mountain three times in all, stroking it here and there, gesticulating ambivalently at times to suggest that I had not yet made up my mind about her door.
"What is it?" she said.
"I'm not sure. Something's missing. Do you think . . . let me rephrase that. Do y
ou know what a Cuddlywumpus is?"
Her body swayed back and forth horizontally, indicating a negative. "A Cuddlywumpus? I've never heard of such a thing."
"Do you think Cuddlywumpus might be the name of a door?"
"It could be, but it has never occurred to me to name my door."
I was relieved to hear that. It would be a huge letdown if the mysterious Cuddlywumpus turned out to be nothing more than a talking door. I might even lose all interest in Fanny Fod if I discovered that she obsessed herself over a door. "Do you think you could inspect me now?" the pancake said.
I knew it. I knew she wanted something else from me. No matter how much she loved her door, she had insisted on my visitation for a different reason right from the start. The mountain of doors was only a pretext. Everything boiled down to a lot of door nonsense.
"Well can you?" She twitched like a squashed insect.
"What can you offer me in return?"
"There are no returns on happiness," she said.
She stepped toward me. I raised my arms to defend myself but she was not trying to attack. She fell at my feet. Her flat round body heaved. "Please inspect me, Mr. Door Inspector," she said.
"Get off the floor."
"Join me on the floor."
"Fine." I got down beside her on the floor.
She threw her arms around me. She pressed her maple lips to mine and said, "There are no returns on happiness."
"I don't know what you mean," I said.
"All I mean is what I say."
I licked her lips as she dragged her palms down my green belly, under the elastic band of my yellow spacesuit pants.
I thereafter came aroused.
The pancake cooed softly as she stroked my little pickle. I sucked on her lips. No matter how many mouthfuls of her sweet face I sucked away, she remained whole. She existed in a perpetual cycle of pleasure and replenishment. Her happiness reserves ran deep, extending far beyond her physical body. I considered the possibility that love had fostered in her a psychic connection with the doors, the heaving mountain a stockpile of happy feelings.
I laughed to myself. I was quick to figure out others, and quick to fault them for being so easy to figure out.
The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island Page 3
