The fire was dead and cold, and mirrored my disposition when I left my humble cabin near a bucolic babbling brook nestled deep within the Outlands Steppe, making my way down the mountain trail to the Wayward Docks on the River Fury.
To make pilgrimage to that place where all rivers lead: Donutland.
Now, aboard the river steamer “Big Long John,” I look to port and, with attenuated amusement, take note how the River Fury’s course bisects the Field of Forever where not too long ago a bounty of wheat grew; such is the Nature of Things when harvest time comes, and the purifying heat of the baker’s oven is all consuming much like when I’d experienced a tray of Maple Logs during my long-ago (pre-diabetic) youth.
Donutland.
That clarion call pierces my ears, my very soul as if a Valkyrie of Gluten Desires whispers like a cool fall breeze into my good ear, tempting me with Old Fashions and fritters in a way both pleasing yet yeastily, nay, tastily, I.M.H.O.
Then the “Big Long John” drifts into twilight bound for that Long Night river-bound voyage that will delivery me to Donutland at first light.
As I stand on the open deck, the night sky opens overhead like the evening I first met her under the canopy of a Starry Night. The two of us danced to Langgaard’s “Music of the Geometric Solids Including, But Not Limited To, Spheres,” and I made certain inquiries as to the nature of her vocation and stuff, and she smiled that certain smile, her eyes dark, and in a voice akin to a Valkyrie, told me thus:
“I’m a rheologist,” she said.
My mind left me then as it was in a flight of fancy fueled by marzipan and thoughts of raisin-bespeckled dough of a nature both intelligent.
“I get a rise out of that,” I said.
She frowned. “Like I haven’t heard that before. Say something original.”
I was caught unawares by her remark. She knew it.
“You’re a one pun wonder,” she said.
The dance ended. I watched her leave me that night as she stole away, her sheer garments of white muslin flowing under the moon’s kiss, and the vague scent of cinnamon and nutmeg that mixed with hers.
And now as I stand on the “Big Long John”’s deck under the crush of the dark night sky, the stars mocking my inability to leaven anything more than a biscuit on a good day, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to determine the elasticity of her dough balls.
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