Everything Is Just Fine Here In the Cave Of The Featherless Giants

“Did you know that the only things you can see without molasses are butts?” The boy said to me with his hands making circles around his eyes. “This is my camera for taking pictures of your boat ride to Poop Land. Oh no! A shark just ate your butt!”

“That’s nice, son.” I turned back toward the kitchen counter where I was peeling back the husks on a few ears of corn. I returned to my thoughts.

This quarantine is going well so far, if I do say so myself. One week of voluntarily staying home, and everyone is acting completely normal.

I was admiring the golden pearliness all entangled in pieces of silk in my hands, when something sitting on the counter caught my eye. Flour. My husband’s grocery store trip had resulted in three whole bags of flour! I picked up the hefty paper bag of gut-gumming powder and clutched it lovingly to my breast.

Over the past month I had been carefully collecting more goods in preparation for the inevitable, but foolishly had not stocked up on flour. I had underestimated my people—the ones that normally would rather buy cheap garbage bread than go to the trouble of making their own were suddenly inspired to buy up all the flour and yeast.

The flour and I had a beautiful moment. We danced around the kitchen together, and I regretted that I wasn’t wearing a very full skirt to really give the whole incident a more ballroom-like feel of formality. But then I spotted something distressing in the living room.

The tot was holding a very uncomfortable looking bird covered in ruffled gold feathers. Feathery the Chicken looked to be giving the tot an arm workout as she toted the bird around the living room. Her beak was opened slightly so that she could pant in a nervous but submissive way, knowing well that she was in dangerous territory. No birds are allowed to cross the threshold of the porch, and certainly they are not allowed to enter the mysterious cave that we featherless giants live in.

Worse still, there was chicken poop in two piles on my living room floor, like dollops of a revolting poop and oyster flavored soft-serve. The smell attacked the nostrils in a very violent way. The tot knew better than to do this. Even the chicken knew better. I widened my eyes as I felt the words blast out of my mouth at full speed, swerve past the poop stench, and crash into the ruffled feathers of Feathery herself.

“We don’t squeeze our friends!” I shouted.

My god, I grumbled as I turned back to admire my flour. These children are going to completely forget how to act in society before this is over!

My husband walked in the front door, still wearing his scrubs from his job at the hospital, and bringing in the rest of his grocery haul. “I got everything on the list this morning,” he said cheerfully from behind the medical mask he had taken to wearing when in close contact to us ever since the virus cases had begun to trickle in. But just then there was something about that mask that reminded me of an astronaut.

Maybe it was how my world seemed a bit different this past week—a bit foreign—that got me thinking about outer space. Maybe it was the fact that he had to speak over the sound of the children like he was talking through a radio. I don’t know, but I felt enthusiasm spreading across my lips and twisting them into a devilish smile.

Everyone is just fine here. Of course no one is going stir crazy.