Dreaming Bodies (standard:humor, 1433 words)
Author: Austen Brauker	Added: Oct 05 2010	Views/Reads: 2871/1896	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A rotund Ottawa Indian drives through a dream with a giant talking cake roll as a passenger.

DREAMING BODIES By Austen Brauker 

Turd felt like he had been driving forever, which is a long way on an
empty stomach. Days flew by for every passing second. He was hungrier 
than he had ever been, but there were no stores anywhere, not even any 
houses. He started to wonder how many days it was since he began this 
never-ending quest for a destination he couldn't recall. 

The road was straight and flat, leading endlessly past the horizon. It
seemed like some kind of celestial oddity had clad his world in night 
forever. Turd was tired. He noticed the speed limit had gone up to 65 
and pressed the gas. The grassland whizzed by as he looked over through 
the open passenger window. It had been closed before. 

The night wind woke him up, somewhat, and he suddenly noticed what was
riding in the seat next to him. It was a Little Debbie's Swiss Cake 
Roll, about a foot tall. It wore a traditional clear plastic wrapper. 
They rode on in silence. The snack smelled good. Turd didn't know that 
the company made them that big. They drove for hundreds of more miles 
before it finally spoke. 

“Do you mind if I smoke?” it asked politely. 

“No, go ahead.” 

The package looked bigger next to him. It flicked the ashes out the
window and exhaled. 

“So where are you from?” it asked. 

“Back on the rez,” Turd answered. 

“Oh yeah.” Responded the snack cake. “Lots of my family go there.
Myself, I'm not really Swiss. I came from a factory in Ohio. It's a 
misnomer. There isn't really a Debbie either. She's just a marketing 
gimmick.” 

The rolled chocolate and cream emitted a sweet smell when it spoke and
Turd wondered how it would taste. It was an awkward situation. The 
speed limit sign read 75 and he automatically accelerated. The engine 
churned and chugged. 

The cake roll was definitely growing since he first saw it. Now it could
easily see over the dash. He looked at the beautiful creation once more 
to make sure. It was definitely bigger. The swollen dessert enchanted 
him. Turd imagined the pride that must have beamed in the faces of the 
workers on the day when they created this one. He was romanticizing, 
maybe even falling in love. 

“I know a few jokes.” 

It started, uneasily, almost sensing the man's perverted direction and
meaning to quell it. 

“A termite walks in to a saloon.” 

It paused for dramatic effect. 

“He said...‘Where's the bar tender?' ” 

The cake roll laughed, seeming to inflate from the inside, making Turd
feel smaller at the same time, not emotionally, but like he was really 
physically shrinking. He was having trouble seeing over the wheel now. 
The cake was still laughing. A signpost with a big white rectangle 
bolted to the top shot up out of the grass. The speed limit read 85 and 
Turd struggled to press the pedal with his extended foot. 

The engine responded. His toe could barely reach the accelerator from
the end of an ever-shortening leg. The scenery lost rational weight and 
garbled out the window on self-fulfilling math, like an invisible dog 
that tried to chase along beside them, trying to keep up as it leapt 
ditches and fence rows. The stars above were multi-colored blips that 
led it like a fake race-track rabbit. 

“Bars are made of wood. Get it!” 


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