I pulled my pants off
Both my legs
And flung them off the boat

In just a t-shirt
And my briefs
I dove into the moat

My pants distracted
Both the sharks
While I retrieved the tote

Inside I found six
Mermaid eggs
Which I fed to the goat

He didn’t like them
Very much
So the Queen had me beheaded and stole my briefs and fed my body to the sharks

The little girl’s dear mommy came and got in such a snit
That mean ol’ wind begrudgingly agreed to blow a bit

8:47 AM Mar 16th
Just got an email sent to the entire office. Apparently the fire alarms are being tested today. If we hear them we aren’t supposed to react.

8:48 AM Mar 16th
Seems like a risky kind of setup…

9:01 AM Mar 16th
There it went. A brief, startling burst of the bell. The strange thing is that I thought I saw a flash of flames behind me when I heard it.

9:05 AM Mar 16th
Another test, and I swear I saw another flash of flickering orange in my peripheral vision. I even felt a little burst of heat.

9:05 AM Mar 16th
Are there any psychologists following me? Is this a known phenomenon?

9:11 AM Mar 16th
They keep bursting that fire bell every five minutes and the flames I’m seeing are getting bigger every time. My neck feels warm. AH! AGAIN!

9:14 AM Mar 16th
Stranger and stranger… I thought I heard someone screaming while the bell was sounding that time. It stopped when the bell did.

9:18 AM Mar 16th
I can hear kind of a high-pitched keening in between bell rings. It gets louder as the ring gets closer, then goes silent after the ring.

9:19 AM Mar 16th
Then it builds up again until the next ring. And there’s another sound behind it, like a scream but barely audible. Makes my spine tingle.

9:24 AM Mar 16th
The rings are happening more frequently now, like every minute. It’s driving me insane.

9:25 AM Mar 16th
The flames, the heat, the scream… It all just keeps coming. I can smell the stench of burning flesh now, too.

9:28 AM Mar 16th
I, uh… Wow. I just mentioned the constantly ringing alarms to my coworker, and he said he couldn’t hear them. What does that mean?

9:32 AM Mar 16th
This is freaking weird. It’s constant now. My ears are ringing; I hear screaming; it feels like the room is on fire. I need to get out!

9:33 AM Mar 16th
…Is it normal for my office door to lead not into the hallway but instead into some kind of grassy field? What the crap!?

9:38 AM Mar 16th
I said it was really cold this morning, didn’t I? Grey and cloudy? But it’s a beautiful day out here! Not a cloud in the sky!

9:39 AM Mar 16th
I’m going to leave my office door open while I explore, just in case. I’ve read fantasy books before… I’m not letting it close behind me!

9:47 AM Mar 16th
This place is incredible! Rolling grassy hills as far as the eye can see. I just want to lie down and stare at the sky forever!

9:51 AM Mar 16th
I just… Huh. I’m lying here, staring at the cloudless, empty blue sky, and something doesn’t seem right. I can’t put my finger on it.

9:54 AM Mar 16th
There’s no sun. The sky is completely empty: there are no clouds, and THERE IS NO SUN. Nothing.

10:00 AM Mar 16th
There can’t be no sun in the sky. That isn’t how things work. Light has to come from somewhere. I’m going to figure this out.

10:05 AM Mar 16th
There are little hatches in the ground every 50 feet or so; some of the light seems to be coming out of those.

10:13 AM Mar 16th
I’m climbing a hill to get a better look around this place. I have to keep my bearings so I don’t lose my office door.

10:23 AM Mar 16th
I’m on top of the hill. There’s something way off in the distance, some kind of bright, glowing lightsource surrounded by smoke and haze.

10:38 AM Mar 16th
I ripped up a piece of turf to mark the way back to my office door. It’s time to figure out what’s going on with that strange glow.

10:51 AM Mar 16th
I’m getting closer to the hazy, glowing area. It’s just over another hill now, I think. It’s starting to smell like smoke and sulphur.

10:52 AM Mar 16th
Why am I investigating this anyways? I could’ve just stayed back in the field by my office door, where things were calm and pleasant.

11:08 AM Mar 16th
I’ve found the source of the smoke and light. There’s some kind of open hatch in the ground, and smog and heat are spewing out of it.

11:13 AM Mar 16th
I can hear the crackle of flames coming from inside the hatch, and the light coming out of it is nearly blinding. I can’t go in there.

11:21 AM Mar 16th
I’m having a hard time breathing in all this smoke, and it smells terrible.

11:22 AM Mar 16th
There’s some kind of weird door set into the side of this hill. Maybe I can get away from the smoke and heat in there.

11:37 AM Mar 16th
I couldn’t get in the door at first; it was jammed or something. But just as I was about to leave and forget the whole thing, it swung open.

11:39 AM Mar 16th
The door opens into a long hallway with a speck of light at the end. It’s like looking into a long, carpeted cave. I might as well go in.

11:41 AM Mar 16th
I’ll leave this door open behind me, as well. I don’t want to get stuck in here… Actually, I’ll partially close it to keep the smoke out.

11:50 AM Mar 16th
I’m wandering down this hallway. There are paintings covering the walls, paintings of people doing different things.

11:52 AM Mar 16th
There are people doing desk jobs, working construction, talking on phones, playing sports… There are kids at a playground or in school…

11:53 AM Mar 16th
It’s strange; when I’m not looking directly at a painting, it’s almost like I can see the people moving out of the corner of my eye.

11:59 AM Mar 16th
I think I just found a painting of my office! I can see my desk and my laptop and my chocolate milk bottles and everything.

11:59 AM Mar 16th
Oddly enough, the painting of my office is the only one I’ve seen so far without a person in it. I wonder if that means anything.

12:12 PM Mar 16th
As I get further the paintings are changing. Before, all of the people in the paintings were looking at each other, or looking away from me.

12:13 PM Mar 16th
Now, they’re all looking straight at me, watching me. And none of them are doing things outdoors anymore; they’re all in cubicles.

12:26 PM Mar 16th
I’m more than halfway to the end of the hallway, so I’m going to try to get out of here that way. It’s getting warmer the farther I go.

12:40 PM Mar 16th
All the paintings are just faces staring at me now. I can finally see the end of the hallway.

12:42 PM Mar 16th
The light coming through the open door is incredibly bright. The smell isn’t as strong as it was outside, though.

12:53 PM Mar 16th
I don’t know what I’m looking at. I’m in a small office. There are some banks of computer equipment with all kinds of blinking lights.

12:54 PM Mar 16th
Through a thick window, I can see a massive glass dome in a huge, open cave. The dome is filled with glowing, pulsing white smoke.

1:01 PM Mar 16th
The smoke’s rhythmic churning is mesmerizing. Every now and then streams of it spurt out through some tubes attached at the bottom.

1:09 PM Mar 16th
Something’s happening. All the smoke is getting sucked out of the globe at once. There’s something bright and yellow inside the cloud…

1:10 PM Mar 16th
Is that the SUN!?

1:28 PM Mar 16th
I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Could that really be the sun, trapped inside some kind of industrial glass globe?

1:34 PM Mar 16th
There’s someone down there now, a nervous-looking man fiddling with a control panel as the smoke builds up inside the globe again.

1:40 PM Mar 16th
The man is fiddling with his controls as the globe fills with smoke, churns, empties, and refills. He’s frantic, like something is wrong.

1:42 PM Mar 16th
He keeps running his hands through his hair and biting his knuckle.

1:50 PM Mar 16th
Uh oh! He just looked up here and saw me. His eyes are intense! He’s climbing a ladder to get up here. I don’t know if I should stay.

2:04 PM Mar 16th
I don’t know what this man wants. He isn’t speaking English. He just keeps pointing down at the globe and gibbering at me.

2:09 PM Mar 16th
He’s typing something into a computer now. Oh! It’s translating what he’s typing into English somehow! Here’s what he’s typing:

2:11 PM Mar 16th
_trans^Eng=”She’s sick. She may be dying. How can we save her?”

2:12 PM Mar 16th
I typed in, “Who is sick?”

2:15 PM Mar 16th
_trans^Eng=”She, the sun, is dying. She is diminishing, turning into smoke.”

2:17 PM Mar 16th
I typed in, “Why is the sun inside the glass?”

2:18 PM Mar 16th
_trans^Eng=”We brought her here to share her light.”

2:21 PM Mar 16th
I asked him what he meant by “brought her here.” He’s pointing at a painting on the opposite wall. I didn’t see it when I first came in.

2:23 PM Mar 16th
In the painting, a group of people are standing in a desert. They are holding a rope, which is tied around the sun. They’re pulling it down.

2:23 PM Mar 16th
While I looked at the painting, it changed. The people pulled the sun down, dug a hole in the ground, and put the sun in the hole.

2:25 PM Mar 16th
They covered the sun up, and dug tunnels from the sun to the surface in many different places. They… *harvested* the sun’s light.

2:26 PM Mar 16th
And the desert bloomed into a rolling grassland.

2:28 PM Mar 16th
It sounds like a fairy tale. But there the sun sits, wrapped in machinery, and I saw the grassy hills myself.

2:28 PM Mar 16th
The man’s typing again.

2:31 PM Mar 16th
_trans^Eng=”Her light made our world bloom, but she is shrinking now. We do not know why. If she dies we will be plunged into everdarkness.”

2:34 PM Mar 16th
I typed in, “What can I do to help?”

2:37 PM Mar 16th
_trans^Eng=”I am trying to drain the smoke so she can breathe, but the valve is partially stuck. Can you help me open it?”

2:38 PM Mar 16th
I’m climbing down the ladder into the chamber. It’s hard to breathe and oppressively hot.

2:42 PM Mar 16th
I’m on the floor of the chamber. The sun is looming over me, trapped inside the glass globe. I can catch glimpses of it through the smoke.

2:43 PM Mar 16th
The nervous scientist, or whatever he is, is pointing at some levers on the tubes connected to the bottom of the globe.

2:44 PM Mar 16th
The smoke is whistling through the tubes, but no matter how quickly it gets sucked out, more builds up. The sun is getting dimmer, I think.

2:48 PM Mar 16th
The whistle of the suction sounds kind of like the sound I heard back in my office, the build-up to the ringing of the fire alarm…

2:55 PM Mar 16th
Out of curiosity, I reached up to touch the glass globe holding the sun. As I touched it, I heard a scream and felt like I was on fire!

2:57 PM Mar 16th
It was the same scream I heard, and the same sensation I felt, when the fire alarm was being tested this morning.

3:09 PM Mar 16th
Could the sun be screaming? Am I feeling the sun’s pain? I’m going to touch the globe again, and hold it longer this time. I have to know!

3:16 PM Mar 16th
I was burning and screaming, gasping for air through intense claustrophobia, and I felt like my heart was being pulled out through my mouth!

3:17 PM Mar 16th
I think I know how the sun feels, now. It’s dying because it’s trapped here in this glass prison, having the life sucked out of it!

3:20 PM Mar 16th
The scientist is standing by a lever, waiting for me to help him open the valves wider so they can suck the smoke out of the chamber.

3:21 PM Mar 16th
But now I know the smoke isn’t killing the sun. The smoke is the *essence* of the sun, its very *life*. It has no more light to give.

3:26 PM Mar 16th
I have to let the sun free. It needs to be able to move, it needs a chance to recharge. This isn’t how things are supposed to be.

3:28 PM Mar 16th
But if I free the sun, the grassy fields will turn back into a desert. Everything these people have worked for will be undone.

3:31 PM Mar 16th
An alarm is blaring. The machinery is failing. The temperature in the chamber has been dropping. The sun is dying.

3:34 PM Mar 16th
The scientist is screaming at me, trying to get me to pull the lever. But that will only kill the sun faster. What should I do?

3:38 PM Mar 16th
There’s a ladder that leads to the top of the globe. I can see the square hole in the ceiling far above me, where the smoke is being vented.

3:40 PM Mar 16th
I’m going to climb the ladder and see if I can do anything from up there.

3:45 PM Mar 16th
I’m at the top. There’s some kind of hatch here. Maybe if I can open this… Uh-oh, the scientist is climbing up after me! Better be quick!

3:50 PM Mar 16th
Screams. Steam. A ringing in my ears. Smoke. Flame. The air around me boils. Red. Gold. A shaft of light ascends.

3:52 PM Mar 16th
There it went. A brief, startling burst of the bell. The strange thing is that I thought I saw a flash of flames behind me when I heard it.

3:52 PM Mar 16th
You know it’s cold outside when you can see your breath inside your car. It’s definitely a chilly afternoon.

3:53 PM Mar 16th
THE END

11:57 AM
Ok, these don’t look like REGULAR cumulonimbus. These ones are taller and have a red glow around the edges. And something shiny inside.

11:58 AM
Hmm, @radicalans may be right. Could be a mushroom cloud. It’s starting to go away now.

12:09 PM
Perhaps coincidentally, there was a brief but powerful windstorm about half an hour ago.

12:16 PM
I heard they were working on some new concept vehicles, but the thing that just pulled up in the parking looks *pretty* conceptual.

12:17 PM
This is so cool. I get to wear a HazMat suit!

12:19 PM
The guys in the weird car held a thingy up to me and it made this crazy clicking sound. They called it a Guider Counter or something.

12:41 PM
They’re telling me I’m lucky to be alive, and aren’t we all? The weather’s cleared up and it’s a beautiful day!

12:51 PM
The guys in funny suits want me to sign a Waver. What’s a Waver?

1:29 PM
I love how people think anyone is going to actually *read* a consent form. My time is valuable! Give me a pen and don’t bug me with details!

1:30 PM
I had to take my HazMat suit off. Now I’m standing in a room full of blinking lights and more Guider Counter things.

1:44 PM
They made me get naked for this, but I snuck my cell phone in. I’m gonna play some Tetris while I wait for something to happen.

3:41 PM
Looks like something’s happening. Crazy moving things are spinning all around me. It’s pretty cool!

3:42 PM
Ugh, I think I blacked out for a while there. The last thing I remember I was naked in a room full of spinning, flashing lights. Weird.

3:54 PM
This is new: pretty sure I’m flying right now. “Flying” is when you can move around without touching the ground, right?

4:08 PM
What do you call it when you point at something and it melts?

4:21 PM
Hmm, “Melting Point.” I like it. Thanks, @Jillers! So now I have a Melting Point AND I can fly! I wonder what else I can do.

4:22 PM
@davefp I can definitely see the ground. I’d point it out to you, but then it might melt.

4:23 PM
Ha ha! The guys in funny suits came up and started talking about the consent form I signed and how I wasn’t supposed to melt their stuff.

4:29 PM
So I melted all of THEM! And then I ate their gooey remains. Surprisingly invigorating.

4:30 PM
I’m feeling GOOD. I bet I could melt and eat the entire staff of a cheese factory. And then I could melt the cheese and eat that, too!

4:30 PM
But first I think I’m going to need a cape and some shiny boots.

TO BE CONTINUED

I wanted to write you a poem
A poem that I could dedicate to you when it was printed
In some kind of ‘collection’ or ‘anthology’ or ’memoir’

I wanted to write you a poem
The kind of poem that English professors would write about
Using words like ’soulful’ and ’evoke’ and ’counterpoint’

I wanted to write you a poem
So I did
But it wasn’t any good, so I deleted it
I just want you know that I tried