What do you want?
I'll have a double scoop of planetary bliss, please.
Which planet?
I suppose Saturn, sir.
Saturn? You just get one scoop with Saturn. Neptune, Venus, and Jupiter you can get a double scoop.
Oh, golly. I did not expect that answer. I was really looking forward to a Saturn but even more to a double scoop. I suppose Jupiter would be okay, but I'm not sure I have the stomach for it.
Look, kid, have a Neptune. It's close in size to Saturn, as far as I can tell, and the scoops are blue.
See, I rather thought one orange and one red. They really seem to be the kind I'd like the most.
At that moment, a dark and slinky bulge approached the shore from the sea. An empty ship? No, no masts or sails. Might it be a whale? The boy was not the only one who noticed as other children from all around were sprinting to see what the large lump was.
The boy was just about to run to join them, but the man shoved his hand outright with a double scoop of Neptune bliss. The boy shook his head, "Sorry, sir, but I did not place the order. I hope you enjoy it." And with that he ran as fast as he could to the beach to gawk at the hump the other kids were now climbing upon while removing clumps of seaweed, jellyfish tentacles, kelp, and the remains of flotsam.
The first shriek was one of delight. The lumpy hump was a man, a drowned man at that. They played with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again. When the adults spotted them, they were frightened and spread the alarm.
The alarm was not heard by the gentle boy on the other side of the hill who had trodden over to look for landscapes to paint for his sick grandmother who lie in bed at home with a stubborn head cold. The boy became ill at the sight of a maiden not in distress but in success. Not for nothing did the boy tie a hoe to his garden greens, for such an encounter he was prepared.
It was while walking with his hydration map that he had understood what to do in cases of distress that were his and not that of another. He set his tools down and began building crafts that could come in handy if he needed to call for a witch to cleanse the valley of all sensuality as the maiden was a ripe bit nasty in his mind if not in actuality.
When the maiden saw the boy she thought, "A relaxing hug is what he needs." With that, she galloped toward him like a mare in need, a mare indeed. This did not sit well with the boy as he was barely untying the twine he planned to use to create a tether to tie the maiden to his spirit rock. Urgently he unspun his twine, but she was on him in no time.
She sang quickly to him, seeing he was stressed. "Smiling sleep, sickly sweet, I travel to massage. My prayer is primed for positivity. No phone calls offer emotional identification. Remember, karate kicks out Tai Chi reflexive incantation."
The boy, recognizing the song his mother sang to him at bedtime, breathed in easily her earthy spirituality. He thought to himself, "I Can Do This!" and responded in kind, "Tai chi emails on karate reflect our commonality. The contemplation of musical visualization gives us cozy comfort. Stuffed animals share our feelings for needs fulfillment."
The maiden was no maiden as she said to the boy, "A princess I shall be. Please, ask me, what am I in store for thee?"
"Deep breathing cats!" the boy blurted. He began crying and asking for help. "Please, I have positive qualities I'm trying to develop." He quoted his father's production of stories about nature appreciation and told of his grandfather's piano paintings inspired by cartoon drawings on Anti-Dada. "Writing about photography is supposed to clean and organize plans for achieving goals."
The princess giggled and ruffled the boy's hair. "It is a choice to decide to list thank you notes in letter writing for invalids."
Back on the beach, the body of the drowned man had been taken away. The man was huge and becoming larger by the minute. "Maybe some drowned men keep growing after they die," said a villager.
"Nonsense!" shouted Magwolie, the town freshener. "Dead men don't grow because they've drowned. They grow because they've got shark's blood in their teeth." Ah, yes, everyone mumbled, not sure if it was true, but not wanting to question the man who rid their huts and houses of bad smells during the Wicking times when the weather was wild and wooly.
The man was a stranger, not from their parts. There were only two dozen families in the area and none looked remotely like this man who had deeply green skin and was three sizes larger than the largest of them. That and no one had reported themselves missing for over a year.
"It's time to get back to sea," said the man who might have been mayor had they had such a designation.
"Why not hide in the forest instead?" asked a woman who knew a thing or two.
"The mighty green forest," asked Magwolie. "I hear a voice in the chorus and a choice for the porous. Why not spare a buffalo while we're at it?" It was a question without an answer, one everyone present had heard previously, knowing it marked the end of the discussion.
That was when the boy and the princess happened upon them.
"Ah, a maiden come to claim her dead husband, yes?"
The princess answered, "No, I'm here to align Jupiter with its twin, also known as Jupiter. And I'm a princess, not a maiden, though it seems to be a common mistake in these parts."
Uggle the Bug Eater said, "Two strangers in one day. One, a man; the other, a woman."
Hashfastfrash added, "One dead, one alive."
The gentle boy who'd come with the maiden recognized his twin brother and asked him why he hadn't gotten a double scoop. "No Saturn, only Neptune, Venus, and Jupiter." The princess shrieked, "Jupiter! Yes, it is you, gentle boy, and you, double scoop, you're the twins aligning! Jupiter and Jupiter."
"But are names are Stupider and Stupider," said double scoop. Magwolie confirmed it with a grunt.
The princess protested, "It's not true. On a broken wing, a name will be seized, but utterly confused. It'll be given twice, as it should. The true name, though, will come when a drowned man grows in front of their eyes." And the drowned man did grow and keep growing, so much so that they hacked him to pieces and fed him to the Worm Eater under the Bridge for Fools.
The two boys smiled and the villagers applauded. A silence followed until Jestin Thyme asked, "Now what?"
The princess sighed and said, "Well, nothing so much here, though the boys have better names and I should think that plenty. Perhaps Jupiter will shine on his namesakes? But for me, I now can marry Sir Givesalot and live with the dairy queen under a grate moat built to prevent cow slippage."
Everyone agreed popsicles are super cool.
