A few beads of oily perspiration oozed down Jeff’s forehead as he stared out the window, studying the pair of golden arches that lay menacingly outside his house. As he wondered about the purpose of the arches, he felt a rather uncomfortable mixture of bile and escargot slowly creep up his esophagus, and he fought the urge to vomit. “Uh oh,” Jeff thought. “Could it be?” While Jeff’s mind, dulled from years of rich food and an idyllic existence, wasn’t as sharp as it used to be, even a decerebrate dog could deduce that the two arches creeping up on Jeff’s house weren’t coming in peace.
By now, the orange and red hues of the sunset glimmered off the water, and the shadows of the redwood trees lengthened. A cool sea breeze cooled off the California coast, and, as typical for a day in the late summer, a few birds chirped in the sky, as if to taunt the unfortunate beings trapped by gravity on a two-dimensional plane. As the local Crescent City meteorologist expressed, it was probably the nicest day of the year—the perfect Goldilocks day. A few elderly couples meandered along the forest trails, while a group of ruddy teenagers straggled along the beach causing mischief, as they were wont to do.
Of course, Jeff was denied the privilege of his customary little walk among the redwoods that evening, as he, with increasing urgency, sat under the glow of a fluorescent lamp, sifting through a pile of old receipts dating back to 2004. On finding a McDonald’s receipt, he’d find the address on Streetview, and give himself a moment to recall memories of that particular McDonald’s. Then he’d repeat the process with the next McDonalds. At about nine at night, Jeff made a mental note that he was missing his favorite show, Jeopardy. Briefly, he deliberated about taking a break, but he decided that determining the origin of the strange double arch outside the window was worth it. For all his faults, Jeff was a persistent man.
The clock ticked on, and the pile had barely diminished by midnight. Still, Jeff kept at the laborious task, as an ever-growing array of empty coffee mugs and tea bags took their position among the already-searched receipts. By 2 in the morning, Jeff was done. It was four hours after his usual bedtime, and his adrenaline rush was beginning to wear off, replaced by the pervasive gloom of fatigue. He marched upstairs, neglecting to shower or wash up, crawled into bed, and fell into a deep sleep.
About an hour later, a voice called out to Jeff in his sleep. Instantaneously, Jeff was transported out of his little cottage in a northern California forest, and into the arid Idaho desert. “Here,” the voice said, “was where you were born. Look familiar?”
Of course, it was not familiar to Jeff, as he was only a tiny root when he was yanked out of the ground by a tractor, thrown onto a rusted 1957 Chevy truck, and transported to the nearest town. As Jeff relived his past memories, he began to pick out landmarks that seemed to stick out in his alcohol-dulled memories--the small oily rivulet on the right side of the road, the little rickety footbridge, the set of bent metal bars on the side of the highway.
Again, the voice shook Jeff’s dream. “These—“
Jeff jumped awake. A pool of cold sweat had begun to dissolve his starchy frame, as he noticed with disgust that he’d have to do the laundry—for the second time in a week. He thought it was a dream, one of those—what-do-you-call-its—intrusive thoughts, they say, that take over one’s thoughts for a time. Maybe after all, it was real. He looked out his back window and felt his stomach drop, as the pair of golden arches now had surrounded his house and had begun to squeeze it like a boa constrictor.
Of course it was real. Everything—his past life—wasn’t a dream. “It was…real…all…along,” Jeff muttered, a solitary tear sliding down his cheek. He remembered the time when he’d seen the baby tiger whose cage fell off the zoo transport truck. Yes, a little sadist was he, back then.
He remembered torturing the tiger, poking and prodding it with a twig until the tiger was bruised and bloodied. He remembered picking the lock of the tiger, so it could be put out of its misery once and for all. He remembered the unexpected ferocity the tiger attacked with—after all, Jeff was only a baby potato with a stick.
Jeff remembered the most shameful moment of his daydreams (or, as he was discovering now, his past), as he huffed and puffed, chasing the clouds of black smoke that trailed a dented white Toyota. He remembered the bloody one-eyed baby tiger limping after him, wailing for its mother. And of course, he remembered probably the most painful moment of the dream (or reality, whichever you prefer)—when he thudded into a giant oak tree sticking out of the desert like a sore thumb.
The little potato snapped back into the present. He knew that he’d deserve whatever was going to happen, and that maybe he wasn’t as innocent as he thought he was. After all, nobody is free from sin, right?
And thus, the spirit of America—the epitome of American corporations—the worldwide reminder of America’s omnipotence—claimed one more potato.
Thoughts?
