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ArtistA very happy yellow squash with long greens on its head of perfect kitchen quality, was quickly growing in the garden under a soft happy umbrella while listening to bright hammered music. It jumped quietly under a loudly talking napkin before wandering away with a heavy crying orange. It then whispered suddenly into the face of a soft, lacy, satin pillow while dancing narrowly under a blanket and searching the smooth rocks beside the face of the garden clock before gently swallowing hidden singing water all in the foreground of a mystical background of fairy tale scenarios.
The city was powered entirely by musical gears and clockwork mechanisms, everyone has a beat to follow. But on a Tuesday that felt truly like a Friday, a trio of very unusual travelers was having a serious tempo problem.
The happy go lucky Pippin, a cheerful yellow gherkin squash with a mother's face and a bouncy quick walk, had one setting: FAST! She bounced from sphere to sphere, her green fronds waving like a festive flag. Her only goal was simple: to get to the Great Pillow Oracle (or 'The Nap Guardian', as she called her) and request a dream about a self unfurling picnic blanket. Her optimism was so powerful it actually made the nearby clocks run 30 seconds fast.
But Pippin wasn’t alone. Dragging behind her, on tiny orange legs, was Ozwald, an emotional citrus ball of tears. He wasn't just crying; he was having a pulp laden melodrama. His tears were so heavy and filled with so much zest that they were the very source of the large, glistening bubbles the city used as cobblestones.
"I am... chronologically incompatible!" Ozwald wailed, a fresh cascade of tears fueling another bubble. "I fell a full minute behind my ripening schedule since the sunrise chime! I am a citrus failure! Oh, the pulp of it all!"
Floating dramatically over both of them was their protective, and often screeching guardian, Barnaby of Napkin. He held a magnificent gold lace umbrella over the pair. He didn't do it to protect them from rain; he did it to shield them from 'Time Dander' (dust motes of ancient gears) and the 'Solar Sync' rays that could cause you to instantly grow older or younger at random. And that scream? Barnaby was the city’s conductor. Whenever the tempo of life got a little off key, he screamed the correct notes. Currently, he was screaming an E-flat for Ozwald's tears and a G-major for Pippin's bounce, which was creating musical static for the whole neighborhood.
Their destination was the Great Pillow Oracle herself. The face of the Oracle, serene and nested in an ornate lace frame, floated just under a giant clock with sun and moon motifs. A cluster of floating musical notes drifted from her tranquil expression, indicating she was in a very soft, melodic dream state.
They were in a hurry. You see, the music notes floating around the Oracle were her dreams, and those dreams kept the entire clock city in perfect harmony. But Ozwald’s grief was causing the surrounding clockwork buildings to go out of sync. Gears were grinding. Hot air balloons were floating vertically instead of drifting.
"THE CHRONOLOGY IS FALTERING!" Barnaby shrieked, striking a pose with his umbrella. "Ozwald, you are a whole C-major below the required resonance! Pippin, you are ahead of the city beat! A temporal disruption is imminent!"
"Oh, look! The clock tower is playing jazz!" Pippin chirped, totally missing the existential threat.
They finally arrived before the Great Pillow Oracle. Ozwald lay down, his little orange face contorted in a weep. Barnaby floated over, screaming a dramatic all-stop! command.
"ORACLE OF SOFTNESS!" Barnaby bellowed, a new tone of command. "WE PRESENT THE PULPY DISASTER! His internal chronometer is lagging! The city’s tempo rubato has become a syncopation crisis! We demand a dream of temporal alignment!"
The Oracle didn't open her eyes. Instead, one of the floating music notes, a large, elegant bass clef, detached from the group and settled softly onto Ozwald's face.
There was a moment of silence. A small 'tick' from the main clock.
Ozwald took a deep breath. His crying stopped. A tiny smile, the very first one Pippin had ever seen, appeared on his citrus face. A small puff of golden powder, like powdered sunlight and cinnamon, drifted from him.
"I... I feel... right," Ozwald whispered. He wasn't just on time; he felt perfectly seasoned.
A bubble popped. A hot air balloon released a celebratory burst of steam. The clocks began to chime in unison, a perfectly composed symphony. Barnaby, with a grand, theatrical bow, spun his gold lace umbrella and lowered it, signaling the crisis was over.
"Oh, look!" Pippin said, pointing at Ozwald. "His smile made the Oracle's pillow softer! And he doesn't need to cry anymore!" She did a little dance.
"Everything is now... perfect," Barnaby declared, striking his final pose.
The happy go lucky trio of Chronopolis Symphonica, the optimistic squash, the aligned citrus, and the dramatic napkin conductor, strolled off under the umbrella, humming a perfectly composed, entirely off the wall tune, while the Great Pillow Oracle dream drifted on, ensuring the city’s heart kept ticking just right.
