by Bob the Dog

A flickering fluorescent light birthed John Rainwater in a discount dental clinic, not under any lucky star. That buzzing hum lodged itself in his head for life, making him vibrate slightly faster than the rest of humanity, like a blender blade someone jammed into the wrong groove. This explains why, on the day the universe cracked open like an overripe avocado, John alone registered no surprise.

It began with the penguin.

This penguin claimed no Antarctic heritage, nor could zoology explain its existence. It waddled into John’s dingy New Mexico apartment sporting galactic sunglasses and reeking faintly of diesel and gin. “The name’s Lars,” the penguin declared in a voice made gravelly from too many existential cigarettes. “I’ve got a job for you. You’ll need a saw.”

John, about halfway through his Saturn V rocket-sized bong rip, blinked at Lars. “I don’t own a saw,” he confessed, “but I do have a bread knife that once sawed through a Buick seatbelt.”

“Close enough,” Lars declared. “The mission: extraction. The object: destiny. Payment: survival.”

Then she materialized.

She didn’t walk – she unfolded like an origami crane suddenly deciding it preferred goddess-hood than a Japanese curiosity. Four arms shimmered with jewels that suspiciously resembled Louvre gift shop acquisitions. Her eyes contained galaxies that make you consider trading your spleen just to watch them blink.

“John Rainwater,” she said, four hands finding her hips, elbows arranging themselves like punctuation marks in an erotic sonnet. “We require you.”

John coughed on his bong smoke. “Required for what?”

“To saw open reality’s crust,” she replied. “Obviously.”

They trekked across the desert: Lars waddling like a feathery metronome, John clutching his serrated bread knife as if proper angles might coax universe-explanations from it, and the four-armed woman sashaying as though destiny had never once tripped her.

She called herself Calyx. “I hail from a quadrant where sensuality serves as weaponry and bureaucracy is punished.”

“That sounds exhausting,” John observed.

“Breathing without poetry is exhausting,” she countered, brushing one hand against his arm, sending sparks up his spine like an oscillating neon No Vacancy sign.

At the desert fissure – a glowing seam in the earth’s crust pulsing like a sleeping god’s belly – Lars plucked a cigarette he’d cached in his feathers. “Saw here,” the penguin commanded, pointing his flipper at the fissure.

John examined his bread knife. “You want me to saw open the earth?”

“Not the earth,” Calyx corrected. “Reality’s contract. The fine print has expired.”

John pondered this. He reflected on his years wasted in customer service for a tech startup that sold virtual toasters for existential bread. He remembered the buzzing fluorescent light that witnessed his birth. He considered his unforgivable middle name: Earl.

Then he began to saw with his butter knife.

The fissure burst open like a piñata, but instead of candy, intangible possibilities spilled forth: glowing fish with wings, subway trains chirping madrigals, books that wrote their readers instead of vice versa.

Calyx stepped forward, four arms raised like an alien messiah. “This is the new contract,” she proclaimed. “Rainwater, sign it with your breath.”

John inhaled air that tasted of cinnamon and gasoline. He exhaled, and his name etched itself onto the glowing seam, in Sanskrit.

Suddenly, the desert rippled. Mountains bent like magician spoons. Lars removed his galactic sunglasses, revealing eyes that were miniature black holes. He bowed and proclaimed, “Well done, Johnny boy. You’ve reset the odds.”

Every cosmic adventure is better with love although its irresponsible cousin lust seldom demands it. But on that night, beneath a sky stitched from purple velvet and migraine lightning, Calyx wrapped all four arms around John. He felt destiny embracing him while fate simultaneously strangled him.

“Why me?” he whispered, intoxicated by her perfume as the stars actively rearranged themselves into obscene hieroglyphs.

“Because you’re John Rainwater,” she explained. “Rainwater happens when the sky gets too emotional. Leaks in the system birthed you.”

By morning, Lars had vanished, leaving only gin-soaked footprints. The fissure had sealed itself, rendering the desert smooth and smug, as if nothing had occurred. Calyx kissed John’s forehead with lips that felt like jazz saxophones. “I must return to my quadrant now,” she said. “Remember: saws serve purposes beyond wood. They slice through illusions.”

Then she vanished in a shimmer of Louvre souvenir-shop jewels.

John Rainwater stood alone in the desert. His bread knife now lay dull, its serrations flattened into smoothness. He lit Lars’s cigarette, inhaled deeply, and laughed that made the coyotes pause mid-howl and reconsider their careers.

For the first time in his life, the fluorescent hum in his skull fell silent.

And that, dear reader, tells how John Rainwater became the only man to saw open reality with a bread knife, fall into a four-armed goddess’s embrace, and share a cigarette with a penguin named Lars.

The rest of us continue to struggle to catch up.