The Picnic Girl

 The Picnic Girl

by Stephen Unger

It was a midsummer's day Picnic. It began with the greenest grass. The sprinklers showered the plants that lined the sidewalks. The ripples played their symphonies in the lake water. The  mocking birds plagiarized  poems to their nests, and the   children laughed on  the swing set. 

It was  a midsummer's day Picnic. The sun  dreamt of this day.  The Picnic girl set her feet in the grass, the children stopped and seemed to stand and all recite together. "Picnic girl, Picnic girl." They repeated a few times and went back to play.

The Picnic girl's pink lips puckered under her straw hat. Her yellow sundress was as bright as the sun's surface. The light around her radiated like the corona, a sight so majestic that any comet would only dream of drawing it's energy from her.   It was almost like watching an attractive scarecrow that spooked all the sorrows away.

She sat and set  out the blanket like a bed sheet. She smoothed out the wrinkles in the space-time continuum and smoothed out the basket.  Picnic girl, Picnic girl, I thought in my mind. I could hear the children's voices in the outer planets. They repeated her nickname, until they returned themselves to their parents.  

I entered the gate to the park, and  she was already there. Early, as always.   I sat down on the blanket and was careful not to knock anything over.

She prepared the bottle of a bizarre golden bottle of booze and uncorked it. It wasn't made of gold, but layered with a golden plastic wrapper. The label was in some Eastern European language, in which i knew nothing about. Poured both glasses. The double hand-washed glass glistened in the sun. I pressed the glass against my lips and took a sip. The taste was sparking but the scent of the wine was like honey.

A few more sips and I laid down next to her. Not sure war to do next, I took her hand. The only blanket was that of the sun's warmth, but other than this it was a still moment. Both of our fingers intwined like a double helix. The molecules on our skin seemingly bonding for the brief moment in our lifetimes. A few moments later I felt like I  was getting smaller each time.  Smaller and smaller I became. ANd my feet and arms were getting shorter. I looked over at the Picnic girl who was also shrinking as fast as I was. But the area around us grew bigger, and pretty soon I was as not even looking over one of the ripples that had formed in the blanket.

"This might be a dream, ."I said.

"Or reality," cried the Picnic girl.

We sat up and walked around. I climbed to the top of the blanket ripple and surveyed the area. Everything looked the same only bigger.  

"Oh no, I'm so small, I can't believe this." the Picnic girl continued to cry.

"Look at the bright side," I said. "I'm as small as you are and if we can figure out how to change back we'll both be just fine."

I took her hand and led her down the sloping curl in the blanket. The rest of it was pretty smooth.

Luckily, the Picnic girl was so good at laying out blankets. Other than the temporary ripples of where we were sitting, the rest of the blanket was smooth as a snow filled soccer field.

"Look, at how awesome you are at laying down the blankets," I said.

"That's true," she said.  She actually smiled and followed me.

"Do we know where we're going?" she asked.

"No, but maybe if we eat something, we'll change back,"I  said.

We walked for a while before the heat was too much. We found a bit of shade casted by a red apple which was about the size of a house.  The skin of the apple was as hard as concrete. 

"I didn't know this would happen," said the Picnic girl. "It's my fault. I'm sorry. The man in the wine shop said this was the best wine they had."

I could see from our point of view that the wine, indeed, was pretty darn good. 

We continued our path towards a plate with two slices of bread. Like the wonderful woman she was, she left the knife leaning from the blanket to the plate. 

We climbed onto the flimsy  plastic knife. 

When I took a step she'd almost fall off, and when she took a step I almost fell too. "Let's walk in harmony." 

We both took a step at the same time and stayed in complete unison. Here I was  step-by-step with the Picnic girl. I never dreamed this moment would come, but indirectly over a fine bottle of wine and a perfect day it was happening.

We reached the top, and fortunately the bread was so easy to take a part that we both feasted on San Francisco sour dough bread. A couple bites and we were already full.  

We waited for our bodies to change, but nothing.  I then realized that time itself was the only remedy. I took a few pieces and stuffed them in my pocket. 

We climbed off the plate.  

"I think we need water," I said.

"Stupid me, I didn't bring any," said the Picnic girl.

I pointed to the lake. "That's where we'll go."

We trotted to the edge of the blanket. 

 Beyond the edge was a corn-field  of alfalfa. 

I started to move in, but the Picnic girl would not move. She stood there like a rusty tractor, unaware of her own bravery. How could I expect a frail being to be brave? I watched as the majestic clouds drifted and revealed an ocean blue sky. The dandelions florets floated along the rush of wind like white paper lanterns.  

"You'll just have to follow me and just imagine that nothing will happen."

"But the birds will eat us," she worried.

A few early pigeons landed close by. They were simply arrogant flying rats waiting in a sea of grass waiting for a lazy meal to stroll on by. They sat there pecking at earthworms and ants in the grass, and we weren't feeling like becoming one of them.

"If we stay down, they'll hardly see us. But we have to stay down."

 I spotted a dandilion sprouting just a few feet away. 

We got down on our knees and started to crawl. The Picnic girl was dressed so lovely in her yellow sundress, that i almost felt bad that she'd end up getting it soiled.  

We crawled and the Picnic girl nearly lost her hat as a gust of wind nearly blew it off. One of the birds spotted this, then the others and suddenly we were surrounded by hungry pigeons. There chirps and cries of their hungry belly's yearning for a couple plump humans. 

We were only inches away from the dandelion but almost too far to make a move. 

Just then I heard the children running and chanting "Picnic Girl Picnic girl. Where is she mommy? Did she leave with her friend? But i see her blanket, and her food where did they go?  Maybe they're playing hide and seek." The kids scrambled to play hide and seek and one boy trotted by the pigeons and scared them. 

"Now!" I yelled. 

I ran up to the dandelion and shook it with has much force as I could. The florets began to detach. "Grab onto one," I yelled.

Hundreds more flooded around us. She grabbed onto a floret and then me. The wind carried us higher as the pigeons were frightened away.

Too high for them to fly, they didn't even bother chasing us down as we drifted down towards the water. We landed right on the shoreline of the lake. We let the florets go, and they drifted off into distant space. 

The Picnic girl took sips of the water, but nothing happened. Only tears ran down her face. "Nothing works, we'll never change back.” 

By the lake there were a few dead leaves. I tested one to see if it would float, and it did. I dragged it into the lake and got in. I waited. "Well?"

She hopped in and we floated around. I used a narrow leaf as an oar and we set sail on our dry leaf canoe. Despite our condition, it was still the perfect day. The sight of the park from the lake was a view that no one would ever see. “It's wonderful,” stated the Picnic girl. “I'm glad I came.”

The contrast between the grass and the water, juxtaposition between the sky and the land and the rarest of visual symphonies that only the randomness  of   mother nature could only conjure up. At that moment her slightly soiled yellow sundress, and the idea of being insignificant to the rest of the park was only an after thought.

"The Picnic girl, there she is," said a young girl, of about 7. Her younger sister brought over a red helium balloon. She handed me the balloon and we grabbed on, and we drifted back to the blanket. Slowly we regained size and landed on the blanket. Perfect timing on this perfect pristine day. We closed our eyes, only to end a midsummer's day dream. Our eyes opened again, I woke next to the Picnic girl, her hand still clasped in mine like a door's brass hinge and the kids all yelling. "wake up, wake up Picnic girl." The chanting repeated and we poured another glass of elixir in hopes that the dream would begin again.