Cotton Candy Castles


On a bright sunny day in the middle of July two men stood apart, watching the sky.

Separated by a two lane highway Jared and John anxiously studied the composition of the clouds, while secretly eyeing each other. Behind Jared rose a construction, cotton candy pink in complexion, billowing with inflatable rafts, colorful towels, and decorated Ts. Of equal extravagance arose the building behind John, though of brilliant egg-yolk yellow instead.

Their similar inviting palaces of beach-side splendor beckoned to early morning tourists, of which there were only a few.

“You check the weather today John?” said Jared from his side of the street. He did not yell, almost as if he did not wish to be heard, but the lack of engines on the pavement created a stillness so complete the swish of fabric and inflated plastic seemed a hurricane.

“Looked clear when I checked last night,” said John. His foot twitched once or twice, as if he intended to cross the empty road, but restrained himself.

“Ah,” said Jared. “Ah.”

He seemed content with his observation, but John wasn't.

“Ah... what?”

Jared just looked up and down the road. There wasn't much point in looking down it though. All the traffic came from the west, which in Jared's opinion made it up. He tapped his shoe agitatedly against the curb, but still didn't speak.

“I said, ah... what? Hello! I know you can hear me, and I'm going to keep talking until...” and John continued in ever more outrageous and obnoxious manner.

Jared could have ignored his opposite, or if he didn't have the constitution to do so in the open, gone inside. But he couldn't and he didn't desire to.

He looked out from under the brim of his blue baseball cap with a grin on his face and a glint in his eye, “I might a seen something this morning.”

A car came into view, and as it passed John saw Jared raise his voice in an exaggerated yell, with hands raised and head back, but the sound, if not the act, was lost in the noise.

“What did you say?” said John across the renewed calm, but he saw in response Jared turn away and begin to walk back to his building. Looking carefully both ways, as his mother had taught him, John sprinted over the patchily grassed sand embankment, crossed the white line, dashed yellow, and then its mirror image.

Jared was so close to the building, John could see his eyes in the window, and how they widened as he recognized the flying tackle already in progress.

Slamming together, scrabbling in the sand and a row of T-shirts which had fallen over them, John and Jared finally lay exhausted on their backs, watching the silent road.

“What did you know?” said John, his hair falling across his face.

“Nothing,” said Jared, “Not a thing, but you had to...” He picked himself off, turned and entered Jared's Joyland. He thought to himself, it was still early. There was time to have his revenge.

The first time John noticed something odd, was when he was walking the perimeter. It was 8:30am, two customers had already come and gone, and he wanted stroll before the carloads of screaming fathers, mothers, and children constrained him to his register. But he stopped when he saw a deflated flamingo raft, its once proud plastic facsimile of feathers limp and without luster. He bent down to inspect it, and a series of Got Sun? T-shirts fell from the sky like a shimmering rainbow. Aggravated, he rushed over to see the line that held them up had failed, but this seemed impossible. He turned back to see an increasing amount of beach memorabilia imploding, as if they were all undergoing spontaneous combustion.

Without knowing what to do, he ran screaming inside, and ducked behind a counter. You see, he did understand what he was doing. Acting. And slowly, oh so slowly, he raised his head, and tilted it just so, as to allow him to see over the top of the counter without showing his forehead. He waited, and waited.

And finally, he saw, sneaking, suspicious Jared look out from a clump of bushes across the road, holding a BB gun.

“Why that...” though John. But he didn't move. He waited, and saw Jared take a few more shots. John cried as his favorite smiling sun inflatable shone no more. Splat it went onto the pavement from where he had precariously placed it upon the roof. John waited 'til Jared became bored. No agitated John, no enjoyment. Jared crawled from the bushes to the back of Joyland, and John became busy.

A few hours later when Jared went back outside, curious about the lack of customers, he saw a congregation at John's July Special. Yet it was small for the time of day, even if it was significantly larger than his own.

Then he saw why. His whole parking lot was no longer a sandy oasis off the main road. It was an aquarium full of his own deflated giant ocean animals: sharks, crabs, starfish, and sea horses. The mass of them blocked access to the store. Jared collapsed into a beach chair conveniently located by the door, and then sprawled into the edge of the pond. The screws in the chair had been loosened, and had fallen out when Jared sat in it. The same was true of a number of other chairs, (and from John's perspective across the street) Jared's brain.

But John wasn't happy. The customers weren't coming today, and then he was positively frightened. Jared was coming.

They stood as they had that morning outside, facing each other across the empty street. All the customers had been shooed out by John, and to an observer (which there were none), the two men appeared to be flamboyant cowboys at a standoff.

“You ruined my parking lot,” said Jared, one hand grasping a sodden great white shark, while the other clutched a complex water gun.

“You destroyed my merchandise,” said John as he fingered an inflatable red boom stick, and kicked a deflated multicolored surfboard.

In a burst of vibrant color the two flew at each other, with tank tops, Frisbees, volley balls, and inflatable objects of every shape and hue.

They fought without injury, in a scrum, until they were wet with their own perspiration.

“Wait,” said John stepping back from the melee. His octopus had only two arms with air left in them, and the blue color was stained with black from a bag of charcoal.

“What?” said Jared, float-able beer cozy still raised to strike.

“I'm wet, but because it's raining.”

Both men looked at the sky for the second time that day. Then sheepishly they put down their improvised weapons, shook hands, and returned to their stores.

Just as John was about to enter, he turned around and yelled to Jared.

“Same time tomorrow?”

The reply,

“You bet!”







Comments