Lantern

The lantern lost its light. We sent out search parties for it; they carried bags of sticky shadows to catch it. They looked under rocks, where worms said, "please give me some peace and put the stones back down." They also peeked inside tree stumps, where raccoons bit their noses and escaped chimpanzees played the bongo drum on their heads. Even the rivers were examined, but glimmers only proved to be false gold, fishing tackle, and valuable diamonds. We cracked the lantern, hoping it'd tell us something it was holding back, contained within its oil and wick. The lamp's metal pieces exploded, drove themselves into our brains. That's when we found it, the unconscious flash of neural lightning we'd been seeking. The alphabet was branded in us with manic stamps of fire. A ran away with B over the moon, C danced with the D, and the rest of the letters played squash and tennis on the thick courts of our new ideas. The search parties were brought back, given a heavy lunch of ham, squid, chocolate, and cherry tomatoes. We were trying a whole new theory of food, and it didn't matter if the searchers became sick, because we'd just develop new medicines for nausea. We'd cure all illnesses, bring together mortal enemies, and write a story about a source of enlightenment no one's ever heard of, just to prove we can do everything.