By Will Musgrove
It took a few days to figure out what was floating in the sky. It wasn’t until I looked up at the miles-long object, my mind slack like someone staring at a Magic Eye poster, and said, “Looks like an ice cream sandwich.” Luckily, it was high enough that the cold, thin air kept it frozen, but its enormity blocked out the sun as it hovered above the city like a solid black cloud.
We hoped to destroy the ice cream sandwich before it could destroy us. The plan: fly a squadron of helicopters to it, attach tow cables to the cookies sandwiching the ice cream, and drag the thing over the ocean, where we’d blow it up safely. Over thumping helicopter blades, some of us shouted, “Why an ice cream sandwich? Why not something else?” Others replied, “Why anything? It’s here now. That’s all that matters.”
We embedded the cables and revved the helicopters’ engines, but the ice cream sandwich wouldn’t budge. There was finger-pointing. Those who’d asked questions blamed those who hadn’t for not thinking things through. Those who hadn’t asked questions blamed those who had for jinxing us. I tried to remember the last time I’d eaten an ice cream sandwich, what it’d tasted like. I quit when the calories of this distant dessert started to add up. Regardless, we needed a new plan.
We retreated to our command center to brainstorm some ideas. Giant fans? Or, if we blew it up over the city, maybe everything wouldn’t get that sticky. I pitched handing out forks and having everyone consume the ice cream sandwich bit by bit, but no one listened. “What if we just pretend it’s not up there?” one of us said. “A mosquito bit me last week. At first, it itched like crazy, but once I stopped worrying about it, it went away.” Most of us agreed to act as if there weren’t a massive ice cream sandwich in the sky. The handful who didn’t formed their own religion, eventually declaring it wrong to eat ice cream.
At first, people had trouble not looking up. Some were made to wear makeshift visors similar to those cones a veterinarian puts on a dog to keep it from chewing its stitches. Then everyone got used to walking around as if there weren’t something threatening us from above. Some got so good they could glance up and comment on the blueness of the sky or the puffiness of a cloud. Even the followers of the new ice cream religion eventually couldn’t see the enormous ice cream sandwich. You’d ask them to point to it, and they’d point in some random direction nowhere near the object of their belief.
Everyone has gotten used to not seeing it except for me. I tried to escape. I drove out of the city, but the ice cream sandwich was endless, so I turned around and went home. Now, I’m preparing for the inevitable. Now, I wash my hands with Coca-Cola and run my sticky palms over everything, picking up dirt and lint and leaves. I gargle milk, sugar, and salt, again trying to remember the taste of my childhood, before ice cream sandwiches were bad for me. I watch the creamy mixture swirl down the drain, my saliva accompanying it.
Every day, the ice cream sandwich gets closer to the city, dripping dollops of vanilla on buildings and people like bird poop. Standing on the roof of the command center, I skim my fingertips across its chocolate surface. Soon I’ll be able to grab fistfuls of it. I often imagine growing big enough to devour it in a few bites. I imagine licking my fingers and gazing down at everyone. I imagine them fleeing in terror until they force themselves to forget I’m even there.
Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Florida Review, the Pinch, The Cincinnati Review, The Forge, Passages North, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove or at williammusgrove.com.
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