The Truth of What Happened to Dandy Meters

Dandy Meters always twisted reality to his will. He once saw ghost gum trees in a book about Australia, and got an idea. He tapped the book with his finger, and sneezed. It was a simple, little sneeze.

Hundreds of ghost gum trees sprouted, no, they exploded out of the ground like the long, frenzied arms of zombies. There were no more sidewalks after that, just ghost gum trees, as far as his eyes could see.

That moment changed Dandy’s life forever. He knew he’d never be the same. For one thing, he met a nice girl named Bettina and turned her into a Himalayan cow.

He wanted a change of pace, “so anyway, wild cows are cool,” and Bettina became his companion.

Dandy made everything smell like chocolate for a while. Then he switched over to sour gummy worms. Then lavender, “cuz sure.”

One month in particular was a whirligig of action. He had at his command tens of thousands of shiny baubles and tiny airplanes spinning dizzy around his head. An army of colorful toy bots zipped underfoot, all doing his bidding. Usually, they’d bring him ice cream, but after a while even that got boring and he upgraded his minions to something better.

“I don’t want you to fetch me treats anymore,” Dandy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now, be blades of grass. Just grow and feed Things, like Bettina.” He pointed his stubby little finger and wiggled it a little. Then he made himself sneeze, and the change was made.

The Truth of What Happened to Dandy Meters

Bettina bent down and munched on the fresh field of tall grasses, but naturally, she wished to be a girl again. Bettina sensed a great potential in Dandy, but not necessarily for good. She spoke of it to him once and made him terribly mad, as she knew it would. Bettina feared what would happen should he truly lose his temper, but she was brave. She’d seen a great number of things in this bovine life, well enough to know there was no point at all in never taking risks.

One day, Dandy balled up a portion of city that was quite spoiled and run down, terribly polluted. He made everyone go away and be somewhere else, then yanked up the mess and bundled it together. The sphere of oil-stained dirt and putrid city floated in the air like a dirty bubble, splotched and stained, a blackened moon.

Bettina poked Dandy with her one long horn. He tried to swat it away, but she prodded again, this time a little too forcefully. Dandy lost his balance, tripped and slammed his face smack against the bubble. It wasn’t soapy and it definitely wasn’t clean. He pulled his face from the muck and sneezed, hard.

Suddenly, there was no more bubble, there was no more city inside the bubble, and no more wild, bovine Bettina. Now everything was just dandy. Bettina stood up tall, and sighed.