Gum Drums' Basement

I. Gum Drums’ Scene

My scene looked like St. Paul, Minnesota except in my scene none of the buildings had any lights. Also, my town was so damp and so wet. Irretrievably so. My scene’s dampness, on account of the city-wide wet, slowed down everything. In a city of malaise, wet toads, mushrooms, fungus and forest-sized heavy air, myself and the neighbors settled out of every main floor and we fell in love with basements. To put things in a different light, my town was wet. Everybody had chosen to sink and stop like endless dew in the mud. Ours was a seeped-in lot. Uniform slow rot. Brownstone apartments soaking next to Limestone Museums soaking in old, standing water. We had a fire station as slow-moving as a ring of oak. Even as I would go on sitting in my green chair, with the lamp on a stand burning as brightly as it could, with the bright pointed towards my clothes, and even with all the heat I owned, the fabric was never dry enough for me to rest my hands. Foggy fungus and fog mushrooms took root in my head. Along with the rest of my town, I watched night roll in from the bottom of the picture and we went to sleep.

II. Gum Drums wakes up and gets up

I woke up and got up and from there I took the fog off of my porthole basement window. My basement was to the right of a garage, below an empty house, surrounded by damp soil and sprouts covered with dew and mud. Past the mud, in front of the gray-orange horizon was the shadow of a city skyline. Opal and opaque, the city looked cool and tremendous to the touch. That was the evening I opened my window and heard “start walking”, so I did, but not before filling a backpack with an offering made up of whatever was lying in my windowsill that might be desirable. I came up with coins, a hat, money, a heart-shaped locket, and a CD. Gifts on my back, I left, leaving for the City Center.

III. What is there at the City Center, Drums?

I forgot to mention that there was one building with lights hidden in the scene full of lights-out buildings. Namely, the Snare Drums Hotel. Filled with wildflowers, sunshine, crispness, crispy air, solid lines, definition, copper pots, sweet bell music, and sweet air, the Snare Drums Hotel was an obvious place for pilgrimage. Bickering and lovely families alike had made a point of picnicking on the lawns leading to the Snare Drums Hotel. Even still, the majority of us had become so accustomed to the unanimous dark wet that a picnic below, or even the sight of the Snare Drums Hotel was impolite and undesirable. Whatever had gotten me Out-of-Love with the stillness of the Muddy Towers and the Moldy Mud Wet Cold Water Slides was beyond my understanding. I caught a glimpse of the sunset and I walked past the sweaty gray cloud in front of the sunset before I reached the ground floor.

IV. Gum Drums’ Takeaway

After I had reached the ground floor at the Snare Drums Hotel, I set the contents of my backpack in the Hotel Donation Bin and fully looked around. Everybody there was as damp as I was, but something had changed. A walk’s worth of change, alongside a Backpack Gesture’s worth of change, alongside the change of opening the window and leaving the basement. What did I see? An up-close overflowing ten-story granite hotel tower full of violent sunshine contrasted against the bog. Then, like a hand busy pointing things out, the Snare Drums Hotel cast a line in the direction of new barroom patios under rope lights. The patios hosted really damp, happy people.