Dust - Day 15

Part IV: Donny coins a phrase

Donny whirred and hummed like a machine. Or, as Donny thought, a mechanized orangutan. Donny beat his chest. Feeling the pressure, he paused, wheezed, and erased his mind. Still whirring, he fancied he was whirring like a machine. Or perhaps a mechanized orangutan. He endeavored to beat his chest, but missed. He then pondered why he was whirring. A sign high above offered no clues. It read, "Donny Sign." Donny liked the sign, but he was still whirring. He then happened to peer down at his feet, in his anxiety. There he stood on a heap of dense gravel, which was vibrating, and vibrating Donny by proxy. Donny understood.

Wavering as he whirred, Donny was unable to step off the mound. All around him were steely walls that grasped Donny's ambient perceptions tightly. Below was a rectangular beam of light. Donny rolled, as he couldn't walk, and tumbled off the heap. He gathered speed and went sputtering like a vintage motorcoach out of the opening that was creating the beam of light. Donny, nauseated, braced himself for the end. He met a dusty brick wall that was warm from the afternoon sun. Neither party could parry. Donny felt slight pains, but managed them. He got up. There was also dust in the air.

Windowman's fan kept the dust off of parts of his domain. Not others. Donny realized he was no longer whirring. He imagined an orangutan going limp. Donny blinked from the dust and the sunlight. His eyes were having trouble with aperture. Windowman stood his ground. Donny reached into his pockets and felt something cool and metallic. Donny imagined discs deftly carved out of an iron door using some cylindrical device. He emptied his pockets and it was nothing but quarters. Windowman took notice, radiated a brief excitement. He quickly reverted, but not before Donny had noticed.

Donny eyed Windowman, who stood his ground. Donny felt of the quarters, heaved them. This time, Windowman did not flinch. Miffed, Donny leaned over to pick up the quarters, but the dust had obscured them. Donny imagined a world in which the resident sapient beings breathed dust instead of air. Donny wished he were one of them, as the disturbed dust flew into his face, brushing by him like a flounder on the ocean floor whose stakeout has been ruined. "I am so much surely sick of this air-tainted dust!" Donny imagined a dust-breather might say in a situation similar by inversion to Donny's.

Eventually, Donny excavated his quarters, but the freshly awakened dust had followed him to his feet, and surrounded him like a brownish golden fog. Windowman's expression had changed to a smirk as ambiguous as Mona Lisa's. Donny plodded slowly over to Windowman, who met his approach with a forbidding indifference. Windowman's pane seemed large from a distance, then smaller as Donny approached. Then it loomed very large and reflected the sun right at Donny and right into his cloud of dust. Donny's eyes were red like beets. Donny saw them looking back at him in Windowman's pane as he got very close. They frightened Donny until he realized they were his to control.

Donny lowered his brow, raised his eyes into a hardened glare. Windowman was surprised again, emitted radiation, letting Donny know to proceed. Donny again flushed the quarters out of his pocket. He quickly gathered them, kicked up a lot more dust, and a cloud of muffled clanking descended upon Windowman's countertop. Windowman's pane was by now covered by a thin layer of dust. Donny drew in the dust the message, "NEEDED: QUARTERS TO BE QUARTERED, DRAWN, AND RECONNOITERED." Donny was out of his mind. Windowman, in fright, offered a helping of his heap. Donny parried, and violently rethrust himself into an upright position, unleashing a hurricane of dust. Darkness descended upon Windowman's pane. Donny could not see Windowman, and Windowman could not see.

Remembering the dust-breathing people, Donny remembered that he could not breathe dust. He keeled, met the ground, unleashing more dust. Windowman cowered with his heap. Donny gasped, felt it futile, and crawled until the dust thinned enough for him to breathe. There he slept. When Donny awoke, he was a golden-brown version of himself. He muscled his aching bones up and over to Windowman's pane, saw that his eyes were now a soft burgundy. Windowman weakly regarded Donny with a stare that sagged as if into sleep. The quarters were gone. Neither party thought much about them. Donny nodded and departed using the gait of the defeated. Windowman's eyes were now sad - infected with the melancholia of the vanquished.