A Shift In The Attic

I was swinging on the porch when all of a sudden I fell over
and hit the floor. I don’t know how it happened, but I stood up and
brushed myself off. I stood there for a minute, dazed, and felt myself all over
to see if I was hurt. I seemed to be all right. I tested the swing to see
if it was broken, but it wasn’t. Maybe it was an earthquake. I walked into
the kitchen and a teacup fell on my head. I thought that was mighty
strange. I swept it up. I went back into the living room and sat down
on the couch. I picked up the newspaper and read about a little girl who
fell into a hole and was never seen again. It made me sad. How could
that happen? There’s an end to everything. My couch was sagging. I’m
going to hit the floor, I thought. And then I did. I got up and looked around.
This wasn’t my house at all. Yes, it was. There was the little penguin
on the wall, and the walrus beside him. I recognized everything, down
to the little worm on the floor. I moved to the chair beside the window
where the light would be better. Now I could see my hand, not that I wanted
to. It was all gnarly and grey. The chandelier was shaking. Then suddenly all
was quiet. My hands were glowing and so were my cheeks. I felt healthy and
wise. I looked over at the staircase to the attic and there stood a moose.
I nearly jumped out of my skin. But the moose was calm, just looking
around. He walked over to me. There was a bowl of cookies on the table
and I started feeding them to him. He seemed to really like them. When
they were all gone, I walked into the kitchen. He followed me. I
opened the refrigerator and grabbed a head of lettuce and started to feed
it to him. When that was gone I gave him a bowl of spinach, and so on.
We were becoming great friends. Finally, there was a knock on the door.
A man stood there and said, ‘That’s my moose.’ I said, ‘No, it isn’t. It’s
my moose.’ He was really mad. He said, ‘It isn’t your moose. It’s mine.’
‘I swear it’s mine,’ I said. And while we were arguing, the moose walked out
onto the porch, jumped the rail and was gone, never to be seen again.