The town hero plugs the hole in the dam
with her finger. An hour passes,
then sweat drips down her eyebrows.
The only mosquito for miles bites her forehead.
Things could be worse, until her free hand cramps up,
and the hero’s sidekick is nowhere close.
He’s preparing their parade float
for the celebration of the town’s salvation.
Suddenly, a crocodile peeks over from the lip
of the dam and brandishes a wide smile.
Its teeth that $200 set of knives
on the hero’s cousin’s wedding registry,
except realistic.
The hero stays strong, possesses
what HR personnel-types refer to as willpower.
Then from above, an Amazon.com drone accidentally
drops a package, which unwraps during its fall,
revealing a discounted hacksaw
that lands within the hero’s reach.
Thanks to an overpriced cable package
and can-do attitude
the hero has seen 127 Hours, Saw, and Scary Movie 4,
all within the past month.
The hero is genuinely sorry but no way in Hell
is she going to saw off her own finger. At the same time,
the hero has also recently seen Disney’s Peter Pan
since her mantra is that few things are more heroic than babysitting,
and time starts walking up a mountain that’s posing as a hill.
The crocodile begins a flailing attempt to flop over the dam.
As she considers the saw,
the dam in the neighboring town breaks,
kills both towns, the hero, and the crocodile.
Only the sidekick initially survives, oblivious and still applying
hot glue inside the garage with no windows, unaware of the current
inverse-fish bowl scenario. Only moments remain
until he realizes that “parade float” is a misnomer.