All Is Right in Ookah Doon

All is Right in Ookah Doon

By Huntington

The unattended construction site was a young boy's paradise. Stoic mounds of sand presided over a muddy pond. It had rained only a day ago, but today the sky was that of a baby's eyes and the air as warm as a soft kiss. There was nothing better. Danny and Tyler wrestled atop the sand. They tumbled, laughed, scraped their skin and bandaged it with moist dirt. They raced each other up and down the mounds. They raced to the mud, and when their tiny feet broke the surface they tripped and fell face first into the dirty water.

Danny eyed another mound, across the mini mud lake. “Race you to the top of that one!” he cried. The boys bounded through the sludge, spraying it out like a w with their two tiny bodies. As Tyler passed Danny and took the lead, he sprayed dirt in Danny’s eyes. Danny cleared his vision and then tripped a little and fell back even more. But Danny wasn't about to let Tyler win this one. He had called the race himself. Danny pushed as hard as his little legs would let him. His breathing grew loud and erratic. Mud flew in all directions.

The mischievous boys reached the climbing part of their amazing race. Time for the Mount Vesuvius, like in Danny’s history class, that’s what comes after the muddy plains of Ookah Doon. The progress was slow for the fearless adventurers. The sand moved under them like a Stairmaster. The beating sun, now on their backs, had dried this side of the mud lake. They were neck in neck again, so Danny pushed Tyler’s head down a little bit.

“Hey!” Tyler said. Tyler pulled Danny down by the ankles. They laughed and yelled. Danny pushed Tyler; Tyler pushed Danny. Then Danny shoved Tyler to the right. Tyler yelped and there was the sound of a great movement of sand. He had fallen! Danny was going to win after all. He scrambled like a mad insect for the top, digging at the sand as if chased by death itself. Danny leaped the last few feet and stood triumphantly above the peak. King of the world! He looked for miles over the sandy swamps of Dookah Oon.

“I win Tyler!” he yelled. Tyler didn't answer. In fact, Tyler was nowhere to be seen. The king could see every inch of his vast realm, but nowhere did he see the subject known as Tyler. “Tyler!” he screamed with that light childish voice, “Stop hiding! I beat you square and fair!”

And nowhere did Tyler come out. He was behind neither the first, second, nor any other mountain of dirt. There were no floating bloated bodies of Tyler in the lake, there were no giggling Tylers hiding in the trees. And in that breeze Danny heard not one of the muffled screams of his friend. He felt that breeze, that quiet breeze, while standing atop his kingdom. That was no normal quiet however. Some explosions are quiet too.



Danny left for home, dragging his heels, victorious but defeated. His friend had abandoned him. In only moments Tyler had existed, and then not. It was diabolical and confounding. It was impossible, and yet somehow it was a reality. Danny drew each footstep with a singular, deliberate motion as he climbed the hill to his house. Muddy liquid squirted out with each step, but its amusement was muted. The wind continued to blow, brandishing leaves like notes of fate twirling through the air.

He passed through his front door, stopped, stepped back outside to remove his leaky shoes, and continued on his way, wet socks leaving streaks along the floor. "Danny," called Mom, "you have a good time?"

"Sure Mom," he replied. She stepped out of the kitchen and moved down the hallway to see him.

"Oh, Danny, you're so dirty!" She smudged off the dried mud on his cheeks while pushing him back towards the door. "Your hair and face and shirt, and just look at those shorts! What were you doing Dans? And take off the socks for heavens sake!"

"I was playing at the dirt mounds," he said, in Ookah Doon, he told himself.

"Unbelievable," she said, "and Tyler too?"

"Yeah."

"Was it fun?"

"Yeah." And with that, he mentioned nothing of the black hole swirling in his gut. Undressed and thrown in the bath, Danny was a model, lazy kid for the rest of the day. He played with Legos in his room, building, smashing, and fighting them. At one point he began to cast pieces out of his box with frantic sweeps in search of his favorite spaceman figure. Danny found him tucked in the very bottom, and quickly rescued him to hold tightly in his hand.

Danny stopped playing Legos and walked down the stairs with a complex expression. He sat down on the old blue couch and turned on cartoons, spaceman in hand.

Just before dinner time, the phone call came. Mom answered it with bright enthusiasm, but with every nod of her head Mom's expression sobered. Danny turned away from the TV and watched as she re-cradled the phone.

"That was Tyler's Mom," she said. "She hasn't seen Tyler since you two went out to play." Danny looked up with upper teeth biting over lower lip. "Danny, did something happen?"

Danny shrugged.

"Danny?"

"Tyler - disappeared," said Danny. Mom's eyes widened a little.

"When was the last time you saw him Danny?" Her tone was stern now.

"I, I don't know! We were racing in... and... he pushed me... dirt in my eye... then he was gone!" Danny mumbled and stammered and raced his speech. Mom breathed faster and faster, eyes wide, brow furrowed.

"Gone? Is that it? What - where is he?" She anchored Danny by the shoulders.

And he burst into tears.



Danny slept that night with a Lego spaceman in his right hand. He had torn his covers out of place, and in his dreams he presided over the kingdom of Ookah Doon. In Ookah Doon all was right with the world. Except when a silent wind blew.