Dandelions

It comes up face first out of the water, gray and round and all blubbery sway. Shaking its head its whole unsubtle mass quakes. A harsh savannah wind tosses the river reeds about wildly then settles. The hippo pauses and mulls something around in its mouth, placid and blank as a dairy cow. Turning to face the river it gives a little semivoluntary flick of the tail then posts up and begins to fan it to and fro.

Shit slides out the beast’s backend and, making contact with the tail, fireworks out across the dusty grassland. Shit speckles and stains the plain to the back of the hippo. An earthy, primitive kind of shit, tossed ecstatically outward, frothy spumes and heavy gobs of it arcing madly up toward the mountains, landing wet and heavy in the dirt where the meerkats and giant ants live. Shit seems to come forth forever.

Finally it stops, and the giant hippopotamus, satisfied, turns back around, slides into the river, and with an unimaginable grace floats downstream.

Here the tableau freezes. The whole episode has lasted 1:57. Eric, Kyle, and Brandon, huddled around a laptop in Eric’s dad’s living room, howl with laughter. Kyle, shaking, gently glides his middle finger across the computer’s trackpad and taps the replay button. They watch it again, giggling at the creature’s utter reserve and dignity as it jettisons its foul payload. They laugh at the sheer amount of shit, its duration. They laugh particularly at the amateur videographers making indignant little noises behind the camera, innocent holidaymakers who wanted nothing more than an uncomplicated home movie of an exotic beast of the safari.

The hippo swims away and Kyle starts it over. The boys have been at it all day, watching shaky videos of strange things shitting; their friendship is fundamentally anal. Once more the animal lumbers out of the water and pauses seriously, dark birds circling overhead. Once more the wind rustles the dry African grass, a pixelated wave rippling off to the horizon, to the top of the video frame.

Again, the hippo pauses, still chewing. Its leathery bulk is weightless behind the 240p upload. The boys are silent for a moment, transfixed, weary with laughter. The hippos blasts its shit. They scream with joy. Meanwhile, out past the front windows and the lush green shag carpet lawn, sprouting up tentatively in the narrow place where the sidewalk meets soil: dandelions.

-Lucas Oleen-Junk