Layers

Carl Plumer

Eddie Sandbach loved layer cakes more than anything. Next best was anything that reminded him of layer cakes. Like a mattress with a box spring, the bedspread spread on top like green frosting. Or sedimentary rocks, with their stripes of layers. Or the brightly colored dishes stacked in the cupboard, each color a different delicious flavor.

When nothing was around to remind him of layer cakes, Eddie Sandbach would make his own reminders, using anything as the layers. Toy trucks piled as high as the top of the TV. Books were easy, making perfect, well-balanced layers. Then the cats and the dogs (the black cats representing chocolate, the white pups vanilla).

So when the tornado, itself not a bad approximation of layers, but more like a funnel cake, arrived to spin a path through the middle of town like an oversized, insane whisk, it was only fitting that, when it was done, the floor had become the first layer, the couch the second, Eddie Sandbach the third, and the fourth the refrigerator -- with rain water like shiny icing, dripping down over it all.

© 2009 Carl Plumer. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Carl Plumer is a graduate of the Masters Writing Program at Stony Brook University where he studied with Thomas Flanagan. He received his BA in English from Fordham University in NYC. His first published short story was "20th Century Interpretations of Minute Mysteries" in the now sadly departed Pulpsmith: The Curious Magazine. He's written some four odd novels since, and dozens of even odder short stories, none of which have yet to see the light of day. Until now. Carl lives with his wife and four children in the Midwest, plotting his imminent return to New York.