Vaporizing Puddle

Ah ... but the puddle, upon being exposed to the sun, does not truly disappear, but rather changes form and becomes one with the atmosphere. It gives up its struggle and becomes one with the Force. Unfortunately, the puddle was a female, and the Force is a misogynist.

"Be gone, foul wench!" The Force said, which in itself is odd given that the Force is a vaporous concept without personality.

"I'm melting! I'm melting!" The puddle cried out. Of course, strictly speaking she wasn't melting at all since she had gone from solid state to liquid back in March of the year. She was merely transitioning from liquid into a gaseous state. But anyway, back in February she wasn't a puddle, but rather frozen slush stuck to the undercarriage of a car.

"You foolish woman," the Force spit back at the Puddle. "You should have said 'evaporating,' not 'melting'." Witnesses to this scene searched high and low for the source of this voice, since it was well known that the Force, if it had a voice at all, would have the voice of Sir Alec Guinness. This voice didn't sound like him. It sounded more like George Michael.

"Oh shut up." The Puddle sniped back. "I was doing a send-up of the witch from 'Wizard of Oz.' If you knew anything about movies you'd have known that. What kind of 'Force' are you that you don't even know that? And by the way, you're just a formless 'thing,' not a speaking entity. So shut up, will you?"

"Harlot." Said the Force.

"Shriveled old fool." Said the Puddle.

"Happy not, I am." Said Yoda.

* * *
I'll be honest ... I didn't fully understand the point of the story of the puddle. Is the puddle supposed to represent us humans, thinking that from our perspective we were made for this earth, or this earth made for us, when in fact we're all just meaningless dust in the great cosmic accident?

* * *
Years ago -- the 10th grade for me here in the United States; 1975 to be precise -- I had a literature class taught by a woman who was probably in her early 30's at the time. It being the tail end of the liberating '60's decade (which really ran from 1966 or so to 1975 or so), she was into meaningless psycho-pop drivel gleaned from stories. I recall her explaining that a scene from a book where a dream of sheets over the character's head was supposed to symbolize milk, and milk symbolize life, and thus the dream was about liberation unto life ... or something like that. I have almost no capacity to deal in those kinds of abstracts. I got poor grades in that class. She hated the boys anyway.