Transitioning From Web Developer to Comic Book Author:

Umbrella Ride on a Cranberry River

I’m floating down a murky marsh on an umbrella. Cranberries float on each side, amidst the brown stink of it. There are trees, strange trees with raspberry things, clean, green and red, just at arms reach. I pick them into the umbrella, safe from the water around us.

A dam breaks and the water rushes quickly out from beneath, chasing gravity down a hill. The wind catches the umbrella and sweeps it out from under me. I grab on, spilling raspberries as it carries me into the air. We are moving fast, the umbrella and I, keeping pace with the flowing river, which is now turning clear as it rolls across fresh grass.
Farmers are picking fruit on each side of the river and I realize that the water is following an intentionally mowed path between them. This water was intended to feed their patches and now that it is the right time of year, it has been unleashed.

After about a mile or so, the water runs out, the river draining into the ground. I stay for a while in the summer sunshine, playing with the umbrella. I jump into the air, extremely high, only to float down slowly until the wind resistence finally snaps the umbrella inside out and I come rushing down. In my descent I thrust the umbrella out at the ground and it turns back into a floating boat, tick-tocking me to a safe landing. Farmers children laugh and wonder at my mastery of the umbrella so I show them some more tricks. Pealing back the wireframe so that it looks like an exploded tortoise shell, I rotate it quickly and throw the umbrella into the air. It twirls and on it’s way down, it rotates upside down, snaps back into it’s normal shape and rolls once more to land in my hand.

It seems I play like this until the sun goes down and everyone leaves. Then it’s just me and my umbrella, floating down the valley with the random wind.