The neighbors see me floating… Am I in good health?

Germany and I live in Bonn, one of the large cities you'll find stretched out on either side of the Rhine river in the western part of our land. It's close to the border with the Netherlands — close enough that we holiday there every so often. You'll sometimes find Dutch beaches see more German tourists than actual Dutchmen, and I can account for that fact because I holiday way more times than Germany lets himself. If it's not the cliffs of Italy or that planet in Pisces that rains iron, it's a bungalow on a Dutch beach that satisfies an old German soul.

Why Bonn and not Berlin? Bonn was Germany's heart for quite a while! Thanks to the Internet, it's a lot easier for Germany to communicate with his higher-ups. It's not too much work being a living nation. We're meant to be neutral in elections and support whoever's up there without batting an eye. But if you know anything about Germany, or you follow some blog about it, you know his bureaucracy is so expansive that it takes extraterrestrial drain cleaner to get all his hair out of the bottom of the tub. (The gel doesn't make it any more slippery. I know because I clean the bathrooms every Sunday.)

As a universal rule, we nations are expected to fill out a "health form," detailing our current state of being and some general thoughts about domestic and foreign affairs. As a dissolved nation, I'm considered "inactive," yet I'm Germany's magical dependent, which means he still has to write about me on his health form. This is especially hard for him because his mind is so wired for details and accuracy that he shakes when he has to lie about me. It's so funny to watch, but I know he's tortured inside!

"In good health," he wrote on the last one. Three words! So brief! And not even a sentence! I don't know whether to laugh or cry! Yeah, I feel normal, but what's my normal supposed to be? Only one extra head!?

Anyway, today Germany has a video-conference to review his health form and do some other hairy spaghetti bureaucracy stuff. My Prussian brain actually craves listening in to the mess, but it's such a nice day out, and I just bought some more extra-strength sunscreen. I slather my whole body in the stuff, then make sure my contacts are in straight and head out to the backyard for some reading. Now, should I get back to Dickens or slump on the Deviant Fart laughing my ass off at some shut-in's inflated pants fantasy? Pantasy?

Bonn is shaped like a giant octopus — totally the opposite of its northern neighbor Cologne, which is a perfect circle hugging the river. I know this because I've seen satellite images, and I've been in airplanes, and I've been outside of airplanes. Our little tentacle of suburbia gives us a smallish backyard wherein I can stretch my pasty legs out on a beach towel and scowl at the dandelions Germany keeps growing "for resources." That coffee recipe was for a shortage, I tell him, but he won't have it. He is an innovator. He's going to invent curved mattresses someday. I just know it.

So I do go to stretch my legs. My sunhat is covering my beaky nose, and my umbrella is poised where I can grab it if I start to burn. I've got my neck pillow under me and my phone on my chest. I lie for half an hour before all my emails are catalogued and a new chapter is read. Then I peer in the back sliding door. Germany's still at his meeting. His voice drones on and on in that delicious language of minutiae and political jargon. I miss being a country like nothing else sometimes. I mean, I still am one, but sometimes it feels too symbolic to be real.

I switch to my notes app and put "possess Germany?" at the top of my list.

The tops of my feet are all red. I missed a spot with the sunscreen. I crunch some ice from my finished glass of lemonade and consider the sky above me. The Icarus myth doesn't agree with real science. It's cooler up there. Perhaps a quick dance with all my birdy friends will save me from having to stick my head under the faucet and prompt Germany to make me clean the drains today?

I tighten the cord on my sunhat. I won't go too high, I tell myself. Going too high means concentrating on more "spells," what with the thinness of the air. Just high enough to breathe in the wind that drives the clouds lazily across the sky. Believe it or not, defying gravity is the easiest thing I can do. My first day as an ascended being, I spent three hours with my head bonking the ceiling before I figured out how to get back down. And even then, it kept happening. Germany had to tie me to my chair at supper, and the chair floated up with me.

I stand in the middle of the backyard and position myself on my tippy-toes, holding my arms out for balance. I hoist up my chest and stick my nose in the air. Every muscle in my body relaxes. I close my eyes and imagine myself immersed in nothingness. No force holds me to this ground. I can push myself away and swim forever.

The corners of my lips perk up. I'm getting this funny feeling again. It's like I'm filling with bubbles! Thousands of tiny bubbles popping against each other before combining and swelling! My fingers and toes tingle at the sensation. My stomach gives a great gurgly lurch. My skin seizes tight over my veins as my blood crashes against itself, not knowing what force is strongest in forcing it along its path. It's like a beacon is shining down upon me, excluding me from everything else on earth.

At this point, I can no longer feel my weight. My blood pressure has dropped, so I'm spacy, but I'm clear enough to know my bones exist even though I can't perceive their density. My hair is all standing on end and waving like in a Ghibli film. There's no pressure under my feet hurting my toes as I stand on them. I give them a light tap against the ground, and I'm floating.

Floating in the bathtub is one thing, but even then, there's a current of water lapping at my body. In the air, I'm subject to currents from all sides, or none at all. As I rise above the pavement, I wiggle my arms and "swim" up higher. I guess I don't have to swim, but that's what I always did in dreams before it was all real. Ah yes, AWESOME! Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty feet up, and the heat of the ground is replaced with the coolness of a late spring breeze. I throw my limbs out and bask in it, hovering like a puffy cloud in an ocean of dreams! I kick my sandals off and wiggle my toes. I should be terrified to see my feet dangling below me above the miniature houses and fences, but my equal reaction against gravity is like a cushion cradling me. I know I cannot fall because I'm too light to know what falling is. I keep floating on upward!

I can do tricks. Imagine a somersault on a trampoline, but you keep on spinning and spinning forever. I pull up my knees and tuck my head and ram myself forward into that spin. I hurtle downward like a wheel before barely tapping the ground with the ball of my right foot and shooting off again. Up and away! Up, up, to where Bonn looks like a mess and Cologne is all organized, but that's okay because they both gang up on Düsseldorf. My form starts to shimmer, but I hold back on dissolving into particles. That actually is terrifying.

My vision brightens. Colors intensify and swirl before me. I see a glow about ten feet above my head. I swim to it and stick my hand through the paper-thin portal. Feeling my fingers completely dissolve, I wrench it back and sigh in relief. It's intact, but my nails are painted blue. Funny how those portals just pop out of nowhere. Anyone could walk into them! If anyone could see them, that is.

I know I can't fly around willy-nilly until some bonny Bonner sees me, so I start giving in to the sick feeling in my stomach from so many weightless somersaults and work on floating steadily down like the most awesomely delicate flower petal. I crouch into a lotus position and square my shoulders for a soft landing. My mind starts to ease up. The third eye, (or is it the sixth?) closes and poofs away, and my vision goes back to normal. The tingling returns, but in reverse. The bubbles are shrinking, replaced by density and hardness and the force of the earth's gravity reclaiming me. My legs gain their weight back first, then my middle, then my chest and arms and head. When my butt hits the ground, I feel like a ton of jelly and slump into the dirt.

"Woah! So cool!"

"Do it again! Again!"

My eyes widen. Oh, crap! Who saw!? I push myself up and glance around, only to make eye contact with… oh, it's just the neighbor kids. A ten-year-old girl and her little brother.

The neighbor kids saw me!?

"Oh, good afternoon, kids!"

The boy just gushes. "You can fly, Herr Beilschmidt!?"

"Teach me to fly, too! I want to fly!" The girl adds.

"Mama said you're a weird neighbor, but you're so cool!"

I tip my sunhat at the kids as I stride to the fence. "Now, why's she calling me weird?"

"Because you told her you're from Prussia," says the girl. "But how could you be from Prussia? You have white hair, but you don't look super old. Oh, are you a Prussian vampire? Is that why you have to wear so much sunscreen?"

I smirk at the kids. In the olden days, every little girl and boy squealed to get a head-pat or a hug from the Great Prussia. So why should now be any different?

"I'm not a vampire," I tell them, "but I am immortal, and I am from Prussia. As for sunscreen, you need that, too, little missy. Go ask your mama if you can come over for lemonade. Lutz made me some so I don't interrupt his important meeting."

Germany's head appears at our sliding door. "Meeting is over. Aster kept shoving her nose where it didn't belong."

"Great!" I exclaim, patting both kids' heads at once. "Make some more lemonade! I just told the neighbors we're immortal!"

"WE!?"

~N~

Will a Prussian float float your boat?

Updated by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net May 20th, 2020. Reposters cursed.