Abner and His Soap, a story for children

Originally published as "The Day the Sky Rained Soap Suds" in Six Children's Stories (Academic Exchange Extra [University of Northern Colorado (Greeley, CO)], 2005).

An excerpt

Abner Normal squeezed the button on his can of Lysol spray, filling his living-room with strong-smelling mist.

"Take that!" he said. "Miserable germs!" He coughed on the clouds of mist, but he didn't care.

"I hate germs and I hate dirt!" he said. But killing germs didn't make him feel better. He gazed angrily out his living-room window. Scraps of paper littered the road. Dust covered sidewalks. For that matter, dust covered everything. And factory and car exhaust fogged the air.

"I can't stand it!" he exclaimed. "Why is this city so grimy?"

He yanked at his hair. Two handfuls fell to the floor. But Abner Normal didn't take any notice of his two new bald spots. He anxiously searched the sky. He watched a thick bank of dark clouds roll in from the west. They twisted and billowed. Soon they'd drench the city with rain polluted from dirty air.

"I'm going to clean up this miserable city once and for all!" he shouted. "I'll be a hero!" He jumped up and down. One foot knocked over his fishbowl. The rug soaked up the water, while Flipper, the goldfish, flopped about and gasped. Abner tossed Flipper into a coffee pot and then left his home.

The author

Dan Lukiv is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). His creative writing has appeared in 19 countries. Recently, he has been experimenting with temporal shifts and narrative strings in his haiku and senryu.