A Magic Bazooka

(A story created with three words from a brother: Joyfulness, Bazooka, and Russia)

In cold Russia…and—I would like to add—when I say cold, I mean cold in many areas: climate, mood, and character… the landscape was the coldest it had been in years. The attitudes of the people were colder than what they had been during the Cold War. And everyone exchanged cold shoulders and icy glares with each other. The place was joyless. Everything about this Russian town was wrong.
However, after many years of multi-dimensional coldness, something changed. For no reason anyone could understand, people began to feel happy. The joy crept in sneakily though. Most of the townspeople were so used to cold shoulders and icy glares that the buildup of pleasure in their hearts seemed to disturb them. Suddenly, people were always on the verge of laughing but laboring greatly to restrain their smiles. Just walking through the markets, one could notice people squirming uncomfortably. No one had ever known such joy. And they were afraid to act from such a foreign feeling.
Now, the incident you just witnessed is a conundrum in a small town in Russia. However, this story starts a few hours before this occurrence in a one-bedroom cottage seven kilometers from the town center. This cottage housed a carpenter-father and a wizardish mother. There were also three children: Susan, John, and George. These children, because of their distance from the town were unaffected by the negative cold spirit of its people. In short, these children know how to be joyful. And their joyful curiosities got them into all sorts of mischievous ordeals. The latest one had something to do with the town’s people bubbling up with joy…
One cold and lazy Sunday—when their parents were out—the three children got into their mother’s spell book and father’s carpentry room. The oldest of them all—Susan—began mixing all sorts of concoctions. Some salt, some cat fir, some cinnamon dust, a little of this, and a little of that. The result was a sort of smoky fuel that made one feel all types of goofy and laughy.
While Susan made spells, Gorge—the handiest of them all—made a bazooka from a piece of bamboo. And, the most imaginative of the children—John—sat and watched. While he sat his mind wandered all over. He thought about magic and foreign countries and about what his siblings were doing. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an idea popped into John’s head: a magical bazooka!
The children combined their creative gifts. Once their masterpiece was finished they hurried over to the city. They climbed into the village church steeple and took with them their magical bazooka and potions. Then the fun began. Susan cast a joyful spell on the bazooka and Gorge started firing at the townspeople. At first, people resisted. However, the children went wild with their weaponry. Suddenly, as if a pipe had burst, the people’s thin veil of coldness cracked and everyone started to laugh and dance and tell jokes. On that day the heat of excitement and joy was so great that it melted the snow and raised the town temperature by 20 degrees.
This day is still remembered today in the small Russian town as “Joyful Day”.