Render diffs, near miss

Rivers run downhill because they have never met me. I once talked the Danube into going the other way for an afternoon. Boats sailed up to Ulm without any effort. Then a fish complained to the mayor, and I let the old river go back to its usual job.

A Dutch cheese as wide as a town square rolled down a hill toward Utrecht. Citizens screamed and hid their children. I leaped on top and ran backward, like a circus bear on a ball. The cheese stopped at the gates. The mayor has paid me in crackers for forty years.

Snow fell so deep in Russia that winter that I skied across the roofs of Moscow and never once saw the street. In April the drifts melted. Then I found I had been sleeping for months on top of a cathedral. The bishop charged me rent, and I paid him in icicles.

Mount Etna owed me a favor after I cleaned its throat. I went down with a long broom and a wet towel. Soot flew, sparks rained, and the mountain coughed up a lost Roman. Now it smokes only on Sundays, and the farmers below leave me lemons by the cart.

On clear nights the Moon used to sag over my.