Cloudberry Waffles

Dook and Flops embark on a whimsical quest to create the perfect waffle breakfast featuring cloudberry jam, only to discover their kitchen lacks the crucial ingredient. Determined, Flops scours Sala City’s stores and apps to no avail, while Dook ventures through a surreal doorway to retrieve dreamlike cloudberries from a cloud, which turn out to taste like "gentle basement" and "polite puddle." Undeterred, they seek advice from The Stoat at his kiosk, who points them to Norway for authentic cloudberries. The duo jets off, navigates airport security with their heirloom waffle iron, and triumphantly acquires jars of cloudberry jam in a Norwegian grocery store. Back home, they face a new crisis—no whipped cream—but Dook summons a tiny, magical cow from a dreamlike meadow to produce fresh cream. With their mission complete, they craft perfect waffles, sharing the fruits of their adventure with The Stoat, who savors the nostalgic taste.

Opening Scene - Dook and Flops' House

Dook (appears from inside the pantry holding a whisk like a microphone): Testing, testing, one-two-waffle. Is this thing on?

Flops (stomps in with purpose, slapping a waffle iron onto the counter and plugging it in with a dramatic flourish): Today is waffles with cloudberries and whipped cream day. Non-negotiable. The iron is preheated, the will is ironclad, the soul is syruped.

Dook (peers into a mixing bowl that wasn’t there a second ago): I bring flour. Also, a spoon that says “Stir enthusiastically.” It came with its own pep talk.

Flops (flings open every cupboard, drawers, and the secret drawer behind the secret drawer): Jam shelf—empty. Berry bin—empty. Backup jam vault—mysteriously full of pickled onions. That’s… a betrayal.

Dook (leans into the refrigerator so far his tail wags in the breeze): There’s a jar labeled “cloud—” and then the rest is smudged. Might be “cloud-doubts.” Do we want doubts on waffles?

Flops (unscrews the jar, sniffs, makes a face): That’s… fog. Someone canned fog. It smells like a missed bus.

Dook (brightens, a little halo of moth-light hovering over his head): I can get cloud-berries. Literal ones. From actual clouds. I know a shortcut. I need a basket, a bell, and a polite attitude.

Flops (checks his phone, tapping at ten foods delivery apps at once): Cloudberries aren’t in stock in Sala City. Not in any store, not in any zip code adjacent to our zip code, not even in “people who owe me favors.” I can’t order them online either—everything says “seasonal,” “regional,” or “lost in the bog.” I’m not giving up. This is destiny, and my taste buds are wearing tuxedos.

Dook (opens a sideways door in the kitchen wall that looks like a watercolor mistake): I will be three lullabies and one polka.

Flops (points two fingers at his own eyes and then at Dook): Mission critical. Cloudberries are orange, like tiny sunsets you can spread. Don’t come back with blueberries in costumes.

Dook (steps through the wiggly doorway, which smells briefly of rain and old library pages): Understood! Sunsets that spread.

Flops (pacing, pre-measuring flour, sugar, and salt into bowls with crisp movements): We’re going to make a batter so smooth it’ll apply for marble status.

Dook (reappears instantly, holding a misty wicker basket brimming with lumpy, glistening, cloud-perched berries that look exactly like orange raspberries wearing dew): Ta-da! Cloud-berries. They were hanging off a bit of cumulus next to a ladder made of cello music.

Flops (pops one into his mouth, chews, blinks slowly): It tastes like dampness. Gentle basement. A polite puddle. This is not a flavor. This is a weather report.

Dook (consults a handwritten tag tied to the basket): Ingredients: cumulonimbus, nostalgia, trace thunder. These are the Dreamlands kind. They look a lot like real ones, but they have… meteorological notes.

Flops (sets the basket aside carefully, like it might leak drizzle): I need actual cloudberries. Rubus chamaemorus. Bog divas. The good stuff. Dreamlands berries taste like last week’s umbrella. We’re going to need intel. The Stoat knows snacks. He is snacks-adjacent. To the kiosk!

Dook (already wearing a travel scarf woven out of receipts): Tiny picnics await.

The Kiosk

The Stoat (leans on the kiosk counter with a calculator, reading a crossword titled “Words About Syrup,” eyes bloodhound-lazy but alert): What’s the crisis, eh?

Flops (plants the waffle iron on the counter like it’s a badge): Cloudberries. We need them. We’ve searched every shelf in Sala City. I tried to order them and the app scolded me like I asked for moonlight.

The Stoat (squints, thinking deeply, the air around him filling with low Canadian-scented jazz): We got berries. We got clouds. The combo? That’s a different ecosystem, eh. Cloudberries… they’re northern. Swampy. Boggy. Thorny in the soul but not really thorny. Not around here.

Dook (pulls a crumpled atlas out of his chest fur and unfolds it into a twelve-foot scroll): Where can one meet these bog divas?

The Stoat (taps the map near a region spiderwebbed with fjords): If you’re serious-serious… Norway. Or Sweden. Finland, too. But if you want to be sure-sure, Norway grocery aisles purr with cloudberry jam. They call it “multekrem” when you mix it with cream. Good stuff, eh.

Flops (already shouldering a suitcase that wasn’t there when he walked in): I could cry tears shaped like waffles. Norway it is. Today. Now.

The Stoat (rings up a concept of encouragement on the register): Bring me back a postcard of a moose on skis. Or just the skis.

Dook (tries to pay for the encouragement with a button that says “Best Boy”): Do emotional receipts accrue interest?

The Stoat (pockets the button with ceremonial solemnity): We’ll call it even, eh.

The Airport

PA Announcer at Sala City Airport (voice breezy, professionally soothing): Now boarding Flight 7 to Norway, via leaf icon, fish icon, and fjord icon.

Flops (fast-walking through security with a rolling suitcase that rattles like empty jars dreaming of jam): We carry-on the iron. It is artisanal, it is heirloom, it is an heirloom artisan.

Security Ferret (wands the iron, shrugs): Waffle-approved. Do not make waffles during taxi.

Dook (wobbles a tray loaded with forks labeled “For Waffles Only,” a tiny carton of dream milk with a winking cow, and a jamless jar): I like to be prepared. Preparedness tastes like cutlery.

Security Ferret (holds up the dream milk): Declaration?

Dook (earnest): It’s 40% lullaby, 40% sunrise, 20% cow daydreams. May separate if startled.

Security Ferret (stamps a piece of paper that says WAFFLE): Proceed.

Flops (they stride to the gate, passing a newsstand displaying a magazine titled “Bog Weekly”): I did my research on the escalator: cloudberries grow one per stem, stubborn little stars, ripen late summer, hate being told what to do. They’re basically me in berry form.

Dook (peeks out the window at the runway, where a maintenance vehicle is painting lines shaped like fish): I will be polite. Bogs appreciate please and thank you.

Inside the Plane

Pilot (cheerful, possibly a crane in a cap): Welcome aboard! If you look out the left, you’ll see a cloud shaped like a waffle. If you look out the right, you’ll see another cloud shaped like syrup chasing it. Weather is hungry today.

Flops (buckling in, eyes glittering): Our mission is simple. We’re entering jam space. We acquire, we return. Customs, then kitchen, then waffles.

Dook (fishes out a laminated card that says “Things I Know About Cloudberries,” only the ink is clearly wet and still writing itself): They’re bright orange, some say like tiny suns wearing hats. They don’t like heat. They’ll make jam that tastes like sunshine napping.

Random Passenger (leaning over the seat): You folks going for the fjords?

Flops (without missing a beat): We’re going for the fjords of flavor. Bogwards.

Random Passenger (not totally sure but supportive): That sounds niche. Good luck.

Flight Attendant (wheels by with a cart of snappy snacks): Cookies? Crackers? Pretend grapes?

Dook (politely lifts the lid of the cart, revealing a small pear that looks slightly like a cloudberry wearing a trench coat): Do you have metaphors? We are trying to avoid metaphors that taste like dampness.

Flight Attendant (hands over a napkin printed with a recipe for patience): This pairs well with scarcity.

Flops (reading the napkin like it’s scripture): “Step one: accept the quest.” Check.

The plane glides through a sky so blue it squeaks. Dook draws a dotted line on Flops’ forearm to show the flight path, then erases it with a gentle hum. A baby behind them coos “waff-ful,” Flops gives the baby a solemn nod of respect. The plane dips through a cloud and exits wearing a crown of powder sugar.

Pilot (over the intercom): We are now descending over a region that looks like someone spilled glitter on a map. Prepare your grocery lists.

Flops (watching islands braid themselves together out the window): We need a suitcase just for jam. The one we have is for jars, which are jam containers, but not jam. And then we’ll need a jam for the jam suitcase. I might be spiraling.

Dook (offering a paper bag labeled “Breathe In Syrup, Out Anxiety”): Inhale maple. Exhale drizzle.

In a Grocery Store in Norway

The fluorescent lights hum like contented bees. An aisle sings a heavenly chord: “Cloudberry Jam.” The shelves glow; jars wink.

Flops (fills a cart with methodical glee, scanning labels, sniffing lids, calibrating sweetness by sixth sense): We’re prioritizing traditional, low-ingredient jars: cloudberries, sugar. No corn sorcery. Oh, and some with a bit of pectin for structure. Structure matters. We need spread that holds a syllable.

Dook (balances three jars on his head like a seal who joined the orchestra): Look, this one says “tyttebær.” It sounds like a polite sneeze. Wrong berry, but very cute. Also “molte”—the cloudberry word. It feels round in the mouth. Molte. Molte.

Flops (testing the heft of a jar like a jeweler evaluating a gemstone): This is the jam that makes whipped cream write poetry. We need enough to fill a suitcase and bribe fate.

Dook (gently pats a jar): Hello, future breakfast.

Grocery Clerk (wanders over, amused): Big fan of molte?

Flops (reverent): We are on a pilgrimage. A jamgrimage.

Grocery Clerk (ringing them up): Remember import rules. Most countries let some jam through if sealed. Don’t try to smuggle a bog.

Dook (sincerely): We will not smuggle a bog. We will smuggle a good mood, declared.

At the Norwegian Airport

The suitcase is visibly heavier but also looks proud, like a beagle with a diploma. Flops wraps it in cling film shaped like a rune. Dook tapes a label that says “This is not a bog.”

PA Announcer (calm as a glacial lake): Flight 8 returning to Sala City. Please ensure your jams are stowed, your lids are tight, your spirits are buoyant.

Flops (checking the jam suitcase like a parent tucking in a child): Sleep. Dream of waffles. We will wake soon.

Dook (glances at a gift shop, returns with a plush moose wearing skis): The Stoat asked for skis. I found skis that wear moose. Compensation acceptable.

Flops (soft): He’ll like this. He pretends to be unimpressed but he loves anything that says “north.”

In-flight shenanigans begin when the drink cart wheel squeals like a tiny violin. The turbulence is playful, like a cat wanting attention.

Flight Attendant (cheerful): We are experiencing a small amount of “fjord frolic.” Please keep seated unless you are a jar of jam. Jars of jam may think about fjords quietly.

Dook (opens a book labeled “How to Be Calm in Atmospheric Rumbles,” but it’s actually a flipbook of pancakes): My book says stack your thoughts.

Flops (white-knuckled for exactly three seconds, then relaxed): We have cloudberry jam. Nothing can stop us now. Except customs. And whipped cream. And the existence of time.

Dook (hands Flops a tiny paper cup): Here. Water that thinks it’s a hug.

Random Passenger (leaning over again): Did you know cloudberries get one berry per plant? They’re like little monarchs.

Flops (respectful): I feel seen by that comparison.

Pilot (soft chime): We’ll be on the ground shortly. Please refrain from making whipped cream with your seatbelt.

Landing at Sala City Airport

The arrivals hall looks like someone asked a friendly architect to draw a smile. Customs is divided into two lanes: “Nothing to Declare” and “We Brought Jams, etc., With the Pride of a Thousand Breakfasts.” Dook and Flops choose the second lane with theatrical honesty.

Officer Barky (hound, neat uniform, calm eyes that have seen every variety of fruit spread weirdness): Afternoon. Anything to declare?

Flops (slides the jam suitcase forward): A suitcase of cloudberry jam, purchased legally, sealed, labeled, taxed, and beloved. Also one plush moose wearing skis.

Officer Barky (unzips the suitcase and beholds the amber symphony): That’s commitment. Country of purchase?

Dook (pleased to be helpful): Norway. Also, an aisle sang. We didn’t sing back, because we respect aisles.

Officer Barky (taps a jar, checks the seal, nods): Quantities under the limit. Seals intact. No dairy, no meats, no plants that might walk away on their own. This moose is plush?

Flops (holds it up): Certified cuddly.

Officer Barky (cracks the slightest canine smile): Then you’re clear. Word of advice: next time, check if you can get it at the international shop before you fly—still, I respect the dedication. Enjoy your waffles.

Dook (salutes with both ears): We will eat one in your honor.

Officer Barky (stamps a passport with a paw-shaped ink pad): Welcome home.

Back at Dook and Flops' House

The kitchen looks like it has been patiently waiting, plants leaning in, waffle iron humming like a cat. Flops sets up a production line: batter bowl, ladle, iron, cooling rack, jam jar. The jam gleams. A sun trapped in glass.

Flops (pouring batter like a pro, flipping the first waffle with crisp choreography): Look at that color. Look at that steam. Look at destiny crisping at the edges. Plate! Plate! Plate!

Dook (sets out plates that seem to have grown subtle golden rings since the jam entered the room): Plate acquired. Also, napkins, because syrup and civilization hold hands.

Flops (opens the refrigerator, freezes): We do not have whipped cream.

Silence descends. Somewhere far away, a violin makes a single bewildered sound.

Flops (slow blink, then a whisper of denial): No. No. No. I did the list. I did the sub-list. I did the sub-sub-list. I budgeted for cream. Where did the cream go?

Dook (peers into the empty top shelf like it might reveal a secret staircase): The cream compartment is having an identity crisis. It contains an echo.

Flops (paces, calculating, trying to will a cream molecule into existence): We have a grocery store nearby. We could… run. But the waffles are hot now. Hotness is perishable. The jam is at optimum shimmer.

Dook (eyes lighting like lanterns): I can fix this. Whipped cream is just cream plus motion plus patience. I have access to cream-adjacent phenomena. Please hold your breath for flavor.

Flops (decisive): Save the waffles.

Dook (draws a circle in the air with a finger; the air ripples; a rift opens—on the other side, a meadow made of quiet, a sky that hums in chords, a distant herd of something between cows and fogbanks grazing on lullabies): Requesting one unit of cream generator.

A tiny cow, the size of a loaf of bread, trots up, jingling with a bell that rings with the exact tone of “fresh.” Dook reaches through the rift and, very carefully, lifts the tiny cow by gently patting the space around it until gravity forgets to apply.

Dook (withdraws his arm, tiny cow in hand, an empty glass bottle in the other): Behold: portable cream.

Flops (so relieved he’s laughing): It’s adorable. It’s absurd. It’s exactly our brand. Can I pet it?

Dook (places the tiny cow on the table; it looks around, content, as if gauging the moral character of the kitchen): You may pet with reverence. It likes compliments about its bell.

Flops (pets the tiny cow between its miniature ears): Your bell has perfect timbre, friend.

Dook (produces an equally tiny stool and a thimble-sized pail, then decides that’s silly and swaps them for the glass bottle): Consent? Thank you. This will be quick and respectful.

He milks the tiny cow. The milk flows like folded moonlight. The bottle fills. The instant the bottle reaches a satisfying level, the tiny cow nods to both of them, turns into a sound like “job well done,” and vanishes like a thought remembered.

Flops (soft): That was… beautiful.

Dook (caps the bottle): Freshness secured. Now we whip. Traditionally, whipping cream requires mechanical agitation. I will outsource to my whole self.

He holds the bottle. He vibrates. Not a little shake. Not a jiggle. Dook vibrates like a tuning fork that discovered enthusiasm. His outline blurs; the kitchen pitches into Dream Fade for a second—lines wobble, colors glow. The bottle goes from slosh to heavy whisper. He stops; the world snaps back.

Dook (sniffs the bottle, nods): Peaks. Soft yet opinionated.

Flops (beaming, spooning a dollop onto the first waffle slice): We did it. We turned a logistical nightmare into an origin story.

Dook (carefully spreads cloudberry jam on a lattice of golden squares, then adds a cloud of fresh cream that looks like honest weather): Taste?

Flops (bites, eyes close, shoulders relax, voice hushed): Yes. Sunlight. Pine air. A meadow that tells you a secret and it’s not about you, it’s about everything. The tart spark at the edges—the jam is assertive without being rude. The cream is cool piano music. Dook, this is it.

Dook (takes a bite, eyebrows floating upward): The jam makes my tongue remember winters I did not have. The cream says, “We are safe.”

Flops (eating, not rushing, a ritual): We’re going to make a second round and then a third round and then call it a day because moderation is a type of respect. Also because I want to be able to stand up later.

Dook (already ladling more batter): Waffle two is gratitude. Waffle three is for future us in forty minutes.

They eat. They don’t talk much because talking is sometimes a way to dodge feeling and they want to feel this on purpose. Between bites, they clink forks like toasting a small victory.

Flops (leans back, sighs, grins): Worth the flight, worth the turbulence, worth the customs. Officer Barky gets one if he ever swings by off-duty.

Dook (scribbling a mental note to invite Officer Barky to a non-suspicious waffle-related gathering): I will put out a polite beacon.

Flops (licks a smear of jam from a thumb): The Stoat needs to try this. He set us on the path. And I want to see his face do that thing where it stays neutral but his ears say “childhood.”

Dook (holds up the plush moose): And we deliver skis-wearing moose. He will pretend to dislike it for three syllables.

Flops (packs two waffles into a tin that used to hold cookies and now holds good ideas): After credits snack for the kiosk. We’re doing this full circle.

Dook (peers into the empty bottle, which now contains a tiny echo of a bell): The cow says, “You’re welcome.” She also says, “Don’t shake milk into butter by accident.”

Flops (checks the bottle, amused): I love that our life includes dairy etiquette from other realities.

Dook (serious, because respect is a verb): Always.

Credits segment

Credits roll: forks, plates, sunlight through curtains, a moose plush leaning against a jam jar like it’s guarding national treasure. The waffle iron’s light clicks off with the dignity of a job complete.

After Credits - Back at the Kiosk

The Stoat (leans on the counter, watching a distant cloud pretend to be a hockey player): Back so soon, eh?

Flops (sets the tin down, opens it, reveals two perfect quarters of waffle topped with amber jam and a delicate scoop of cream, which somehow hasn’t slumped because it remembers being whipped by a being who could hum a mountain into patience): We brought souvenirs you can chew.

Dook (slides the plush moose across the counter with ceremony): For you. The skis are part of its identity, but you may let it rest.

The Stoat (slowly takes a bite of waffle, chews, chews again, eyes go somewhere else, somewhere with mornings that start in blue snow and end in a warm kitchen): Huh. That’s… well now. That’s home, eh.

Flops (quietly satisfied): We thought it might be.

The Stoat (pats the moose plush’s head, as if agreeing on a treaty): You two are ridiculous in a way that keeps the world interesting. Keep it up.

Dook (bows a little, ears flourishing): We live to lightly baff—cheer.

The Stoat (points at the waffle tin with his chin, an affectionate command): Leave the tin. You’ll get it back when karma feels like it.

Flops (grinning): Fair trade.

The Stoat (returns to his crossword, pencil hovering): Nine letters, starts with M, also ends with M, meaning “a taste that takes you back.” Multekrem, fits right in eh?

Dook (beams): We solved a word with dessert.

Flops (leans on the counter, companionable silence settling like a blanket): Next week: waffles with—no, no, let’s not get cocky. Today was perfect. Let’s just let today be today.

Dook (pours them both tiny paper cups of kiosk cocoa from nowhere and everywhere): To today.

Flops (clinks cups): To today.

They sip. The Stoat eats the last bite slowly, like he’s paying attention to each pixel of taste. Outside, a cloud tries to put on skis, falls over, laughs at itself, keeps trying. Inside, three friends agree without saying it: sometimes the world makes you work for simple things so you’ll notice them when they arrive. And when they do, the right response is to share.

END