On
Falling In And Out Of Storyside...
Part
5
Jerry
Walker opened his eyes and almost immediately began laughing to himself. No way
had he gone from a crowded roller rink to the middle of a forest. That sort of
thing only happened in fantasy role playing games, or in the middle of deep
sleeps. And since I wasn't playing any role playing games that I can
remember, he thought, this is obviously some off-dream I'm having.
The confusing part, he realized as his laughter stopped, was figuring out which
part of this whole episode was dream, the rink or the forest.
Okay,
he thought, since I can't remember having gone to anyplace with this many
trees lately, the forest must be the dream part, which means sometime after
Daina and I finished talking about her story, I must have gone to sleep or
something. The last thing he could remember of his conversation with his
friend was turning away from it as somebody called out, "Heads up!"
behind him.
At
any rate, he decided, I'm here now, so I might as well see what this
dream's about. He stood up to dust himself off, then
took a double take as he realized his whole perspective was physically
changing. The whole forest around him seemed to be getting bigger. In fact, by
the time he realized fully what was happening to him, he had shrunk to about 5
inches tall. Not good, he thought, looking around him grimly. I'm in
an unfamiliar dream forest, which'll probably have
your basic dream animals in it and I'm the size of a light snack. Not good at
all.
The
best thing to do, he knew, would be to find someplace to hide where he could be
safe to think this whole thing through. He headed toward a set of bushes in
front of him, hoping he could stay hidden amidst all the underbrush.
Just
as he was sure he was far enough in that no animal could reach him, he suddenly
came out into the open again. To his surprise, he found himself in a city that
fit his present size! It surrounded a large tree that, as he peered closely at
it, resembled a sort of castle, with its windows and drawbridge. Two men were
standing in front of him looking surprised. They were dressed in some sort of
uniform and the spears they held gave them a very
"stab-first-and-ask-questions-later" attitude.
"You're
human, aren't you?" one asked.
"Last
time I checked," Jerry replied casually. After all, he reminded
himself, this is only a dream. "Where am I?"
"We're
gettin' all sorts in here today," sighed the other. "Come with us."
"Wait
a minute, you didn't tell me where I am," Jerry protested, backing off
some.
"Don't
make this harder on yourself, human," the guard frowned advancing on him.
"Come along quietly or..."
"But
I haven't done anything!"
"Surely
you don't think you, a human, can find the fairy city of
"Obviously
sent by some fairyhunter to find the city," said
the second guard of Jerry.
Now
Jerry was fully weirded out. "Fairy city...wait
a minute, I've had some dreams, man, but dreams about fairies is definitely a
new one," he smirked.
The
two guards exchanged glances, then one said,
"Perhaps the wizard who reduced his size also addled his brain."
"Addled?"
Now Jerry was taking offense. How dare his dream images insult him! "Look,
dude, don't make me have to..." But before he could take the defensive,
the guards both unfolded a large set of butterfly wings and flew at him. Jerry
tried to turn and run, but they both grabbed an arm and lifted him off the
ground.
"Considerably
less fight in these humans once you get them down to size and in the air,
eh?" remarked one of the guards coolly.
"Absolutely,"
came the other's reply. And Jerry had most certainly
stopped trying to struggle, since, dream or no dream,
the fear of falling to the ground below was slightly more compelling than the
fear of being kept prisoner in a fairy city. "Relax, human. You'll get
used to the dungeons of the castle after a while."
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