I Fell Into A Dream

I was caught without an umbrella when the rains came, so naturally I was swept off to Sea and never heard from again. I imagine it pained my parents for a while, wondering where I'd gotten off to. Eventually, the police would come to the conclusion that I'd been kidnapped and my parents would be mollified. My sister never believed I'd been taken, though, and in the end that might have been my salvation. My sister liked to braid her long blonde hair into ponytails and swish them in my face when I annoyed her. My sister liked pea green soup. My sister had more curiosity than she knew what to do with, and when she finally got wind of Things, she packed up her trunk and came after the rains and me, but that's another story.

The Sea is a very calming place. It isn't the Baltic or the Mediterranean or any place of the World, but it is wet and it is large and it is easy to get lost. I must have spent three days on the Sea before I bumped into anything of Consequence. The first Consequence I bumped into was stranded on an iceberg in the Sea, galumphing walrus tears into the great wetness about him. "Why are you crying?" I asked, unsure if the Consequence could understand my speech. But sure enough, the Consequence cocked his head and bristled his great whiskers and stared into my eyes like he was searching for the question I should have asked him instead. As if I had lost a great opportunity, he lowered his head and shuddered his body off the boulder of ice into the water. The shine of oil-slick crested his thick back as he propelled himself into the darkness of movement. He puttered out and formed a wide circle, then turned around and stopped in front of me. I didn't imagine I would be offered a more clear invitation, so I waded into the greasy water and threw myself onto the wide, pitted, scarred expanse of his body. I wondered if he would take me back to the World, but our heads dipped under the water and I found myself breathing in oxygen through a small space behind my eyes.