It was because of this team that 64 Pickles was a great success in the business world and today I was going to show them my appreciation for all of their hard work and dedication with a “thank you” celebration at 3:00p.m.
I took an early lunch at 11:00 so that I could get all of the necessary items for the party and I left the front door of 64 Pickles and headed for the parking garage.
I never thought that I would quit falling. The manhole cover was gone and I stepped into the portal to oblivion. Thud, the pavement was hard and my head hurt and yet I went forward to someplace else; yes that was the name of the place on the sign; Someplace Else. The whole place was black as coal except for a white glow on the horizon; that was my objective.
The gate is locked and not free, insert 600 Smubles to enter you see. I had no Smubles to give, and so there I was blocked from the Ice Palace. I don’t know why I had to make it to the Ice Palace; I just knew that I had to be there. Where had I come from? What was my name? The answer to these questions evaded my mind at the moment and I wished that it were this pain that I was feeling that was doing the leaving and not the other way around. It seemed to increase with each beat of my heart and would not stop; it did not even act like it was going to slow down. If only I could make it to my “beast” then I knew that I could escape this dangerous land. I had to get to Someplace Else quickly, but just where that was I hadn’t a clue, nor did I have any indication as to why I had to be there, I only knew that my presence was needed there by someone, but whom?
My left foot banged against something as I groped my way through the darkness. Dropping to my knees for a chance to feel my way through I discovered that there was a brick just lying there in the middle of the street and it had a note attached to it which read: Throw me at the first glass window you see. That had to be the most peculiar thing I had seen today, and so when I came to the first glass window I raised my arm and took aim at the windowpane and would have thrown the brick forward except something from behind me stopped me. “There, there me boy what do you think you are doing? The voice from behind said. I turned to see a man that appeared to be some sort of policeman looking me square in the belly. “I found this brick with this note attached: Throw me at the first glass window you see. “Do you always follow directions you find on strange bricks?” said the mini-cop. “Well, this is the first one that I ever found.” I said. “My mother always said to follow directions,” he said while motioning to the window. With that apparent, “Go Ahead” I let the hardened clay projectile fly with all the strength I could muster, and waited for the crash with my eyes closed tightly. There was the sound of a tremendous crash and I was afraid to open my eyes, until mini-cop said, “Now, look, and see what you have done.” I slowly opened one eye and shot a gaze toward the area I had heard the crash emanate from; to my wonder and shock the window was not broken; how come? I know that my ears had recorded for my brain the sound of something breaking; but if not the window, what?
There at my feet lay the answer to my question, the brick that had been my supposed weapon of destruction was lying there; broken into many small pieces, and there amongst the rubble was a small leather bag.
“Where do you suppose the boss is, Will?” Asked Terrie. “Don’t know, he said he’d be back at three with the party stuff.” “You know how he is when he gets into the “beast.” Mary chimed in. With this Wilbur just had to get his “two cents” in. “Perhaps he fell down a manhole and is trapped in another world; perhaps someplace else.” The other three workers just laughed and told Wilbur that was some imagination he had. “Well, maybe he did and he needs us to rescue him.” Wilbur turned and walked out the front door of 64 Pickles and looked down the walk toward the parking garage.
I opened the bag and there inside were some coins, some large and some small and some that looked like they were not even money at all. Three flat, smooth red discs with a small yellow spot in the middle of them. I turned myself about to inquire of the small policeman the directions to the Ice Palace and found that he was no longer there. About this time the darkness that had earlier surrounded me was fading away and the sky was filled with the most brilliant, red, blue and orange colors with a streak of purple dashed from one side of the sky to the other.
There on a fence post I saw the oddest thing that one would ever find sitting upon a fence post and that was a large yellow bird with a red sack hanging from its mouth. There was a sign in yellow letters on the bag that read: QUESTIONS ANSWERED- so I approached the bird and posed this question to him; “how do I get to the Ice Palace?” The bird said nothing, but rolled his eyes downward to the bag in his beak, and I looked in the bag to see what was in there. I found a single piece of blue paper with the answer to my question on it, follow the green fence posts. I decided to test the bag to see if it was telling the truth and so I asked it another question; “Sweet or unsweet?” sweet of course. “Elephant or Tiger?” Elephant is the only winner.
Following the green fence posts down the road took a great while and to keep myself amused I sang this little song Follow the green fence posts, follow the green fence posts, follow, follow, follow, follow the green fence posts. It was almost twilight when I came to the gate that I had seen earlier in this journey. I glanced into the leather bag at the small amount of money that was there and decided that it was foolish to spend what little money I had to enter this gate when all that was necessary to pass through was for me to climb over the short fence that the gate was hooked to. I took three steps to the left of the gate and began to climb over the fence, however, this was not to be as easy as I had thought because every time I put my foot on the third rail of the fence there appeared above it three more rails and before I knew what was happening, I found myself twenty feet into the air. I decided to climb down and try another spot in the fence line, as I climbed down the rails that were above me disappeared; and yet if I tried to climb over the top another rail appeared. When I reached the bottom I looked and there were only three rails as there was when I started. I tried the same solution on the gate itself and came up with the same results as when I tried to enter over the fence. Maybe if I went on the right side of the gate I would have greater success, no, that was not to be the case either.
I continued down the road in the direction back towards town, trying one section of fence after another and still could not manage to get over the fence.
The sun had gone down and I was nowhere close to getting toward the Ice Palace, in fact I was farther away than I had been earlier that day; my attempt to save a few Smubles had cost me an entire day of travel and had only rewarded me with a great many blisters on my hands and bruises on my legs and shins. I was cold, hungry, poor (the only money that I had was this small amount of coin in the leather bag) and had nowhere warm to sleep at; so I became strong-willed against myself and curled up beneath some newspaper on the walk with the notion to return to the gate as soon as the sun arose and pay whatever the cost to enter the gateway to the Ice Palace. -Brain to body, if you’re this cold now; why must you go to the Ice Palace?- Body to brain, I don’t know, I just have to.- Brain to body, you’re crazy-Body to brain- I know, now shut up and let me sleep.
The morning sun arose in the clear sky, chasing away the darkness and the cold of the night. There was a sidewalk vendor selling his wares up ahead and I stopped to see what he had on his cart. There were candles and glass figurines of fancy ladies in their ball gowns, gentlemen in their best dress, and some figures of dogs and cats. I picked up a newspaper and read the headline of the leading story: