I Arrive

Help! Can't stand up. Something keeps knocking me down. Speed, motion, and a sensation of spinning. Round and round and round and...

Uh oh. Urp! Excuse me. (Unpleasant noises off page)

Whew! I think I'll just lie here quietly a bit.

All around it's dark, except above me. Pictures of people and critters flash overhead like a movie,  backwards like someone hit the "reverse" button. Strange. Their clothes seem to be getting more "old fashioned" with every passing second.

I close my eyes and pray this bad dream will end with my lying peacefully in bed.

Suddenly, the spinning stops. I open an eye. Total darkness. Even the pictures are gone.

Then the darkness lifts like a curtan. Outside the tollbooth, a garden, with trees and flowers and shrubberies trimmed in the shapes of jolly woodland critters, spreads out in all directions. It's beautiful, idyllic.

I rise on wobbly legs to my feet and stagger to the edge of the control console. I press my nose to the glass and peer out.

"What has Professor Zacchaeus invented?" I wonder out loud. "A contraption for going to Disneyland?"

"Yeah. And I'm the Big Bad Wolf!" a voice snarls at my back.

I turn slowly.