The Map

Lots of news to report, Dear Reader, some of which is so incredible you will not believe it. I'm sorry, it's true all the same.

First, the impossible vision I experienced at the end of the last post was none other than my lost lost sister Jujube. When I last heard from her, she wrote heartfelt words of encouragement from Cricklewood, which I had thought to be a suburb of London. Little did I know the nefarious plots, the subterranean deceptions, the, the... But I digress.

Jujube and I were separated at a young age. One day a whirlwind occurred. I landed in the middle of a field in Indiana where I was discovered and adopted by "him" and "her." Where Jujube landed I never knew. I had presumed in Cricklewood.

Anyway, not to belabor the point, shortly after experiencing the miraculous vision of my kid sister, I passed out again. When I awakened, I saw before me the map reproduced above. The most curious thing about the map was that it appeared to be entirely without feature.

Buster the astronaut suggested that it was written in some sort of invisible ink that might be revealed by a chemical reaction or heat. Buster was very excited. He thought it might provide a clue for a way out of this place.

We dipped it in vinegar first, but that didn't work. Then Buster held a match behind it. Lo and behold, the image depicted at the right appeared. Buster was flabbergasted.

"This is it! This is it!" he cried, beside himself with the joy of discovery, or something. Unfortunately, at that moment I was seized by a fit of sneezing, the result, no doubt, of all that vinegar. In one final surge, the pink goop that had been enveloping my wonderful nose - the goop that was the result of the happy juice side effect - the pink goop shot loose and completely enveloped Buster.

Buster was paralyzed, encased in a pink gooey cocoon. The rest of the astronauts jumped to his aid, but no one could get it off. I looked over the map. It appeared to be a star map of the universe.

"We are here," Colby, one of Buster's fellow astronauts, pointed out."

OK. OK. I mean how does that help? I mean, WTF! I know we are here, Colby. I don't want to be here. I want to be there, at home with "him" and "her". And I want to rescue Jujube too. I want to go to Crickewood wherever it is, as long as it is not too far, that is. I mean, I mean.

Whatever.