Isolated Park Cannot Be Exited by Traditional Means
“Then how
do we get out?” Shab despaired, throwing out his hands to the
surrounding shrubbery.
Torman
rubbed his chin. “We’ve got to use
unconventional means,” he mused.
“What does that
mean?” Shab barked. He began pacing,
deliberately stepping in puddles left by the recent shower.
“Stop
that!” Grimmery ordered. Irritation
showed in the purple bands on his neck.
“Torman’s trying to think!”
“Well,
well,” Shab addressed the shorter man, fists on his hips, “Grimmery asserts
himself! That’s a change!”
“And I am
too!” Grimmery added to his earlier statement about thinking.
Torman
stepped away from the two. He stared at
the puddles.
“One of
these might actually be a hole,” he muttered.
“Or a well.”
And that is
how they got out. Following Torman’s
lead, Shab and Grimmery held their noses and jumped down into the puddle that
lay before the statue of Elaine Klumpendour, the woman for whom the park was
named. Down, down they fell, until they
thought they couldn’t hold their breath anymore, and indeed they couldn’t, but
when they involuntarily inhaled, they found that they could breathe, for
the water through which they passed was not water at all, but oxygenated smoke
and incense, smelling of orange and then purple and then orange again. They smiled at each other as best they could,
for now they were blind.
.
