Chapter Six. About that time I fell off the roof...

Narrator's Note.

Narrator: Ok kids, old people, ladies, gents, here at that quiet place in the woods, when a tragedy happens we like to let you know about it so we can instruct you in how to proceed accordingly. Now listen. The pirate queen is currently not working at the mine beneath Mount Winnisquam. Unfortunately, this is due to an excess population of cave rats, whom she happens to be allergic to. Now, before you go making plans for cave rat killing sprees, remember that the Lord says to love your enemies, and show Christian love to all those who oppose you or your comrades, and oh yeah, don't murder.

Ok, now naturally this event put AWC in a perfectly terrible mood. In fact, she was actually pretty out of line. So Love Himself angrily took her wrist and led her out of a public place where she had been terrorizing locals, and he told her to stay in her pagoda until she could act rationally again.

So she was sending letters by owl to her dear friend forget-me-not, who lived somewhere else not too far away.

"Act rationally. Pah!" She licked the envelope to seal it. "Florence!"

"Who? Who?" Florence hopped up and down on the desk, his talons making soft clicks on the hard wood surface.

"Forget-me-not," AWC said, "and hurry."

With a swish of feathery flight, Florence lifted off and sped through the pagoda's doorway and into the wood. It was only then that AWC noticed that the wide opening in the wall that had been a doorway was now an actual arched doorway, with fretwork and everything to make it look fancy.

"A new doorway?" She pondered. "Hmm, that sure is nice."

She stared longingly at the door. She wanted to leave. She couldn't for the life of her imagine how a slight bit of irrationality could ever harm her in the forest, even if there was a wolf living in it.

So she left the little zen pagoda, in its corner in that quiet place in the wood, and wandered through the forest. "Maybe," She thought, "I could find some way to bring my rationality back."

AWC followed the dusty path that went straight through the forest, until she came upon Paolo the foreigner, who was digging through the bushes looking for mexican food. "Oh Paolo," she said, as he happened upon a taco. He laughed joyously and devoured it. "Paolo?" She repeated.

"Mmm... taco..." Paolo said. "Oh, what is it, AWC?"

"Our sensei is gone," she said sadly. "And I've lost my rationality because of it!"

"Our SENSEI IS GONE?" he asked, eyes wide with alarm. "Oh what will we do? How will we learn to live in this world?"

AWC nodded. "I don't know," she admitted. "But it'll be ok."

"All our rationalities will be gone," Paolo said sadly. "Let me come with you and we will find fellows to help us thrive."

"A good plan," AWC said. So the writer and the foreigner walked down the dusty path into the wood. From nowhere an amazing violet dragon flew from the treetops down onto the path in front of them.

"Oh, Loretta," Paolo said, "have you heard the news?"

"Yeah duh," the dragon lady said, I'm the one who told AWC. Let me come with you, so we can get our sadness gone and our rationalities back, and tell the others about how...."

"The sky is falling!" AWC cried out.

The foreigner and dragon lady stared at her. "It just seemed appropriate..." AWC said, embarassed.

So the writer, the foreigner, and the dragon lady went down the path in front of them. Coming their way from the opposite direction was Mary-Anne the blond maneater.

"Oh Mary-Anne," AWC said, "We have terrible news about our sensei."

"I know," Mary-Anne said. "I'm the one who told the dragon lady."

"It's true," The dragon lady said, shrugging.

"Let me come with you," Mary-Anne said.

"Hooray!" AWC said, "we're off to see the wizard! The maneater can get a heart, the foreigner can get some courage, and the dragon lady can get... um...."

"Get what?" The dragon lady glared at AWC.

"Oh look at the time, we best be on our way! The sky is falling doncha know." AWC grinned and patted the dragon lady on her dragony head and skipped off down the road. The others reluctantly followed. And so the writer, the foreigner, the dragon lady, and the maneater all proceeded down the path.

"We're off to see the wizard," AWC sang, "Because the sky has fallen. Da dum dee dee dee dum, de dum badadada da de dum..."

Eventually they came to a fork in a road. A raven was sitting on a signpost. The signpost had two different directamabobs on it. One said "right way" with an arrow to the left, and the other said "wrong way", with an arrow to the right.

It took them an hour or two to decide which direction was right. Only Paolo and Mary-Anne were pretty sure it was the road that the directamabob that said "right" was pointing to, while Loretta and AWC figured that the right way must actually be the right way.

"You'll never make it out of the forest at this rate," the raven said, shaking his black feathery head.

AWC was intrigued. "Well what's out of the forest?"

"Other worlds, RAAAWWWK." The raven flapped its black wings. "Other mind-worlds. Other metaphors. Worlds beyond. Nevermore. RAWK."

"Would you like to come with us, Raven?" AWC asked. "The sky is falling and we've got to go tell the wizard... I uh... I think... that is what we're supposed to do, isn't it?"

"I don't really see much point in it," the raven said. "After all, AWC is going to wake up from her dream in about two minutes or so."

"What?" AWC turned to her friends but they were gone. She looked back to the raven.

"Nevermore, dude," he said.

Suddenly, a chunk of something hard and plastery landed on AWC's head. "Oh no..." she whispered urgently, looking up at the sky. "Oh no!"

The sky was falling. A spiderweb crack ran out from the center, and bits of sky were raining on the forest, and falling on her head. "Raven, if the skybits fall they will crush you flat! Fly away!" She exclaimed. The raven already knew this, but was still standing there on the signpost, above the two directormabobs.

"Rawk," he said. "It doesn't matter does it, it is, after all, just in your head."

AWC frowned. "Yeah, people keep telling me that."

She turned around again, to head back up the path, only to find Shadow the angry wolf who thinks he's an owl sitting there.

"You should just wait," Shadow agreed with the raven, "you'll wake up soon enough, and it will all be over. In the meanwhile, just enjoy the dream."

A chunk of the sky the size of a television set landed on the ground in front of them. "But the SKY is falling!" She exclaimed. "How should I enjoy a dream in which the sky is falling?"

"Well, look," Shadow said, pointing his wolfish snout upwards. "You can see the universe now."

It was true. Now that all the bits of garish blue had fallen away, she could see miles and miles of black abyss, in which were glimmerings of stars, and planets, and far away galaxies, and a giant, golden moon. The stars were hazy and yellow and the great number of them completely filled AWC's vision, and she couldn't see the falling sky anymore. She could only see the light.