I awoke with a start. Looking around, I could see that I wasn't in my home any more. Things were horrifically different. I was sleeping on some sort of platform that
had the look and consistancy of Edom cheese. Very bright light was shining down on me from what resembled a hollowed-out muskmelon. Strange wiggling things
were coming out of the walls. I rose to my feet and headed for an oval portal. I hit it like a brick wall. The strange girl I rescued came through what looked like a thick
black wall. "Try this opening. You can pass through it," she said. I followed her, and found I could pass. I entered another room in which a 3-foot-tall lavender mouse
was dusting what looked like the taxidermied head of Dick Cheney. Magenta dust was billowing from his hair while a spider wearing bifocals (12 pairs!) read a copy
of "Harry Potter and The Gobbler of Fire." Shouldn't that be GOBLET of Fire? I asked. "No," said the girl. "You have slipped into the Other Zone. We do things
different here." How? I asked. She directed me to look in a rose-tinted mirror. I could see my body beginning to behave as it never did before. I was...