Portal
Deep within the old forest, a portal of golden, shimmering light opened at the base of a mighty oak.
“Oh my,” gasped young Emma Puddifoot, pressing her slender fingers to her soft lips. “Whatever could this be?”
She leaned forward and slipped, tumbling into an infinite abyss, screaming the whole way down.
Tumbling tumbling tumbling.
Tumbling tumbling tumbling.
Tumbling tumbling tumbling.
Emma stopped screaming. “Well this is getting a bit ol—oh!”
She found herself standing in a lobby, no longer falling. She guessed gravity had gotten bored as well. A ticket dispensing machine sat before her.
The sign on it said: TAKE ONE
She took a ticket. The ticket read: PF1429
The ticket machine zipped out of existence and she found herself sitting in a lobby.
She fumed. “Well, this is just rude!”
Everyone waiting in the lobby shushed her. And everyone in the lobby looked much like her, their hair done up in bright bows and braids, wearing pinafore dresses of varying color.
“P1429,” a voice crackled over the lobby speakers. “Station 7878.”
Emma looked up and saw that she was sitting next to Station 1. She got up and walked for ten years until she got to Station 7877. Past Station 7877 there was only a wall, ten million miles high and ten million miles wide.
She asked the Bureaucrat at Station 7877 for help. The Bureaucrat took one look at her ticket and told her, “You need to go back ten years. Station 7878 is across from Station 1.”
“Nonsense!” Emma shrieked, stomping her feet. “I walked all this way!”
“Ma’am, I just work,” the laconic bureaucrat replied.
“Listen,” she said. “I fell into a magical portal and I demand to have an enchanting journey that teaches me important, life-affirming lessons using a charming metaphorical veneer.”
“Ooooh,” the bureaucrat said. “Well you’ve got the wrong ticket for that. You need a ticket that starts with WA.”
“…WA?”
“Uh huh. For Whimsical Adventure.”
Emma slumped, frazzled and defeated. “Well what does PF stand for?”
The bureaucrat shrugged. “Pointless Farce.” Ω