Well, if you're gonna
die, there's no sense dying in a messy basement. You start grabbing
boxes and stacking them as neatly as you can, considering how woozy you
are from the snakebite and shrinking imaginary bar above your head. You
stack and stack, and soon you've completed your first floor-to-ceiling
stack of boxes. You look it over, proud of the expert stacking you've
done, but notice to your dismay that you placed the very first box, a
nice heavy box full of old National Geographic issues, right in a puddle
of the mysterious green goo.
Geez, that's the kind
of bush league mistake you'd expect from a guy with TWO snakes latched
onto his glutes. What's your excuse? Your reasoning with your overly
critical subconscious mind is interrupted when the stack of boxes begins
to shudder. Oh lord, what now, you whine to yourself.
Zounds! The stack of
boxes has transformed into a magical beanstalk!!! The plant begins
growing of its own accord, quickly breaking through the basement ceiling
and on through the rest of the house. You marvel at the sight, staring
up through the hole and into the clear sky beyond. You see out of the
corner of your eye that the mysterious red bar has almost vanished, and
for some reason, that makes you feel woozy. You sway about for a moment
before falling forward onto your fantastic stalk.
As your head spins, you have a vague sense of a change in elevation.
Looking around, you see that your watch has become snagged on a section
of the rising beanstalk, and you are now significantly higher than you
were when you keeled over. You're not certain of how high you actually
are, but it must be fairly high up, as the air is starting to get a
little thin. You feel the snake's deathgrip on your bum start to weaken,
and soon after the malicious serpent disengages its jaw and falls back
to the earth, landing squarely on your windshield with a distant
"crunch". Damn.
You lose sight of your
shattered windshield as the beanstalk rises above the cloudline. Your
initial amazement over the beanstalk managing to hold your considerable
bulk without buckling, or even swaying a little, further develops as you
see a structure rising above the clouds in the distance. Neat, you think
to yourself, too bad I can't get over there. That problem resolves
itself, as the beanstalk abruptly stops growing, unsnagging your watch
and tossing you into the fluffy, but firm, clouds. Amazing. Rather than
falling to your death, you seem to be standing on the clouds as though
they were as thick and resilient as a week-old Baguette. That was lucky,
you start to say before you spot a fast-approaching passenger jet out of
the corner of your eye. Crapola. This will require some quick action.
