by OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA, Alternate Reality News Service Travel Writer
The Oxford English Dictionary is walking down the street, pushing a stroller that contains a gurgling and cooing Oxford Abridged Pocket Dictionary. Behind it, a building explodes in a shower of roses and poinsettias; at the same time, I get a taste in my mouth like I have just swallowed a steak cooked by Martin Sheen. When I stoop to pick up one of the flowers, it says, "I'm sorry, but we haven't been properly introduced," sprouts wings (which, if I am any judge of historic aircraft, came from a Gloster Meteor) and flies away.
This wasn't a dream, although it certainly had the wallpaper of one. No, it was a place called <shudder> the * UNHINGED ZONE * </shudder>.
The <lack of emotional response because...it...it didn't take me by surprise this time> * UNHINGED ZONE * </lack of emotional response because...it...it didn't take me by surprise this time> is a group of seven universes that had a lot of traffic in the early, squirrely days of transdimensional travel. Too much traffic: tourists randomly messing about with their timelines eventually resulted in linear causality breaking down in these dimensions. This was the impetus for the creation of the Transdimensional Authority and its regulation of interdimensional travel.
The Alternate Reality News Service, along with six other news (and one fried chicken) outlets, was offered a rare opportunity to tour the <see? I'm good with it> * UNHINGED ZONE * </see? I'm good with it>. I vibrated so much when I was given the extremely rare assignment that people around me thought they were hearing wasps buzzing around their heads. The editorial bullpen of the Alternate Reality News Service was fumigated two months ahead of schedule.
"Okay, listen up," Tour Leader Jacinta Oxguts told the pool reporters (so called because we enjoy a nice dip before leaving on an assignment, and we tend to clot together in moments of danger) before we left. "You are about to enter a place unlike any you have ever been in. Recent reports -"
"Pfft," the New York Times reporter waved a dismissive hand. "I've been in the Tokyo subway at rush hour!"
The Times reporter would be the first person to wet himself in the * UNHINGED ZONE *. He wouldn't be the last.
"Recent reports in the press have romanticized the * UNHINGED ZONE *," Tour Leader Oxguts continued, ignoring the outburst and subsequent nervous laughter. "I am here to tell you that there is nothing romantic about walking through a door in a bank and finding yourself falling through clouds at 10,000 feet! Sensible and survive, people! Be sensible and survive!"
We all wore full body wetsuits that filtered oxygen from the atmosphere and recycled our waste into a full menu featuring 27 different snacks and beverages. "You will not rip, tear, slash, rend, rupture or otherwise break open your suit while in the * UNHINGED ZONE *," commanded Tour Leader Oxguts as she led us through the Diemnsional PortalTM. "Wary and watchful, people! Be wary and watchful! Once the Unhinged gets at you, you will never be able to live a normal life. Remember what happened to Dan Rather!"
<crowd gasps />
Over our heads floated a flock of penguins. They looked as surprised to be there as we were to see them. "That," Tour Leader Oxguts sneered, "is what happens when somebody tries to launder gold bars by smuggling them between dimensions through the * UNHINGED ZONE *. Look and learn, people! Look and learn!"
The group I was with was hustled into a six story red brick toothbrush which, we were told, was the home of the Euripidean Gleaner and Eyeshadow, a local newspaper. The newspaper was started 20 years ago, shut down for a bit, and started again 30 years before that. Before any of us could open our mouths, we were told to treat this universe like one big Chinatown. Some of us got the reference, others were distracted by the giant genitals hovering over the reception desk.
"They belong to the publisher," Tour Leader Oxguts assured us. Not to worry - she knows where they are!"
I asked a man standing nearby whom I assumed was a security guard (his uniform changed every second, but it always seemed official in some way) what life in the * UNHINGED ZONE * was like. When he opened his mouth, it sounded like a lilac-scented trash compactor. He started to wiggle his behind. Before I could tell him that I was here on business and I wasn't really interested in him in that way, I got the sense that his butt was sending me a message. "You get used to it," the man's rear end told me.
Then, without warning, we were back on Earth Prime. In all, our journey through the * UNHINGED ZONE * lasted 27 seconds. But, 27 seconds in the * UNHINGED ZONE * is like a full minute anywhere else!