By Aribella Lafleur

I awoke to a soothing, yet strangely perturbing, humming noise emanating from my surroundings. Without opening my eyes I lay, basking in the comfort of the luxurious silken bed linen on the bed I had appropriated for the night. Like Goldilocks, I had made myself totally at ease within someone else’s home, but as no one had come to claim my haven in the night I had slept the full measure in stately affluence.

A disquieting thought suddenly dawned on me…. I could no longer hear the rustling of the leaves as the wind danced over the treetops. I pried open my lids and beheld a truly astonishing sight.

Surrounded by an alien landscape of lofty purple spires I was utterly dumbfounded (yes, Aribella Lafleur, queen of verbal diarrhoea, caught speechless; a truly rare sight indeed!). I gathered my senses and bellowed for my disloyal crew who appeared to have vanished in the night, along with my former lodgings.

From out of the depths below reverberated the welcome voices of my trusty pirate band. Pretending I had never thought evil and slightly murderous thoughts about them for allowing such a fate to befall me, I called down for assistance. Peering over the edge, I felt a wave of dizziness envelop me and I swooned like a victim of Dracula, toppling off the parapet in my stupor. My fall was broken by the soft bodies of my pirate company, who had thankfully been well fed. I silently praised my own foresight for ensuring their wellbeing, and thus giving myself a well-cushioned landing spot.

After dusting ourselves off, my swashbucklers proudly informed me they had found us trusty steeds on which to continue our passage.

We viewed many strange sights including a shiny, twisted green tunnel, which looked reminiscent of a diseased bowel, an imposing train which loomed over us (although we could find no tracks) and a gigantic Van de Graaff generator, which made the atmosphere come alive with the tingling of electric charge. We viewed a wind turbine farm, powered by twisters which threatened to catch us up in their vortices and send us out of Kansas….. I wondered if there were any flying cows trapped in the whirling air tunnels, but my desire for safety outweighed my curiosity.

We became repeatedly further mired in the quicksand of several sim crossings (a sensation all who have spent time exploring in this land would be accustomed to) and struggled to free our horses from the morass….

Finding ourselves beside a familiar bouncy castle (although this one had lost its bounce) we again met Good2 Go, the extremely talented creator of the marvels we had encountered earlier in Ponderama.
He convinced us (against my better judgement) to test his Rolling Thunder ride, but did not inform me until after I had fallen from a great height that he had no public liability insurance, so there was no possibility of suing for injuries to my avatar (or my pride). Stuck in a bottleneck halfway down the ride, I was sickened by the sight of the ground hundreds of metres below (or above?) me.

Extricated by the quick thinking of one of my band, I reached the ground unscathed, although mentally scarred….

Tempted to try another ride, I was whisked about on a merry-go-round, egged on by my psychotic followers, who were laughing insanely as vomit tried to force its way up from the depths of my stomach. The ride eventually slowed (as did my blood-curdling screams), and I fell off with trembling limbs, kissing the ground like a shaking, elderly Pope.

We stopped for a civilized meal of Pavlova, washed down by beer (two of the Aussie food groups), and then resumed our trek across the Burning Life desert.

We skirted around a giant fire extinguisher (probably a precaution to quench the burning man fires if they got out of hand) and found ourselves surrounded by a garden of remarkable pumpkins, as if we had stumbled upon a health food version of the gingerbread house…

On closer inspection, the central square pumpkin contained a door, which we hesitantly entered. An oasis of spring erupted in our faces, as we immersed ourselves in the forest paradise, teeming with sounds of life. A gurgling stream meandered over the hooves of our steed whilst leaves drifted down to land on our dew-laden clothing.

A sixth sense nagged at the back of my consciousness, whispering to me not to let the pumpkin door close… We hurriedly backed out, wondering if we were lucky to escape a trap or if we had missed our opportunity to enter nirvana….

A short gallop led us to the Seussian Jungle Camp, where a miniature Tokyo begged our closer inspection…

In true Seuss style, we put on our big stompin’ boots and “Godzilla’d” the buildings to mounds of burning rubble. When no hatted cats appeared to rectify our impulsive demolition, we hastily retreated, wondering how many tiny Tokyo citizens had been crushed in the terrible err…. accident (oops, I must have tripped, honest officer!).

After being attacked by a giant bug, we lost one of our crew to the lure of a vast pirate ship. With the stress of exploring too much for him, he reverted back to his former life of turpitude. I speculated as to how much wenching and piracy could be performed when the ship was beached in the middle of a desert….

Passing the Hand of the Lindens (which tried to backhand our horse’s rump) we realized we had come full circle to the Burning Life centre camp, drawn back by its gravitational pull. Unable to again achieve escape velocity, we were resigned to wait out the remainder of the festival in the camp…..

Copy and images (c) 2007, Aribella Lafleur. All Rights Reserved.
Produced with the editorial assistance of Must Packbiers.

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