[ I'd be damned if i ever thought this was how it was going to end. Normally i've had midstrength luck, uneventful luck. The sort of luck that isn't actually a factor. You never have something bad happen to you and nothing terribly great happens either. Y

I'd be damned if I ever thought this was how it was going to end. Normally I’ve had mid-strength luck, uneventful luck. The sort of luck that isn't actually a factor. You never have something bad happen to you and nothing terribly great happens either. You don't notice it. Things change.1

I stood on the platform, hands tied securely at my back. A noose held my neck firmly and painfully in place as I waited to die. Everyone in the small town of Blank had rocked up, all to watch the event. This was the biggest thing ever to happen in Blank- a public execution of a small-time criminal. Nobody could miss this once in a life-time opportunity. After all, no public executions had been carried out for a good fifteen years. Three rows down, an egg-shaped middle-aged lady helped her young ratty daughter onto her shoulders so she could get a better look at the damned and doomed criminal who was I. I flashed a bitter-grinning glare at her and she returned it, and then launched a piece of rotting vegetable at me. It hit the wound in my shoulder, the same wound that led to my capture; I began to bleed once more.2

Would he cry? Would he defecate? Would he beg all of us townsfolk for forgiveness and mercy? Would his eyeballs pop out and dangle about as he screamed himself to death? 3

These were all the questions I could see in the animalistic faces of those cruel and ignoble bastards. As the hoarse chanting of threats and boos and assorted requests for certain actions to be done to my person, ( as if being in the one-horse town of Blank wasn't enough) I saw the rider in the distance, now riding through the gates, now riding past the docks and finally up to the town hall, where I was.4

My doom was fast approaching; my doom rode an old brown horse. 5

The watchman swung his vast bulk awkwardly from the horse and waddled over towards me. The horse blinked and fussed with his ears and I took this to be a sign that the horse was happy. 6

The watchman stared grimly at my eyes, his bucktoothed grin accentuated by the three brass teeth on the left. The watchman clearly enjoyed this moment; he milked it for what it was worth. With every movement he got a reaction from the crowd. He enjoyed the sense of power he held over me. Here was his catch, bound and beaten and completely resigned to his fate. He yanked at a mat of my sweaty hair (I winced) and with a look of awe, he looked into the crowd.7

"Oh hear me men, women and children! You come to witness the end of this unholy creature, foulest of the foul. This wretched fellow sought to undermine the watch, sought to steal and plunder and murder, to undermine the workings of our glorious God!"8

“Hail and Praise the Mighty Lord!!" 9

"One thousand blessings of light to the Mighty lord of Truth!"10

11

So yes, I was standing there, sweating and my skin was getting real itchy. Flies and mosquitoes pestered me, especially around my arm-pits. I took a deep breathe and said " come on motherfucks, get it on with, I AM running out of time after all" Then I grinned my resigned-to-my-fate-but-not-ever-defeated smile, and the watchman swung his fist into my stomach. Not for the first time that day, I winced.Do you know how it feels to be publicly executed? It’s not nice, it's pretty humiliating.12

The stupid watchman and his even more foolish crowd kept up their gibbering for ages. It was disconcerting to begin with, but by the end I was bored. I never intended to visit Blank, no-one ever does, but at the time I had to avoid more watchmen from the docks of The Great City. There were these charges of murder and theft brought against me- they weren’t exactly false charges, but certain ‘paid off’ members of the watch had certainly embellished the story. The life of a thief is fraught with many difficulties. I do it because its fun and I like it. I get to travel the country. 13

I lost interest in the boring conversations of boring townspeople in their boring town and so I quietly watched the sky. A large black cloud was approaching from the south.
It rolled on slowly, almost awkwardly, like it didn't wish to be noticed. No one really saw it, but me. It was moving in from the south, and the wind was coming from the north. I recognised this unusual occurrence with some confusion and then it unleashed a massive storm. 14

What happened next is incredibly difficult to describe. Well it isn't but it logically doesn't make sense to me. Everything was washed down by the water, and the rain came down so hard that I could not see in front of me. All I could see was rain.15

It rained hard for ten seconds, more rain I then I have ever seen in my life. Then after ten seconds the rain stopped completely, like a tap. I still was tied up with a noose around my neck but it was not connected to anything. 16

I was no longer in the town of Blank.17

Dumbfounded I stared at my new surroundings. I was in a lavender field. In the far distance, some wild cows grazed. Next to them, large sandstone statues arranged in triangles like a bizarre altar stood tall and inspiring. I had this silly thought to begin with that I had actually died and had reached the afterlife, but after a while I considered this to be a silly idea. I've never remotely been a spiritual or mystical type person and even if I was in the afterlife I wasn't about to change my line of thinking. So instead I chose to recognise the absurdity that a large storm cloud had in fact kidnapped me from the town of Blank, and transported me to a completely different continent. In the end, because it was all way too confusing, I chose to stop thinking.18

I walked over to the statues and started grinding my binds against them. In the end I had them off. The skin underneath was raw and red and peeling and I made slight hissing noises whenever I touched the wounds. I looked around for a while, wondering what I should do. I became quite hungry and began to search for some food. I found several rooty things, similar to potatoes and several handfuls of berries. This was nice, but they did virtually naught for my hunger. I am mostly a meat-eater. I began to think of beef jerky and smoked chicken. Then I got frustrated at how hungry I was and picked up a boulder about the size of a ladies head and threw it at a clump of bushes about two metres away from where I was. The bushes were destroyed and then out ran a fluffy white rabbit. I rushed after it with a surprising amount of speed, given how tired I was.
He, the rabbit, ran for ages, around little knots of evergreens, over the rocks, up behind the stone statues. I kept on him, thinking of how I would best season him.
Then something peculiar happened.
The rabbit stopped, turned around and spoke.
This is what he said.
"Piss off. Piss off" He said it over and over, in a surprisingly gruff voice. He sounded life a wharfie, or an old tavern brawler.
I kept my chasing, and he really took off, running heaps faster then any rabbit I've seen run. "Piss off- Piss off-Piss off" over and over.
I gave up. Suddenly, I didn't want to eat him. The gift of speech that this rabbit possessed had somehow made me feel he was dirty, definitely not fit for consumption. Which doesn't make a great deal of sense but that is what I felt at the time. He ran through the lavender, turned around and said " You a fuggin' cockhead!" then disappeared down a rabbit hole. I ran to the hole and threw rocks down there. I don't like to be insulted, especially by a rabbit. He ran out, bit my hand and then ran down the hole.19

"Fuggin' cockhead, I Just kick'd your ass!" came the rabbits voice, down from his hole.
I gave in, walked away.
"Yeah fuggin' cockhead, you walk away, you itty girls blouse!"20


I went back and ate more berries- grudgingly.
What the hell was going on?
I was meant to be hanging, kicking my legs around and frothing from the mouth. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was great that I wasn't going to die, in fact i found it quite relieving.
But none of it made any sense to me; clouds that drag random crims to unknown worlds where there are insulting rabbits.
I decided that I should not concern myself with these unusual occurrences and try to find a town. At a town, there would be things to steal, Meat to eat (that didn't talk down to you), strong booze to drink, men to fight and bad women to keep company.
Once I was there, I could forget about all the surreal stuff, and get back to the life I used to lead.21

It was never going to happen of course.22

I started walking after I loaded up on roots and berries.I picked up a large stick for balance, tied my jacket around my waist then began. I had no idea were was north, south, east or west.
I didn't know where the next town would be or if there was any towns. So I just walked, through the breezy lavender field, down the hill,along the white cliff with it's crumbly white clay,carefully over a pile of great sandstone boulders perched upon another cliffside until I had at last navigated the valley and stood in the middle of a thick forest which smelt of mint and cinnamon.
Now I've never much been one for nature.You see a tree, fucking wow, you've seen them all. You see a rock, hey, It's a rock - How exciting. There is never any naturally occuring rum springs. It is very rare for a beautiful woman to stay in the forest away from society. There isn't any gold to steal, sure you could probably mine it but who'd do honest work, when some other chap can do it for you? Not I.
But as much as I usually detest the outdoors, when I entered the forest I was filled with an amazing sense of calm and relaxation such as I never felt before. All muscle tension in my body seemed to dissolve away and my mind fell in deep hazy contentment.
It was quite overwhelming. I attempted to sit down, swayed and fell like a drunk. I slid over to a nearby tree and rested my back against it.
I started chuckling sleepily as my feet began to tickle. Then my legs slowly started getting tickled and soon I was hooting with uncontrollable laughter. I gazed over my legs and noticed a beautiful electric blue vine had began to coil around my legs, lashing them together. It moved with an amzing speed, and wrapped and looped like spaghetti around a fork. I was still completely dazed and delirious but slowly I began to panic. The vine soon bloomed with flowers, flowers which had the scent of cinnamon and spearmint, and when inhaled, sent the inhaler into a dizzy high.
Many more flowers had bloomed around me, and I was close to fainting.