Scene 1. Dawning Blue

Lilly breathes in deeply, Aahhhh, what a wonderful smell! I don’t know where I am, but when I die, bury me here! In this wonderful smell! Lilly inhales deeply, through her nose, and smells the grass, the morning dew-fall and fresh mountain air. She relishes he smell for a long while. Although the air is cold, she feels an increasing warmth across her back. She starts to open her eyes and is met with a bright flash of light. She raises her head to face the Sun, rising at dawn, breaking above a mountain range in the far distance. She is couched down in a small level field of grass and flowers, surrounded by hills and mountains in the distance. The meadow appears to end with a cliff on one side, with only blue sky.

Why am I all wet? Why am I naked? WHAT THE HELL IS THE DEAL HERE?

Lilly looks back over her ‘body’ and is shocked by what she sees: What is this? An animal?

She pulls her right fore-leg out from beneath her body and gazes down. A cloven-hoof? What have I become? What am I? She shakes her head and is suddenly aware that her head is different too. For one thing I have a better sense of smell!

Lilly tries to stand up. She promptly falls on her side, into the soft grass. She is completely disoriented by her new quadruped-animal form. She tries again, this time more slowly, one leg at a time, and succeeds in standing, trembling, still cold. I wonder if I can get this water off, like Fendor did at the beach? She plants her hooves and oscillates her body, in half rotations, like a dog. The moisture sprays off. It worked! Her short white pelt quickly dries in the warm morning sunlight. She regards herself again, I am a white goat!

Scene 2. Apollo

Lilly then tries walking. Awkward as a newborn at first, with a lot of stumbling, she quickly gets the hang of it, walking around and up to the sprays of flowers in the field. Wow, these smell great! She then looks up to survey the meadow, the surrounding landscape and the sky. Across the meadow she see a figure, a biped? Setting on a stone seat, facing the cliff, looking downward. Lilly cautiously approaches the figure to get a better look.

The figure notices Lilly’s approach and turns to face her and speaks, “Good morning sleepyhead!”

Lilly encounters yet another shock, although she cannot understand its words, its thought appear directly in her mind.

Lilly stops and stares at the figure. Never in her existence has she ever seen anything like this figure, and anything so ugly! She moves closer to get a good look at it. The figure stands up. It is of medium height, dressed in short toga, revealing much of its hairless, tailless, pale body. Its only fur is on the top of its head, a few gold curls. On each side of its head are small blogs of flesh. She assumes that these function as its ears. Its head is almost perfectly spherical, except for its ears. Its head is like a ball, with no nose, and no jaw.

Now I know I must be dreaming. No population could possibly survive with so little ability or protection: no fangs; no claws; no horns; not even legs that could possibly outrun even the slowest of predators. Impossible! Just ugly... Maybe that is its defense? Some dream, what a disappointment! My ‘lucid dreams’ are better, as sometimes I can fly, and have sex.

The figure speaks again: “Come over here.” “I won’t bite you.”

All of Lilly’s caution is instantly lost. His statement as hilarious. What are you going to bite me with? You are going to baby-tooth me with that tiny little jaw?

Lilly laughs, and she is once again shocked: “Baaaaaaah!” she bleats!

Astonished and with eyes wide, she falls back on her butt, now sitting on her haunches, like a dog, confused… She stares at her folded, long, back-leg bones and notices that her knees are almost as high as her shoulders.

The figure is laughing too, but in the regular way. He walks up to the sitting Lilly and strokes her head with a fore-leg appendage the likes of which she has never seen before. It has long digits, like a claw. The digits are thick, hairless and fleshy. One fleshy digit sticks out to the side of the rest, like an arboreal creature’s claw. Before she can fully regard this alien appendage, it is softly scratching the white fur on the back of her head and neck. She looks up and regards the figure, now noticing that it is obviously male.

His touch is reassuring, and strangely familiar. She is no longer afraid. She no longer feels lost in this world. Am I his pet? Answer the real questions. What are you? Where am I?

I have never had a ‘lucid dream’ seem as real as this. But this must be a dream. He is too ugly to be real. Will I ever return to my world?

Scene 3. White City

Lilly can now see down over the edge of the cliff. She stands up and walks closer to the edge to get a better look at the amazing scene below. Down below is what appears to be a large city. It glistens white in the sunrise that has now reached down into the valley below. The buildings have no visible windows and appear to be all of the same form, they appear as a growth of opaque, white, crystals. Although there appears to be streets between the buildings, she is too far away to see if there are any vehicles or residents present.

The figure walks over to Lilly and crouches down to face her: “I don’t know what you remember, so I will start again.” “My name is ‘Apollo’ and I am a ‘human’.” “And no, I am not a ‘god’.” He continues: “You are my friend and co-worker, ‘Lilly’. You are an animal known as a ‘goat’.” That last part I already know. My name and species are the only things in this world that I do know! Co-worker?

It appears that, although she can read his thoughts, she cannot project her thoughts back to him, and she cannot speak. This is going to be awkward...

“Come on Lilly, let me take you home.” Apollo stands, turns and begins to walk to the edge of the meadow where there is a path down the mountain toward the city below. Lilly stands up and quickly trots to his side. ‘Healing’ close along his side, like a good dog. I had better not loose track of this guy. As they walk he emits strange musical tones, like a flute. None in her world can ‘whistle’.

Scene 4. Home

The two walk down the path to a road and then walk along the side of the road for a while. Eventually they reach the first first buildings on the edge of the city. Apollo announces: “Welcome to ‘slkjfsl’!” His telepathic ‘word’ for The White City’s name is unintelligible to Lilly. It appears that there might be trouble conveying proper nouns to me…

The road into the city has signs along side. These may be traffic controls or rules of behavior for entering the city. The upper part of the sign has a simple sketch picture glyph that must represent what the sign is about. The lower part of the sign has rows of randomly shaped figures that may be letters or words, giving details for the glyph. Well, so much for my driving around here… I guess I won’t be able to read anything here either...

They continue walk through the edge of the city with the buildings getting taller as they go.

No windows? On such a lovely day?

Eventually, Apollo stops in front of one building, turns and walks up to it. Not visible until they are near it, is what appears to be the outlines of a doorway. He reaches out and touches the door and the door vanishes. Lights come on and they walk inside.

“Welcome home Lilly!” She turns her head, Now what.”First things first, wash off your hooves.” “Germs!” “This will be even more important later on.” Egad! Apollo stops at a doorway near the entrance, “Here is the bathroom, there is one upstairs too, the one I usually use but inside my house there are no restrictions. Feel free to go anywhere.” “Be careful outside and in town though…” I ain’t going nowhere around here without you!

The bathroom is very spacious, seemingly larger on the inside than on the outside. It must be an illusion. “Here is the goat toilet.” He motions to a long tray, set into the floor. Lilly looks up at him with a grimaced face. “Okay” “Okay” “I’ll give you some privacy.” Apollo walks back outside and the doorway becomes opaque. Lilly looks at trough, straddles it and begins. Then relieved: Ahhhh! Thank you!

And once again Lilly is startled by this world, as she feels a soft spray of warm water on her sensitive under-parts, followed by a flow of gentle blowing air, to dry everything off. This is going to take some getting used to, but it is kind of nice. I could sell these back home.

Her excrement has disappeared and the tray is sparkling clean again. She looks around the rest of the bathroom and notices a stall with curtains and extendable shower-heads above and below. Along the sides of the stall are soft brushes, on levers that also appear to extend. “I see you have found the ‘goat washer’” Lilly is momentarily startled by Apollo’s sudden reappearance. “Tonight, after dinner, I will show you how it works.” I can’t wait! Really! I could probably sell these too!

Apollo begins a tour of the house. First the living room. At one end is a large frame. Along the walls are chairs, recliners and a couch. A coffee table is at the center, featuring a row of small devices, and a few jars and dishes, likely containing ‘human’ snacks. “No, don’t eat those, they are poison to goats.” That sounds like ‘bullshit’ to me. But I won’t take the chance unless I get real hungry.

By the way, when do we eat? Lilly looks at the dishes and then looks up at Apollo. “Okay” “Okay” “It’s lunch time.” “Come with me.” He walks through another door across the living room into what appears to be the kitchen. The walls are lined with an array of strange devices. Only the stove and refrigerator are recognizable. The refrigerator is very large. Isn’t this overkill for just one ‘man’? “Don’t forget, I don’t live alone and you eat a lot!” Now that wasn’t very nice! Although true...

Apollo prepares two trays of nice looking fresh vegetables. They return to the living room. Apollo spreads out a soft blanket floor covering in front of the table. He places one tray on the low coffee table and one tray down on the blanket. “You can stand, lay, or sit to eat.” “We’ll make adjustments, if necessary.”

Lilly looks down, trying to decide what would be most comfortable. She finally decides to remain standing to eat. Her long neck has no problem lowering her head to reach the tray contents. She sniffs the tray. Ohhh, that smells good! And she begins to munch on large mouth-fulls. Apollo eats much more slowly, no wonder, with that tiny mouth!

Apollo demonstrates the large frame at the end of the room by pressing the small buttons on one of the small black devices from the coffee table. A remote control? The frame comes to life as a bright window into a very kinetic world and sound blares from the walls. It’s a movie player? “Yes, it plays movies, but also displays life as it occurs instantly, without a photographic process.” “I have designed a remote control that you can use to watch shows when I have to leave you home.” He picks up a large plate from under the coffee table, it has pads with symbol drawings on it. Lilly grimaces: Look! You brought me here! I didn’t come here to be left ‘home’!

The lunch dishes are placed into a drawer in one of the mysterious kitchen devices. The drawer closes and a soft swooshing sound is heard. The house tour continues. Lilly is shown her sleeping quarters that are just a tidy as the rest of the house. How does he keep this place so clean? At night, do mice come out and clean the place? You would never guess he is keeping me, a goat, inside the house!

Apollo shows Lilly how to unroll the different sleeping pads and how to work the room lights.

Apollo's room is sparse, with a low bed at one end, a desk and a desk lamp at the other. Another smaller frame is mounted on one wall. Off to the side is his bathroom, much smaller, with a stool and a shower recognizable from her world. What! no bath tub?

His closet is almost as large as the bedroom, with rows of costumes along the sides. He smiles: “As you can see, I play a lot of parts...”

Scene 5. Good Night

Apollo continues the tour and it is mostly pretty ordinary; stores of dry food; clean laundry; office supplies. One closet contains devices that apparently heat the water and filter the air, all automatically. But no windows, no books, and no telephone or other communication devices. Maybe they communicate through 'the frame'?

They retire to the living room to watch programs on 'the frame’. Some channels are movies of cities teaming with entities that resemble Apollo, although the entities shown are of all different colors. The cities are both modern and primitive. It is not clear if these pictures are contemporary or historical. Or movies, as Lilly cannot understand the written and spoken languages of this world (yet).

Eventually Apollo helps Lilly prepare for her first night in his world. He pulls out a pad for her to sleep on and turns on her water bowl for water during the night.

He then kneels down to Lilly’s level, facing her. He reaches out with his arms and embraces her head and shoulders in his arms, “Come back when you feel like it.” “And when you can.”

He then stands and leaves the room. The doorway becomes opaque and the room is suddenly silent. She faces the light control and sets it for ‘motion’. She walks to the pad and couches down, laying her head on her fore-legs. Then she closes her eyes and reflects: Whew! What a day! No one will believe it, not that anyone has ever believed me before.

The room slowly darkens to black.