“I had half expected all those deligtful, half see-through, watery looking creek people to start fondling me or something when I hopped in, as they seemed rather, erm, passionate, for lack of a better word. However, the second I was ready to submerge and bask in their naked glory I found my head hitting the top of the water as if it were indeed frozen solid. Of course as I said before, it was not frozen solid, but it acted like that when I tried to surface, and in fact gave me quite a shiner on the top of my head.

“After I realized I coudn’t surface to breathe, I did the natural thing to do, which of course was to scream. Oh, and scream I did. Of course this was troubling in its own right because the moment I screamed was also the moment water bubbled its way into my mouth like a bunch of slippery otters trying to choak me to death. Worse still, I’m fairly certain nobody heard me scream at all! Not only because no one was there, mind you, but because, sound doesn’t travel too well through water, I learned. Remember that, Pamela, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, and do your best to resist from screaming, for it only served to whip me up into hysterics like the clucking man I am.”

Pamela winced a little at the last statement.

“Sorry. Just trying to stay in character. Now, where was I? Oh yes. So I screamed and I screamed and was hamn close to wetting myself when the rumbling began.”

Henry’s stomache rumbled on cue.

“Not that rumbling though. Rumbling deep down, down below the murky Gurth at the bottom of the creek, which seemed itself to be receding further and further down with every moment. Indeed, it was receding. The creek was growing deeper. That was the rumbling, you see. Fearing for my life, I decided to do the only thing I could think of whilst submerged in this fearsome body of water—and that, of course, was to stage an underwater tea party.

“Surely you know what I refer to, Pamela. T’was an old childrens’ game I and surely you always played in the lake with my and surely your friends. And that game, in case you have somehow forgotten, assuming you surely always played it as I did, involved swimming to the bottom of a given body of water, sitting cross-legged on the floor and pretending to drink tea. It was an excellent breathing exercise. Oh, how we loved to have underwater tea parties in my youth. Until Garrett swam down there and had an asthma attack. Who knew you couldn’t use an inhaler underwater? Poor Garrett.

“And then of course we still would play the game occasionally, of course never with an asthmatic friend afterwards. Of course that was mainly because Garrett was the only asthmatic friend we’d had. Regardless, we’d still have underwater tea parties. Eventually, they got more and more extreme, to the point where we were submerging ourselves in the open ocean. Swimming out further and further from the surface. Tying bloody steaks to our legs to bring out the carnivorous fish. Anything, anything to tempt fate.

“So we were getting into extreme, competitive underwater tea parties. We’d already built up a small fan base. And then, one fateful day, it happened. What happened, you ask?”

Pamela said nothing. Henry cleared his throat. Pamela continued to say nothing.

“Um, Pamela?”

“What?”

“What happened, you ask?”

“I’m confused, Henry. What happened, exactly?”

“Clucking finally. Thank you!” Henry rolled his eyes and continued, “So there me, Rufus, and Banjo were, accompanied undoubtedly by Garrett’s disheartened ghost, at the Indy Underwater Tea Party 6900. Our challenge? Hold an underwater tea party at the bottom of the mystical five-hundred-thousand-foot-deep loche in full fantasy regency garb. And of course, that’s what got me. You see, I’d been eating at the local donut shop for free due to my competitive underwater tea partying fame, and on that fateful morning I could no longer fit in my corset, or indeed my garters.”

“Your what now?” Pamela cocked her head quizzically.

“Don’t worry about it. What was important was that not only was this situation understandably embarassing, but indeed disqualifying. Rufus and Banjo put on their corsets and their garters and all that hood stuff and dove on down and had their tea without me. To make matters worse, they never came back up, so now they were hanging out with Garrett’s ghost without me! I swore then and there to never, ever, host an underwater tea party ever again.

“Heartbroken, I walked back to the donut shop and realized that I actually had to pay for donuts, for I was a champion no more. They were expensive, too.

“So all this was what was rushing through my mind as I floated in that creek, trapped between the impenetrable surface of the water and the constantly sinking floor. And I decided that, despite it all, I’d try and ram my head back against the surface of the water a few times.

“Soon enough I felt fairly concussed. At that point, I decided there was only one option, unfortunately. So I down I dove, down further and further as the floor became more and more out of my reach, when I hit…the membrane,” Henry’s voice quivered like a shelled clam as the word ‘membrane’ tumbled from his shaky lips, his eyes wide and empty as his stomach in the morning.

“The migraine? Oh, Henry, what a painful twist.”

“No, no, the membrane.”

“The mundane? If it was mundane then what was the issue exactly? You got bored?” Pamela was lightly hinting with this that she was getting bored of Henry’s story.

“The membrane, Pamela, the membrane!!”

“Ohh. Gotcha,” Pamela nodded and resumed drawing tits on trees, having not at all heard what word Henry had shouted at her.

“It was like slamming into a moist plate of gelatin, Pamela. The abysmal odor of strawberries filled my olfactory system.”

Pamela mouthed the word ‘abysmal’ to herself, wondering what Henry had against strawberries.

“Then, before I knew it, I was shooting through the clouds and skies of an inner world. A world made entirely out of watery yet red gelatin people. Gelatin trees, gelatin birds, gelatin stars, Pamela. I landed on the gelatin ground, which absorbed the shock from my fall. I breathed in the fresh, gelatin-based air and beheld the scene. The gelatin moon looked absolutely lovely. The gelatin grass was mesmerizingly blowing in the gelatin wind. A voluptuous gelatin woman walked up the gelatin trail, turned to me and asked, she put a gelatin hand on my shoulder and she said to me, ‘Who are you, you that are not like us, you that are not made out of gelatin? And where do you get off, walking around being not made of gelatin, whilst we are here living in a world where everything consists of gelatin?’ And I responded to her that I knew not where I was or what I was doing, and before I could say much else our mouths were clasped in the most enthralling, brilliant tango of tongues I’ll likely ever experience, even if it she taste like cockawful strawberries.

“She was walking me through the gelatin fields to her gelatin castle, wherein her gelatin father and gelatin mother were eager to meet me. They prepared for me a gelatin feast. To them, the food had different tastes, textures, et cetera, but to me it tasted only of that most sickening strawberry gelatin. However, her gelatin eyes were indeed so pure and jiggly that I found denying her virtually impossible. Yes, I told her, Pamela, I told her that the gelatin turkey tasted nice and fresh with its gelatin gravy, but all it really tasted like to me was gelatin. For desert, they had a beauitful gelatin bananas foster that was essentially just a big jiggly glob of gelatin.

“It was getting to the point where I never wanted to look at gelatin ever again, which was difficult, seeing as I was inhabiting a world entirely made of gelatin. Exhausted by the torments of my mind, I suggested to my gelatin maiden that we head on to bed, which enraged her father to no end. He took out a harsh gelatin broom and began forcefully walloping me upon the forehead and the neck and indeed even my poor tuckus!

“Why, I asked of him between his chastising, why must you hurt me so? What have I done to abet such cruelty, when once you were so kind and welcoming to me, my dear gelatin fellow? And he told me, he said, he

said that I knew what I did. But clearly, Pamela, clearly I didn’t know what I’d done. For what other reason would I have asked of him what I had done other than that I hadn’t known what it was that I had, in fact, done to bring his gelatin-infused fury upon my person?”

“Focus, Henry, focus. I feel like you’re getting a little lost in the weeds here,” Pamela yawned, cracked her neck, and leaned on a tree with a sigh, “Let’s get to the crux of the moment.”

“Indeed, let us! So the gelatin man told me it was because I had not yet asked his gelatin daughter to take my bizarre, fleshy hand in gelatin marriage. Which, of course, was off the table. For you must know by now Pamela that I intend to remain always a bachelor. It was then I realized that he’d clearly misinterpreted what I had said moments before, that being that we ought to head to bed, to imply that I was voicing carnal designs in his presence. I assured the man that no, I sincerely meant to go to bed, for I had had quite a long day and was indeed hoping that I might just regain consciousness in my own world, escaping gelatin land forever.

“With this assurance, he proclaimed that I passed the test, and then ordered me to go sleep with his gelatin daughter immediately, for she was looking quite emotionally eviscerated by my admitted lack of interest. I said no, I refuse to. Further still did he urge me, and sadder still did her sweet gelatin eyes grow, until I had but no option other than to succumb to their desires and follow the gelatin lady to her bedchamber.

“It was there that the real conflict began, for—”

AACK

“Pamela, are you—”

aaAAAAaack

AhhhHErm

Aack

HherMmm

Pamela finished clearing her throat and shook her head.

“Sorry about that, Henry. Was just allergies. Go—aAAAack—ahead, continue.”