“It was but soon afterward that my by now assuredly dearly departed squid began to pump this opaque liquid into my system, attempting to filter out its oxygen as it had so effectively done earlier with normal water successfully, though not without also imparting some strange intoxicant that soon had me all but completely dissassociated from the scene.

“Yes, that is to say, I began once again to hallucinate wildly, or at least, so I thought. For the hallucination which I was at this moment was experiencing had unfortunately or not nothing to do with bedding a lady made of gelatin.”

“Ah, yes. Unfortunately indeed,” Pamela murmured to herself.

“Excrete me, but what was that? Something about a steed?”

“Nothing, Henry.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” Henry frowned quizzically at Pamela, who continued to stare down at her notebook almost as if she’d burst into flames if she made eye contact with Henry.

“Well, anywhatways, I started having these wild hallucinations. I mean, these were seriously wild. The wildest, most brilliant hallucinations one might ever experience, if one were myself, that is to say. Wild, wild hallucination. Simply, wild.”

“Apparently so wild that you can’t even describe them,” Pamela snorted.

“A-what now? What should I get a prescription for?”

“Um. Don’t worry about it.”

“Fair enough. You don’t strike me as a pharmacist.”

“I’d hope not. I’m not one. Now go on, get back to the wild hallucinations. Chop chop.”

“Fair enough. These hallucinations, hallucinations that were so wiggly and ziggly and positively wild of all things, yes, these wild hallucinations were incredibly immersive. ’Twas as if I’d suddenly been shot out of the ground, as if the ground were a cannon, and flung through the air, and whisked away into the mystical, chlorophyll-heavy home of the grandmother tree.”

Pamela looked up from her notebook and twisted her lip in confusion. This ‘hallucination’ was starting to sound suspiciously similar to her own experience, which had as far as she’d known not at all been a hallucination.

“It was only when I observed my human body—”

“As opposed to your, what, your inhuman body?” Pamela chuckled.

“That wasn’t funny.”

Pamela shrugged.

“So. It was only when I observed my human body and noticed that I had—would you believe it Pamela—breasts, of all things, that my consciousness was observing none other than your own personal experience! Yes, I was your mental fly on the wall. Think about that for a moment, Pamela.”

“I’d rather not,” Pamela choaked, trying her absolute best not to projectile vomit all over Henry then and there.

“Well, don’t get too excited, for it didn’t last long before a great, groany voice mumbled ‘oops’ and variably switched stations, as it were, so that I was simply floating in this great, green expanse of leaves. That was when the grandmother tree talked to me, Pamela. She told me, she said, Henry, what you did was very irresponsible. You’re not a very hood park ranger, Henry, she told me.

“I must say I quickly agreed with the grandmother tree. I spiritedly told her that that was what I get, for thinking that I, a man, could do a woman’s job. How absurd! The grandmother tree didn’t seem to fully understand what I meant, so I started briefing her on the endless inferiority of men to women, but she said she was getting bored, and really just meant to say I ought to not jump into strange creeks, even and indeed especially if a bunch of naked people are bathing in them and beckoning.

“I retorted that if I’d been a lady I would’ve realized my own foolishness immediately, but of course that didn’t happen because as she clearly saw I was a man. The grandmother tree replied that, in the plant kingdom, there is no such thing as a man or a woman and everyone is equally stupid. I countered this with the assertion that all the plants in the Fancy Forest seem to dress as either a woman or a man, and how that seemed to imply that she at least had to have some idea what I was talking about when I said how stupid we awful men are. The grandmother tree simply rolled her mind’s eye and told me that the plants in the fancy are just expressing themselves and it had nothing to do with being a man or a woman, which messed with me even further.

“And so, all that said, the grandmother tree agreed to deliver me from the depths of the winding, binding, babbling creek. Of course throughout this entire conversation I also heard your conversation with her, which made the entire argument and agreement kind of messy and difficult, but the grandmother tree assured me she was twerking on developing a Fancy Forest mind-link that wouldn’t require such muddyness in the future.

“Anywhatways, she and I said toodly-woodly as I was suddenly back in my body. The sediment at the floor of the creek then rumbled and gave way to a bubbling fount which sprayed me up, up, and rocketing through the barrier of the creek’s surface. And that, Pamela, is what happened to me, and I must say, I’m incredibly proud of myself.”

“Proud?” Pamela looked back over her detailed nude sketches, hoping for some semblance of a sign of what on Gurth Henry could be proud of in this bizarre adventure.

“Oh, terribly proud, Pamela, terribly proud. After all, she bought it! She called me Henry. She never once thought of my true identity. She even thinks I hate men, Pamela! What an accomplishment. Now that I’ve fooled a telepathic tree, I really do believe I could fool anyone.”

“I’m…so happy for you, Henry.”

“I’m happy for me too, Pamela, I’m happy for me too,” Henry swaddled over to a thick patch of well-dressed brambles and pulled them aside to reveal dazzling, open sky and a long, dusty road dotted with manicured bushes and fountains in need of a hood scrubbing. “Well then, hownowbrowncowsabout we get out of this wretched forest and find a hotel or something?”

Pamela did a quadruple take.

“What?”

“You are wildly misinterpreting our acquaintanceship, Henry,” Pamela seethed.

“What do you even…? Oh cock! The imbecilick man that I am! I didn’t mean to imply I wanted to get in bed with you or anything, as it were! I’m just exhausted, I just want to take a nap! We’ll get separate rooms, of course. I already spent all of myself on that gelatin lady anywhatways.”

“…Thank cock for that.”