Pillowland

CHAPTER ONE

The Mysterious Nap that Changed Everything

Miko grew up in a greenhouse on top of a small hill behind The Orange Forest. Miko didn’t have many friends. Not many people understood Miko, besides, Miko. Preferring to be alone, Miko would run home after school, change into their pajamas, get into bed, and dream. There was nothing Miko liked more than laying in their bed, closing their eyes and dreaming. There was one dream in particular that Miko loved the most. It was a dream about an alternate universe where animals spoke, people were fluffy and kind to each other, and everything was soft.

Miko wished for such softness because according to their friends and family, Miko was considered to be rather clumsy. They were always bumping into things. Things that were obvious to other people, remained invisible to them. Because of this, they had many bumps and bruises on their legs, elbows, and knees. One time Miko bumped their head on a jelly bean canister at The Jelly Bean Bar turning the floor into a colorful sticky parade. Their parents were not too pleased at the time but never failed to bring up that story with friends and family at least once every family gathering.

“How could you have not seen that table, it was right in front of you!” Jepson, one of their twin brothers cried out when Miko was eye-following a fly near the windows.

Windows, like dreams, were important to Miko.

“Miko! You better not be sleeping! It’s in the middle of the afternoon! You don’t see me sleeping! You are wasting the energy that it takes to make this house run (The house gets tired) - TAKE A REST, HOUSE! “The sink is clogged again. Come help me drain it.”, their mother, Mona, called loudly up the stairs in the way that Mona calls loudy up the stairs. Mona was stern, broad shoulders and always over accentuated her contours. Miko lived with their mother, father, three goldfish, their twin brothers, and all their shadows. It was a busy house. Miko didn’t like how busy it all was. In particular, they did not enjoy sharp corners, rough edges and concrete. They also did not particularly enjoy commonplace things like riding the bus to school, or Sundays, because that meant work needed to happen and that the hours would be spent not laying in bed.

“I’m dreaming!” Miko shouted from their bed, head sideways staring at the concentric circle they made with their eyes when they squinted to make voices disappear.

“Bring the dreaming down here and help me, please!” Mona yelled back.

Miko loved their family and all their shadows. They loved their mothers voice. Their father’s hair, the scales on the goldfish, and their brother’s noses. They loved them dearly. Sometimes though, they wished that they were somewhere different.

“How was school today?” Mani asked. Mani was Miko’s father. He had a square jaw and dark eyebrows. “Please pass the brussel sprouts.” Mona said. A spit delivery landed on the blue cloth that covered their wooden table. Only Miko saw this happen.

Miko couldn’t wait to get back in bed. Dinner was over. Miko thanked their parents and went to their room. Miko closed their eyes and fell asleep. They felt their body become lighter. Their head felt like it was becoming a soft cotton ball. Soon, Miko forgot about their brothers, the bruises, the little drop of spit, and off they went dreaming.

When Miko opened their eyes they felt different. They no longer had hair. Instead, two soft rectangular corners had grown off their head, extending sideways, curling into ears. They were very soft corners! But these new ears blocked their periphery, and Miko had to turn their head side to side, like a bird, to see!

They looked down and saw that they were standing on a soft brick that looked like it went on forever. Every moving thing that Miko encountered felt exceptionally soft and plushy. On the roads were little tiny moving mochi-esq-boxes that looked like edible moving mochi plushies. They were all different colors, shapes and sizes. "Were those cars?", Miko thought to themself.

Miko couldn't get close enough before someone called out their name.

"Miko!", a muffled noise came from what looked like bushes, which were green and also soft.

"Who said that?" Miko turned around but couldn't see anyone.

"Miko, look! Over here!" the muffled voice called out.

Miko looked around but still couldn't see anyone.

"Where are you?" Miko walked around the blanket bushes but still couldn't see anything.

"I don't see you! Where are you?, Miko tucked under a tree.

Miko had to turn their head from side to side, pushing their new ears out of the way to see where they were going. Without much warning, Miko tripped over a hump in the road and fell face first into the blanket bushes.

"Whoa! Look out there! You might turn into a Marshmallow!"

said the muffled voice.

Miko was face down in what must have been the softest landing they had ever taken in their life. There was no pain! No scratches! No bruises! Miko had fallen and did not hurt themself! Was this heaven?

"That was the most comfortablest fall I have ever taken! I want to stay here forever!" Miko turned over and stayed on their back, imprinting a snow angel into the impressionable sidewalk. When they looked up at the sky, all the clouds were multi-colored cushions and rainbow tassels falling off like rain.

This must be some kind of pillow heaven, Miko thought to themselves.

"I don't know where I am but I never want to leave!"

Miko cried out, with so much glee their pillow cornered ears perked up and stood on end.

"You don't have to. We need your help, Miko." the muffled voice said, from a place unknown.

"Seriously, who are you and - "

Before Miko could finish their sentence, a mysterious flying object cried out in the distance. It had a puffy blue body with tiny little purple plushy stems for legs and a beak.

"It's Miko everyone! Miko is finally here! We are saved!"

The voice of the bird sounded like a blanket bush. It was muffled and sounded far away.

Miko, who was still on their back, sat up reluctantly and called out.

"Who said that and where am I?" Miko cried out.

Suddenly the sky cracked in half and thousands of little pieces of rainbow wool fell through the sky and landed all around Miko. They gathered at the bottom of Miko’s feet, expanded into a cloud-candy that brought Miko to where the voice came from.

Miko held on for dear life as they ascended towards the wooly ceiling.

"What's going on?" Miko looked down and saw the outline of their snow angel slowly losing definition as they left stable ground. The roads curved around and Miko flooded their vision with a series of letters in the distance. Outlined in yellow woolen blocks a letter “P” popped out. In green the letter "I" followed closely and further was the letter "L" followed by another "L" -

“PILL?” Miko thought.

“Almost there!” Cried the voice.

As Mike traveled onward, an "O" was strung out a few yards away, encased in a flowerbed of what looked like to be a bed of lavender, and a "W" made from gold stone highlighted the river banks.

"PILLOW?" Miko sneezed.

“Gesundheit!” boomed the wooly sky.

Miko turned around and on the other side of the towering field. "LAND" was covered in grey, soggy rubbish that had a musky feel to it.

"Good. Now you know why you're here."

Miko swung back around again. Behind them was a tiny fluffy bunny rabbit with green speckled ears, a purple body and an orange coat. Or at least, it looked like a Bunny Rabbit.

"I am the Rainbow Fluff Master of Pillowland. Also known as RFM. Welcome. You are, without much hesitation please, our friendly stranger, Miko. Do not correct me because I am never wrong."

"You are -" Miko responded but didn't have enough time to finish their sentence.

"MIKO. I know who you are.” boomed the tiny bunny, munching on a golden turnip. “We’ve known you for awhile”

“We’ve?” Miko asked the ocean of tiny blinking neon eyes that appeared for that second before disappearing again.

"There isn't much space left, we must act soon. Quick, put these on and follow my tail."

RFM handed Miko a pair of sticky eye glasses and bounced off the cloud, landing effortlessly into the wooly bottom.

Miko looked down and saw RFM’s tail glow bright red.

"What are you waiting for? Christmas? Joking, we don't celebrate that here. Hurry! Jump!"

"What do you mean, jump? I'm not a fluffy bunny! I’m gonna die!"

"Nothing dies here, you silly non-woolen creature. Now hurry up and fall!"

Before Miko could make up their mind, the sky stitched itself back together. It pushed Miko off the soft landing, sending them soaring towards the plushy ground where RFM was waiting for them, making a daisy chain with its tail.

"About time." RFM said.

"Where are we going?" asked Miko, realizing that the ground was softer than it looked, wiping marshmallow residue off their bum.

"Follow my tail and you'll see."

They were headed towards where Miko had seen the letters. Miko’s tummy started grumbling.

“If you start to get hungry you can eat any of the flowers. Except the purple neon ones. Do not eat the purple neon flowers.” RFM said, between jumps and glides in the air.

“Why not?” Miko asked innocently.

“Everyone and everything in Pillowland is soft for a reason. The purple flowers make you lose your softness. Something in their neon trappings turns our fluff into spikes. Over time, you grow spikes. That’s how you die.” RFM pointed out towards the distant shade. That’s where the purple flowers are.”

“Oh. Has anyone eaten them before?” Asked Miko.

RFM paused mid air, took out a monocle and looked back at Miko.

“Jump up and look through this. You’ll see what I mean.”

Miko did exactly as RFM said.

“Holy smokes!” Miko exclaimed!

“And that.” RFM said between hovering above ground and sticking the monocle back into a bag that Miko hadn’t noticed before. “That is why you are here. Follow me.”

The puffy sky turned a dark green and off they went towards the purple flowers and the glowing letters in the distance.

CHAPTER TWO

The Messy Princesses and The Shoemaker

It must have been a few days or what might have been days. The sky changed colors from green to violet then sometimes orange. It was hard to tell how much time had passed, who they met along the way or what it all meant. Miko was frustrated with how long it was taking. The edible flowers lost their appeal and Miko was getting tired.

“How much longer you reckon, RFM?” Miko asked, chewing on what must have been their 12th daffodil.

“What are you, British all of a sudden?”, RFM responded, bouncing mid air, tucking a whistle into their side pouch.

RFM had been testing out certain devices along their journey. As if to be choosing a particular tool for an even more particular vocation or what we might know or call “a job”, RFM seemed to always be doing something.

“I don’t know what you mean by that but I am getting tired and was wondering, if you would be so inclined as to share, provide or support the transportation of a message that might hold information regarding when we might arrive at our not-final-yet-final-destination.” Miko asked, bouncing up and off the organ-sized petals of a falucci flower.

“When you let someone off the hook are you a captain or a whale in need of a shore to die on?” RFM responded, singing as he fluffed his tale and meowed at a perforated door whizzing by.

“Maybe I’m an orange fish

Living in a Petri dish

petrochemicals make

me sick”,

A dish rack pillow sang as it tumbled down and around a rotating jukebox along the Inter-ceptional Glacier Ventway where space-time encounters The Submersion within a hypothetical wafer cookie that’s referenced in another diaphragmatic meow from a fictionalized cat based in Iowa.

It was all getting a bit overwhelming for Miko who simply wanted a little something to snack on and a nap to follow after.

“Cloud-Candy, Cloud-Candy, one syrupy exchange for a 10 moment rewind on a decision that you regret.” It was the shoe-maker calling out from an empty hummus container and a coughing cardboard box.

“What’s cloud candy?” Miko asked, who was hungry for something else besides petals and root dust.

“Not something you want, that’s for sure.” RFM puffed on a glowing celery stick.

“Why not?” Miko asked, eyeing the sticky dew that hung off the shoemaker’s sharp hook, waving its weighted bulb with sweetness.

“It changes your life forever. Some beings think they regret something because they haven’t made peace with an aspect of that incident, so they give 10 moments away, arbitrarily picked from the wheel of regret - the shoe maker gets the dew he needs to make the shoes that come his way. It is critical that the shoe maker is able to do this.”

RFM spritzed the air, releasing a cloud of rainbow glitter that he jumped up and into.

“Cloud-Candy are pillows that have lost their density. It’s what you call gravity - but because we’re made from pillows, we do not interact with that energy the same way. It remains a mystery as to when or how this happens and to who and how many pillows, but it does, and it can be a tragic realization for some of us here in Pillowland. Sometimes pillows volunteer to turn themselves into cloud candy before they lose all form and weight, evaporating into thin nothingness.”

“Aren’t pillows made from cotton?” Miko asked, still eyeing the shoemaker's dew.

“Maybe where you’re from. Here in Pillowland, we’re pillows! If you cut us open you’ll find more pillows! Don't believe me?” RFM took out a needle from their pouch.

“No, don't!” Miko cried as RFM extended his paw, gathering inertia for a ceremonial incision.

“It’s okay I’ve had to demonstrate this before - those who need evidence of my pillow-y-ness - it can be slightly unnerving for those who have never witnessed the purity of such” RFM began to weave parts of his underbelly apart.

“But what if this time it’s different and you die?” Miko asked, holding back an impulse to regurgitate the periodic table that was flooding into the forefront of their mind.

“Nothing dies in Pillowland. I told you. Pillows either get converted into pillow sounds or cloud candy.” RFM was unhooking the ends of their tail.

“What are pillow sounds?” Miko asked.

“Those flowers you’ve been munching on.”

“What? I thought these were organic!” Miko shouted, alarmed and unsure about how to feel considering they had been eating pillow sonic leftovers since their arrival.

“They are organic. Nothing more organic than the conversion from pillow form to sound wave particle. I mean Miko, what do you think flowers are made out of?” RFM asked as they returned the needle back to their pouch.

Before Miko could respond, process, calibrate, doubt or reflect, two voices emerged from behind a pillow cloud.

It was Jane the sushi roll and June the seaweed goddess!

As always, they were dressed in cutie cushions that matched their cutie sushi faces and their cutie Japanese-esq sounding-words like

“Jio-ko-so” which translated into “yes please but only for now” and “Pio-kio-san” which meant “no thanks try again bless you” while they rode gingerly on their green-tea-lotus-flower mooncake, the one with seventy-three indentations.

“Jane! These sugar kisses - are they actually exit signs?” June exclaimed in horror after realizing what she had been eating along her journey from Fart-land.

“You seem to like it!” Jane exclaimed in excitement that her sister had been consuming the remains of trailed off sentences that nobody heard uttered in Fart-land. “Besides, I don’t know what death means.” She said as she tried to hold back a sneeze.

“Dead is - dead - gone - forever - not moving -“, June said in between gargles and spits off into clouds that turned into random motions of rain that instantly cleared up as soon as it arrived, like a precarious rash after a day in the grass.

“June, just because something isn’t moving doesn’t mean it’s dead - it means that the outside is not moving - but everything that has an outside has an inside - so just because you can’t see - doesn’t mean it’s not there - we don’t see our insides all the time but it’s there cos if our insides weren’t here then we wouldn’t be able to move or do anything - besides, sweet kisses are only sweet because of who was speaking. Sometimes we need to use the leftovers to get us to where we next need to be.” Said Jane, wiping a blue sparkly glitter-booger on her sister's sleeve.

“Jane!” June cried so loudly one of Mooncake’s indentations caught on fire and fell off like a wart.

“What? It’s edible!” Jane laughed hysterically, roasting one of her boogers over the pink flame.

“I had a pouch of pumpkin pebbles follow me home the other day because you stuck one of your boogers on the inside of my shoe.”

“It’s not my fault my boogers are magical.” Jane laughed, rolling on her back as she tossed her legs in the air, clapping her little sushi toes together like miniature hands.

“Well well well, Jane and June, the sushi sisters.” RFM finally butted in.

“Rainbow Fluff Master!” The sushi sisters cried.

“You’re coming undone!” June said, twirling around RFM sprinkling him with glitter fairies.

“I needed to demonstrate what we’re made out of, for our friend Miko.” RFM moved the pillow branch that was hiding Miko’s face from the princesses.

“Hi Princesses.” Said Miko coyly from behind the pillow bush.

“That’s a cute name! Hi Miko! I’m Jane - this is my sister June. And together we’re the-“

“Sushi sisters, yes I heard.” Said Miko ducking under the soft stick.

“We heard you needed evidence of pillow-y-ness.” June said, clacking her seaweed strips together.

“Not really. Before I could say anything RFM started to quite literally tear himself apart.” Miko said with disbelief.

“Look and feel my insides Miko, pillows are soft inside and out - we’re like a cross breed between a marshmallow and a red bean mochi cake” RFM whispered. “Now listen here. What you’re about to see might shock you. But remember, this is why you took all those naps. It wasn’t a waste of time, you weren’t being lazy and it certainly hasn’t been for nothing. Miko, promise me you will help Pillowland.

The space above them was starting to glisten and suddenly there was a frost that formed around their waists.

“I don’t know fluff master. Are we -“

“There” - RFM finished Miko’s sentence. “Yes - here - we are - in fact - there.”

The fix it fires stitched RFM back together again as Miko looked out beyond past RFM and the princesses, the shoemaker, the hummus container and the coughing cardboard box. What greeted Miko’s eyes was unlike anything they had ever encountered in their short life. It was unlike anything they had ever seen. Or heard. Or smelled. Or felt? Miko’s hands started twitching. Had they rushed toward an adventure too soon? Did they allow themselves the time to grieve what might possibly be the last encounter with their old life? Were things ever going to be the same after this?

Miko felt a wet spike at the back of their neck. They turned around and felt the coldness travel down their pillowy back as RFM leaned against a banister spitting ice through a straw aiming at the flying gold dust bunnies in the air. The six-legged elf-winged like creatures exclaimed hysterically as they dashed and swerved RFM’s terrible aim.

“Ready?” RFM said in between spits.

“I guess.” Miko responded hesitantly.

“No - we don’t do “guesses” here. You’re either in or you’re out. Principality. D.N.R.P.M. Do. Not. Repeat. Past. Mistakes.” RFM managed to temporarily destabilize a dust bunny. He placed the stunned creature in a neon glass jar and carefully tucked it away in his pouch.

“What’s that for?” Miko asked, swiping the mob of angry dust bunnies from their faces.

“Collateral damage. Evidence that we’ve been through here. C’mon. Are you ready now? Once we go through here Miko there’s no turning back.”

Miko considered The Everything of the situation. They considered their hunger, the three goldfish, their family, their twin brothers, and all their shadows.

“I still don’t know what you want me to do about any of this! I'm a human thing! From another dimension! I know nothing of your ways or your stories let alone be able to solve any of your problems!” Miko explained while pacing back and forth on a cloud that changed colors and made sounds like a xylophone.

“Then Pillowland is doomed. And if Pillowland is doomed, then so is everything else in every parallel dimension.” RFM laid down on his back and started making a pillow angel.

“Wait really?” Miko asked, a little concerned.

RFM bounced up, took a picture of his pillow angel and said remorsefully, “No. Not really. But imagine the non-existence of Pillowland.”

Miko considered this.

“Hasn’t it been more than nice that you haven’t bumped yourself or bruised a knee or scraped an elbow since you’ve been here? Isn’t it wonderful how almost everything feels like a moving duvet…soft and comfy… Wouldn’t you want to preserve this plush?” RFM chewed on an edible flower spitting out the seeds that turned into giant flying cats.

Miko looked at their scars and remembered the times they bumped their toes, their funny bones, shins, wrists and ankles on the ends of table corners, lamp posts, chair legs, kitchen counters, the elbows of other humans, bicycle handles and said with a tiny grin on their face,

“Let’s go.”

(The End For Now)