Topsy-Turvy Curiosity

After my airship went down, it was all uphill from here.

How? It may seem like an oxymoron at first glance, so let me tell you the story of how my fortunes flip-flopped from one end to the other from what otherwise could have been a disaster.

I was on a solo trip taking time for myself, escaping the reality of day-to-day life. Which is really funny in retrospect because my vacation from reality couldn't have been farther from it.

So, how DID my airship go down on an otherwise sunny afternoon? Invisible energy fields, undetectable to my airship's instruments, but detectable to me had I been paying heed to my psychic inclinations of "bad idea". Flying over a certain section of the mountains, known for creating energetic disturbances and so-called portals, will do the trick. And I had flown straight into one of the portals purely out of curiosity from all the rumors because of wanting to see what was up for myself.

It didn't look like a portal at first- it looked from farther away more like a ripple in the sky that didn't look quite right compared to the rest of the vast expanse of blue, and the closer one got the more it looked like a tear into the fabric of the universe itself.

Looking through there appeared to be a jungle on the other side. As I peered closer, carefully steering my airship next to it, suddenly I was pulled through by some mysterious magnetic force and found myself above the jungle looking into the tear and seeing the mountains I had just been flying over. Very trippy.

What happened next was also very trippy, for you see I abruptly registered I was freefalling when the ground started rushing up to greet me after a brief and magical view of the tear in the sky. Instead of crashing as I had braced for, it was more of a gentle and graceful "float" to the ground. And upon registering this was the realization there was no air to breathe and instead, I was swimming in a jungle, which is a very bizarre thing to realize as one is slowly drowning in broad daylight. Somehow the air had suddenly turned to water as I had fallen from the sky, though what I now knew was water looked like air. Imagine moon gravity physics with plain old air but it's water and that's kind of what it was like.

As I started to run out of the air I was holding in my lungs panic started to set in. This was NOT how I wanted to go but iconic for me nevertheless. Blackness started to creep in around the edges of my vision as I was nearing the end of being able to hold my breath, and- were those shapes moving among the trees? Are these shadowy shapes coming to witness my demise? Am I hallucinating due to lack of air and dying or do those shapes have tails? Wait, those are merpeople! Mermaids in a jungle of trees swimming in air that's water, I definitely must be hallucinating or accidentally ate some of those magic mushrooms by mistake for lunch, or both. Actually, that would make a lot of sense, and- shouldn't I be dead by now? Am I dead and that's why I'm seeing this? No, no, I'm very much so still alive, though for how much longer who knows. At this point, I noticed they were looking quite amused at my drowning and also looking as though they were waiting for something. Finally, I couldn't hold my breath any longer and braced for the inevitable.

It never came. Instead of breathing in water like I was expecting and drowning it was as though I had grown gills because I was breathing the water as though it was air. But no, that couldn't be right because I know I didn't just grow gills- the properties of water in whatever dimension this was functioned like air for me, a human. As this realization hit me I noticed that though they were what I would call mermaids they didn't have gills and were breathing just the same as me. I also noticed now that I wasn't in immediate danger of dying that they were smiling broadly at me. Oh good, at least they're friendly!

Beckoning to me to follow them, I do, because maybe there'll be some cool underwater jungle villages and gosh dang it, I'm on vacation from reality after all.

As we're walking along, or in their case swimming, I notice something shiny on the ground wedged under a mossy rock so I pick it up- it's a golden seashell! In my pocket it swiftly goes before any of the locals notice. This thing was giving me "magic shiny object" vibes and I had a really good feeling about it.

Standing back up I noticed the merpeople had vanished and I was by myself in this bizarre underwater jungle. Hadn't they just been right next to me? Shrugging my shoulders my feet carried me forward as if this was the most normal thing ever, which in this world probably was for all I knew.

After walking for what seemed like 15 minutes I began to feel some worry niggling in my gut so I decided to stop walking and sit on the nearest mossy rock to rest for a while and figure out what to do next. Taking out the golden seashell from my pocket and holding it up to my face for a closer examination, some engravings on the smooth and shiny underside caught my eye. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to know what they said seeing as it was a runic language unknown to me and probably native to wherever the heck I was currently. The only thing I could make out was something about "fortune" and even then it was only a guess best made from growing up studying the Vikings and the Celtic people.

By this time the sun was starting to set in this strange new environment and I definitely did not want to be caught outside alone after dark in a strange watery jungle. It took me about 20 or so minutes and when the airship came into sight my jaw dropped. It was fixed and floating! Which was odd since it had crashed- wait, no, floated to the ground. Can flying ships fly underwater? My curiosity wanted to know, and since it was getting dark outside I decided to test it and see. Sure enough, it did! Nothing logically made sense in the strange world or dimension, whichever it was, and by this point had stopped questioning the how and just accepted what was.

Taking off, if you can call it that, from the ground, the airship rose up and up. Steering towards where I remembered the rift in dimensions (or whatever you wanted to call the strange phenomena) was what looked like a tear into the world I had come from only that afternoon- home. Or at least what I hoped was home.

As the ship flew closer that same strange magnetic pull feeling swept over me again and I found myself back where the adventure began. Except that I was sitting in my bed rubbing my eyes wondering how in the world it was that was even possible. Had I merely dreamed the whole thing? Leaping out of bed immediately towards the jacket I had been wearing and rummaging around in the pockets, I pulled out the very same shiny golden seashell from that strange dimension.

Staring in utter confusion and delight at what the consequences of this might mean, I climbed back into bed because exhaustion now fell over me after the sort of maybe-day I'd just had. As soon as my head hit the pillow it was night-night for me.

When I woke up the next day, it was to a whole new world and fortunes had turned, in my favor. Or was it a dream? Time will tell unless that too is an illusion. Into the great unknown we go, for life is one big adventure.