The Fool's Journey

The Fool.

Greg squeezed a melon. A pop song from the mid 90s played over the produce aisle of the grocery store from tinny speakers. Greg squeezed the melon again, then sniffed at it.

Greg didn't know what he was doing. But he didn't want to look like he didn't know what he was doing—hence the melon squeezing. It was more a performance than an art.

Greg adjusted his glasses, frowned at the melon in his hands, then set it down to pick up another one. On an ordinary day, he might do this four to six times before moving on. Not today.

"Hey, Greg."

"S-sorry, wha—?" Greg stammered. He looked up to see a small, white, long-haired dog sitting atop the produce display.

"Yeah, Greg," the dog said. "I'm talkin' to you."

Greg was a man acutely and painfully aware of how others might perceive him. His greatest fear was a pointed finger, a stifled laugh, or the words "see that weirdo over there?" So, when a dog started speaking to him in a New York accent, his first thought was not that he might be losing his mind, but the worry that someone might see him losing his mind.

"Um," Greg said looking around and lowering his voice to a whisper "D-did you just talk?"

"Yeah! Quit squeezin' melons, you jerk-off. It's time."

Greg took off his glasses to examine them, then replaced them on the bridge of his nose. "T-time? Time for what?"

"Time to get weird."

The produce aisle spaghettified around him, stretching into an endless corridor of color. Greg screamed.

The Fool's Journey.

Over the next hour, a few things happened:

A magician shot Greg in the ass with a lightning bolt.

A giant woman stuffed him in a bowl and smoked him in massive bong.

An Emperor and an Empress each told him to get a life (which was hurtful).

A naked woman with gold hair down to her ankles declared her undying love for him. Then she broke up with him because he wouldn't roleplay with her in bed.

He joined a magic cult. Then he found out the hard way that initiation involved being bent over an altar and spanked with a paddle.

While his ass still hurt, he was forced to ride around in a bumpy chariot pulled by two very judgmental sphinx who would not stop rolling their eyes at him.

He wrestled a full-grown lion.

He got incredibly old and became a recluse. His beard turned grey and grew so long it reached the floor and trailed out the door.

He got young again and was cast on the Wheel of Fortune. He became a meme when he guessed "golden showers" instead of the correct answer "April flowers."

A judge convicted him for harming an innocent animal in the lion incident, and had him hung upside down by the ankle as punishment.

His ex cut him down, then revealed herself to be Satan in disguise. "See ya round," she said.

The magician zapped him in the ass again.

A star fell from the sky and hit him in the forehead and knocked him out cold.

When he woke up, the Man in the Moon was beatboxing while a talking scorpion spit sick rhymes into a mic.

The sun came out, and he realized he was buck naked. Instead of feeling self-conscious about it, he went prancing through a field of sunflowers with a white horse name Jeff.

Back in the World.

"So," the dog said. "How'd it go?"

"Oh. It's you again." Greg looked down at the melon he was holding, then set it down. A couple of women spotted him talking to a dog and whispered judgmentally to each other behind their hands. He paid no attention to them.

"Back in the real world after your long journey. How do you feel?"

"Can't complain." Greg shrugged. "In fact, I've never been better."