My brother and I love to go swimming. We are lucky to have a lake very near our house and we go there every weekend. Being brothers, we are always competitive with each other, and that competitiveness is really how this whole story came to be.
As usual we headed to the lake early Saturday afternoon, after completing all our chores on the ranch. Today our boast to each other was that we could probably swim to the bottom of the lake, if we really wanted to. We just didn’t really want to. However, we could agree on testing who could stay under the water the longest.
We decided that we could trust the other and we would both go in at the same time and the last one up was the winner.
Now this lake is not the cleanest one in the world, although I have seen and swam in more dirty lakes, and soon, after diving in, we lost sight of each other.
I was determined to win and swum maybe a little too far down. I was beginning to regret my decision when I spotted an opening between some rocks. There seemed to be some kind of light in there. There was not much space between the rocks, but I had to at least take a look.
Only a few feet into the rocks, I decided it was a bad idea and attempted to turn around and head back to the surface.
As I attempted to turn around, I couldn’t. The space was not big enough for that. I had no choice, I had to continue forward and do it quickly. I swam towards the light that I saw, hoping for the best.
All this seemed like it was taking an eternity, but in reality, it was only a few minutes.
I thought I had run out of air, but the next thing I remember I was waking up and I was inside some kind of indoor cavern.
It was not a big cavern, but I’d at least consider it a medium sized one. I could not see anyone else there, so I figured I was alone. Then I started hearing some voices. I could not see anyone, but the voices were getting louder.
Soon, appearing from narrow slits in the side of the cavern, came some skinny candy looking things. They were only about 6 inches tall and had 2 little eyes and a long mouth. They looked like licorice all twisted and all. As they were coming out I notice that they were two of each color (or flavor maybe). There was orange, yellow, purple, green, blue and colors I've never seen before. Strangely, the first thing that came to my mind was, "Where are the black and red ones?". My silent question was soon answered.
Appearing high above, through an opening that I did not see upon arriving, came the black and red one. Both of them wearing a crown. I couldn’t tell if one was king and the other a queen but they both displayed dignity. Then the Black one began to speak.
It wanted to know what I was doing there. I told it that I had no idea. I then went into the story about what happened. When I finished I got curious stares from them all.
It seems that these licorice people have been down here for hundreds of years and this is the first time that they have had a visitor. Of course, they were aware of the world above but, naturally, wanted nothing to do with them (us).
I thought getting back home was going to be a big problem. Fortunately for them, and me, they had a contingency plan in case this ever happened. The biggest problem for them was that someone was going to have to sacrifice their life. You see, the plan involved me eating a pair of them. Meaning that, whichever ones I ate, would never be again. When I eat them, I would fall asleep and then I would be transported back to the surface.
I asked, “Can’t you just tell me the way? I’ll be happy to leave you alone and never even mention I’ve seen you”.
“No, it doesn’t work like that” was the reply from Red. "There is a special enzyme inside of us triggers the transporter".
“Oh”, I said. "You mean a transporter like in Star Trek. I thought someone was going to put me in a vehicle or something and transport me to the surface".
“That’s pretty sad”, I continued. “Is it the only way to get me out of here”?
“Yes, we’re afraid it is” was Red's response.
I was then fearful that they would make me pick the pair to eat. I didn’t want to do that. That would be like murder, wouldn’t it?
Luckily, they had a rotating schedule, just in case, and the unlucky pair was a color I did not recognize. They were a kind of pinkish green-blue color.
So, they said their good-byes to all the other pieces of licorice and came over to me. They asked me to please get it over with as soon as possible once I got started. I assured them that I would.
They turned one more time, bowed to their royalty and then back towards me telling me they were ready. I apologized, grabbed them both and they were down my throat in less than 30 seconds. I will say that they were horrible tasting. After that I became tired, laid down and went to sleep.
When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed with all kinds of tubes coming out of me. My brother was sleeping in the chair next to me. I tried to talk, but my mouth was full of tubes. About then a nurse walked in, saw my dilemma and started removing tubes.
After she left my brother was telling me what happened. It seems I actually died, and some paramedics did CPR on me and brought me back to life. I had been in the hospital for 2 days.
I wanted to tell my brother about, what apparently was a dream, but I didn’t.
That evening, while I was alone, I got sick, and I vomited up something that was pinkish green-blue in color.
Then I started to wonder. Was it a dream or did I just save the world from ever having to eat some horrible pinkish green-blue licorice?
You decide.
