Scraping paint – especially on a hot day, decked out in my heavy orange flight suit, respirator, gloves, boots, and goggles – is, as Marie’s husband puts it, a thankless job. I switched the direction of my stokes frequently, as much for efficiency’s sake as because each of my wrists couldn’t handle the strain for more than about a board’s length. Sweat ran down my chest under the thick orange fabric (I tried wearing an undershirt to wick it away, but that only made me hotter). I always chugged cool water before I began, but a couple hours without a drink – I’d have to undress and wipe off every time, to keep the lead paint dust out of my bottle – only makes this kind of work worse. The scraping dragged on (literally) without end. It was, without doubt, the most monotonous and unceasingly strenuous thing I’d ever set my mind to.

The other day, as I tackled the high wall facing our main house, I yanked the scraper over an old, rotting piece of wood off to the right of my ladder. The board cracked and broke away, leaving a small, jagged hole in the wall. I held the ladder tightly, then leaned out and peered in. For some reason, there was an eerie red glow off to the left somewhere behind the wall. I glanced cautiously up at the top of the ladder to make sure it was well braced, and, with one hand gripping the hole and the other around the ladder frame, I hung out carefully to the side, staring deeper into the void. The light was still there, flickering slightly, and I was just starting to make out its source when I felt the board I clung to start splintering under my thick leather gloves. I tried to let go and yank myself back onto the ladder, but it was too late. The board broke off and fell, striking the ground a second or two later. As I tried to pull myself back onto the rungs, though, the ladder began to tip towards me. I knew my fate should I fall, so I reached for the hole in the wall and held on for my life.

It had grown quite large since the second board came off. In fact, as I hung there, ladder fallen to the ground below, I thought that I might be able to pull myself through. This seemed vastly preferable to having to drop to the ground from so high, and the board I had wrapped my fingers around seemed sturdier than the last two, so I lifted myself up to the opening and struggled in. When I got halfway over, though, my orange flight suit scraping against the old wood, I heard more cracking. Seconds later several of the boards below me gave way, and dust and splinters flew through the air, illuminated by the red light, as I tumbled forward onto the floor of the damp room.

…Wait. Damp? Huh. It was, indeed – the cold stone floor was covered with dirty condensation, and there were several murky little puddles on the worn surface. I wiped the grimy water off my safety glasses and struggled to my feet. The bright orange fabric of my suit was darkened, soaked by water and streaked with dirt and dust. It looked almost bloody in the red light, and clung to my skin. Wait, the light! I remembered it now and looked up. Sure enough, there was the source I had begun to make out back on the ladder. It was a huge crystal chandelier, lit with flickering blood-red candles, and upside-down. It stood on a rough, dark wooden beam that ran across the floor, and it pointed straight up like a shimmering, ghostly red glass tree. The candles pointed straight down, and the bloody flames twitched and jumped toward the wooden floor. There were several more large wooden beams, and underneath them dozens of perpendicular boards that butted up against the stone platform on which I stood. It looked like the heavy ceiling of some magnificent stone mansion, but on the ground. Then it occurred to me to look up, and I saw (to my further astonishment) that the entire ceiling was a mirror-like pool, black and still, stretching to the edges of the room. It reflected the scene below perfectly, and the dim image of the chandelier seemed to hang upright high above me. Behind me, the stone on which I stood stretched off into a long passage, the silent liquid ceiling following it like an inverted underground waterway that stretched off into the still darkness. As I gazed down that length, my mind struggled to maintain the impression of a ceiling made of water. The whole room seemed to twist unsteadily from upright to upside-down with my faltering balance, and when I turned back to the chandelier – candles still flickering downwards toward the wood floor (ceiling?) – I almost toppled. I stuck my boot out to steady myself, and it landed in a cold puddle with a splash. Then everything started to swim, my sense of direction shifting completely, feet still stuck (how?) to the wet stone ceiling (floor?). My feet came loose from the stone, and I caught one last glimpse of the red chandelier before I hit the water’s surface, flailing.

I gulped a breath of air before the splash and closed my eyes against the cold water. There wasn’t any, though. When I fell into the pool, I kept falling. My eyes snapped open again. The image of the chandelier – the reflection – was still before me, and I could tell now that it was, in fact, real. I stuck out my arms to catch myself, and I crashed in a heap on a dusty dirt floor. When I opened my eyes and looked to the chandelier I had just tumbled towards, it had become a roaring campfire. It spit and crackled as the orange flames sent bits of ash up on billowing white smoke, and I instinctively reached my trembling, dusty hands out to warm them against the chilly evening air.

I don’t remember how long it took me to look up again, but I do remember expecting to see the red chandelier hanging from a distant ceiling. It wasn’t there. Directly above me, in its place, hung a deep orange moon. It glowed and loomed, larger than any I’d seen. I heard a voice behind me, and snapped my head around in surprise.

“Eh’s roarin’ now.” It was a delicate British voice. I could only make out a burly lumberjack, though, tearing a mouthful out of some charred animal’s leg.

“Yeh, eh’s a real beauty, ain’t eet.” This was a feminine-like falsetto. I turned, expecting to see Eric Idle or John Cleese clothed in the billowing dress of a common British lady. It was another lumberjack, this one even rougher. He must have been six and a half feet tall, and three or four hundred pounds of muscle, bent over an unidentifiable chunk of meat, grimy fingers stuffing the charred flesh into his bulging mouth. A rough wool cap was stuck on his head and hung a little to the side, and the dirty stubble covering his face moved in and out with his noisy chewing. I scanned the campsite, but saw no others. The two of them sat alone around the fire, thick forest to one side and a cleared hill to the other, strewn with roughly felled pines. Over the hilltop I could make out a few wisps of smoke in the dim moonlight, and I guessed a camp of some sort had been erected in the distance. I stood up and brushed the dust off my orange flight suit with my thick leather gloves, then strode over to the first lumberjack (the slightly less intimidating of the two).

“Eschooshe me,” I began, voice heavily muffled by the respirator still strapped over my face. Neither man looked up from their meat. I peeled off the sweaty mask and cleared my throat, starting over, “Excuse me, good and kind sir, but I think I am lost. Perhaps you can offer some assistance? I live in an old red cabin on a lake.” The lumberjack chewed sloppily by the crackling fire, quivering light dancing on his dripping, distended, and dirty face. I looked over my shoulder, just as the other lifted his head to speak. I drew in my breath quickly, thankful that he had heard, but his gaze rose only to meet the other man’s.

“Juss loike the ole’ wizard would have loiked, no?” He spoke between bites, mouth overflowing, still in his comically ladylike falsetto. I stepped out of their way (though it was clear they could see straight through my body) and turned to the first lumberjack again.

“Mm, yes yes. ‘E would have loiked this one, ‘e would have.” The gentle English voice spilled haphazardly out his chewing mouth, and he looked over his shoulder to a cliff in the distance. I followed his gaze, and though I strained to make it out, I could soon see it well enough to discern a tall figure on its edge. He must be… the wizard!

It seemed odd to me that I could know this with such certainty, but I was in no mood to wonder. How do I get up to see him? I wondered. Just then, though, my sweaty hair growing cold and my respirator still dangling from my fingers, my idle question was answered. I was lifted off the ground and sped toward him over the treetops. I had to shut my eyes against the blast of cold air, but judging from the frequency at which my orange flight suit flapped against my back I guessed I was moving at at least two hundred and forty-three miles per hour. Then I screeched to a halt, my head and limbs jerking forward. When I cracked my freezing eyelids open, I nearly toppled backwards with surprise. There, looming over me and practically in my face, was a great, pointed, purple and pink cone. When I regained my composure, I stepped back along the crunchy gravel cliff edge and took a second look. Oh, I thought, It was just his hat. The cone ended about two feet above the ground. It rested, perfectly balanced, on the flowing white hair of a tiny wizard. His long white goatee dragged on the ground and writhed slowly in the dirt to his side with the gentle wind. His face was tan, and every graceful fold seemed carved in. There was more skin than belonged on him, and his eyes pinched together – closed – above his nose. He seemed to gaze out over the hills through his tightly shut eyelids, and stood, wise and majestic, with one wrinkled hand wrapped around a twig-like cane, a fur-trimmed purple and pink cloak flowing from his shoulders to the ground (of the same fabric as his hat, I noted, impressed). I looked on in awe, then followed his gaze out over the cliff. I could see now a great red factory, with orange sodium vapor lamps spaced along its long walls and smokestacks spewing dirty soot into the night sky. It stood in a clearing, and, further out – at the edge of the forest – there were scattered little campfires, presumably belonging to more lumberjacks.

“Dude, so like, what are you buildin’ down there?” I blurted. He didn’t move. After a minute or two, though, his little red lips opened and he began to speak, still gazing out, hand still on his spindly cane.

“M-m-m-m…” He stopped to cough, “M-m-m-marshmallow factory.” He had a tiny, gurgling, and gruff voice, pitched to match his diminutive stature.

“Oh.” I said, and turned to look out at the factory again. “By the way, you have a pretty radical little hat.” He began to tremble, standing there. His face started turning red, and when I thought he was about to vibrate his way off the cliff like a cellphone on a counter top, his lips opened again.

“Th…Th… They. Ahhhhhre. N-n-not. C-. C-. Called. HATS.” He growled the last word. It scared me, if you can imagine a growling chipmunk sounding scary. Then he suddenly stopped trembling, and his wobbling hat slid to a stop at an angle on his white head. I heard a little hiss, as of some great big steamy machine coming to rest, and a puff of smoke rose from the very tip of the hat. A quiet little clank came from inside him, then another, and another. They grew faster and faster, like some poorly lubricated steel gears with primitive teeth grating against each other. Then, as the clanking grew into a constant drone, I saw that his arm – the one clutching the little cane – was slowly rising, the cane straightening outwards with it. They stopped moving, pointed exactly at the left side of my neck.

Then the drone began again, this time as the arm and cane pointed slowly across my neck, until they came to the right side, where they stopped once more. My neck had tickled a little as the cane passed. The wizard still stood silently, eyes squinting shut at the hills below. I began to speak, began to say, What the hell?, but didn’t get the first word out. As soon as I opened my jaw and formed my lips to make a “W,” my whole head began to tip backwards. It didn’t stop.

My noggin hit the ground like a chunk of wood and started rolling toward the edge of the cliff. I screamed at the wizard, “Hey, you ass! What the hell have you done? I can’t finish scraping paint with no freakin’ hands, you stupid bastard!”

Each time my head spun around on its way to that edge, I caught a glimpse of the wizard and my body. His face was still wrinkled up and stern, staring out over me to the factory, and his arm and cane were frozen in a line that pointed straight to my severed neck. My body was still standing there, oddly. The orange flight suit didn’t have a drop of blood on it, either (I expected there to be more squirting, and for a moment was bothered by this – I had hoped the blood supply to my brain would flow more freely and easily, as I thought myself to be a rather fine thinker). Each time that scene flew into and past my field of vision, though, as my head rolled toward the cliff, I saw little green stems shoot higher out of me. By the time my head dropped over and began its long fall to the ground, I swear I saw flowers start blooming where my face used to be.

As you can imagine, falling off a cliff is a pretty terrifying experience for anyone, let alone a kid who just lost his entire body to a robot wizard. The fall was surprisingly short, though, and before I had much time to consider what I’d do next, a solution (once again) conveniently presented itself. As my head bounced through the trees at the base of the cliff, I could see – through my screaming, terrified haze – the clearing approaching. My noodle ricocheted off tree trunks with short puck-puck noises, like a gigantic ping pong ball, then suddenly broke through into the mess of fallen lumber. It landed on a small tree stump with a wet thwack, my neck lining up perfectly with the hewn surface of the wood. I opened my mouth again, trying to wobble off the splintered surface by moving my jaw around in huge circles. It was no use, though. My flesh was already fusing to the stump. Sweat poured down my temples as I (well, my head) sat there, helpless. My distress gradually became scientific fascination, though, as I began to grow aware of the roots spreading down below me. They soon felt as real as my own body, and I was so overwhelmed by my wonder at my mind’s ability to learn so quickly how to interpret input from so many new limbs that I scarcely even thought to try moving them. It didn’t take long for me to figure out.

A cloud of dust had risen from the base of the stump when I landed on it, and it was filling my nostrils now, as I was certainly in no position to turn away from it. As a great, heaving sneeze overtook me, my head –and wooden neck – bent backwards, then crashed forward with such a great force that my entire root system shook and loosened the ground around me. A second overtook the first and soon became a steady stream of uncontrollable sneezes. With each one, my new body shook a little more, and loosened a little more dirt. When I finally stopped, it struck me immediately that I could now wiggle quite freely in my place in the ground. I twisted and turned, shook and shivered. Pretty soon, I had freed my top roots, then those lower down. Then I was pushing and pulling my whole system out of the ground. I stood, a good fifteen feet tall, and brushed the dirt off of me. My head still spun from the sneezing and struggling, but I was free!

I began to stumble away from the crater of loose dirt I’d left behind me, struggling to maintain balance with roots sticking out in so many directions. My new limbs didn’t move like a human’s, with joints, but I slowly got used to a sliding, tumbling sort of movement that I could manage easily with my flexing roots. As I began to move, aimlessly at first – just exploring my new ability – I began to speed up, and to rumble up hills with a growing sense of anger and purpose. Pretty soon, I was completely consumed with rage and a desire for revenge that I didn’t stop to consider. As I tumbled through those tangles of fallen trees and abandoned stumps, I heard cracking and dragging behind me, growing in intensity as I continued my quest – toward the m-m-m-marshmallow factory.

Pretty soon, an entire army of root systems and their cracked, broken, splintered trees had risen from the ground and trailed behind me in a mindless, thunderous stampede. In my blinding anger, I was faintly aware of what was happening to me, and to them. They blundered onward without heads, but with the brute strength of a towering zombie forest. They wanted revenge, and they finally had a creature who could lead them to it. I was their master. I was in control.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the barn-red factory. The vast complex came into view as we crested the last hilltop, and it sprawled before us like some kind of sleeping mechanical monster – smoke pouring lazily from its stacks, sickly orange lights still illuminating its silent perimeter. I swear you could start to see the place shake as we grew nearer. By the time we had only a hundred yards left, a door opened in the side and an acne-covered, lanky teenage kid (who looked startlingly like the one behind the counter at the Krusty Burger) peeked out, rubbing his eyes. When he removed his hands, his jaw dropped. He croaked, “Holy Shit,” and slammed the door on us, dust rising up at its base.

Seconds later we were on top of the place, tearing at its walls and tossing its doors to the side. The whole mess was louder than a screaming head falling over a cliff. Everywhere concrete was being smashed to bits, metal roofing torn to shreds, heavy machines crashing and crunching as massive zombie trees swung them into each other and smashed them on the steel beams holding the roof. Everything was collapsing around us. I picked up a conveyor and swung it over my head like a sling, letting it scream through the air and shatter windows and wooden office walls as I stormed along. Cacophony filled the room as thoroughly as the clouds of dust and flying sparks. Screeching, screaming, tearing, and smashing filled my ears. As we tore through the factory, progressing in a sort of wave – an advancing front, destroying everything in our paths – the sky above me seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until, through the dust, I imagined sunlight must be shining down on me while I smashed my way through the building.

Over the deafening sound of our destruction, too, came a new sort of noise. It seemed to be growing closer, and growled, thunderously, at a pitch so low I could scarcely hear it so much as feel it. Soon, a huge shadow moved over us, blocking the dusty sunlight. The shaking grew so immense that I could barely stand, even with so many roots to support me. I watched as a towering wall of high-carbon steel crushed my ranks. My mindless, massive soldiers fell, erupting in showers of splinters and pieces of wood as the steel wall scraped over them. I tried to run, but it was no use. The advancing blade soon caught up to me and shattered my wooden body underneath it. My head broke free, and tumbled up through the air as the steel monster passed.

The world seemed a blur as I flew through that sunny air. The dark, dusty destruction of my army’s rampage disappeared, and was replaced with a disoriented sort of serenity as I drifted. Everything seemed totally silent, save for the wind in my ears and the distant rumble of the steel blade. I caught glimpses of the factory behind me as my head spun through the sky. The barn-red steel roof of that factory had been scraped clean off, and the remnants fluttered away like flakes of paint. I couldn’t tell where I was – I was still very much in a daze – but it soon became clear that I was high, high above the ground. Powerful winds were sweeping me along, so easily aloft, and, though I hadn’t regained my sense of direction, the place where the factory had stood seemed to be perpendicular to the ground – the blue sky shown off to the side of it. Opposite the sky, I could see (still blurry) what seemed like great forests many miles below me. From this height, the greenery looked very much like grass and moss.

Then, as my head spun around again, a staggeringly large and bright orange creature passed into my field of vision. It was very far away from me – probably at least a mile – but still easily filled my view. The second time I spun around and had a chance to see it, I realized that it was, in fact, a humongous person. He wore a huge pink and gray mask and immense paint-speckled safety glasses that made it hard to see his eyes, but each time the world around me revolved I got a better look. His eyes, half-closed, betrayed his overwhelming boredom. He seemed to gaze absently, like Bill Watterson’s Calvin, failing (as usual) to pay attention in class. Again and again I watched that great, lumbering creature spin past, and watched that motionless, distant set of eyes follow the steel scraper as he dragged it slowly along. I wondered, in silence, what he might be thinking about.