Vanilla Space Fudge Pt. 1

Space Fudge I

"It was purple out, again. We were out by the fence playing with, I
think they were dolls of some sort. Everything is, somehow, two
dimensional. Everthing looks like flat cardboard, but at the same time
it's so warm.

The sun is purple in the sky and the coluds are of a velvet shade and
they hang in the same place until we awake in the moringin.

They abruptly change at night to a oragne moon and a black sky with
large stars and the trees go from black and white to an azure and
purple.

I don't think there are that many colors here, that is the spectrum is
different.

I think there's hardly any detail to anything here. It's like a child's
coloring book and it makes us all feel so happy.

It's me and Sleepjack and Kristin and then the animals and of course
Ruddi. Ruddi looks like the vampire guy from Sesame Street and he's
always up to something, but nothing really bad, not like here.

I think it was that day that we were wondering where he went.

Oh, and we're all short, like puppets or somethning, our skin is slmost
furry like a doll's.

We hadn't seen Ruddi in quite some time and Kristin mentioned it and we
went looking for him. It was strange, but we had never left that yard
by the fence.

We walked along a green path that was dotted with purple flowers and
there were rabbits hopping along side us. We moved on and it became
darker and we approached these woods we hadn't seen before.

We were all very scared, but we wanted to find him and, besides, we
were curious. I don't think this was in this place. I don't think it
was Earth, or anything like it. It was somewhere else. I think it's
where I'm from. I think I got lost there and ended&;#8230;

So, we walked on a bit further into the woods and it kept getting so
dark. We could see a certain dead white glow falling on the woods and
the trees began to fade into black and we moved on.

Sleepjack wanted to go back, but Kristen wouldn't let him. Then we
heard Ruddi off in the woods crying for help. We ran to get him.

Ruddi wasn't all bad, he had fun playing tricks on us and trying to get
us in to trouble with the animals or the with the sun or moon. He never
learned anything from it.

We acted as though he was our enemy, but I think we all really liked
him and without him it wouldn't have been the same.

I don't know what he ever did in the meantime. I don't know if he was
even there when he wasn't. Like, he would only appear when he had a
good little bit of mischeif.

We found him aways in to the wood, there was a strange light coming
from his hands. And something worse, something we'd never seen. His
hands were pale pink and beginning to form drops of red stuff. We told
him to put whatever he was holding down. But he kept saying "But, the
nice monster gave it to me."

We asked what monster? He pointed to a shadow that walked out from
behind a tree and it was a human like you or me, he was wearing what I
know now to be denim.

We maybe came up to his knees. He said something under his breath like
"fun" or something then he walked into the wood further until he
disappeared. We struggled to get the box out of Ruddi's hands and it
fell to the floor and began growing. I swear I heard voices like in an
airport coming out of the box as it fell and it began growing deeper
into the ground and up. It became this strange yellow house, but it was
all wrong, like lopsided and gangly and it had purple windows and doors
and long staircase coming to meet us. We couldn't help ourselves and we
went up.

I think we were the only ones like us that lived in that place. Ruddi
came with us and we mounted the steps and went in. As soon as we opened
the door we fell into a kaleidoscope-like tube and we just kinda kept
falling through balloons and cotton candy and sparks and glowing.

We hit bottom somewhere on top of a huge expanse that was like one of
those fun house inflated mattress rooms, but it went out in all
directions till the horizons, it was so pretty and the sky was yellow
and we hadn't ever seen a yellow sky or a blue sun like we did
there.

We played in there for hours until Ruddi motioned us over to a free
standing door that he said he conjured. Kristen went in first and I
never saw her again, Ruddi then persuaded Sleepjack, but I refused and
he pushed me through. I remember knowing something was wrong, because
Ruddi was never violent, I didn't think any of us were capable of
violence. I don't think he was. I don't think we ever thought of
it.

The next thing I knew I was here with no memory of that place, and what
I do remember comes in dreams like this one."

"Do you believe this is the actual reality of your situation, or do you
know that it's a dream?"

"I don't think it's a dream."

"Why?"

"Because it's a memory."

"A memory of a dream."

"No, it's something that was once real."

"You don't believe you're human?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because of the memory, because of how I feel."

"You're just different, like everyone else."

"No. That's not it. It's much more."

"Alright, well that's fifty minutes." She took out her notebook and
scrawled in the next appointment. "So, next week, same time?"

"You're the only person I've told that to."

"I know, next Thursday?"

"Yeah."

Once again he was in the car. Moving on to the next appointment. He
went from appointment to appointment to sleep to work. There was a
glimmer of a social life in the appointments and the people he would
meet but no phone calls or invitations since he quit.

The quitting was easy, staying quit was much more&;#8230;I saw him
go through some terrible&;#8230;I don't even want to think about it.
And, even now, as I write this story I made for him, I can't help but
be responsible. The plot lines come to me and I can't help but put them
down. I can't avoid it and I can't make anything pretty for him. Not
here. It's simply impossible.

And I was once with him, and Ruddi and Sleepjack and now, I can't go
home and I can't make him find Ruddi. Sleepjack is dead and
R&;#8230;

He drove on towards the appointment with Dr. Kincaide where he would
soon find himself with something terrible, something terminal.

Walking into the office he finds Ruddi in the waiting room with a grin,
Dr. Kincaide comes out and it's the monster from the woods.

Ruddi begins laughing hysterically and then begins crying as the
doctor waves him in. He tries to move towards Ruddi, but Ruddi shakes
his head and points at the hole in his chest. The doctor has him by the
collar and drags him into the office.

"Hello, and what can we do for you today, you little shit?"

"Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter, why did you start liping off about your little
sunshine world to that doctor?"

"I&;#8230;I didn't know who else to tell."

"I didn't send you here to fuck up my plans, you will keep your mouth
shut about your problematic memory and I don't want to hear any word of
you again."

"How did you know?"

"Your soon to be dead friend sent you the memory."

"I don't&;#8230;"