Page 54 of Blaze of Our Lives

I had the fever, and we were about to rock’n roll.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

We were back on the neon green brick road. I carried the torch in one hand and the map in the other. The lollipop trees were nowhere to be seen. The lemon-drop and candy cane bushes were missing. They’d been replaced by riotous red poppy fields that went on for as far as the eye could see. The sun was now purple and the clouds were orange. It was a nutty and colorful combo… and probably as dangerous as all get out.

“Dude,” I said, checking the map with the directions. “There are poppy fields all around us.”

“Are you sleepy?” Pandora asked, alarmed.

The question was legit. In the movie, Dorothy and her entourage fell asleep in the poppy fields because the Wicked Witch had put a spell on them.

“No,” I answered. “Little worn out from the obstacle course, but not sleepy.”

“How much farther until we get to the capital of Snoz?”

Again, I looked at the map. It wasn’t like any map I’d seen before. It was just a bunch of drawings with vaguely written directions below. There was no indication as to any kind of measurement like miles or kilometers. “Not clear. But it’s got to be close. Looks like we’re about to get to the end of the green brick road.”

“And what’s beyond that?”

“Call me crazy, but it looks like some kind of food stand,” I replied.

“Crazy, you can call me Nuts,” she said, hopping right on. “One step at a time. We’ll get there.”

As I made my way to the end of the road, I kept my eyes open for danger and my ears open for the sound of a golf cart. There was no way I would allow Phyllis to sneak up on me. She was bad business. I hoped never to see the talking ashtray again.

“How are my leg and arm holding up?” Pandora inquired.

I glanced down to check and gasped. “What the heck?”

“What’s wrong?” she yelled. “Did you fuck up my appendages?”

“Umm… no,” I said, holding up the arm I’d grown after my other had been ripped off and examined it. It wasn’t Pandora’s arm anymore. It was mine. And the leg… the same. Somehow, without me noticing, my own body parts had come back. How the hell I hadn’t felt it was beyond me. “I’m back to me.”

“Did mine fall off?” she asked, wildly perplexed.

I turned around and scanned the path we’d already traversed. “No. They didn’t fall off. My guess, which is truly a guess, is that they made their way back to your body.”

“Fascinating,” she said. “Actually, that’s wonderful. I’d be pissed if it was your body parts that went to my body and mine stayed with you.”

“That’s kind of rude,” I told her.

“It can’t be helped,” she informed me. “I’m superior, and I don’t want used and unattractive parts. Mine are too glorious.”

“Got it,” I said with an enormous eye roll. Pandora might be improving as a person, but she would always be vain and egotistical. It was pretty ingrained at this point.

“Not that I think you’re ugly,” she quickly amended.

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m just prettier,” she explained.

I was delighted to see that the end of the green brick road was finally in sight. I wasn’t sure how much more of Pandora exalting her charms I could take. “I see the food stand.”

“Is that really what it is?”

“Don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

It wasn’t a food stand, per se, but it did have something edible…edible being the operative word. On a large black lacquered table was an ornate gold and silver platter with a cut glass cover over it. In front of the platter was a note that read, ‘Eat Me’. The script was formal, the note card was thick and looked expensive, and the ink was bronze. On the plate was a gummy. A Devil’s Lettuce gummy. Pot.

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