The World Of Wonder: Bedtime Tale

This is a bedtime story about you flying in a spaceship. You begin your descent into the Earth's atmosphere, but when you land on Earth, you discover that this Earth is different and is raining purple rain.

You head through the woodland the next day and encounter animals practicing a performance for a show. You also meet a small kitten named Pickles and visit a silver fox named Tom. They explain to you about the purple rain and about what happened to you and the kitten and about portals.

They give you a liquid to drink that will let you temporarily see the portals so that you can return to your correct universe. You return the kitten home before piloting your ship through a portal and back to your reality. Once home, you think about your experience, feel tired, and have bed head, drifting peacefully asleep into Slumberland.

Transcript

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close and allow yourself to begin to relax.

And as you begin to comfortably fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell this bedtime story in the background.

I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words.

And as you comfortably drift to sleep,

You can have a sense of being in a spaceship circling the earth.

And as the spaceship circles the earth,

So the windows in the spaceship face down towards the earth.

And while the spaceship silently drifts through space,

You float weightless within that ship,

Gazing out at the earth below,

Seeing the deep blue of the ocean,

The greens and browns of the land,

The wispy whites of the clouds circling across the sea,

Reaching around the land,

And the dark black band of night.

And as your ship continues circling every 90 minutes around the earth,

The ship passes from the day side round into the night side.

And in the night side,

You can see the glowing patches of light of those cities down there on the earth.

And as you just float there so weightless,

In the silence of the ship,

It can feel almost surreal.

And a curious thing about a ship floating above the earth is that although you feel weightless,

Technically there's almost as much gravity in a ship circling the earth as there is on the surface.

And that the only reason why you experience weightlessness is because the ship is always falling towards the earth but missing it because it curves out of the way.

And so it takes 90 minutes at this altitude to fall all the way around the earth.

And back to where you started.

And as the ship passes through the dark side of the earth and heads back round to the light side,

So you can see that sun bursting to life behind the earth.

Rising above the horizon.

And then as the ship continues around the earth,

So the sun rises higher in your sky until that sun passes to the far side of your ship,

Out of sight.

And you get a notification on the ship,

Letting you know that it's all clear to begin to make your descent down to the earth.

And so you start to press some buttons and move some levers rotating the ship until the underside of the ship is face down with the earth and the windows are now facing the opposite direction to the earth and it's only through the front windows you can now see the distant curve of the earth.

And as you look in the direction of the earth,

So the background turns totally black.

But if you look away from the earth,

Into outer space,

In the opposite direction to the sun,

And your eyes adjust to the dark,

So you can see a blanket of stars and the colours in the night sky stretching endlessly in all directions.

And a light comes on on the dashboard to let you know it's time to now begin the descent.

And so you move the lever forward slightly and gently the ship begins to descend.

And you see the earth growing larger in your field of view.

And as you descend,

You reach an altitude where you lift the nose of the ship up,

Placing the underside of the ship at a 45 degree angle to the ground.

And the ship begins to rattle,

That kind of rattle that vibrates through you to such an extent that your arms and hands go numb and your legs vibrate enough to go numb.

You can feel that numbness passing through your body,

Like a stillness passing through your mind.

As you breathe calm,

You monitor your instruments and the ship continues to descend.

And you start to notice the orange then white glow coming up from the underside of the ship,

Stretching around the ship almost like a glove,

Reaching round and holding that ship as it descends.

And that glowing light flickering,

Flashing,

The ship vibrating,

The sound of a deep rumble passing through the ship.

And then out of the orange and white glow comes a few flashes of purple light,

Almost as if you're passing through an aurora,

Sparkling,

Flashing around you.

And it feels like such a long time,

Over the couple of seconds it takes to pass through this part of the atmosphere,

To slow down enough for the vibrating to calm down.

And then the ship begins to level out and you're still traveling at high speed.

You dart down through the clouds,

A spray of water splashes across the ship as you pass through those clouds.

You exit beneath the clouds,

The button flashes on the dashboard,

You press the button and a series of parachutes fire up from the ship.

And the ship,

With a jolt,

Decelerates and now begins to slow down and descend,

Just with the parachutes carrying it gently down to the ground.

And as it descends,

You look around you at the landscape below and you can see the coastline.

You can see some green landscape and for about five minutes the descent happens slow and smooth.

And after about five minutes a light comes on on the dashboard to signal to cut the parachutes and you press the button,

The parachutes get cut.

The ship drops in free fall.

You press another button,

Firing some engines and you begin to follow the guidance on a screen in the ship.

Piloting that ship towards the land in front of you.

And as you turn to where there should be a runway,

All you can see is a vast meadow surrounded by woodland.

But this is where you need to land.

And so you come in to land on this meadow.

You do a perfect touchdown in the meadow.

As the ship bounces and rumbles through that meadow,

The grass is slapping the underside of the ship until eventually it comes to a stop.

And as it comes to a stop,

So you turn everything off and press a button to recall the parachutes and drones at the base of the parachutes draw in the parachutes back into a casing on each drone and those drones autopilot back to the ship and auto dock back in their pods in the ship locking themselves back into place.

And ordinarily,

Specialists would check each parachute,

Make sure everything's okay before the next flight and you pop open the hatch to exit the ship.

And standing in the meadow,

You feel very heavy but the air tastes so sweet and fresh.

You think to yourself that that journey went very smoothly like a mellow drama,

Just incredibly calm,

Everything worked just right.

The only slight hiccup was that you followed all of the guidance and you seem to be in a meadow when you should be on a runway.

And you try and use the radio but it's just the sound of static.

And so you grab some supplies and everything feels so much heavier than normal.

And you lock up the ship and decide to explore and see if you can find out where you are.

And you walk through the tall grass and as you walk through that tall grass so you just watch the nature enjoying this meadow the birds flying overhead,

Bees bumbling from plant to plant,

Some rabbits gnawing down on some grass while their noses twitch and their tails flick.

And you notice that some dark clouds are gently approaching.

And so as you near the tree line you decide to set up a camp a little bit away from the trees and you set up that camp.

You sit inside your tent as those dark clouds begin to roll overhead and rain begins to fall only as that rain begins to fall.

So you notice as it sploshes down and runs down the tent that the rain seems to have a purple hue to it.

And you have a frying pan outside your tent that you're going to use to gather up some of the rain only it just becomes a puddle of purple water with drops splashing into the pan ripples spreading out throughout that pan and you don't know why the rain's purple but you know it's probably not suitable rain to drink even if you heat it first.

And so you just zip up the tent the sound of those large drops sploshing on the canvas.

You turn on a light in the tent illuminating the inside of the tent with the coziest of glows.

You rest back with a book and read that book and the rain gets heavier as the storm gets closer.

You start to hear the distant rumble of thunder the occasional flash of light through the canvas and after a while your eyes begin to feel heavy and so you drift peacefully asleep in the tent finding the sound of the rain and the rolling thunder so calming and relaxing lulling you deeper and deeper asleep and while in space you find it very difficult to get a full and proper night's sleep and so you are very tired and being in such a cozy and comfortable space you find it easy here to fall asleep now and sleep all night long as you slept through the later evening right through the night only awoken by the sound of birds outside singing morning songs there was a glow around the tent of morning daylight you unzip the tent with the fresh meadow air wafting into the tent that scent of rain from the night before the frying pan full of that purple rain and you took some of the purple rain placed it onto a slide and took a look at that purple rain under a microscope and as you looked closely at the purple rain so you could see small cells that had a gentle purple hue to them that almost looked like individual blood cells just smooth disk like cells and they were just floating in the liquid and as you looked even closer on a higher magnification there was something hypnotic about the way the cells just gently moved so slowly almost like driftwood floating down a river wafting past and you watched those cells for a while and noticed in those cells that if you got the focus just right you could see that their smooth outside actually looked almost like they had dense fur but you couldn't work out what these cells were but you felt that it's probably good not to drink the water and as you continue walking probably not to drink any other water that you find that may have become contaminated by the rain until you know what this rain is and so you pack away the tent and you feel slightly stronger today than the night before and you squelch your way into the woodland and begin to walk through the woodland the sounds of dripping occasionally as the last of the rain jumps down from leaf to leaf to the ground with the gentle sway and movement of the branches and the ground inside the woodland is drier and firmer than the meadow the undergrowth is mossy and gently squidgy with each step almost like walking on mattresses and as you walk your way through this woodland you start to hear a distant musical singing similar to the sounds of birds only sounds you're unfamiliar with and you decide to investigate and you weave your way among the trees the damp bark smooth against the palms of your hands as you push around one tree then another and as you push on through this woodland the sun's light occasionally dancing on the ground before you you find your way out into a slight clearing finding that this clearing is at the top of a gentle cliff overlooking a valley and you can look down into that valley and you see a river running through the centre of the valley surrounded by trees and the singing sound,

That kind of bird sound seems to be coming from somewhere down near that river and so you look around this cliff to try and work out a way down to that valley and you decide that you'll have to climb down and so you get some rope out and you tie it around a tree you wrap it around and between your legs,

Around your waist you walk to the edge of the cliff carefully backing off the cliff bracing your legs,

Keeping your knees gently bent lowering yourself down until you're at a 90 degree angle with the cliff and then carefully and slowly walk down that cliff an arm behind you a hand in front of you passing that rope between those hands all the way down to the ground in the valley you unloop the rope and leave that there hanging against the cliff and set off on foot again towards that musical sound and as you get nearer to that musical sound you see an unusual sight you see some rhinos standing on their hind legs with canes and top hats whistling tunes and dancing in sync with each other kicking up their legs,

Twirling around raising and lowering those hats on their head spinning the canes in the hand one of the rhinos wearing a monocle and in the water you see some legs poking out of the water making v-shapes,

Then coming together and then one leg up and one leg down both legs together like a heart in the sky and then you notice their upside down buffalo doing synchronized swimming in the river as they flip over,

Take a breath flip back up the other way again and on both sides of the river you see a row of elephants dunking their trunks into the water holding their trunks out straight and up at an angle and firing water out of their trunks to the beat of the music made by the rhinos and in the background on a large,

Grey,

Flat stone wedged in the ground you can see deer tap dancing and then those deer part and as the deer part so an unusual sight happens before your eyes a dog on a unicycle wearing a large,

Red,

Clown nose and a large,

Pointy hat with some colourful tassels hanging off the peak of the hat unicycles in from behind those deer weaving back and forth to keep upright before pedalling hard to spin the unicycle grasping the unicycle with its hind legs to leap gently off the ground,

Turn and land and head back the way it came and you watch for a while from the shade of the trees and as you watch you hear a noise near you and you turn to the side and you see a small kitten and they're gently purring as they shimmy up beside you rub alongside you and sit down before you,

Look up to you and they tell you that their name is Pickles that they found themselves here they were sleeping in front of a fire,

One minute the next minute they seemed to be in this location and they were wondering what they were seeing and so they tried to stay hidden and then you came along and hid right beside them and a part of your brain was taken aback by this being a kitten that could talk but another part of your brain said yes,

But there's a dog on a unicycle there's deer tap dancing there's rhinos wearing top hats flipping canes whistling musical tunes and there's buffalo dancing underwater with their legs in the air a talking kitten isn't really as unusual as you would think and with the kitten you head carefully out into the clearing you get noticed and they all stop their performance and you walk over and you decide to try and strike up a conversation your assumption is that if the kitten can talk they can probably talk also and as you strike up that conversation you ask where you are who they are and they don't understand the first question because you're here,

They don't know any different here is here but they do explain that they're practicing for a show they came out to this quiet spot where they can practice and train ready for a show later and this show is for the silver fox and you're curious where this silver fox lives and they say that there's a town just along the valley a little way you have to go down the valley and then cut through a passageway in the cliff wall and you'll find your way to the town and the kitten says that they want to go with you as they climb up your leg,

Scramble up onto your backpack,

Their head poked up next to yours their fur gently tickling the side of your neck occasionally purring a little as they rub against the side of your neck while you walk and together you walk along the side of the river and you continue heading along that river the sound of it bubbling along beside you until you find that tunnel that gap into the side of the cliff and something about this strikes you as unusual because the view through that gap looks like a view into a town and yet you would expect it to have been a tunnel perhaps going some distance through the cliff,

Maybe rising up maybe heading through the cliff and out on a cliff the other side not like a tunnel straight to a town but you walk through that tunnel and just a pace or two you find yourself in what seems like a Victorian street and you walk along this Victorian street and it's night time here and as you walk so the street lamps flicker lining the street they glow illuminating just a small area between each lamp and occasionally you see a horse and cart clop their way along the cobbled streets and most people seem to already be in bed and you continue along the streets into the main area of town seeing pubs and inns and other buildings and closed shops and market stalls with the canvas pulled around each stall and that amber glow of the lights making the streets feel so cosy so calming and relaxing and you head to one of the pubs and you walk into the pub and you say that you're searching for the silver fox you've heard that they're around here somewhere and they tell you that they'll enquire someone might be able to help and they suggest you take a seat by the fire they'll come and find you in a minute and so with the kitten you rest by the fire the kitten jumps down and curls up in front of the fire and seems so happy like this reminds them of where they've come from and as you rest there you look around the pub you can see some people playing cards some people playing dominoes some people playing board games even a couple of people seemingly playing Jenga with a single bit of wood at the base with an intense focus on each of their faces and after a few moments the person comes back and tells you that the silver fox is down the road and to the left there's a grand building if you head there and knock maybe they'll let you see them and so you pick the kitten up they dig their claws into the ground not wanting to leave from in front of that fire you both make eye contact as if to say you know we've got to and the kitten lets go and you place them back on your shoulder and you head back out into the night smelling that fresh night air as you continue along and then left and you see a large building at the end of the street and you head to that building and there's a silver button in a grand wooden door you press the silver button and hear an ornate tune play from within the building and then you hear footsteps then the door opens and you're invited in and you walk into this building you sit down in a waiting area and then a silver fox with the most incredible fur saunters into the room and in a deep and booming voice they introduce themselves as Tom and you talk to them and you ask them about those animals you ask them about this place where it is and how there seems to be access through a cliff into what seems like old London and you try and explain not thinking they would understand at all about how you came here in a spaceship but when you landed it wasn't your home this definitely was a different place and they tell you about rips in space and time and that as you descended you must have passed through one they swirl around the planet like vortices of wind like strong dense patches of wind spiraling overhead and these portals have a purple hue and they're powered by a specific ancient being and that ancient being is like a single celled being only it's not really a single celled being even if that's what it would look like under a microscope those single cells are actually individual spaceships and if you could zoom in to see them close enough you'd realize that in each and every one of those single cells are tens of thousands of beings and they permeate through time only interacting with space at the points of the portals where they seep through the portals and as they seep through the portals so because they're such small particles they can seed clouds and get trapped within drops of rain and they'll fall from the sky but they're so small they're virtually indestructible and so it doesn't really affect any of the individual ships the rain just evaporates and they take off again and they find their way back to the edges of the portal where they can transition back into time and because they exist in time and not space they exist in a timeless space but these portals penetrate the multiverse and some of the portals are static some are placed there intentionally and others just pop temporarily into existence before fading away again and the one you must have passed through was probably like a vortices in the sky there'll probably be a few more because they normally come in clusters and they last a few days and they're hard to see but you can map where they are and pickles must have passed through one that must have spontaneously appeared where they were sleeping maybe it was created on purpose or accidentally and there's a permanent one in that cliff that connects there with here and the silver fox offers a drink while they go off to get a book and they say this book will contain the secret to helping you return home and they come back with that book and on the cover it says the treasures of Anubis and on opening the book instead of pages it's cut out and in that space that's cut out is a small vial of liquid and they tell you that this honey in this vial is made with the purple rain drunk and passed through a thousand bees and if you take a sip of tea made with this honey you'll connect with the ships in the purple rain and when you open your eyes you'll see that this honey is made with the purple rain drunk and passed through a thousand bees and when you open your eyes you'll see the world in a different light and they take the lid off the top of that vial they get a pipette and they draw up a little bit of that gloopy liquid and they drop it into a container they boil up some water they pour a little bit of that water into that container they pop a cork in the top of the container and shake that container up vigorously until it's a yellowy bubbly liquid and that yellowy bubbly liquid gloops around like runny honey and they hand you that liquid and tell you to go back to your ship to take a sip of that liquid and when you take a sip of that liquid you'll see all the portals you'll see the world as those aliens see the world with those purple portals and you thank the fox you head back the way you came you head all the way back to that woodland and back at the woodland you turn to the kitten and you ask them where it was that they appeared and they tell you where they appeared and so you head to where they say and it's there that you choose to drink that liquid and as you drink that liquid so you feel a warmth fill your body passing through your head almost like it's massaging the inside of your skull tingling on your cheeks tickling your ears soothing your throat your neck,

Your shoulders,

Your arms,

Your hands your chest,

Your back down your sides,

Your stomach all the way down through your legs to the tips of your toes soothing,

Softening,

Calming almost like it's pulling gently on the underside of your eyelids tugging them shut while it fills you with peace and harmony with calmness and a deep sense of relaxation and stillness and a comfort from the top of your head to the tips of your toes and then your eyelids relax again gently open and wrapped around everything you can see is a purple hue and there's sparkling purple lights and what looks like ruptures a bit like broken glass that's cracked and you can see a portal near here and you carry the kitten to that location to the portal they can't see and you can see the other side of the portal it's half a rug and so you pop that kitten through the portal and the kitten thanks you and tootles off away from the portal and you watch as it rests back down by the fire and nods a goodbye to you and then you cut through the woodland head out near your ship and out near your ship you look around the sky you see the portal up in the sky and the ship can't enter space on its own but it can fly like an aeroplane and so you get into your ship and you look around and it takes longer to get up to speed on a bumpy terrain but you push the throttle forward you speed along this bumpy meadow lifting the nose up towards the end of the meadow flying up into the sky circling around and directing yourself towards that portal and you make your way all the way to that portal lining yourself up perfectly with the portal passing through that portal and instantly seeing the world below as it should be and being able to navigate back down towards the ground now seeing that runway where the meadow was a moment ago and hearing a voice asking if everything's okay that you disappeared from their radar for a moment and they lost communication with you for a moment and to them here it was like just a moment had passed just long enough for them to question whether everything was okay and you confirm that everything's fine as you head down to land and they observe that your speed is coming in much slower than they expected from that point in the sky as if you'd slowed down rapidly not realizing you've already been through this once and you land and you leave the ship and you're taken to a debriefing center but you really look forward to when you can make it home and after debriefing you journey home and at home you put your stuff down you find that vial of the little drop of liquid that's left you place that into a drawer and you never told anyone during the debrief about your experience unsure how they'd react if you told them what had happened or if you told them that you still see the purple haze everywhere you look you still see what looks like rips in space and time and swirling eddies of portals in the sky and you know over the next few days that effect will fade and you'll go back to life as normal and although you'll go back to life as normal a part of you is still curious you would love to have seen that final performance of those animals for the silver fox you'd like to know where pickles came from where the pickles came from your time and place or a different universe and you'd like to know how unlikely it is for another ship to accidentally strike a portal and pass through one and where they would end up and with all those thoughts running through your mind you head to bed you rest down in bed you find your mind wandering and drifting and floating and sleeping as you so easily and effortlessly drift peacefully asleep relaxing into slumberland