Legacy

I am compelled to write this account of what occurred in the life of myself and my fiancée during a two week period last summer.

My name is Chuck Nolan and my fiancée is Andrea  Parker.  Last summer  we decided to take an adventuresome trip together  to have fun, get to know each other better and plan the details of our wedding scheduled for late Fall.

The destination of choice after many, many considerations was the land of Mu,  a little known very small country just east of Nepal and which is mostly surrounded by large mountains, yet itself a very large valley nation with good climate.

We arrived in the Capital of Mu, which is a city called Ho Ho.  Now don’t laugh that’s not a joke, it the right name.  It was small for a capital city; about two thousand population.  The architecture of the buildings and individual dwellings was very interesting in as much as it was an odd blend of oriental and ancient Egyptian.  Interesting to say the least.

Transportation within the city amounted to the very basic, in other words, you walk and like it.  According to our brochure the county side was beautiful.  Also there was what in America we would call a tourist trap about twenty miles north, and a must see.

While we did have our backpacks and the weather was nice, a twenty mile hike didn’t seem overly fun.  When it came to hiking we were more used to five miles round trip through our favorite woods.

Fortunately, there was better transportation for outside the city.  Like Ox carts for hauling farm products and a limited number of donkey carts for two to three people.  We opted for the Donkey cart and rented one.  Indeed the country side was as beautiful as advertised.

It was a slow trip that took about six hours by donkey pace.  However we did finally arrive at the tourist trap which was called Fun Tu. Yes that’s the truth.  Even though that’s not in English it had an amusing ring to it.  There was the usual number of places to eat or buy over priced souvenirs.  As we worked our way through the one street tourist miracle and was coming close to running out of town, we saw a sign that Pharos  Palace dead ahead.  I said to Andrea that phonetically it sounded Egyptian even though spelling would be incorrect.

We got to the end of the street which ended in a drop of about fifteen feet and sheer at that.  But there was a set of stairs.  Well that was helpful.  At the bottom and to our right about fifty feet; nestled in a cliff side was what appeared to be a typical front for an ancient Egyptian Palace.  Fancy that; wow!  We approached and encountered a sign with a slotted box beneath it.  The sign said admission, fifty yen per person.  That made us smile, as it was an honor system.  I deposited a hundred yen and we went in.

The interior was fascinatingly beautiful and authentic looking.  It would have made any theme park operator proud.  Lit by torches the light wasn’t bright but quite adequate.  There was a lot of hieroglyphics and statuary.  There were two impressive statues, one that looked like a King Tut and another that looked like a Cleopatra.  They were about ten feet apart

I said hey Andre, take my picture yanking ol Tut’s beard.  She said Okay and snapped off one.  About the time I yanked Tut’s whiskers there was a grinding noise and a door opened between the two statues.  I thought oh! oh! the beard must have been a switch.  Well being the curious type we grabbed a couple of torches and decided to explore behind the door opening.

We went about forty feet down a small hall only about five feet wide and seven feet high.  It was a dead end.  Well I thought that was a big deal; when Andrea said, “look at that small round rock protruding from the wall” I said this one? and touched it; maybe harder than I should have for it was apparently another switch.  A panel slid back and we were hit by the most awful stench imaginable; followed by groans and growls and scary red eyes.

I shouted run for it and we headed out of there as fast as we could.  We cleared the palace and headed for the stairs; but the stairs had collapsed into a steep slippery slope that couldn’t be negotiated.  I turned and looked back and starting to pour out of the palace was a legion of half rotted, bandage hanging loose mummies.  Not dummy mummy’s like in automatons, but the real deal.  We were surrounded by cliffs and water with no where to escape to.

We saw a small boat at the waters edge, so we ran to it and jumped in and started paddling for all we were worth.  Hoping those creatures couldn’t go into water.  Fortunately they could not and as we rowed farther out we could see them lined up on the shore shouting curses and venting rage.

Of course the new question was where do we go from here?

We could see some form of shore line a ways off, but everything seemed pretty well surrounded by cliffs.

We kept paddling around clockwise to the cliff bound shorelines when we could finally see an apparent break in the cliffs so we headed towards it.  We got there and there was barely enough beach to pull up on.  We ditched the boat and headed into the gap because we had no other place we could go.

About twenty yards in to the gap it opened up to a wider space, but obviously narrowed back down ahead.  However in the short span of a wider area there was a small hut with a sign reading ”get your necessities inside, free of charge”.  Well the price was right so we went in to see what constituted necessities.

Not what I expected, but I figure someone knew more than I did.   We each took a machete, a compass, and a couple of granola bars. Not much, but that’s all there was.  We kept on going and came to a place where the gap was thick with wines.  Almost impassable; now we knew what the machetes were for.  We hacked and hacked for many yards; the vines were covered with something that made them want to stick to any thing they touched.  Made it all the harder, but we finally got through, albeit a bit scratched up,

We came to another body of water of some expanse, barely could detect a shoreline on the other side.  There was a flat bottom boat there equipped with two oars and a note that said head due North.  Now I knew what the compass was for.

The paddles were a bit strange, metal handles and a burlap bag over a thicker than normal oar blade.  As we started across paying careful attention to the compass, I remarked “if this is a Theme Park, it a strangely unpleasant one.”.  About two thirds across the water began to boil on each side of the boat and something was battering our paddles.  A few jumped and it was obvious our paddles were being attacked by Piranha.  Good grief, why us?  We pulled the paddles out and the oar blades were apparently wooden with a piece of steak tied to them hidden behind the burlap bag over the oar blades.

I was now double sure evil was afoot or an insane jokester at work.  There wasn’t much left of the oar blades so I stripped what was left of the burlap and steak off and threw then as far as I could to draw the Piranha away from the boat.  Then Andrea noticed a peculiar thing, one end of a paddle handle was threaded and the other paddles end was female threaded so the two would screw together to make a long pole.  I put them together and prayed the water was now shallow enough for the pole to touch bottom thus giving us a way of propelling the boat forward.  Fortunately it was and forward we went.

We landed on the beach and stared at a rather heavily wooded landscape.  We saw a slight opening that provided hope for a path.  We tried it and it was a path, a narrow one, but a path.  After about thirty minutes on it we came to a small open area, but could see the path continued on the other side.  About half way across we were surrounded by a pack of blood thirsty Baboons, bent on feasting on us.  We pulled out our machetes knowing full well we would get very few before we were overwhelmed.

Then I had an idea, grasping at straws maybe, but nothing to loose.  I said to Andrea quick throw them our Granola Bars.  She did and the Baboons went for them big time and got into a huge fight with each other trying to get possession of the bars.  They were so busy with them they forgot us and we hastily finished crossing the opening and hurried down the narrow path on the other side.

We continued on that narrow path for another two hours without farther incident.  We were glad for that.  A short time later the woods disappeared and we had a beautiful visage in front of us.  It was a great expanse, mostly flat, but some low lying wooded hills surrounding it.  It was well planted and appeared to have a home on just about every half acre, uniformly plotted out you might say.  The architecture was more or less North American with little exception and ranged anywhere style wise from the mid eighteen hundred to current.  As we approached we could see numerous people about dressed as we were used to seeing.  We also noted a tall building in the distance that looked like it was made of crystal.  As we neared the center of the expanse of dwellings we noted a yellow road headed toward the crystal appearing building.  Several persons came toward us and said welcome to Neither.  I said whats a Neither?  They said it’s the name of this place, because it’s neither here nor there, just Neither.  I thought its getting weirder by the minute.  They motioned to the road and pointed to the crystal appearing building in the distance.

Andrea piped up and said “look it’s a yellow brick road, apparently we are to follow it, I hope we are not going to see The Wizard of OZ “.  I said I seriously doubt it.

We traveled that yellow road for a few miles, and it wasn’t brick, it was more like gravel made of gold.  That too was mind boggling.  We came to the crystal appearing building and were amazed to see that it indeed was made of crystal.  We came to the door and rang the bell.  It swung open and a voice said please enter and go straight ahead to the Council Chamber.  As we headed forward I thought there is more afoot here than I can imagine.  We proceeded with a little fearfulness.

Upon entering that Council Chamber we were met with a sight that almost caused us to faint.  There sat behind a table in a semi circle, twelve different beings, only one of which appeared to be human.  There were beings that were blue, green, pink, and snow white. Some had tentacles, another had multiple arms. Some had large craniums, and one had three eyes.  The one in the center spoke and said “fear not” we are friends.  We are from other planets and solar systems.  Our function is being  Guardians of the Earth.  This is our outpost number seven.  Our headquarters is in the inner hollow of the earth.  Your Admiral Byrd in the 1940’s flew his plane into our main base through a opening near the North Pole.  He now knows as we are telling you; we monitor, and help mankind as we can in preserving the earth and mankind.

You have done exceptionally well in reaching here.  The journey was deliberately made difficult.  Now you have two choices. You may stay and live an idyllic life in Neither as have many chose.  The other choice is we will transport you in seconds to anyplace on earth you wish.

We opted for the later and were transported to the place of our choice; which was the airport near Ho Ho in the Land of Mu.   I am telling this story realizing that I will be as much believed as Admiral Byrd was in telling his tale.