A spot of water, too meager to be named a drop, formed on the needle of a cactus. It clung near the edge, threatening to plummet into the abyss.

Gravity pulled, the breeze tugged, but the droplet’s tensile strength held firm, and rather than fall, it rolled the length of the spine, reaching the porous membrane at the cactus’s heart.

The children trailed after the wagons, quivering in epileptic fits of joy. The Brubaker Spectacular had arrived.

Elephants trumpeted at the sky. Acrobats danced from the rooftops. Giants wrestled lions, while swinging from trapezes suspended over fiery pits.

The Brubaker Spectacular promised two weeks of bewitching sensation, exceeding even the most remarkable dreams of splendor.

Shops closed their doors. The school master tossed aside his exams. Reverends and ministers forgave a fortnight worth of transgressions.

Oliver crawled out of bed. He crawled out of his room, and out of the house, and down the hill. He crawled along the dirt path.

Oliver paused for a few moments to crawl in circles. He then continued to crawl along the dirt path.

Oliver found a giant bread crumb. He joyously crawled over it and under it and around it. This would feed his family for a few hours.

Oliver crawled back to the hill. He did not forget to crawl in circles a few times along the way.

The book had been stolen from him, many years ago. He still remembered the evening he first opened it, and found himself magically transported to the other world.

Here it was! The same blue cover, the same tattered corner worn away by his own fingers.

“You found it,” his wife exclaimed when he brought it home.

Robert slipped it onto a corner of his book shelf.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” she asked.

“I don’t know why I set foot in that infernal time machine of yours, Franklin,” he complained.

“Would you rather be back in 1783, listening to Hancock’s monotonous anecdotes?”

Franklin took the silence as a No. With a smile, he adjusted his bifocals and revved up his chainsaw.

“See you on the ground.”

Franklin leapt from the jet. He glided onto the back of the saber-toothed tiger, and with the skill of a man not new to battling prehistoric animals, beheaded the monster with one swipe.

The footsteps warned him. He folded his note into the perfect paper airplane and launched it through the window just as the door swung open. Baker turned confidently to face his adversary.

The paper airplane glided across the square and into the waiting arms of Agent Donnelly, who quickly read the missive.

“Is this message encoded?” asked Donnelly’s puzzled partner.

“Baker is dyslexic. He can’t spell. He said to wait here until he gives explicit orders. So we wait here.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’ve decided to haunt you.”

“Whatever you say.” Jackson went back to bed.

Samantha started following Jackson wherever he went. People often caught him talking to himself, and decided he was crazy.

It was not long before Jackson’s boss fired him. “You’re behavior lately has been unacceptable.”

“But my dead wife is haunting me.”

Curious, Coyote followed their passage. But even under the cover of darkness, when she approached their wagons, they used long, hollow noisemakers to drive her away.

One night, a large thunderstorm descended upon the valley. Coyote used the distraction to slip past the sentries unnoticed.

Curtis had been in virtual environments that mimicked Earth’s various bioshperes, but they paled in comparison. He used his scanner to measure the nearest tree’s composition. Real DNA!

“What are you doing?” a sentinel demanded angrily.

“I’m conducting analysis tests.” Curtis displayed his credentials.