Sitting here at my desk, it’s 2:39 AM, and I am wondering about how adventures happen, and I wonder if they’re even real. Not crisis, no, those are not adventures, those are unwanted circumstances and accidents. That’s just survival, not some bold undertaking or jump into the unknown. No, I am wondering about adventures! A hodgepodge band of merry mates, drawn together by peculiar happenings…racing against time, moving unseen to save the world, that’s what I’m wondering about! Do simple boys and girls stumble upon miraculous things every night? Are people traveling through wormholes everyday, and we just don’t know about it? Are cloaked strangers popping up in windows all the time, whispering, Take my hand. I’ll show you the way, and then zigzagging off in a puff of smoke, and I’m just not hearing about it? Maybe rabbit holes are not so much unreal as they are uncommon. Maybe domains under the bed and foreboding knocks at the door are taking place right now, and I’m just missing out, or perhaps lucking out. In the dark at 2:42 AM, I consider the odds of me stumbling into an adventure, or, perhaps adventure stumbling into me. What would it be? If I’m wondering about it, will it really be so unexpected? Perhaps adventures never are “unexpected”, and they are planned way in advance, and we just forget about them. Could it be I had one once, and I’ve just gone and forgot? Will a magician ever appear on my stoop? Maybe adventure is fickle, running on it’s own clock by it’s own accord, and has little care for the eager ones. “Let them be eager. I will not be rushed!” it says. Nevermind though, for I’m sure I will never know. My window remains unoccupied, and my door remains silent. If adventures are real, I am a woman without. Still then, I do wonder…what if there was suddenly a knock at my door…

Right now.

Rap, rap.

I sat up from my bed, squinting sleepily through the dark.

Rap, rap.

Is that the door? Who would be knocking at this hour? Waiting a moment, not sure I had heard anything, I remained stiff in silence, straining my ears to see if the knocking would come again, or if it was even real.

Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap – !

“Well, for goodness sake!” I bemoaned loudly and slung the blankets from my body, hobbling in the dark momentarily as I groped along the wall and at last flipped the light switch, “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Before the handle could even be reached, the lock clicked swiftly left and the door slapped open, myself admitting a yelp and fumbling backwards as an urchin of a woman, bequeathed of weird, striking flamboyancy, theatrically made her way through my doorway, putting me into a fright as she strode inside. Clinking in bizarre bobbles and ends and her enormous boots trodding mud all over the carpet, she looked sweepingly about the room, like a business man exploring merchandise, and in a swoop of her patched and ruddy trench coat she turned and spotted me huddling in the corner, wielding a large book above my head like a weapon, and with a glean of her beetle-ish eyes through the shadow of her thickly rimmed leather hat she cooed.

“Ahh, there you are!”

“Stay back!” I shouted as she moved towards me, but with utter ease she whacked the book almost lazily from my hands and pulled me up by my nightshirt, gazing at me with interest and sharp, hawk like attraction.

“Mmm, yes, yes. Yess, I believe you’ll do nicely. Good strong nose, light, flashy limps – a tad flat, tsk-tsk! – it’ll have to do. Well, come along now! We haven’t got all day!” and promptly dropping me the strange woman moved to the window, pulling out a whimsically designed blinking device with a large knob that she began to twist and turn back and forth, muttering coyly to herself and glancing about the room like a deer in the open prairie.

“Now wait a minute!” I said, bumbling to my feet, my hair on end. “You can’t just barge in here like this! Who are you?! What are you -?! My roommate and – and neighbors will hear this ya know – !”

“Oh yes, I am quite aware of your living arrangements, I can assure you. Though you needn’t the worry, I’m sure they’ll be knocked out for a couple hours yet.”

I blinked, “…WHAT?”

“Mm hmm, never the mind I took care of that for you, no need to thank me. In fact by now I’m sure the entire block has been well incapacitated, so no, no, no need to trouble yourself – it’s all been done.” and continuing to turn the knob while it emitted queer whirring sounds, she stretched over and snatched me by the arm, pulling me close to her and holding the device like a remote, as if trying to capture a signal.

“Wait, WAIT!” I bumped out, her grip on me like a vice and my nervous fear beginning to creep in deeper, yet the initial shock still held to me fast and in a sort of dumb state I yipped, “I – I think you got the wrong house, I don’t know what’s going on -”

“The wrong house?” she mused, “HA! And of course you don’t know what’s going on – heaven’s no, even I’m not quite sure what‘s going to happen – Ah! That’s it alrighty here we go! Oh I forgot to ask you, do you have any problems about loosing all your hair?”

“All my WHAT?”

“Hmm, you seem to like that word, all the same you’re about to loose it.”

The device spurred and whizzed loudly, sparking like an electric circuit, and in a stunned gawk I stood mute as the room shriveled like a crumbled paper ball around us, my body being squished and jiggled, and in a wobbling reality I looked up, the woman’s face now running colors and melting as though a sloppy oil painting, her eyes whirlpooling into swirling black holes.

“Hold on.” I heard her say, the voice as a surreal echo, and before I knew it, we had blinked out like a television set, popping out of existence in a spark without so much a tremor, leaving my bedroom as mundane and empty, as it has ever been.

It is 3:23 AM, and I think I have just experienced the beginnings of an adventure, though I am not quite sure, as this is all very unusual. Time seems to have picked up pace, cars have stopped driving by the window, and the music I had set has mysteriously shut off without my notice. Everything has undergone a changing, taken a strange turn.

And I’m not sure, but I feel my desk is getting smaller now, and the world is growing wild around me.