After decades of travel at the speed of light, we finally arrived at the Land of Cleves on the distant world with the strange name of “Oh, hi!  Oh…”.  The spaceport looked a lot like the one in The Town of Bost, but much, much smaller.  This was obviously a very remote planet and not much visited.

“Cleveland at last,” Dad said.  “Two hours in a tin can with a hyperactive…”

“Honey!” Queen Shimá said.  She turned to me.  “Aren’t you excited to be visiting another state?  Maybe some time this week Uncle Brian can bring us into the city and we can see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“I vote for the Natural History Museum,” Dad said.  “They have dinosaurs.”

There were dinosaurs in Oh, hi! Oh…?  Perhaps the long journey would be worth it after all.  Though rocks rolling through a museum did sound like fun.  I hoped it was a glass museum.

“Here’s the shuttle to the car rental.  Let’s go.  It’s a long way to Brian’s house.”

The less said about the painful journey across the barren world of Oh, hi! Oh… the better.  It was dark, so mostly I just saw lights.  And dark.  And nothingness.  I almost chewed my own leg off to escape the trap, but where would I run?  So I just gave Mom and Dad continuous updates about how I felt so that they’d know.  Of course, every few weeks I’d also ask how much further we had to go. The typical response was something like, “I just told you two minutes ago, we are about 20 miles out.  Why don’t you try to sleep?”  Fat chance.

Continue reading at Trent’s World