I blinked.
Then I blinked again.
The horse thing was definitely holding a cowboy hat. In a hoof.
Which it then promptly placed back on its head.
It was eyeing my probe warily, slowly circling it like a shark would circle a wounded fish. I assumed the poor beast was hungry. Its jaws moved in a slow chomping motion, as though it intended to make a meal of the ninety-something thousand dollar probe.
I wasn’t going to have that. I didn't understand how a horse could manipulate a hat, but I was more than a little unnerved.
Next dimension please!
Slowly shifting the probe in reverse, I carefully eased the tension on the brakes and backed the electronics laden golf cart down the hilly mound.
I hadn’t expected to startle the damn horse, but it leaped back about four feet anyway. As the cart rolled back down beyond the hill’s crest, I lost track of the yellowish creature. Just as well anyway. I didn’t want to take a chance on it making a snack out of a radio antenna or power conduit.
I hastily carried out a three point turn, pointing the front of the probe back to my still open wormhole. I had hardly inched forward when I found my controls unresponsive. I was able to move backward, but once I reversed, I couldn’t go forward again. I checked the camera feeds. It seemed that the rear feed was nothing but static, and the front feed showed me green grass, blue sky, and tracks that I knew would lead the probe back to safety.
At this point I was on the verge of panic. I accelerated the probe to its maximum, trying in vain to overcome whatever force held it in place. By this point, I couldn’t even move backward.
*ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT*
The automated systems indicated a motor malfunction. Damn it. I mentally worked through about twenty different hypothetical situations, each of them leading me to conclude that the probe had gotten stuck in a pothole I must had missed on the climb up the hill.
I slammed my hands against my solid oak desk in frustration. Several agonizing seconds later, I regretted my passively aggressive outburst, shaking my hands like a manic cheerleader who drank two or three too many energy drinks before the big game.
It took months of work and thousands of dollars to build my damned probe. I had a repair kit, but a golf cart motor would take time to repair.
Or worse, replace.
By then, I had crossed from the “verge of panic” phase into “nuclear reactor meltdown” phase. Eventually, I leveled out, and came back down to a level of mildly anxious calm. My clearest thoughts came to me when I was mildly, anxiously, calm.
I repeated that mantra several times over the course of the next two minutes.
Mildly, anxiously, calm.
The plan for retrieving my probe came thankfully quickly.
Rope.
Crowbar.
Repair kit.
Equalizer.
Controller.
Coat.
The coat came on first. Next, I grabbed a pile of nylon rope that was frequently used to fasten extra cargo to the probe. The probe controller went in one pocket, while the equalizer went in another. I grabbed the repair kit off the shelf, checking for all the necessary doodads and gadgets, like fuses, wrenches, extra wire, and my red Swingline stapler.
The crowbar came last. I carried it in my left hand, while the repair kit was firmly in my right. I figured I might need the extra leverage a crowbar could give me if the cart really was stuck. If not, at least I’d have something to swing around and scare off the wildlife.
Loaded for bear with gear, I breathed in one final gasp of earthly air…..and stepped through the luminescent portal.
Remember earlier when I wrote that my probe’s electronics wouldn’t work for about three to five minutes after traveling to another dimension? That same effect happened to me, although it expressed itself in different ways. While my electronics would just stop working, I’d become racked with waves of nausea accompanied by a gonglike ringing in my ears.
In other words, I’d stop working.
Luckily, the paralysis lasts for only a short time. But when you’re in an unknown environment, and you have no idea who (or what) is out there, three minutes might as well be eternity.
I was on my hands and knees retching nearly immediately. My head throbbed with pain that made the world’s worst migraine seem benign in comparison.
The wormhole still shimmered behind me. I fumbled in my pocket for the equalizer, depressing the switch that would change the quantum spin from positive to negative and close the vortex’s gaping maw. I couldn’t risk someone seeing the portal while I was here.
I was almost too late. I could hear the sound of two people approaching me at full speed. I feebly attempted to get to my feet, swinging my crowbar in futile defense.
A blur passed. Agonizing jolts coursed up my hand to my elbow, forcing me to drop the crowbar. For the second time that day, I flailed my hand wildly about, trying to ease the ache from an already sore appendage. I issued an inhuman howl of pain, but it alleviated nothing.
I didn’t see the ropes wrap around me until several seconds later. Wincing, and struggling with every ounce of resistance left in my bedraggled body, I fought against my unknown oppressor until a hard knock landed into my head.
As blackness seeped into my vision and I started drifting into a concussion induced sleep, I could have swore I heard a young woman with a country accent say,
“What the buck are you?”
*
Conciousness returned to me eventually, one eye at a time. The unpleasant metallic taste of blood contrasted sharply with the smell of the air around me. It smelled like apples and fresh grass in here. It was dark, but I could discern the shape of hay bales, crates full of apples, and various farm implements. I had to have been in that barn structure I saw a few minutes…or was it hours?....ago.
My heatbeat raced excitedly as I saw my probe, undamaged, in an otherwise empty area of the structure. I knew that my probe couldn’t have been in here for very long. All of the probe’s systems were battery powered; the battery was charged by exposure to sunlight. The fiasco with the motor most likely drained the batteries heavily; however, most of the onboard sensors were still on and active, streaming data into nowhere.
Then I saw a thick fibrous rope tied around the probe’s frame. I didn’t know what to make of that at first. I was finding it somewhat difficult to think, courtesy of the recent traumatic brain injury. My head was still killing me, and at this point I would have been glad if the only physical problems I had were caused by interdimensional travel.
It wasn’t until I tried to reach for my probe controller that I noticed the ropes binding my feet, legs, arms, and shoulders. Though I tried to loosen the bonds, they weren’t budging at all. My struggle against the restraints only served to make me tired, and I gave up after a ten minute session of Man Vs. Rope.
Voices from outside the barn drifted inward, and I struggled to glean some meaning from their words. I could only make out every other phrase. Big Mac, pinky, funny business, and discord were the only ones I could make sense of. I was amused by the fact that there is a McDonald’s in this world too…the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I figured they were talking about me or my injuries, so I checked out my own pinkies. They appeared to move normally, although my left hand still hurt like hell.
I wasn’t sure what discord meant, but I expected I would find out sooner or later.
The barn door creaked open. Temporarily blinded by the new source of light, I saw the shadow of someone in the doorway.
“Now see, Fluttershy, I dun told ya, it ain’t from around here. Believe me now?”
It sounded kind of like that woman I heard earlier.
A new voice chimed up.
“My goodness. You’re right but, I don’t know where the poor frightened thing must have came from.”
“Poor? Frightened thang? It nearly took my gosh durn head off with a big metal stick!”
“Probably because it was frightened….”
My eyes adjusted to the sunlight beaming into the room as the source of the country voice walked into the barn.
Or rather, trotted.
It was the yellow-brown horse from earlier. With that comedic hat.
I could do nothing but cackle madly, laughing the laugh of a man who was certain his grip on sanity had been lost for good.
The country woman voiced horse stood its ground. As I finished my cacophony of madness, the shattered fragments of my psyche reassembled themselves post haste.
The horse wasn’t so much horse-sized, though; it was more like a pony. Its eyes were level with mine. I knew it was staring hard, trying to figure out just what the hell she was doing bringing a psychotic interdimensional alien into her home.
I could have said a thousand different things, a thousand thousand other words than the ones I spoke, but the first ever greeting, from a human, to an Equestrian, was,
“HOW ARE YOU SPEAKING ENGLISH?!”