Green was the color of the world, it seemed.

After walking so long that day, our feet lifted by plush emerald grass, our heads sheltered by those strange frond like leaves, the rods and cones of our eyes grew attuned to the particular frequency of light that was green. It was not that other colors ceased to impress us, the reddish brown that was the bark of the Pallin Trees and the flashing indigo wings of the occasional ziggurat wisp, for instance, merely accentuated their respective innate greeness previously unguessed. Hours passed in this world of green as we made our way through the wood. Many miles had passed beneath our feet, and many Pallin leaves above our heads, when Val stopped and placed her hand on my shoulder.

"Water", she said, "do you hear it?"

As if in reply to her query there came to my ears the faint tinkle and splash of what must have been Mander Creek as it wound it's serpentine way through the Valley and toward it's tumultous and white capped rendevous with the River Vika.

"After all this green," laughed Val, "it sounds so silvery!"

I could think of no better word to describe the shimmering silver line that ran through my head and all of the verdant greenery that had filled it for so long. "Are we on time?" I wondered.

Val glanced at her wrist then peered up, as if to pierce the thatch of frondy leaves that had so long been our sky. "Don't know," she admitted. "Can't judge by the sun because I can't see it, and my watch stopped hours ago."

I glanced at her as she spoke then looked more closely. "Val," I whispered, "your clothes. . ."

She gazed down the length of herself and laughed a laugh as silvery as the voice of the distant creek. Her khaki shorts and black cotton sweatshirt had been replaced. . . no, not replaced. They had metamorphosed into a garment the likes of which I had never before seen or even imagined - a kind of blousy gown, faintly luminous it seemed, golden and lushly green in color and composed of some marvelous organic compound which consisted somehow of the grass and the trees and the sound of the creek splashing beyond the wood. The sensible sneakers on her feet had become some kind of leafy amber sandals, dimly glowing.

Even as I blinked and laughed myself before the vision she had become, she pointed a slender finger in my direction. Following the line of her gesture I discovered myself to be clad in similar magical style. My trousers and sweater were gone. A luminous foliage made itself my dress and a sudden exhilaration swelled in my breast and found voice through my lips.

"I think we're right on time!" I exclaimed, moving forward once more and passing a cluster of thick trunked Pallin Trees to see the house behind them.

"It's huge," whispered Val, at my side now and gripping my hand.

I gazed at the small building, surely no more than two rooms, constructed of wood and pale stone, and wondered what was beyond the oaken door and darkened window that faced us across the glade.

Sure the preceding is copyrighted, Richard Cody 2002, but if you read the piece through it is just as much yours as mine now. After all, it's in your head too. So you tell me - what happens next?