Fisher awoke with a start, bolting immediately upright. He found his hands extended defensively in front of him. He wiggled the fingers of first his left hand and then his right, lowered them and looked about.

Absolute silence filled his mind, until the sound of birds singing intruded upon him. A vast plain of green extended outwards in all directions to the horizon. Over it stood the dreaming blue sky, serene and completely cloudless, midday.

Fisher yawned. A light breeze filtered in from no particular direction. Fisher laughed to himself, pressing his hands into the earth to stand. As he did so, he became aware of two small figures crouching in the grass a few feet in front of him. They looked at first like little children, but as they lifted their bodies becoming bolder, Fisher could see their wizened faces, and even the thin wisp of a stringy white beard on the one.

The figures waved. Fisher remained seated, and after a moment, waved back.

They edged closer, wobbling from side to side as if their knees were locked joints and it was the only way they could move forward. Fisher laughed without intending to, at which the eyes of the two figures seemed to emit a kind of lightness or warmth - Fisher couldn’t decide which.

Song with no melody or harmony, but with a sweetness like summer roses filled the air.

The two figures began bowing deeply and profusely towards Fisher. They looked like they were going to fall over.

Fisher bowed in return. “Well, hello there,” he said.

The figures - male and female, Fisher deduced from their woodland garb – looked at one another and shrugged, saying nothing.

“Nice to meet you too,” Fisher said, with dawning understanding. They spoke no language. At least not a vocal one, Fisher guessed.

“I’m Fisher,” he said anyway. “Fisher Caldwell.” And as he spoke, the image of a white fish circling anxiously at the bottom of a cold dark well formed in the air.

The figures seemed to recognize it, clapping their hands excitedly, little faces beaming.

Much to Fisher’s surprise, the female lifted up her skirt and out rolled a giant white egg, nearly as big as the little woman herself. It lay it the grass at Fisher’s feet, glinting back whitely the blue sky above.

Not wanting to be seen as impolite, Fisher returned the manifestation with a clap of his own and looked towards the little old man. Laughter pooled in the air between the three, quickly filling up the mouths of each. And as Fisher looked, the arms of the old man withered and became snakes, detaching themselves from his body and burying themselves in the summer grass.

Fisher laughed until he wheezed. He could not tell why this was so funny to him, but he knew that it was, or that it had been. A very old joke which was playing itself out again and again all across the universe, just waiting for someone to get it.

Fisher laid back down in the grass, waiting for his thoughts to come together, trying to steady himself. The blue sky grinned above him. He heard soft rustling in the long grasses, and then saw the little figures silhouetted against the sky on either side of his head. They were laughing and singing and smiling. And each one took up a station at one of Fisher’s ears and began directing their song inward into his soul. And though he could not rationally understand any of what they said, nor discern any kind of linguistic structure, Fisher felt as though he knew every word, the hills and valleys of every sound wave as they spiraled into his very being.

Fisher laughed until he cried. Water seemed to flow from every pore of his being and away upon it he floated.