Sometimes It's Okay to Like Other Things

I was on a train with impossibly large rooms. It was bigger on this inside, like a TARDIS. A friend had invited me to a party in one of the rooms, which was really a convention hall. There were dealers and people in costume, but I couldn't find my friend. I went upstairs and found myself sitting in a regular commuter train, with no sign of the convention I'd just been visiting.

I arrived in someone's backyard, possibly mine. It had gotten late and the stars were shining. Then they were falling on us. More accurately, Earth was falling onto them. We were told that this was the end of the world. I could see planets and galaxies hurtling toward us. They looked as though they would crash through our atmosphere and onto the ground, although that is of course impossible.

My father had turned into a dog, a very old pug who could speak. He trudged to a spot beneath a tree and plopped himself down onto the ground. I wanted to help him but couldn't. There was nothing I could do, and he told me it was okay.

* * *

“Frontiers are where you find them,” writes the professor on the chalkboard at the end of EverybodyWants Some!! Well, you find them everywhere, whether you want to or not: trains, conventions, apocalypses. A human turning into a dog?

It's all very weird, but as a character from that same movie says, “Embrace your inner strange.” Speaking as someone who specializes in the odd, that's not the worst advice I've heard.

Being adaptable is good, too. I'm still working on that part. A recurring line in a novel I'm writing is, “People like what they like.” Sure, but sometimes it's okay to like other things.