I was too surprised to snap at him. Usually I wouldn’t accept that kind of
attitude but on the odd chance that I really could ask only one question —
anything was possible considering I was conversing with a disembodied voice
in Hell — I stopped to consider.
Where was I? How did I get there? Why? When could I go back to my life? I
must have pondered my choices awhile because a frustrated sigh roused me
from my reverie.
“Decided yet?” asked the voice. I had the impression he was drumming his
fingers somewhere on another plane of existence.
I thought I’d start with one question and hope I could wheedle the rest of the
answers out of him after.
“You don’t really pay attention, do you?” He asked. “I can read your mind,
remember? Insolent brat.”
Whatever. “Fine. Where am I?”
“On a plain.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“With your attitude that’s all you should really be able to get out of me. I could
leave you here to wander indefinitely. Come back to you in, say, fifty years.”
He paused for dramatic effect before sighing again. “Okay, you’re in the
Otherworld. And it’s not the colour of mushrooms, it’s the colour of
disintegrated bones.”