The sun was warm on the worn wooden planks of the Bridge, and I started
to feel a bit sleepy in the sunshine where I waited in the long grass.  I
almost didn't hear the beautiful little sable girl pad across the Bridge
to me because she walked so very lightly, so very carefully.  She took a
few steps, then stopped to sniff the air.  A few more steps, and she took
another exploratory sniff of the sweet wind.  Finally, she walked up to
me and we touched noses and rubbed whiskers.  I said "Welcome, Chaos.  I
am Sandee.  Welcome to your forever Forever Home." She just smiled, and
lay down in the grass.  I lay down beside her and we stayed that way for
a time.  Sometimes words just aren't necessary.
 
A little later I asked her if she was ready to see her Brothers and
Sisters in Fur, her hoomin Stephanie's Business of Justice, Chance,
Winkwomp, Roly, and Noodle here in the Afterworld.  She chewed on a
blade of fresh grass for a moment and said "A little later, I think.
There is something I want to do first.."
 
"Anything," I said.  "Any and all things are possible here, if the Big
Boss feels it's proper.  What would you like to do?"
 
And that is how we found ourselves here, atop this mountain with the
glorious view of the whole Afterworld.  All the Afterworld Lands are
spread around the feet of this mountain in a swirl like a trailing skirt.
It took us most of the day to climb out of the forest at the steepest
side, and from there to ascend the nearly vertical gray and pink granite
face of this peak.  The trees grew shorter and shorter, fewer and fewer
until there was only rock, then little patches of snow here and there.
We left our footprints in the snow, like little lines of curious script.
Oh, how we climbed.  It was what Chaos had always dreamed of, she could
never climb high enough in life.  Her hoomin Mommy was always afraid that
she would fall, and be hurt.
 
zzt never here, never here. Chaos has wings, now.
 
Sandee
[Posted in FML issue 5110]