Penny was a small seafaring creature, bearded and wise. He sailed his way across the murky waters of the well, beneath the primitive village. The stones in these innermost depths of the well were vibrantly colored, crafting a sense of adventure and excitement, a sense beyond human eyes. Penny needed no device in order to travel on his own in the water. His seaworthy body allowed him to float effortlessly along.

            Penny's life had been as it was as long as he could remember, drifting above the waters, exploring the confusing system of flooded caves, the colors never fading. Where there was color, the mood remained. Everything was a journey to Penny, a journey driven by destiny. Perhaps someday this adventure could lead Penny into new worlds, to discover new colors and new angles, perhaps something other than water.

            Only once did Penny find himself frightened. Long ago, he passed a tunnel where the color had faded, hearing an ear shattering shrieking sound, a massive load of thrashing tentacles clouding his sight. Luck brought him away from this potentially dangerous and uncharted land. He forever dreaded the day he may be sent in that direction again. Perhaps next time he wouldn't be so fortunate. He forever knew this forbidden zone as the Octopus Lair.

            One section of the well had a ladder which led up to a landing, upon which a large man would normally sleep, the speakers next to him blaring techno music. Every once in a while, a crowd will have gathered in strange dancing rituals, contorting bodies into strange and laughable shapes. These humans sure were clever pretzels.

            The others called the sleeping man Carl. He was apparently homeless and a shame to his people. It seemed as if these followers had come for the soul purpose of poking fun at the poor man. Penny only wished he could stand up for poor Carl, but his actions were limited by the water's will.

            Oh how Penny yearned to be human, to walk on the ground and control his destiny, to have no dependencies, especially to the dreaded water. He desperately needed a change, a new world for himself. It all began to seem rather hopeless.

            Via his inner distractions, Penny began to allow his mind to roam, paying no heed to his surroundings. It was then that he began to float towards the Octopus Lair. By the time he had realized this, it was already too late. His desperations had already lead to his downfall. He knew it, as he was dragged deeper into the damn gray tunnel, this was irony. He had taken his easygoing life for granted, and wit was going to make him pay.

            He could hear it now, not really, his mind's ear played the sound over and over like a broken record, not that he knew what a broken record sounded like. The mad shrieking of the destroyer known as Octopus haunted his innermost fears, so much so that the actual shrieking hadn't quite kicked in for moment.

            It took the mad lashing of a rogue tentacle to bust Penny back into reasoning. A loud shriek told him he was sighted. The tentacles began to whip randomly. Penny tried to will the water to move faster as the Octopus bared its enormous fangs. As if to answer his call, the water sloped downward, rushing him towards lower ground, away from the Octopus, now clearly chasing him.

            The water darted Penny more towards the left as the Octopus spat a large wad of what could only be poisonous. As Penny veered to the left, the poisonous spit just barely missed him. The water began to flow faster as it sloped even further. Penny could feel the swooping of the tentacles. He involuntarily prayed, regardless of his lack of knowledge of any organized religion or any idea of a deity, as if in that instant he had created the idea of God.

            Suddenly the water sloped vertically and Penny dropped to ground nearly thirty feet down. He somehow knew the drop wouldn't stop the Octopus, but perhaps it would stall him. He saw a large round object plunging itself into the water before him. It looked as if it was being controlled from above. He knew he had to get into that object before it traveled back up. Behind it was merely a wall. This object was his only hope of escape from the Octopus.

            As the water sloped just so, he was in the path of the round object precisely in time. The object began to raise as a tentacle swung below him. The tentacle surely would have caught him had he not rode off.

            As the object slowly rose further into heights Penny had never imagined, a prominent source of light grew nearer and nearer. The rays from this light source gave Penny an unimaginable feeling. The source grew larger and larger as Penny began to near what must have been the top of the well.

            Once the light had found itself all around Penny, the object had stopped its movement. Penny waited for a few moments as the strange feeling grew even stranger. It was only a moment before he began to float into the air. Nothing seemed more amazing to him.

            Penny knew very little about humans, but he was almost certain they could not fly. Was Penny's wish granted, to have no true dependencies? Not even the earth itself was his restriction. He could go anywhere now, yet... he still had no control. The air pulled him to its own will. Penny decided not to worry.

            Penny didn't worry, that is, until looking down and seeing his abandoned body, a dirty and copper bearded man. What was going on? To float into the sky, leaving one's own body behind, this was an amazing and dreamlike state of being. He allowed the winds and airflow to whisk him upwards further and further, reaching a seemingly endless world of things he'd never imagined, colors and shades that could fill a lifetime.

            The well he had once known as his entire world was now but a gray spot on a field of luscious greens and beautiful blues, the tunnels he once lurked now but an underground world of dampened spirits and limited lanes. The skies were his new tunnels, and they weren't very tunnel-like at all.

            It was then that Penny noticed the new body he was heading towards, a hulking mass of white. As he came nearer and nearer, a booming yet gentle voice beckoned him, "Ah, another newcomer, I see. I am Floof. Do not be afraid to speak to me."

            Penny stared at Floof shyly, unaware of what it was to speak.

            "You have been in the company of humans, those that are not to know your beautiful voice. The most important thing to know is that you can speak, you cry louder than any human ever will. It is in your capability."

            "I... I can speak..." Penny stumbled for words, "What you say about humans... You make them seem inferior... but they can choose their destiny."

            "You have a lot to learn about humanity," Floof chuckled, "More than I can explain, in fact. I am an elder of your kind. What is your name?"

            "I am Penny..." Penny looked on with admiration, "I have so much to ask... Where am I? What am I? What happened to my body?"

            "That's silly," Floof chuckled again, rather confused, "this is your body."

            "But I was a small copper bearded man. As I rose from the well, I left that body behind."

            "That was merely a host, you see. You had been on that host your whole life, identifying it as yourself."

            Penny tried hard to comprehend all this in one thought consumption. It was a little much to ingest at a time.

            "Our world is a strange one..." Floof contemplate, "But it is diverse and so much different than the life of any other of this world."

            "What do you mean? Why can you not explain it all to me?"

            "That's life's job." Floof boomed with an air of gentle superiority.

            "So it is..."

            "The only thing I can say is this..." Floof looked even higher into the sky, "Nothing... is beyond destiny."

            "You looked up..." Penny noted, "Is there something... above you?"

            "Nothing I have yet met. It is a mystery to me... but some day... some day I will ascend. So will you."

            With that, Penny began to float off again, this time right through Floof and into a stream of hulking white masses, into further uncharted territory, reassured with the knowledge that he is not alone of his kind. He was now and forever prepared for the journey of life.

            And what a journey it began to be as the white masses darkened. Soon they were gray and practically black, a sad sight accompanied with tears. Or so it seemed, that is, with water flowing from beneath the depressing piles of fluff, out onto the ground that limited poor and restricted humans. Still, Penny contemplated. Would he be willing to give up his endless flutter through the skies for the chance to make his own decisions? It was a lesson to learn for himself.

            Penny was awoken from his thought process by a loud and frightening crack. The entire sky was now dark and ominous. The once dreamlike feeling was now frighteningly real. The hulking masses of fluff here boomed in loud and menacing voices.

            "What's a child like you doing fluttering in my turf? I oughtta show you where you stand!"

            "Where do you think yer going, little one?"

            "Haha. Look at the kid. Looking for your mommy?"

            Once Penny really began to think about it, he realized these insults were rather pathetic. He made the brave assumption that they were just as limited as he was and that they could not take any course of action that they may have intended. Thus, he found himself laughing away his troubles soon enough as he continued to drift through this depressing danger zone.

            It wasn't too much longer before he began to drift into the brighter skies once again, skies not even occupied by fluffy masses, seeing grazing creatures below him, creatures that were not human. They walked on many numbers of legs and were assorted in all matters of diversity. Some creatures he saw could fly like him. He found this rather enchanting, a creature with will that could fly. Oh what a life such a creature must lead. The thought excited Penny.

            However, his excitement was soon broken by a massive flying creature with wings that did not move. It propelled towards him without a single care. The closer it came, the more unimaginably large it seemed. There was certainly no stopping this hulking creature, far larger than the amorphous fluffs Penny once admired. Penny respected this creature and, at the same time, feared it.

            As it came closer to him, he realized that he was out of harm's way. The creature had moved ever so slightly so that it was right next to him as it passed. That strange feeling began to overcome Penny again as he was pulled towards a transparent sector of the creature.

            Soon, he stuck to it like an adhesive. Inside the creature, a very young human glared back at him. How frightening, Penny thought, a parasitic bunch of humans. They lived inside this creature, exploiting it for the sake of sky travel. These humans have will and defy their own limitations. What are they?

            The massive finger of the young human began to poke against the transparent piece Penny now called home. It made a ground shaking thump as Penny slid downward a bit on the surface. The human child giggled profusely, making Penny rather uncomfortable. Penny continued to slide for another moment.

            The child's mother, Penny guessed, sitting next to the child, grabbed a small machine and put it to her ear.

            "Hello?" the mother began. "No... Oh my God, no." She seemed very distraught. "Carl, no... Not my brother..."

            "Mommy, what's wrong?" the child witnessed his mother burst into tears.

            "It's uncle Carl... They found him dead..."

            These were the last words Penny heard as he dripped off the plane, down towards the Earth. It seemed like a lifetime before he splashed into a large concentrated area of water.

            "Oh great," Penny thought, "back to where I started..."

            "CANNONBALL!" a childish scream came without warning as a chubby kid bounced off a board into the water. Penny went flying, landing in a distant part of the pool.

            The voices of a few other kids were heard. "Hey! It's Chunks!" one kid's voice taunted.

            "My name's not Chunks, it's Chuck. Get it right."

            "Look, he's not wearing a shirt," another kid laughed, "he's showing his chunks!"

            'That should be illegal," the first of the tantalizing kids commented.

            "Why don't you guys leave me alone?" Chuck whined.

            "Oh! Why don't we leave you alone!" one of the kids teased mockingly.

            Penny drifted towards Chuck, whose tears had already begun to drip into the water. "Why don't you get out of here, swine?" one of the kids shouted. "No one wants you here!"

            "You can't do that to me!"

            "Oh! What you gonna do? Tell your mommy!" the kids busted into laughter, "Too bad she's thousands of feet above us, on her way to Albania with your whiny little brother!"

            Penny began to feel for the poor young boy as he drifted closer to the edge of the pool. Finally, one of the other kids jumped in and swam towards Chuck.

            "Hey, Chuck! I'll give you one more chance. Get out of OUR pool."

            "This is a community pool. I can be here."

            "Not if we say you can't."

            "What are you gonna do?"

            "I'll show you what I'm gonna do." the kid who wasn't in the water came at Chuck from behind and grabbed him by his neck. The kid in the water in the first place began to pound on him with his fist. Penny wished he didn't have to watch this torturous treatment. Soon, his sight went out, having been sucked into a strange pipe.

            The pipe flowed rapidly downward into seeming darkness. "Oh c'mon!" Penny was rather ticked off by now, "There's nothing more for me underground."

            How dead wrong Penny found himself as he emerged in a small tank, being heavily scrutinized by an old man.

            "Greetings my friendly molecules!" the man had a quirky voice, "I am Dr. Quik and I come in peace. I recognize this as your world and I come not to invade. I do not, however, speak for my fellow people."

            "Can you hear me?" Penny attempted to speak.

            His answer came as the doctor continued babbling as if nothing had happened. "I hope that you will accept me and allow me to understand you." The doctor stood silent for a while, writing notes on a clipboard. He stared into the tank of water strangely connected to a community swimming pool. Behind him were all sorts of test tubes and strange machines. The beeping and crashing sounds made a fun sort of rhythm reminiscent of the techno music Carl had been listening to inside the well.

            After a long time of staring at the tank, the doctor finally reacted. "Why!? I wait and wait time after time for you to respond! I know you're out there, oh grand divinity! Come unto me!" Suddenly, the doctor lifted up a metal rod from one of his lab tables and smashed the tank to bits, Penny flooding onto the floor along with the now draining community pool. Penny swore he could here a, "Look what your fat ass did!" beyond the pipes he had come from.

            The crazy doctor sloshed angrily through the few feet of water that now flooded his lab before scooping up a tiny bit, containing Penny, into a test tube and setting it on one of his lab tables. From this location, Penny could see what seemed to be a family picture. The woman on the plane stood smiling with the doctor next to her. Between them stood Chuck and the kid from the plane.

            Suddenly a strange beeping sound was heard. "Shit!" the doctor yelled as he held one of those small devices Penny saw from the plane to his ear. "Hello... Oh hi honey. What? Carl? That's terrible...   Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Oh, nothing. Everything's alright here. Chuck? He's playing with his friends. Yeah... Honey? Honey!? Honey, what's going on!? Honey! Are you there!? ARE YOU THERE!? SHIT!" The doctor threw the phone and it smashed the test tube to pieces, cauing Penny to fly out onto the table under a lamp. It took merely a few minutes to gain that feeling that led to yet another flight.

            Penny drifted out of a sky roof at the top of the lab, seeing the familiar sight of fluffy masses in the sky. He heard a familiar but now slightly more decayed voice, "Welcome!" It was Floof!

            "Floof! I have learned so much about humans!"

            "Ah... but have you learned the most important thing. Perhaps you've encountered it, but have you come to understand... come to accept it?"

            "Floof... Why do you sound so exhausted?" Penny was honestly worried about the one thing he could consider a friend.

            "Penny... I have drifted the path you have just taken many times... watching the lives of humans... seeing the everyday desperation."

            "Desperation? They are sick and insane creatures who take everything for granted."

            "That sort of opinion... That is what separates the wise from the... inexperienced..."

            "What do you mean?"

            "It doesn't matter... Perhaps it is better... that you do not see..."

            "What do you mean?"

            "I can give you... a body to control... We clouds... the dominant beings of your race... We choose one molecule to... be the consciousness."

            "The consciousness."

            "Essentially... the consciousness is the mind of the cloud... I am but one molecule... making tactical decisions for this entire colony."

            "What are you saying?"

            "I would like to elect you... to be this cloud's new consciousness..."

            "I am flattered."

            "Good... let me prepare your placement..."

            Penny thought for a moment, "... but I cannot accept."

            "What... What do you mean?"

            "As you said, I am far too inexperienced. There is something I have not yet come to understand."

            Floof smiled inside, "You... You are wise... I hope to see you... when you... ascend."

            "What? What do you mean? Floof...? Floof!" Suddenly, Penny began to drop once again to the Earth.

 

            On a driveway somewhere in the northwestern part of the United States, a car pulled up, splashing in a puddle along its way. As the door opened, the car radio could be heard.

            "It seems there are no survivors. More on the devastating plane crash in Albania later tonight..."