It is a sunny morning, the break of dawn it is, and Sir Rupert Vronesberg awakens under the waterfall which washes what is within the warrior's cheeks.

  He rises to his feet and pants himself. This is his homeland, as it was before the woman came to swallow the land. He rejoices.

  "Must've been an odd dream. Then!" He reckons. "I could do me with a mushroom stew from my trueness!"

  He walks down the river until he finds his peaceful cottage. His not-so-bad wife walks up to him with a kingly platter of mushroom stew.

  "'Tis for my knight, my one and only, my — my — love of my life!" She cries as she hands him the stew and throws her arms around his shoulders. "Where have you been gone for so long?"

  "I have been shitting, my trueness." He spouts. "You look beautiful today. Your face is brighter than you are."

  "You enchanten me with your words, my knight. Though I am enweirdened by your distance. I feel bewitched by your presence!" She cries.

  "You are not using real words, my trueness. And that is what I love most about you." He says. "False people use real words. I guess the opposite must be true!"

  "I know not what you mean, as the words I say are passed onto me by the angels. And tailored just for your ears. Then no truer words can be spoken than those that they thrusted upon me — than from the sky I've been —"

  "My love." Rupert stops her. "You are stumbling over your words. Tell me how you made the mushroom stew this morning."

  "Of course. My knight!" She cries desperately. "Only the fairest shrooms that grew by the falls, the ones you so enjoy watching, the glowing ones ... I squeezed them with my bare hands, chewed them right for you and boiled them in the pot! Even Benathan enjoyed the mushroom stew!"

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  "Where is Benathan, my boy?" Asks Rupert. "Is he still slaying snakes & squirrels south of the river?"

  "It is so, my knight. He is a gay boy." She says. "His sticks and stones will break one day when he is too strong, you must sword him."

  "I must. But first, some milk before I set off."

  "Where to? You just came back, my knight."

  "I must serve the realm. For the greater good of the kingdom and the lord, and you and Benathan. I must uphold my vowes." He says.

  "Do keep cautious, my knight!" She squeals. "The mushrooms from the falls are rough on the bowels! If you horse yourself, you may find yourself unstewing. Please journey on foot!"

  "My trueness." He says. "I understood not a word you said. But I have felt your intention and concern. And I thank the god every night for blessing me with your betrothal."

  "See, my knight, now you are stumbling over your words," she says, "because we are married, not betrothed. But your poetism enchants me so!"

  "Poeticism, my trueness. Poetism is not a real word! It isn't true!" He laughs.

  "Neither am I, my knight."

  Sir Rupert Vronesberg is not at home. He is inside a giant mushroom. A mushroom house, more like, but with no walls or doors or windows. The source of light is a mushroom sun, at night it is a mushroom moon. The ground is a mushroom. The sky is a mushroom. And Sir Rupert Vronesberg himself is ...

  Surrounded by strange men. Mushroom men, they are, with smelly caps and exceedingly long spears. The mushroom men have held Rupert captive for 7 years and 7 months. He has grown a quite elegant beard. Untamed, but wise, like a lion's. His limbs are slim as sticks and his eyes are weak as water and his skin is pale as poppy leaves.

  "It is time for you to pay your tribute to the mushroom gods." Cries a mushroom man. "Speak your truth"

  "God is the truth!" Cries Rupert. This is a shock to the mushroom men. Like they haven't heard the man speak those words in the seven years and seven months they have had him captive.

  The world starts to collapse. The mushroom falters to a halt. Halters to a falt? The world is no more. The mushroom erupts into the vast universe, as Sir Rupert Vronesberg floats in space and time.

  He sees a woman. A grinning woman. Taunting him. Laughing at his misfortune. But he could not unsheath his sword to fight. In fact, he could not move at all. And he could not speak. He could only witness the grinning woman grab his skin and peel him apart like a banana in a fruit salad. All that's left of him dissolves into the universe. Awaiting to be recreated as billions of atoms, some day to become stars in distant galaxies, billions of years from now.