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Description
     A busy city street corner was empty on that dreary day in January. The skies were iron-gray, and everyone knew there would be a rainstorm sometime soon.
     An average man stood at the corner where no one else was. He looked from left to right down the street, checking for cars, but there weren't any. He never moved from the corner itself, he just stood on the curb, checking for cars.
     He was a brown-haired man of middling height. He wasn't obese or extremely fit. His blue suit gave the impression that he worked at a corporation or office of some kind- a desk job. His features weren't cohesive or memorable in any way, nor were they distinctive. He was not handsome, nor was he ugly. His face seemed to meld together and become featureless and blurry at a distance; it was impossible to hold his face in memory.
     The streets were completely deserted. It was a landmark day for the populace.
     The man neurotically checked the streets, time after time. After a while, it could be seen that there was basically no object or reasoning to his actions. There were no cars, at all. And it was obvious that he knew this, somehow. But he checked, regardless.
     Another man walked up to him, and stood at his side. This man was distinct in the way that the first man was not. He was a short, stocky man with a bowler hat and monocle, and a magnificent, flowing mustache. His tweed jacket and trousers were black, and his shoes were shined to perfection. He was also colorless, literally. He lacked color in its entirety, being black and white, as well as shades of gray between. It was as if he had stepped out of a film made in Victorian England.
     The second man said to the first, “Hello there, my good lad. I don't mean to be a bother, but do you perchance have the time?” His voice was deep and effervescent, as though he were about to break into laughter at a moment's notice.
     The first man did not answer, choosing instead to stare down the street to his right.
     A pigeon landed on the blue mailbox to his left.
     The Englishman chortled, amused by the other man's antics. “Watching for cars, are we?”
     The first man didn't say anything, but he did crane his head around to direct his attention to the other side direction of he street.
     “Great heavens, boy. Didn't you hear? They've made cars illegal! What are you watching for so intently? It can't be an automobile, surely.”
     For the first time, the blue-suited man acknowledged the second man. He glared at him almost angrily and hissed, “If cars were illegal, there wouldn't be streets.”
     The monocled man chuckled to himself, in stark contrast to the first man's unseemly anger. “Well, my boy, you've  a lot to consider. Take this pigeon for example. What does that pigeon mean?” He pointed to the pigeon.
     The first man looked at the pigeon. He reached out and grabbed it, being completely unsurprised at the fact that the pigeon had allowed him touch it, let alone snatch it from its perch unceremoniously. He glared at the pigeon that was helpless in his grasp, and threw it as hard as he could into the air, where it landed with a sad little whump. It got up and looked at the man that had thrown it with a fiery passion of rage, and vowed in its little pigeon mind to exact its vengeance upon him as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It then flew away in a wash of evil little pigeon thoughts.
     The mustachioed man said to the suited man, “That... may have been a mistake. The look in that little bird's eyes was pure acid. I think you may have a pigeon vendetta on your hands now.”
     “I don't care about bird vendettas. I care about the cars.”
     “But there are no cars, my friend. They're gone now. You may as well go home.”
     “Never. My life depends on it. And those little blasphemies aren't going to get you anywhere.”
     The mustachioed man looked at the angry man concernedly. “Old bean, have you considered the possibility that you may be completely, unequivocally mad?”
     “Yes. I am actually. Very mad. Angry is a better word, though. Please go away.”
     “I meant crazy, my friend. Insane. Are you?”
     “Probably. And no, I'm not.”
     “... Right, then. In that case, I shall stay here until you see a car.”
     They both waited on that concrete curb as night took the city. No one came from the buildings or from a hitherto unknown location; the city was as deserted in darkness as it was in light. The streetlights flicked on as if by an unbidden hand, and pulsed with a beat that could be felt underground. Their light came not in a uniform yellow color but in all colors of the spectrum, and the two men watched the lights in spellbound amazement.
     The lights detached from the streetlamps themselves and began to swirl in the street before them, leaving the lamps themselves to be nothing but dark poles of steel. The orbs of bubbling, burning, swirling color began to form a vortex of solid white light that carved a ring into the asphalt as it traveled.
     The light lent form to something that was becoming real within the confines of the swirl of light. It became more and more cohesive and structured as the light forged it. Thunder could be heard in the distance and echoed among the steel and concrete of the city's edifices, adding power and vibration to the gathering energies at work.
     All at once, the magical tirade of light and power stopped and disappeared as if it had never existed. The only remnants of itself that it left were the smoke curling from the streetlights and the object that it had labored to create.
     It was a car. A red one. It wasn't pretty. It was dented and scored, with paint chipping and its antenna bent.
     The mustachioed gentleman said in mild surprise, “Oh my.”
     The suited man grinned as his face became less and less distinct. He ran like the nose of an influenza victim to the car, and opened the driver's seat door. He sat down and shut the door behind him, marveling at the car as if he could see something about it that no one else could. He pawed at the dashboard and the steering wheel as if it was the finest, most amazing thing he had ever seen.
     He glared at the monochrome man and said, “Well? Are you gonna stand there, or get in?”
     The mustachioed gentleman looked surprised, and adjusted his monocle nervously. “I suppose I'll come along. I've nothing better to do.” He walked over to the passenger side door and opened it, climbing inside the car. It was in desperate need of vacuuming, and the upholstery was patterned with many colorful and completely unidentifiable stains.
     The man with the steadily melting face looked (somehow) apprehensive and excited at the same time. His eyeballs were running out of and off of his head in small rivulets, and his nose was beginning to drip. His mouth was drifting somewhere off to the side of his head and elongating slightly as it traveled. He said, “What's your name?”
     The monochrome man said with a mix of bashfulness and pride, “Lord Hitherto Forthright the Seventh. But you may call me Mr. Forthright.” He extended his hand.
     The man that was definitely losing his visual coherence said droopingly, “M'name's Iggy Halfturn. But you can call me Iggy.” They shook hands. When Mr. Forthright withdrew his hand, he saw that Iggy's fingerprints had rubbed off on him. He wiped them off smartly on the side of his seat.
     Mr. Forthright said earnestly, “So. Where are we off to in this impossible machine?”
     Iggy replied, “Anywhere. I've waited forever for this stupid thing to show up. And the funny thing is, it appears as soon as you come on the scene. That means you might be useful.”
     If there had been any color at all to Mr. Forthright's face, he would have been blushing slightly. “Oh, it was nothing. Do you have a specific destination in mind?”
     Iggy's eyes had almost completely drained from their sockets, dripping on his lap. He didn't notice. “I need to see a man about a few specific things. You can come with.”
     Hitherto Forthright smiled through his grand mustache. That combined with his monocle made him look somewhat like Theodore Roosevelt. “Well, that's grand. Simply grand. I've always wanted to have an adventure. It's about time I got out of this blasted city anyhow.”
     Iggy wasted no time in turning the key that was in the ignition. The car sputtered to life and roared, making sounds that seemed as if they belonged to a car with several hundred more horsepower.
     Iggy said to himself, “Yeah. That's what it's supposed to be like. This is like I was promised.”
     Without rhyme or reason, he floored the accelerator, and the car exploded.
     Or, at least, it seemed to.
     The huge noise of unidentifiable origin evaporated as soon as it appeared, and Mr. Forthright noticed as soon as he looked out his window that they were not where they had been before.
     He heard Iggy's somewhat manic voice cackling quietly. He then said, “Look. It worked. Everything worked exactly as I was told. Now he won't be angry.”
     He was more or less babbling to himself. Mr. Forthright had no idea what he was talking about, but he assumed he'd find out eventually, be that a good or bad thing. Mr. Forthright asked anyway, however, in case this Iggy Halfturn wanted to answer.
     “Where are we?”
     Iggy looked directly at him, and Mr. Forthright had a hard time not flinching.
     The man's face had almost completely sloughed off. His nose was drooping sadly, and it dripped, not just from the nostrils. His mouth had drifted off somewhere toward the front of his neck, where it was beginning to dissipate. The ears were essentially gone, and his hair had started to fall out in clumps. He was making a bit of a mess, but he didn't seem to notice.
     Somehow, his voice was still present, but Mr. Forthright had a hard time figuring out where it was coming from. “The man that told me about all this lives here. This is his place, and he gave me the car so I could find him. He said so.”
     There were several obvious questions to be asked at that point, and Mr. Forthright chose, “And who is this mysterious benefactor of ours?”
     Iggy looked away and out the windshield. He said absently, “He's the man that will make everything better again. He'll heal the world. He'll make everything better again. I believe in him.”
     That didn't really answer Mr. Forthright's question, but he let it slide for now. He wanted to be personable. “So... shall we go to him, then?”
     “Yeah. We should. We need to. Let's get a move on.”
     He opened the driver's side door and stepped out, shutting it behind him. Mr Forthright did the same, and he noted the texture of the ground underneath his feet. It was soft and pliable, like loose sediment or halfway frozen pudding. He stood upon the ground and looked at the landscape.
     The first thing he noticed was the openness. The entire land, as far as he could see, was almost completely flat and empty. It was, in a word, barren. The ground was a dark gray color, and seemed to be made almost of iron filings, as if some giant had dumped a huge container of the stuff all over the world. The expanse was whipped up into whorls and craters of filings, standing on end and keeping their shape as if magnetized. It was like a desert, but nearly black, and much more spiky.
     The sky was at odds with the bleak and jarring ground. It was a creamy orange, with bright red clouds and indigo spots showing through as if the orange-ness was simply an overcast sky. It convulsed and changed frequently, with the clouds flowing and moving with the mild breeze.
     Iggy had already walked off to the left of the car and into the distance while Mr. Forthright was admiring the strangeness of the landscape. He was approaching a black spire in the distance, a pointed tower with crenelated facades and lit windows. It wasn't very far away, but it would be a walk. For some reason, Iggy did not simply use the car to drive closer to the building. Mr. Forthright wondered about this.
      They walked under the orange sky, moving around little mounds and spikes of black material. The terrain was treacherous, and Mr. Forthright deemed it wise to watch where he was stepping, lest he twist something. In this manner of walking, he became distracted, and they reached the front of the tower in no time.
     There was no door, or other obvious form of entry, a simple person-sized black hole was what Forthright and Halfturn walked into.
     The inner part of the strange tower was unadorned with any kind of decorations or indications that somebody lived there. It was as if a giant had made a hollow, black sandcastle and left it standing over the course of eons.
     They stood in the foyer and looked up, seeing the one thing that looked unnatural and contrasted with the coarsely-hewn construction. Up along the walls of the circular tower was a single spiral staircase, made of smooth black stone, that crawled languorously to the very tip of the building. Along it were cutaways that led to separate rooms; no doors were yet to be seen.
     As they stood on  the glass-smooth black floor of the entry hall, the diminutive Forthright began to wonder about the nature of the person that chose to live in such a place. Obviously a fan of the color black, not a proponent of grandiose decor, and could be described as impressive about his (or her) choice of architecture. An intriguing individual, to be sure.
     What was going through Halfturn's mind could not be accurately described in words, as the man thought more in terms of images and crude feelings rather than eloquence. But the words “anxious”, “excited”, “eager”, and “apprehensive” could have potentially described his mood well at that juncture.
     Forthright said quietly, not wanting to alert their unknown host of their presence if they were still undiscovered, “Do we go up? Or is there some kind of signal we're waiting for?”
     Halfturn looked at him as if this was obvious. “Of course there's a signal. We wait for the Light of the KLH. And then... we'll see. Maybe ashtrays.”
     Forthright had no idea what any of that meant, but he was sure the faceless man had some idea as to what he was doing. At least, he hoped. Not much in Hitherto's life made much sense to begin with, but the amount of nonsense had significantly increased upon meeting the furious and volatile melted man, Iggy Halfturn. He hoped Iggy wasn't dangerous. He wouldn't enjoy having to get rid of him.
     Suddenly, a light came from above and shone down on the two. It wasn't quite white, more of a mix of several other colors. Forthright and Halfturn looked up to see what it was.
     At the top of the tower, as high as they could see, three letters in what appeared to be neon lighting. It was, of course, as Iggy had said. The K was in orange, the L was in green, and the H was in blue. KLH.
     Forthright asked, “Is that what we're waiting for?”
     The lights seemed to have a calming effect on Iggy. He replied, “Yeah. Let's start up, we've got some stairs to climb.”
     They walked to the right where the long ebony staircase started and began to climb. Halfturn went first, with Forthright bringing up the rear.
     As they walked, Forthright asked some questions. There were several things about this scenario that didn't make any sense to him.
     “So. Were you looking for cars in the sense that you were waiting for this... person to send you one?”
     Iggy said, “Of course. He has that ability. And he wants to see me. I don't know about you, though. You'll have to talk to him.”
     “Have you met this person before?”
     This gave Halfturn pause for a moment, then he replied, “I've never been near him, except in spirit. He can project his essence through the ether, and did so to talk to me about specific things. The world, physics, literature, whatever pleased us at the time. We were just having conversation for the most part, and I was glad to talk with someone from another dimension. Sometimes he explained things and sometimes he didn't, I had barrages of questions about who he was and where he was. I don't know how he found me or what made him decide to talk to me instead of someone else, but he did, and he's offered to teach me... things. Arcane things, ancient things that were lost on Earth a long time ago but still live in other Universes. I'm honored to meet him.”
     Forthright thought about this. From his perspective, this mysterious person Iggy was technically meeting for the first time was some kind of wizard. Or the equivalent of one, at any rate. A magic man. A shaman. A seer. After some years, Forthright seemed to be in the middle of something that could actually be engaging.
     He asked, “Hmm. Perhaps you could tell me where we are?”
     Iggy ponderously answered, “As far as I can tell, we're on some planet on the outer edge of Earth's arm of the galaxy. Pretty far. As you've seen, things are a bit different.”
     They were nearing the top of the steps. Forthright had one more pressing question.
     “What does KLH mean?”
     “I can honestly say I have no idea.”
     The top of the staircase melded seamlessly with the wall on the far side, narrowing to a sliver of an edge and disappearing altogether. They stood in front of the only door they had seen so far in the tower, a steel-strapped hardwood slat model with several deadbolts and locks on the right. Forthright counted eight.
     Halfturn said, “Move aside. I'll deal with this.”
     Forthright moved off to the left while Iggy glared at the locks much in the same way that he had glared at Forthright for asking about cars. In a rush, he flung his right arm toward the locks and drew his left back, adopting what appeared to be some kind of martial arts pose. An unseen wind billowed up from underneath him, ruffling his sport jacket and slacks. From nowhere, bright white arcs of electricity crackled over his head and between his hands, casting a powerful light into the dark chamber. Forthright was genuinely surprised. He hadn't detected any kind of power on Halfturn before.
     Iggy let the glowing bands of buzzing lightning hang in the air for a moment, then set them loose with impudence at the eight obstinate locks.  From their resting place in the air, they plunged down hard upon the eight metal boxes, blowing them apart with the force of a tiny lightning storm. Which it was.
     After the pieces had been scattered by the locationless wind emanating from Halfturn, Forthright said only, “-!”.
     Halfturn said colorlessly, “I know a few things. Now we wait for him to answer the door.”

Description
     A busy city street corner was empty on that dreary day in January. The skies were iron-gray, and everyone knew there would be a rainstorm sometime soon.
     An average man stood at the corner where no one else was. He looked from left to right down the street, checking for cars, but there weren't any. He never moved from the corner itself, he just stood on the curb, checking for cars.
     He was a brown-haired man of middling height. He wasn't obese or extremely fit. His blue suit gave the impression that he worked at a corporation or office of some kind- a desk job. His features weren't cohesive or memorable in any way, nor were they distinctive. He was not handsome, nor was he ugly. His face seemed to meld together and become featureless and blurry at a distance; it was impossible to hold his face in memory.
     The streets were completely deserted. It was a landmark day for the populace.
     The man neurotically checked the streets, time after time. After a while, it could be seen that there was basically no object or reasoning to his actions. There were no cars, at all. And it was obvious that he knew this, somehow. But he checked, regardless.
     Another man walked up to him, and stood at his side. This man was distinct in the way that the first man was not. He was a short, stocky man with a bowler hat and monocle, and a magnificent, flowing mustache. His tweed jacket and trousers were black, and his shoes were shined to perfection. He was also colorless, literally. He lacked color in its entirety, being black and white, as well as shades of gray between. It was as if he had stepped out of a film made in Victorian England.
     The second man said to the first, “Hello there, my good lad. I don't mean to be a bother, but do you perchance have the time?” His voice was deep and effervescent, as though he were about to break into laughter at a moment's notice.
     The first man did not answer, choosing instead to stare down the street to his right.
     A pigeon landed on the blue mailbox to his left.
     The Englishman chortled, amused by the other man's antics. “Watching for cars, are we?”
     The first man didn't say anything, but he did crane his head around to direct his attention to the other side direction of he street.
     “Great heavens, boy. Didn't you hear? They've made cars illegal! What are you watching for so intently? It can't be an automobile, surely.”
     For the first time, the blue-suited man acknowledged the second man. He glared at him almost angrily and hissed, “If cars were illegal, there wouldn't be streets.”
     The monocled man chuckled to himself, in stark contrast to the first man's unseemly anger. “Well, my boy, you've  a lot to consider. Take this pigeon for example. What does that pigeon mean?” He pointed to the pigeon.
     The first man looked at the pigeon. He reached out and grabbed it, being completely unsurprised at the fact that the pigeon had allowed him touch it, let alone snatch it from its perch unceremoniously. He glared at the pigeon that was helpless in his grasp, and threw it as hard as he could into the air, where it landed with a sad little whump. It got up and looked at the man that had thrown it with a fiery passion of rage, and vowed in its little pigeon mind to exact its vengeance upon him as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It then flew away in a wash of evil little pigeon thoughts.
     The mustachioed man said to the suited man, “That... may have been a mistake. The look in that little bird's eyes was pure acid. I think you may have a pigeon vendetta on your hands now.”
     “I don't care about bird vendettas. I care about the cars.”
     “But there are no cars, my friend. They're gone now. You may as well go home.”
     “Never. My life depends on it. And those little blasphemies aren't going to get you anywhere.”
     The mustachioed man looked at the angry man concernedly. “Old bean, have you considered the possibility that you may be completely, unequivocally mad?”
     “Yes. I am actually. Very mad. Angry is a better word, though. Please go away.”
     “I meant crazy, my friend. Insane. Are you?”
     “Probably. And no, I'm not.”
     “... Right, then. In that case, I shall stay here until you see a car.”
     They both waited on that concrete curb as night took the city. No one came from the buildings or from a hitherto unknown location; the city was as deserted in darkness as it was in light. The streetlights flicked on as if by an unbidden hand, and pulsed with a beat that could be felt underground. Their light came not in a uniform yellow color but in all colors of the spectrum, and the two men watched the lights in spellbound amazement.
     The lights detached from the streetlamps themselves and began to swirl in the street before them, leaving the lamps themselves to be nothing but dark poles of steel. The orbs of bubbling, burning, swirling color began to form a vortex of solid white light that carved a ring into the asphalt as it traveled.
     The light lent form to something that was becoming real within the confines of the swirl of light. It became more and more cohesive and structured as the light forged it. Thunder could be heard in the distance and echoed among the steel and concrete of the city's edifices, adding power and vibration to the gathering energies at work.
     All at once, the magical tirade of light and power stopped and disappeared as if it had never existed. The only remnants of itself that it left were the smoke curling from the streetlights and the object that it had labored to create.
     It was a car. A red one. It wasn't pretty. It was dented and scored, with paint chipping and its antenna bent.
     The mustachioed gentleman said in mild surprise, “Oh my.”
     The suited man grinned as his face became less and less distinct. He ran like the nose of an influenza victim to the car, and opened the driver's seat door. He sat down and shut the door behind him, marveling at the car as if he could see something about it that no one else could. He pawed at the dashboard and the steering wheel as if it was the finest, most amazing thing he had ever seen.
     He glared at the monochrome man and said, “Well? Are you gonna stand there, or get in?”
     The mustachioed gentleman looked surprised, and adjusted his monocle nervously. “I suppose I'll come along. I've nothing better to do.” He walked over to the passenger side door and opened it, climbing inside the car. It was in desperate need of vacuuming, and the upholstery was patterned with many colorful and completely unidentifiable stains.
     The man with the steadily melting face looked (somehow) apprehensive and excited at the same time. His eyeballs were running out of and off of his head in small rivulets, and his nose was beginning to drip. His mouth was drifting somewhere off to the side of his head and elongating slightly as it traveled. He said, “What's your name?”
     The monochrome man said with a mix of bashfulness and pride, “Lord Hitherto Forthright the Seventh. But you may call me Mr. Forthright.” He extended his hand.
     The man that was definitely losing his visual coherence said droopingly, “M'name's Iggy Halfturn. But you can call me Iggy.” They shook hands. When Mr. Forthright withdrew his hand, he saw that Iggy's fingerprints had rubbed off on him. He wiped them off smartly on the side of his seat.
     Mr. Forthright said earnestly, “So. Where are we off to in this impossible machine?”
     Iggy replied, “Anywhere. I've waited forever for this stupid thing to show up. And the funny thing is, it appears as soon as you come on the scene. That means you might be useful.”
     If there had been any color at all to Mr. Forthright's face, he would have been blushing slightly. “Oh, it was nothing. Do you have a specific destination in mind?”
     Iggy's eyes had almost completely drained from their sockets, dripping on his lap. He didn't notice. “I need to see a man about a few specific things. You can come with.”
     Hitherto Forthright smiled through his grand mustache. That combined with his monocle made him look somewhat like Theodore Roosevelt. “Well, that's grand. Simply grand. I've always wanted to have an adventure. It's about time I got out of this blasted city anyhow.”
     Iggy wasted no time in turning the key that was in the ignition. The car sputtered to life and roared, making sounds that seemed as if they belonged to a car with several hundred more horsepower.
     Iggy said to himself, “Yeah. That's what it's supposed to be like. This is like I was promised.”
     Without rhyme or reason, he floored the accelerator, and the car exploded.
     Or, at least, it seemed to.
     The huge noise of unidentifiable origin evaporated as soon as it appeared, and Mr. Forthright noticed as soon as he looked out his window that they were not where they had been before.
     He heard Iggy's somewhat manic voice cackling quietly. He then said, “Look. It worked. Everything worked exactly as I was told. Now he won't be angry.”
     He was more or less babbling to himself. Mr. Forthright had no idea what he was talking about, but he assumed he'd find out eventually, be that a good or bad thing. Mr. Forthright asked anyway, however, in case this Iggy Halfturn wanted to answer.
     “Where are we?”
     Iggy looked directly at him, and Mr. Forthright had a hard time not flinching.
     The man's face had almost completely sloughed off. His nose was drooping sadly, and it dripped, not just from the nostrils. His mouth had drifted off somewhere toward the front of his neck, where it was beginning to dissipate. The ears were essentially gone, and his hair had started to fall out in clumps. He was making a bit of a mess, but he didn't seem to notice.
     Somehow, his voice was still present, but Mr. Forthright had a hard time figuring out where it was coming from. “The man that told me about all this lives here. This is his place, and he gave me the car so I could find him. He said so.”
     There were several obvious questions to be asked at that point, and Mr. Forthright chose, “And who is this mysterious benefactor of ours?”
     Iggy looked away and out the windshield. He said absently, “He's the man that will make everything better again. He'll heal the world. He'll make everything better again. I believe in him.”
     That didn't really answer Mr. Forthright's question, but he let it slide for now. He wanted to be personable. “So... shall we go to him, then?”
     “Yeah. We should. We need to. Let's get a move on.”
     He opened the driver's side door and stepped out, shutting it behind him. Mr Forthright did the same, and he noted the texture of the ground underneath his feet. It was soft and pliable, like loose sediment or halfway frozen pudding. He stood upon the ground and looked at the landscape.
     The first thing he noticed was the openness. The entire land, as far as he could see, was almost completely flat and empty. It was, in a word, barren. The ground was a dark gray color, and seemed to be made almost of iron filings, as if some giant had dumped a huge container of the stuff all over the world. The expanse was whipped up into whorls and craters of filings, standing on end and keeping their shape as if magnetized. It was like a desert, but nearly black, and much more spiky.
     The sky was at odds with the bleak and jarring ground. It was a creamy orange, with bright red clouds and indigo spots showing through as if the orange-ness was simply an overcast sky. It convulsed and changed frequently, with the clouds flowing and moving with the mild breeze.
     Iggy had already walked off to the left of the car and into the distance while Mr. Forthright was admiring the strangeness of the landscape. He was approaching a black spire in the distance, a pointed tower with crenelated facades and lit windows. It wasn't very far away, but it would be a walk. For some reason, Iggy did not simply use the car to drive closer to the building. Mr. Forthright wondered about this.
      They walked under the orange sky, moving around little mounds and spikes of black material. The terrain was treacherous, and Mr. Forthright deemed it wise to watch where he was stepping, lest he twist something. In this manner of walking, he became distracted, and they reached the front of the tower in no time.
     There was no door, or other obvious form of entry, a simple person-sized black hole was what Forthright and Halfturn walked into.
     The inner part of the strange tower was unadorned with any kind of decorations or indications that somebody lived there. It was as if a giant had made a hollow, black sandcastle and left it standing over the course of eons.
     They stood in the foyer and looked up, seeing the one thing that looked unnatural and contrasted with the coarsely-hewn construction. Up along the walls of the circular tower was a single spiral staircase, made of smooth black stone, that crawled languorously to the very tip of the building. Along it were cutaways that led to separate rooms; no doors were yet to be seen.
     As they stood on  the glass-smooth black floor of the entry hall, the diminutive Forthright began to wonder about the nature of the person that chose to live in such a place. Obviously a fan of the color black, not a proponent of grandiose decor, and could be described as impressive about his (or her) choice of architecture. An intriguing individual, to be sure.
     What was going through Halfturn's mind could not be accurately described in words, as the man thought more in terms of images and crude feelings rather than eloquence. But the words “anxious”, “excited”, “eager”, and “apprehensive” could have potentially described his mood well at that juncture.
     Forthright said quietly, not wanting to alert their unknown host of their presence if they were still undiscovered, “Do we go up? Or is there some kind of signal we're waiting for?”
     Halfturn looked at him as if this was obvious. “Of course there's a signal. We wait for the Light of the KLH. And then... we'll see. Maybe ashtrays.”
     Forthright had no idea what any of that meant, but he was sure the faceless man had some idea as to what he was doing. At least, he hoped. Not much in Hitherto's life made much sense to begin with, but the amount of nonsense had significantly increased upon meeting the furious and volatile melted man, Iggy Halfturn. He hoped Iggy wasn't dangerous. He wouldn't enjoy having to get rid of him.
     Suddenly, a light came from above and shone down on the two. It wasn't quite white, more of a mix of several other colors. Forthright and Halfturn looked up to see what it was.
     At the top of the tower, as high as they could see, three letters in what appeared to be neon lighting. It was, of course, as Iggy had said. The K was in orange, the L was in green, and the H was in blue. KLH.
     Forthright asked, “Is that what we're waiting for?”
     The lights seemed to have a calming effect on Iggy. He replied, “Yeah. Let's start up, we've got some stairs to climb.”
     They walked to the right where the long ebony staircase started and began to climb. Halfturn went first, with Forthright bringing up the rear.
     As they walked, Forthright asked some questions. There were several things about this scenario that didn't make any sense to him.
     “So. Were you looking for cars in the sense that you were waiting for this... person to send you one?”
     Iggy said, “Of course. He has that ability. And he wants to see me. I don't know about you, though. You'll have to talk to him.”
     “Have you met this person before?”
     This gave Halfturn pause for a moment, then he replied, “I've never been near him, except in spirit. He can project his essence through the ether, and did so to talk to me about specific things. The world, physics, literature, whatever pleased us at the time. We were just having conversation for the most part, and I was glad to talk with someone from another dimension. Sometimes he explained things and sometimes he didn't, I had barrages of questions about who he was and where he was. I don't know how he found me or what made him decide to talk to me instead of someone else, but he did, and he's offered to teach me... things. Arcane things, ancient things that were lost on Earth a long time ago but still live in other Universes. I'm honored to meet him.”
     Forthright thought about this. From his perspective, this mysterious person Iggy was technically meeting for the first time was some kind of wizard. Or the equivalent of one, at any rate. A magic man. A shaman. A seer. After some years, Forthright seemed to be in the middle of something that could actually be engaging.
     He asked, “Hmm. Perhaps you could tell me where we are?”
     Iggy ponderously answered, “As far as I can tell, we're on some planet on the outer edge of Earth's arm of the galaxy. Pretty far. As you've seen, things are a bit different.”
     They were nearing the top of the steps. Forthright had one more pressing question.
     “What does KLH mean?”
     “I can honestly say I have no idea.”
     The top of the staircase melded seamlessly with the wall on the far side, narrowing to a sliver of an edge and disappearing altogether. They stood in front of the only door they had seen so far in the tower, a steel-strapped hardwood slat model with several deadbolts and locks on the right. Forthright counted eight.
     Halfturn said, “Move aside. I'll deal with this.”
     Forthright moved off to the left while Iggy glared at the locks much in the same way that he had glared at Forthright for asking about cars. In a rush, he flung his right arm toward the locks and drew his left back, adopting what appeared to be some kind of martial arts pose. An unseen wind billowed up from underneath him, ruffling his sport jacket and slacks. From nowhere, bright white arcs of electricity crackled over his head and between his hands, casting a powerful light into the dark chamber. Forthright was genuinely surprised. He hadn't detected any kind of power on Halfturn before.
     Iggy let the glowing bands of buzzing lightning hang in the air for a moment, then set them loose with impudence at the eight obstinate locks.  From their resting place in the air, they plunged down hard upon the eight metal boxes, blowing them apart with the force of a tiny lightning storm. Which it was.
     After the pieces had been scattered by the locationless wind emanating from Halfturn, Forthright said only, “-!”.
     Halfturn said colorlessly, “I know a few things. Now we wait for him to answer the door.”