A mindless leaf fluttered out of nowhere and perched on my sandaled foot. In the distance, a disorganized medley of birdsong made up an unrehearsed orchestra. Idyllic as it was, I was in the middle of a fairly typical snapshot of spring. Yet I had somehow been thrown into the scene with no choice or knowledge. I never really understood how people could say “I have no idea how I got here.” Even if you lost the memory of an actual event, you knew what led up to and followed it. Memory has to end somewhere, and surely those last few moments of knowledge could tell someone how they might have ended up wherever they were. It doesn’t make any more sense to me now, but I scoff at it less. I had no idea how I ended up in this sleepy little town, under this burning sun, between these neat houses and picket fences. It didn’t look all that different from home, but for some reason I half expected the manic smile of the Cheshire cat to creep up out of nowhere.

No cats—eerily grinning or not—crossed my path. What did pop up was a little cottage, straight out of Anne of Green Gables and swimming in a mass of colorful flowers. This seemed as good a place as any to try to figure out what was going on. After a fruitless few knocks on the door, though, I was as lost as ever.

“I’m out in the garden!” A voice suddenly floated out from the colorful pandemonium of the backyard.