As the summer waxed, the northern winds departed southwards and brushed the long grasses of the great Ifeldi grassland with swirling strokes. In the southern reaches of the plain, where the small nation of Ifeldi had taken the name of the ancient grassland for its own, there was a flash of light and in its aftermath stood four strange, dazed figures.

They had all felt relaxed after listening to that man–probably a god–talking about reincarnation, but then Roseanne let out a shriek. "WHAT IS THIS!? GET IT AWAY FROM ME!" She waved her hands aggressively at the air.

"Mmm." David nodded, biting back a smile as he watched his mother attack her invisible menu screen. He had already dismissed his own.

"Ewww." Noelle glanced through the screen in front of her. "Levels? Abilities? I don't want to play a video game. That's what David does, and last I checked he killed us. Um, like, delete this." Noelle's menu disappeared from her view. "Hey Mom, all you have to do is tell it go away."

"GO AWAY! BEGONE! EEEAAAAAHHHHHH!" Roseanne shook and cowered and then looked up with a start. "Oh, thank goodness. Noelle, you saved me!"

"Did you hear that, David? I saved our mother." Noelle pointed out, in case David missed it.

David rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, addressing Noel's previous comment instead. "I played videogames for one summer in middle school. I was not some kind of nerd for your information. It was like, a bad phase. Alright?"

"Oh wow. That is what you're hung up on? You just crashed–"

"Children! Stop this petty infighting. We raised you better than this." Hugh waved his hands and attempted to intercede in the gathering storm.

"Uh, obviously you didn't." Noelle pointed out and resumed.

Now that that ghastly 'menu' had been banished, Roseanne tuned out the infantile bickering of her children and took in her surroundings with a deep breath. She stood in a plain of long grasses, with young sprouts reaching up to her shins and more mature ones above the knee. The grasses swayed in faded greens and bright yellows and blushing pinks, and rustled in the wind such that the land sounded like the sea. Further out in the distance lay hills, a copse of trees and what appeared to be the far-off sliver of dirt road...In short, it was a bleak, oppressive sight.

I am smart: I always stay near civilization...so why am I here? Roseanne looked at this decidedly non-urban, non-resort and non-mountain-home environ with a seed of panic and quickly took deep breaths, swallowing the panic back down her throat. Let's think this through. She needed to be logical about this. Could this be a reality TV show? No. reality TV shows are beneath me and Bloom would've prevented Hugh or the children from signing me up for one, even with my finances in shambles. After all, that's not unusual in Hollywood.

Roseanne checked explanation after explanation off her list, until she was forced to take into account the recent, somewhat supernatural events: there had been that dark place her family had found themselves in after the car crash, and the man who had then appeared and silenced the family (silence Roseanne Alton? the audacity!).

He had been quite handsome: muscular, tall, blonde-haired and golden-eyed. Almost divine, one could say...and in case that didn't key people in, he also glowed. He had walked out of the darkness with a grin, and sat down behind a desk that appeared out of nowhere with a single, elegant movement. Then he began to speak with that enrapturing voice of his. "Alton family, welcome to the afterlife. I'd like to offer you the chance to be reincarnated." After that it had gotten so tedious that Roseanne hadn't paid attention. Demon king. Wishes. Blah, blah. Fantasy is no good for the serious actor. At the time she had dismissed what he had said out of time and focused on his appearance instead. He had such a comforting smile and beautiful skin! It was soothing, just looking at him. Roseanne reminisced. Indeed, all apprehension and misgivings had melted away the moment he opened his well-moisturized lips. Captivating. Roseanne further mused, enthralled with her impression of him. What does he use for skincare?

Then she frowned and surveyed her present surroundings once more. Not only had they been in a car crash, met an incredible young man and then turned up in a field, but there had been that strange rectangle her children had called a 'menu.' Was it possible? Have I been reincarnated? She set off towards the road, determined to find out. We were already broke, which is good as dead. Perhaps our son did us a favor.

Meanwhile, Noelle cheered from the sidelines as David tried to show his father how the menu worked. "David, Dad would be more comfortable with one of those phones that dials in a circle. You're talking to a dinosaur. Like, no offense Dad." David's teaching process was complicated by two factors. One, Noelle and two, David couldn't actually see his father's menu–only his own.

"No offense taken." Hugh stared irritably at his daughter to let her know that he really didn't mind. "And it's called a rotary telephone. I ran the second largest pager company in the country with one, you know."

"Exactly Dad, your daughter should not be making fun of you." David nodded in agreement. "So if you could just back off, Noelle? I'm trying to help my family instead of killing them for once in my life." David turned his attention back to his befuddled father and ignored whatever Noelle's reply was. "So I understand where you're coming from with the rotary phone interface, Dad, but you're going to have to talk to the menu. Just speak to it like it's your secretary, ok? But don't–"

"Get me a coffee."

"–don't make stupid requests it can't fulfill. It's just a menu."

"Hey menu, can you look like a rotary phone please?" Noelle spoke loudly. "Dad, David it looks like the menu can't turn into a rotary phone, just so you know." She gave a smile. "Just trying to help."

David rolled his eyes. "Noelle, obviously it can't. It only responds to speech and thought, how would a rotary interface even work?"

Noelle decided to push a little. "Oh my god David, maybe that's obvious to you because you spent your entire life on a computer in the basement, but the rest of us didn't waste our time figuring out how menus work, OK?"

"You–"

Noelle plowed through David's incipient response. "And by the way, Dad can defend himself. Stop trying to baby him. Didn't he run the second largest pager company in the world?" She eyed her brother with a supreme smugness.

Hugh nodded in agreement. "Fifth largest in the world, second largest in the country baby. And we were so close to number one, too." Hugh looked lost in his long-ago pager era. "David, I know you spent all that time in the basement (and now it looks like it may pay off, so erm, it wasn't a waste of time. Good job son) but the rest of us have no idea what things like these menus are: really, let's not kid ourselves! It's pretty obvious I can't keep up with all this highfalutin technology even though I did run a multibillion dollar company." Hugh gave a goodwill chuckle and David became a bit defensive.

"For starters, it was an attic and not a basement. It was also only one sum–"

"Oh my gosh, thank you Dad! Nobody ever appreciates what I do for them. David, you're trying to divide us as a family and that is not cool. Stop trying to attack the rest of us."

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Hugh frowned. "Noelle, I concur with the sentiment but aren't you doing the exact same things right now?"

David cut in. "Dad, Noelle doesn't even know what a pager is."

Noelle gave a harrumph. "Oh sure David, ignore everything and focus on a distraction. No! Can we talk about how to make this menu work for dad instead? Like, the important stuff for our father? You're trying to help him, remember?"

As Hugh spoke with his children, he had begun to feel nauseous and dizzy with words. They're jumping between too many topics...I'm confused. Why do my children bicker so much? The only menu I care about is the one at a restaurant, anyways. He was feeling a rising urge to leave when David then mentioned that Noelle didn't know what a pager was. Hugh grabbed that conversational thread like a lifeline. Pagers were my life! They've paid for my children's lives of luxury, too. The thought that his children didn't know what a pager was...well, it made him indignant, shocked. With deep, creased brows he turned to his daughter. "...Noelle, you do know what a pager is, don't you?

"Uh, obviously. It's what your company sold." She broadcast a triumphant look to David and Hugh.

Hugh felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Yes Noelle, but surely you know what a pager is, don't you?"

"It, like...makes pages of paper. You know, this is totally unfair! David doesn't know what a pager is, does he?" She whipped around to pose the question to his face.

"Uh, yes I do." David folded his arms and smirked at his sister. "It's a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice message. There are one-way pagers as well as two-way and response pagers."

"What the hell David," Noelle was aghast. "How do you even know that?"

"Hmm. And in 2003 the U.S. pager market was valued at 6.1 billion dollars." David flaunted his knowledge and then silently mouthed to Noelle. "I knew one day Dad would ask us what his company did and you would have no idea. Suck it." He stuck out his tongue at her and Noelle cringed, remembering how he had been pulling on it earlier.

Ew, what's with David and his freaky tongue? Noelle wondered. Whatever.

"Well, David, I'm glad to have one child who knows what pays his credit card statements." Hugh regarded his son and daughter in turn. "Noelle, I'm very disappointed in you."

"Oh my g–." Noelle began to take a defensive tone. How could I be expected to know something like that? I don't spend my free time brownnosing like my brother.

David and Hugh ignored Noelle, and resumed the menu lesson. "So like, the menu will display your status and any skills you learn in this world..." David taught his aging father how to open, close and navigate his menu by loudly speaking words from a kindergartener's vocabulary. "Open menu. Close menu. Open menu. Close menu..."

"I see. What an intriguing system! Son, you know which company is responsible for this?" This was a fascinating piece of technology. He'd never seen anything like it!

"Um, probably like Microsoft or something?"

Hugh nodded thoughtfully. "I knew they were doing something new with Nokia. People said the acquisition was money down the drain, but I knew."

"Uh-huuh." David glossed over his father's 'sixth sense' which could 'detect up-and-coming business ventures.' There was a reason Roseanne's brother had been handed the finances.

"I just wonder why Microsoft would suddenly give it to us..." Hugh frowned in thought.

David was beginning to regret chalking up the foundation of their new life up to Microsoft. "Uh, so remember that we've been reincarnated. The golden glowing guy, yeah? We're in a different world now."

"Hey! Hey you guys!" Noelle broke in. "Stop ignoring me, please. Also, like where is Mom?"

"Noelle, we're trying to cover big menu concepts like levels and abilities right now. Could you come back in a bit? You haven't talked in like, five seconds, so calm down. And please don't pretend like Mom has disappeared just to, like, get attention. The boy who cried wolf, OK?" David knew Noelle would say just about anything to get attention.

"OK David." Noelle said sharply, putting her hands on her hips and drawing in a deep breath. "You have killed us–"

"Oh my god I get it. Can you not beat a dead horse? Like I'm feeling sorry for the horse's family right now."

"You have killed us, we have been reincarnated, Mom is missing and instead of searching for her you are trying to play a videogame." Noelle spoke slowly, making sure to clearly enounce each word. The crushing blow came next. "And even worse, neither of you even care about me!"

"Noelle, I do not have time for your drama queen persona right now." David turned his attention back to Hugh. "So Dad, levels are like rewards for your progress in life. As you do things you get experience and when you gain enough experience..."

"Then why does this say level one? I've lived for sixty-two years! " Hugh protested, staring at his menu. He'd missed everything Noelle had said: that was something that happened to every member of the family now and then, a kind of defense mechanism for sanity. "If sixty two years as a business mogul isn't

Noelle looked at the two of them, crouching on crushed grass (ew, grass) and staring into space like they had brain damage. The sight made her momentarily dumbstruck, but it also seemed oddly fitting for her brother and father. "Fine! I'm just going to go off alone then!" She threatened and then waited. "Alright then. Fine!" After a minute she harrumphed and strode away, then stopped suddenly in her tracks. "Oh my god, what is that?" From the distance a wagon was approaching...and her mother was in it?

"Noelle! David! Hugh!" Roseanne yelled, waving at her family from a rickety wood wagon drawn by two buffalo-esque animals. "I've come to pick you up! While you were mucking around in the dirt, I found a ride!" More quietly she confided to the man next to her. "This is just about as usual. They're helpless without me."

Noelle squinted and frowned at the animals pulling the cart. "Ew, I do not want animals hair on my clothes. This grass is bad enough." Noelle shuddered at the thought and signaled an X back at her mother. "It's OK! Go on without us!"

"Great timing, honey!" Hugh finally took notice and stood up, waved his wife down despite Noelle's protests. Pretty soon the wagon had pulled up. Next to Roseanne sat an older vaguely middle-eastern man who was holding the reigns, evidently a farmer by his tan, build and lack of fashion sense. Never one to pass up an opportunity, Hugh climbed up into the wagon and proffered his hand to the farmer. "Hugh Alton, sir. We appreciate the ride."

"The pleasure's mine, Mr. Alton. Georgie Petrie." Hugh gave Georgie's calloused hand his best handshake. Georgie laughed. "No need to pull your punches, Mr. Alton. I can take a good handshake." Then the farmer clenched Hugh's white-collar hand like a vice and Hugh's face went blue for a moment before he pulled his trembling hand away in relief. Mother of god! I think I broke a bone. Georgie smiled cordially, then focused his attention on the two Alton children.

"Young..." The farmer squinted at David and puzzled it over. "...man, there's room for you in the back with the hay."

"The back? Well I–" David protested.

"Son, remember what happened last time you were in the front seat?" Roseanne snipped and David begrudgingly pulled himself into the back, cringing at the hay. It wasn't like he was excited to get dirty.

"Noelle dear, come a little closer, won't you?" Roseanne beckoned to her daughter, who was keeping a dozen feet between herself and the cart.

"You know, it totally looks like there's no room in the cart. You are too kind to offer me a ride, but I'll just walk and catch up later." Noelle smiled and waved. "Like, goodbye!" She said cheerfully.

Roseanne shook her head. "Dear, hop in the back with David."

The farmer thought he realized what was going on. "Miss, I reckon you don't want to get your nice clothes dirty with that hay."

"Well, that's like half of it." Noelle said, eager to explain. "I don't want to be anywhere near those filthy animals. Like, the hair from a dog is bad enough. Those beasts would like murder my cashmere."

"Don't worry! We can make room up here. And even if we can't," Georgie laughed, totally ignoring her comment, "you can just sit on my lap like my daughter used to."

Everyone was taken aback for a second. "No, no she can't!" Roseanne and Hugh objected.

"Uh, yes she can." David called from the back.

"Screw you, David!" Noelle yelled at the back of the wagon and then gave Georgie a look. "Ummm, like thanks for the offer but in case you didn't notice, I'm like not a toddler. Mm, and I'm not looking to hook up with an old, ugly guy struggling at the poverty line either." She concluded cheerfully. "Thanks though!"

Georgie just gave a good-natured smile, appearing somewhat confused at the situation. "No harm intended..."

Hugh frowned at his wife and whispered with concern. "Honey, what sort of man is this Georgie?"

Roseanne furiously whispered back. "Hugh, it's fine! He's just oblivious: he even offered me unpasteurized milk, that's how clueless he is. This man is a peasant farmer who's stupid and innocent and simplistic! I don't know what his relationship is with his daughter was and I don't care to find out, but we're stranded in the middle of nowhere and I'm going to die if I can't take a bath tonight. Why can't our daughter just get in the back of the wagon?"

It took some time.