The ground beneath Perry, and the entire landscape, as far as he could see, was the color of an orange. He was reminded of an orange also because he was on a shallow hill, or rise, which dropped down very gradually all around him – as if he were walking on a planet-size orange.

Well, not actually planet size, he thought; more like a very small moon. Its sky was blue, and clear, but didn’t seem to be the sky of Earth because it was tinged pink at the horizons, all the way around wherever he looked.

The sky was bright, but there was no sun. There was, however, some sort of airship in the distance. He could make out only its sails, which were an off-white. Just like he would have expected to see on an old ship. They rippled in what must have been the higher-altitude wind; where he was, the air was calm.

He realized it may not have been an airship. His brain may have been just forcing some strange phenomenon he had never come across before into a category that he did know. He saw that the supposed ship had no hull, nor suspended gondola. It might have been a massive kite flown by someone far away. Or perhaps a work of art; or just something unknown that reminded him of an array of sails.

He was alone, except for the case. Next to it was a large puddle of the gel that had covered him. He had cleaned himself off as best he could, and was now dry after some time sitting exposed in the air.

There were no other people around. There was nothing. Perry remembered his name, and who he was, but not how or when he had been placed in the white case.

He stood there, waiting for anything to happen. After a time he sat down. The orange ground was soft and smooth.

“They’ve put me in a padded room,” he said to himself. “A very large one, but a padded room.”

Eventually he decided that he was not going to see anything where he was. He rose and walked toward the thing that reminded him of a sailing ship. It was farther away than it looked, a longer walk than he expected. He felt he walked for the better part of an hour before he was close to the aircraft.

He turned and looked back for the white case, but it was lost in the distance. He hoped he would be able to get back to it if he needed to, but he couldn’t envision why he ever might.

The object in the air with the apparent sails was oblong, and the part nearest to him seemed to be its rear. This would help him remember the direction of the case, far behind him. Assuming that the aircraft, kite, whatever it was, did not move.

“And aircraft do tend to move,” he said to himself.

Now, for the first time, he heard a sound. At first it was just a far-off crackle; soon it became more of a ripple. Like running water.

He scanned the sky, and saw it: A sort of gliding stream of water, lower down than the giant kite but still well higher than his head. The airborne stream that seemed to pour itself laterally across the sky. It moved the way a flood of water running down steps in a house might, but flying rather than falling.

It passed over him, and then underneath the giant aircraft – which was still stationary – and it then flowed off into the distance. None of the water fell; it hovered.

And then he sensed a fragrance. It was hard to pinpoint, but some sort of fresh fruit, or maybe an herb – mint? Lavender? It followed the strange river of water, and he wondered if it was caused by it or part of – whatever the water was.

The fresh smell took him back to his home, and Jen.

*

Before he had met Jennifer, he had lived his life with just white soap in the bathroom, and whatever random scent of spray-bottle cleaner had presented itself on the store shelf. Now his bathroom – his shared bathroom – was filled with lime body wash, cucumber shampoo, coconut hair oil. Behind that bottle of wash was another, this one tangerine, and then yet another, mint. In the open closet just outside the bathroom, Jennifer had placed lavender sachets between and on top of the new stacks of towels.

Jennifer would sometimes scent the kitchen, after meals, by boiling a tiny pot of water, cinnamon, and cloves.

He was living with Jennifer.

Jen had moved into his home. A woman was sharing his bathroom.

His life expanded. The ceilings seemed higher. He breathed mint, and coconut. He breathed the same air as Jennifer.

*

That life had to still be there. He would get back to it. But somehow he also felt, simultaneously, that an enormous amount of time had passed. This scared him, and he tried not to think about it. Somewhere, away from this orange world, Jen and Araceli were without him; waiting for him.

He ran his hands through his hair. It seemed frivolous to him to be daydreaming about his first months with Jen when he was lost and would presumably die of thirst unless he could figure out how to get out of this strange orange void (or at least how to pull down the next sky stream that might fly overhead, and drink it).

*

He walked more, underneath the giant kite and then past it. He hoped to see something else in the distance; anything – yet another kite, or a building. Or maybe an emerald city. But there was nothing, just the endless orange ground.

He turned. The airship was still visible in the distance, but now very far. He might have been walking for two or even three hours, now.

*

“I may be able to help you.”

The voice came from behind him. He whirled around. There stood an older man in a white suit. He wore a white boater hat. His hands were folded before him.

“We have just become aware that you have emerged. Pardon our tardiness in approaching you. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“You know who I am?”

“Perry Doran, yes. You were in that case, right with us.”

“With who?”

“All of us. The few that you see here, and many more.”

“I haven’t seen anyone here. Other than you.”

“Well, yes you have. All these manifestations you see – the air carrack, the water, the fragrance, the very object you are standing on – are beings. People; our people. And there are many more that you don’t see, but they are here. They may move too quickly, or they may be masses of elements something like the line of water you saw, but transparent. And some are simply too far away to be seen. But they’re out there, and they have seen you.”

“Intelligent beings.”

“Yes.”

“Including this very ground I’m standing on.”

“It’s an unusually large one, but yes.”

“And you are saying these are ‘people.’”

“Yes.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I would not call them that.”

“But they are,” the man repeated. “Shapes have changed. Presentations have changed. And states of being. And lifespans, certainly.”

Perry wondered if this person speaking to him was a hallucination, and if he was letting himself fall further down some well of insanity by conversing with him. But there was nothing else to do, no one else to speak with, nowhere to go.

“You’re making it sound like people have chosen to transform themselves into kites, planets, gasses, whatever.”

“That’s the case. Over the years we have become no longer bound to our bodies. So once that happens, why look human at all? Why not be a mountain, if you want to be, or a glacier, or an aurora?”

“So where is Earth? Are we in orbit around it? I’m lucky I can breathe.”

“We are on earth. But what you see as the sky, here, is not Earth’s. It is yet another person.”

“A person, a being, who is a blue sky. With pink edges.”

“Yes.”

“And not really related to this orange surface. It’s just a coincidence that this sky-being is here.”

“Not exactly. They do like to pair up, and they understand that they complement each other.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand this place. And you’re speaking as if I’m far in the future.” He paused. The man in the boater hat regarded him, silently. He looked old, but sharp. Like a very experienced lawyer walking him through some unexpected legal calamity. (Dressed, for some reason, maybe for a formal picnic on a lawn by a lake.) His eyes were clear, and his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Far in the future,” Perry repeated. “Well, I suppose that would explain some things.”

“We have known you would need a guide, so I was created as one. Futures need guides, you know. Winston Smith had O’Brien, to explain the brave new world. And in that world, John the half-savage had Helmholtz Watson.

“This is your new world, Perry. And yes, it is in your future. More than two thousand years have passed, for you.”

“Two thousand years,” Perry repeated.

“That’s right.”

He felt himself sway.

“Be careful, Perry.”

“That means everything I know is gone.”

“I’m afraid they are. We’re all very sorry.”

The man paused. His expression did not change, but he – it – apparently understood that this was shocking for Perry.

“We did not place you in that case, Perry. It has simply come down to us. Across all these years.”

“So I’ve been in that thing all this time.”

“Yes. People from your own time placed you in it. We assume you must have been very ill. Or dead, even.”

“So my condition was, possibly dead.”

He looked down. The man, or the projection of a man, waited a moment and then asked:

“You don’t remember any of it.”

“I don’t. Not getting in, and not really even getting out. I’m not remembering anything.”

“Perry, we all feel for you. This is difficult for you. We know your time was different.”

“It sure was.”

Perry looked down at the orange ground and wished it was normal. He wished anything was simply normal.

“Not one normal thing here,” he said aloud. “Not one thing I recognize.”

“We tried to make this projection here familiar to you. The face. The clothes.”

“Sure, but the surroundings,” Perry said.

He continued: “My family. I had a wife. A daughter.”

“I’m afraid they have long since lived their lives.”

“Long since.”

Again the projected man was silent.

“Why did I exit that thing now? What changed?”

“It simply completed its work. It revived you. This is how long it took.”

“You weren’t able to – speed it up at all?”

“We might have been able, had we tried. But your century was already long gone by the time anyone could have done that.”

“You look like me, but you’re not a copy. So there must be some of you who still appear – human. As I knew them. You had a model to work with.”

“We’re well aware of what our race looked like in the past, Perry. But yes, you are right. There are still some people around who choose to look like the old humans.”

“I would like to meet them.”

“You shall.”

“And I can – leave here? Move myself off this orange being here, and away from the sky? All respect to them.”

“You can, yes.”

*

Perry came to know the world as it now was. The projection led him around. It was able to teleport him instantly; sometimes apparent hundreds of miles at once, sometimes a few yards.

First the orange ground disappeared, and Perry and the projection stood on top of a bridge of mist; an arch of mist. It rose out of what looked like a rain forest, with more mist hanging below amid the tops of the trees.

“Where are we?”

“Not so far away from where we were. You can see where we came from.” The projection gestured behind Perry. He turned and saw the giant orange sphere hovering perhaps a mile off. He guessed it was at least a hundred miles in diameter; its top faded into the sky, rising into space, hard to distinguish.

“And this – bridge,” Perry said, looking down. “You know, I’m surprised it can support me.”

“It can.”

“It seems like a cloud. Is it another being?”

“It is.”

“Do you speak to them all? Communicate with all of them?”

“We are always speaking, yes. Many of us are merged.”

“Merged?”

“In – ” the projection considered its words – “constant communication. Shared thoughts.”

“You mean you share a consciousness? One mind?”

“Not one mind. Just – communicating. At all times.”

“And the forest beneath here? Is that a being? Is each tree another one?”

“No. They are simply trees.”

“So this is the surface of earth.”

“It is.”

“How many beings are there?”

“Many millions.”

“But not billions?”

“No.”

“Are they any of them that I can speak with?”

“Among the majority of our people, no. Not as you know it. That’s why I was created.”

The projection transported him around and introduced him to other . . . people. There was an obelisk, and a monolith. There was a murmur. There were varied spheres of light, and a sphere of water. There were a few birds that were actually people, but also birds which were just birds. There was a swirling flurry of snow which never completely fell, and never melted.

“Are any of these – mortal?” Perry asked. “Does anyone die anymore?”

“We do not. The humans you will meet do.”

“Do you – or how do you – reproduce?”

“We will create new beings. From time to time. They are created as the community decides, but they take their own form soon enough.”

*

It was individuality taken to the extreme. You could not only choose your name, and where you would live, and what you would do; you could define a completely unique state of being. You could choose to be a scent, or a reflection, or an emotion.

*

The people who had chosen to remain people, were essentially Amish.

There were hundreds of thousands of them. They farmed vast expanses of land in what had been the northeastern United States. They went to school for more years than the Amish in Perry’s first life had, and many were not noticeably religious at all, although many others still were.

Perry would have to learn German – their version of it – to talk to them.

“Many years ago, centuries ago, many of them were bilingual,” the projection told him. They had moved now to the top of a low hill from which they could see farm houses, and barns, and, far off, a man riding a horse along a grass lane through a field.

“But as years passed, everyone else stopped speaking aloud. The more modern people like us, I mean. So there was no one left to speak English with. So they kept only their German.”

“You know,” Perry said, still looking out at the rider, “back in my day you would never see them on horseback. Come to think of it. They had plenty of horses, but they didn’t seem to ride them. Everything changes, I guess.”

He looked down at his feet. The ground here was dirt, grass, and dandelions.

“This looks so much better to me. Begging your pardon. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Of course. We did not know if you would want to resume something like your previous life. It is rare, today. There are few people who live like this. So many of us want to – be something else.”

“I’m content to stay with them. I don’t know anything about farming. I hope they can take me in anyway.”

“I’m sure they will.”

He looked back down at the ground. This time, rather than the familiar grass and weeds, it was his bare feet that struck him.

“I will need clothes. I doubt they want naked men wandering around.”

“They will bring some to you right away, I’m sure. I leave you here then, Perry. You know you can always be anything you like. You can find us just on the other side of this hill.”

They both turned to look on the other side of the hill. In that direction, there were no rolling Amish farmsteads; just fields. And far off, a silver dome. Perry guessed it was half a mile wide.

“Is there anything under that dome?” he asked.

“No. It is just one of us. The closest one to the old world, here.”

“All right then. I’ll know where to find you.”