After awhile, she saw a tape player lying on the ground. Since she couldn’t think of anything better to do, Sallymae decided to listen to the tape that was in the player. When she turned it on, she heard, “Welcome, Sallymae Hogsby. Through careful study of cause and effect, we knew that you would arrive here and play this tape, so we have decided to let you know that you are being observed. Of course we will now have to take into consideration the fact that you now know that you are being observed, which will change your actions somewhat. This has all been planned for though, and the fact that you are hearing this tape will completely alter your future. We cannot tell you what your future would have been if you hadn’t ever heard this tape, but we can tell you that you will not hear from us again, until you are ready.” With that, the tape player was suddenly crushed by a limb that just happened to fall from the tree just then.
Sallymae began to think about the idea that she was so predictable that thinks like this could happen. She then decided to do just the opposite of what she would normally do, but then wondered if this in itself was predictable and that to do what she had originally considered to be predictable would really be unpredictable, but then again… Sallymae suddenly understood what electricity must feel like when it short circuits, and with this final though, decided to forget the whole matter and continue on her way.
She walked for a long time until she came to a lake that was covered with something that looked like glitter. In the middle of the lake was an island with a sculpture at the center. The sculpture was a strange shape that had a duck head at the top.
Uncontrollably, Sallymae suddenly wanted to get to that island more than anything, and so stepped into the water of the lake. Immediately all the particles of the glitter-like material came over and began to gnaw away at her foot. Sallymae decided that maybe she wouldn’t go to the island after all, and went on.
She began thinking abut her childhood and suddenly fell into a hole that she hadn’t seen. She began falling until she crashed into the middle of a large table surrounded by several people in very elegant evening clothes, who all stared at her.
