Beyond the Land of Dreams

About the Book

A boy of nine years, named Sammy lived in the outskirts of the city of New York. The daughter of his next-door neighbor was his best friend. The boy’s birthday was just a few days away. But his best friend would not be present on that day. She was already gone on a trip to the mountains with her parents. Before they were gone, they left their birthday gifts with Sammy. One of those gifts was Lewis Carroll’s fantasy novel, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. It was early afternoon on a Saturday. After the lunch, Sammy took the fantasy novel in his hand and went to his lawn. He sat under a willow tree and started reading the book. He read about the white rabbit with pink eyes who was complaining about being too late for an errand.

Sammy felt a little drowsy when, all of a sudden, a rabbit appeared before him. Was it Alice’s rabbit? Sammy jumped up in excitement and was surprised to see that the rabbit was smiling at him. When Sammy asked the animal if it was a rabbit, it objected and said that it was not a rabbit, but a “habbit”. In a little while, Sammy learnt that there were three kinds of animals, namely, the habbits, the grabbits, and the trabbits. The habbits were the ones that lived in heaven, the grabbits lived on the ground and the trabbits lived inside the trees. The human beings didn’t know the distinction, and called all of them the “rabbits”.

Sammy wondered if the animal’s residence was really in heaven. He suddenly remembered that Jill had left that morning on a trip to the mountains. Sammy wondered if it was possible to make a trip to the habbit’s place. He was going to ask the habbit about it when he sensed something approaching. Sammy turned around to see what it was. He saw, to his surprise, that the newcomer was, again, an animal. It was about three feet tall; it had three horns on its head, three eyes, and two tails trailing from its back. The new animal told them that its name was VJ and that its sibllings names were EL and NV. Sammy learned that the names of the animals of its species were made up of abbreviations. When Sammy asked what the word “VJ” meant, the animal answered that it could be “Venus Jupiter”, or “Vivacious Jabber”, or even “Lake Michigan”. When Sammy asked the animal where it lived, it said that it was hard to explain where it lived and that some might get there easily, but for others it might be hard to reach.

Sammy winked at VJ trying to figure out what it meant. Earlier he was confused when the habbit claimed that it was the inhabitant of the heaven. Now, this new animal said something about it residence, which was even more confusing. But before Sammy asked VJ about it, he heard the sounds of footsteps again. Sammy turned around to see that the newcomer was a boy, about his age, with a completely round face. He had unusually long hands, but very short legs. They were so disproportionately long and short that all four of his limbs touched the ground at the same time. The boy was carrying a large bag on his left shoulder.

Sammy asked the boy his name and was surprised to know that his name was Fullmoon Fullmoon. Same first name, same last name! Sammy thought. He also came to know that the profession of the boy was to tell stories to others and then collect donations from them. In a minute, Fullmoon told them a weird story and then asked them for donations. The habbit declined to contribute because he thought that the story was too short. The habbit further stated, “I might have contributed, had it been a poem”. Upon hearing this, Fullmoon happily cited a poem based on the same story.

They all appreciated the poem and made their contributions. Even Fullmoon contributed to himself and dropped a coin in his own bag.

While they were all talking to one another, they felt the presence of something else around them. In a minute they discovered t