As I climbed higher and higher up the ladder, it just seemed to go on forever. I looked down and could see the ocean miles below me. I never did like heights. If someone had told me at that point just how high I was I would have fainted. I marvelled at how sturdy the ladder was as I climbed higher and higher towards the sky.

But I pushed on regardless of the height. I climbed and I climbed, counting each rung as I went, just for something to do. I lost count around 850 when I slipped and almost fell off the ladder. I held onto the ladder tightly for several minutes with my eyes squeezed firmly shut before I gathered the courage to continue climbing. The ladder acted strangely. It wobbled slightly and moved about a bit in the breeze, but it was definitely quite strong wood and fixed at the top very securely, as it never moved so much as to throw me off balance. But I kept climbing and climbing until it seemed that IĠd climbed it all out of me, but then suddenly the end of the ladder appeared, only a few metres away. Pulling myself up slowly, I peeked cautiously over the edge. Laid out in front of me was a beautiful, yet strange and in a way comical scene.

There was a perfectly circular ocean quite a few miles in diameter, in the centre of which was a large island jutting up. There was a large mountain in the centre of the island, the tip of it buried in cloud. Altogether it was a rather beautiful scene. However, the strange thing about it was that the island seemed a bit strange. Looking closer, I realized that the island was divided up quite clearly into four or more pieces. It was as if someone had used a large [very large] knife to cut up the island as if it were a cake, and on each slice this person with the giant knife had put a different icing. On the part of the island closest to myself was a huge forest, in places covered in snow near the top of the mountain. To the right of that was a muddy mess, while to the left was a tropical looking beach and further around the island there seemed to be a desert. My mind boggled over this. As it did this, I noticed that I was leaning on a small wooden pier. I noticed that to this peer was tied a boat of sorts, bobbing up and down in the water.

[Image of island centred with a dock and a boat in the foreground - the ocean below fading into the distance]

Staring in amazement for several long minutes, I took in the entire scene. Breaking suddenly from what can best be discribed as an involuntourily-induced islantic-trance, I glanced down at the boat. Hey, what the heck. Climbing unsurely aboard, I found that two small oars awaited me in the boat. Pulling them up and plonking them in the water, I wondered why no one had bothered to build an engine.