Missing Pieces (Second Draft)

It was a clear, bright day at the height of Summer. In the middle of a large, sprawling park, where tall, lush green trees grew among expanses of well-tended grass and along winding, lazy sidewalks, people sat on picnic blankets conversing, or chased dogs and children through the grass and around trees, laughter floating in a slight breeze.

            I walked, hands in pockets, sometimes along a pathway, sometimes on the grass; mostly alone with my thoughts, but sometimes watching the people talking, playing or running as I passed them by.

           

            Ahead of me, I noticed another pedestrian walking along the sidewalk, a man looking to be somewhere around twenty-five years old, strong, square shoulders swiveling this way and that as if he was searching for something. A dog, or a friend he was meeting in the park perhaps? He took long, confident strides, and wasn’t remarkable in any way save one; above his shoulders, where you would expect his head to be, there was nothing but air.

            Startled, I stopped walking.

            “Miss,” The word was obviously coming from the emptiness where his head was, in  middling depth, clear voice, “Excuse me miss, but I seem to have misplaced my body, have you seen it hereabouts?”

            Yes, he was speaking to me; that was apparent. Though he had no head, therefore no face or eyes, the usual indicators of address, he had undeniably stopped directly in front of me, and his body was arranged in my direction, shoulders straight, feet pointed towards me.

            “Um,” I spluttered. Unsure how to handle this strange situation, “You have a body, it looks to me like it’s your head that’s missing.” Well, that sounded a bit rude, I thought, and internally winced.

            “Oh. Hmm. That’s getting somewhere, at least.” Apparently that hadn’t sounded rude to him, good. “Do you have any idea what dimension you’re in, or rather, which dimension my body seems to be in?”

            I laughed nervously.

            “Welll, we call the world we move about in, with shadows and light and depth of perception the ‘Third Dimension’…”

            “Aha! But of course, that isn’t quite the name I know it by; you call it the third dimension, and this is still the planet called Gaia, or Monos, or maybe you know it by the name of Earth, right?”

            “Yeah, Earth, that’s it.”

            “Okay, so that would make it, by my reckoning… the 59^th dimension!”

            With the explanation, a fizzing noise grew louder, and with a violent pop, the man suddenly sprouted a head above his shoulders.

            “There we go,” He said, a mouth finally accompanying his words.

            He looked down at his feet, I followed his gaze, a little stunned by the sudden appearance of what should have been at the top of his body all along, and noticed that we was wearing sandals. Once again, nothing terribly peculiar about that, however, his feet ended just before where his toes should have been.

            “Well, I’m off to find the ends of my feet,” He grinned at me, his eyes sparkling, all good humor and no bewilderment at his missing toes, “Thanks for you help!”

            With a quick wave and a short leap into the air, he was gone. Disappeared, though he left behind one thing that shortly disappeared with him as well; a delighted and exhilarated laugh that lingered upon the Summer breeze for half a minute, before breaking up and skipping about, like the laugh that was said to have created fairies.

            I let out a short laugh and shrugged, “He seems to be having a good time.” And continued along the sidewalk once again, wrapped up in thinking of my strange encounter with what seemed to be an inter-dimensional traveler.