Dizzy Land

There had been times in his recent past, rather more than a few, in fact, during which Benton Fraser had wondered if perhaps he might be a couple beams short of a bunkhouse. But recently he had come to believe that he was still in possession of his faculties, and more or less in the correct order. Facing his mother's killer at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft and watching the spirit of his father find peace had been a comforting experience in many ways, although he found as he stood alone in the darkness with the unconscious Muldoon beside him that there was an emptiness in his chest that he hadn't felt since he was a boy.

Still, at least he was certain now that the last few years of Bob Fraser's rather bemusing post-mortem interference in Benton's life had in fact been real, and not some sort of bizarre hallucination brought on by the trauma of knowing that his father had been shot down in the middle of an ice flow by a man who had once been his good friend and partner. Benton had always believed he had more emotional stamina than that.

But when what was once a dark, narrow mineshaft is suddenly a bright, sunny blue sky and a temperature that he would estimate at somewhere between -23 and -25 degrees Celsius is suddenly 27 or 28 degrees, and he finds himself facing what very much appears to be the gates of an amusement park, he can't help but wonder if perhaps he has indeed lost the last of his marbles.

There is a distinctly wolfish yowl from somewhere around 2.5 metres above him and Benton instinctively holds out his arms. Diefenbaker lands in them a moment later, with an extremely put upon whine, but Benton ignores him in favor of staring at the figure of Mickey Mouse bustling towards him. He's beaming and offering his hand to shake.

"Ha-hi there! I'm Mickey. Gosh, it's great to meet you! Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!"

Benton blinks once, and then once more just to be sure.

"Oh," he says. ( Oh my. )