“Follow the path to the seventh bridge if you seek the Zen Master, Kinobi.”

But what they didn’t tell me was that the seventh bridge was a portal leading to a new dimension. I fell sideways through a shimmering prism and landed in a puddle of dirty water. Strange alien shapes rose high into the sky, their pointed jaws piercing the clouds. It was bitter cold in this foreign world. I shivered, pulling my tattered rags closer. A woman almost collided with me as I stood.

“Watch where you’re goin’, ya weirdo,” she sneered. I could only gawk at her. I’d never seen such shamelessness. Instead of modest robes she wore a tight sheath that showed all her legs.

“Where I can find the Zen Master, woman?”

“For a fifty, I can give you some zen, sugar.”

Intuitively, I knew she would not be able to help me. I bowed and continued on.

After much walking, I found a store that bore Japanese characters on its sign. It read “Zen” and then a word I didn’t recognize, “Liquor.” Feeling the stir of hope again, I opened the door.