My room is dark. Only the light seeping under the bottom of the door and my growling stomach provide any indication that I am awake and not dead. The bare floor has been painted with dusty detritus evicted from a thousand pockets.

There seems to be a wooden upholstered chair beside me. I feel the leg, which has been engraved with an intricate pattern that is meaningless to me. The seat of the chair is soft and velvety, but I am too tired to get up and try the chair out.

The daylight streams through the leaves. It is springtime, and I am immersed in the smell of fresh, damp, post-rainfall air all around me.

Thin, papery skinned birch trees surround me to both sides of the path. The monotony is broken by the occasional fir (spruce?) tree. Underfoot lie mossy stones and a carpet of damp maple and birch leaves. It is too wet for them to crumble under my feet. I can see carpets of wide-leafed plants harvesting the sunshine. Are they trilliums?

 (The birch trees outnumber the pine trees, so the average tree size is taken to be on the smaller side.)

The path has been beaten over by many travelers before me. Leaves cover the path and make it slippery. There is some growth to the sides of the path that entangle my feet as I walk by. I pick some burrs off my pants.

I see a stream of quickly rushing sparkly water. Water insects cling to the rocks as the water rushes by. Cattails grow to the side of the stream where the water flows more slowly. There, the water is green with algae and I see small fish swimming beneath the water.

 (We can ignore the algae as a possible contaminant.)

Ooh! A ship! A great big wooden galleon is parked right at the edge of the stream. I venture inside, the wooden planks creaking beneath my feet (I really must lose some weight, I think to myself). Inside is... alcohol. Caskets and caskets of port and sherry and wine, with the occasional barrel of whiskey thrown in for good measure. Yuck! The smell drives me away immediately.

 In the past, when someone has made a pun on the word “vessel,” it was interpreted to mean they view marriage as a joke. Considering the lengths at which the subject went to elaborate this pun, one can only assume that he considers marriage to be a silly game.

It is a great big golden key that looks like something out of a bad 1600s nightmare. Perhaps it unlocks some city or that galleon I just passed.. or perhaps it is the key to someone's heart. (Awwww...)