It looked like a boulder some farmer had dragged from his field to the edge of the gravel shoulder, smooth and round along the bottom but flatter along the top. I sat on it, paying no mind to the old woman tending the small garden across the road. My feet were hurting so badly I was afraid to take off my shoes.

I stretched my back, first to my right, then to my left, and wondered just what the heck I was doing. I was tired, thirsty and accomplishing absolutely nothing by walking away from my problems other than evading them for the moment.

The breeze was blowing just enough to give me some relief. I closed my eyes and tried to cleanse my mind completely of all my troubles. I caught myself nodding a couple of times and then I was sleeping soundly against the rock.

With a jolt that caused the hair raised on my back, I felt something near me that should not be there. My radar was on, but I did not know if it was friendly or enemy. Something wasn't right, but I wasn't lucid enough to assess the situation.

"I'm sorry, Dear. Did I startle you?"

It was the old woman from across the road. As I fought to slow my racing heart and shake off the cobwebs from my exhausted slumber, she reached into a pocket of her gardening apron and withdrew something in a cellophane wrapper.

"Have a piece of candy, Dear. It will make you feel better, she said.

Gingerly accepting the candy from her gnarled outstretched hand I slowly rose from the ground.

"Thank you," I said brushing the dust from my pants. "I have no idea why I would go to sleep like that out here in the open..." Then glancing at the oddly sparkling bundle in my palm, "What flavor is it??"

"It's like life dear," she replied with a coy smile. "It's any flavor you want it to be."

I looked at the odd sparkling, cellophane-wrapped delicacy in my hand like it was a mutated venom-dripping spider and tried to balance the rudeness of giving the candy back against the danger of eating it.

I smiled at her and held my hand out as if to give it back. "My mom told me never to take candy from strangers." I said.

"Its all right sweetheart," she replied over her shoulder as she went back accross the street, "I'm not a stranger. Not at all."

I do have a parched throat, how much harm can it do to eat this piece of candy? "You take the blue pill and the story ends... you take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland..." Heh. What the heck, I'll take the chance and eat the candy. Afterall, wasn't the point of this walk to find an escape from reality?

I unwrapped the multi-colored cellophane, and examined the piece of candy. It is the strangest shade of purple I have ever seen. As I raise it to my face I notice it smells like vanilla. Curious; that's not at all what the color suggests it should smell like. I popped it into my mouth and noticed the lady watching me from across the road.

I didn't notice the taste at first, if only because the candy piece was soft in my mouth. I spun it around my mouth, wondering how the hell it went from being a hard piece of candy to being as soft as warm taffy. It wasn't until I let it come to rest on my tounge that I actually noticed the taste - like milk chocolate and strawberries, fresh strawberries and that really good chocolate you can't find when you really need it.

I studied the old woman a moment, watching a grin come across her wrinkled face. But it was the garden that drew my attention. The old woman had no tools to tend it. Nor was there a house, or any building, visible in any direction. Just her small garden and my boulder on opposite sides of the road.

I closed my eyes, knowing that this was some kind of bizarre dream. Yet as soon as they were shut, I felt a tapping on my shoulder. Startled, I spun around and there stood the old woman.

Still with the enigmatic smile that appeared on her face from across the road, she bent close to me. I could smell the fresh vanilla emanating from her as she leaned into my ear and whispered:

"Down the rabbit hole, dear."