Then she would grab a blanket, wrap it around her dolly, and play "Barbie Stumbles Into The Mire — HELP!"

The little Quicksand Girl grew up believing that she was the only one on the entire planet who, for some freakish reason (she was certain it was a terrible mutation of her brain cells) found that the idea of sliding helplessly down into an endless mire of slushy goo set her entire body a-quiver with a joyous flame.

The little Quicksand Girl grew into a big Quicksand Girl who erected a dark and muddy fantasy life which was carefully guarded from the prying eyes of the outside world. Certain that she suffered from a terrible deformity of moral character, she shared not her muddy inclinations with a single prospective mate, lest the object of her affections run screaming into that dark night.

There was no one with whom she could share her quicksand, and no place to keep it. Eventually, it seemed less painful to keep her quicksand even from herself.

She hid the bog of her dreams far away, in a dark, deserted forest.

She barricaded it behind a thick, tall fence of stone, heavy enough to withstand a stick of dynamite. Fearful that some explosive-toting intruder might yet appear, or perhaps only that she herself might suffer an adrenaline rush and henceforth find that she could, no sweat, climb that high, she crisscrossed her fence with electric wiring. Still insecure, she topped her fence with barbwire.

The sign on her fence read, "NO TRESPASSING". There. That should do it. Nobody could stumble into it even if they found it; they should not find it, for she had hidden it so well; in the worst-case scenario of both, they were warned in no uncertain terms to stay away.

No one could guess that it was she who owned it. She couldn't even get into it herself. She left it there, hidden, secured, and unmolested, for years.

Then one day, she was strolling through Net-Land. Amongst the many places to stop, shop, visit and partake, she encountered her first real Quicksand Boy! 

The shock to her system was so great that she dropped onto the cold hard tile in an unconscious heap, but half an hour passed, and the Quicksand Girl awoke, coated in perspiration. She crawled off the floor, stumbled back onto her plush swivel chair, put her shaking fingers to the keyboard and dashed off an e-mail to this glorious creature, who certainly must have been sent to her by the Guardian Angel Of Mud.

She nicknamed him the God of Muck, and he introduced the Quicksand Girl to an entire Quicksand Tribe. Hidden though they were from the sight of ordinary mortals, the Quicksand Girl learnt to see her kind easily.

Not long afterward, the Quicksand Girl drifted off to sleep and found herself in the midst of a vivid dream.

She was walking along a path in a faraway, dark and deserted forest, looking for quicksand. She was sticking her feet into soft muddy spots and hoping that one of them would fail to have a bottom when, suddenly, she came across this wet, shiny, shimmering puddle of lovely quicksand.

The quicksand had a fence around it.

But what a stupid-looking fence! It was only a few inches high.

The Quicksand Girl stared at the teeny tiny fence and said to herself:

"THAT is supposed to keep me out of the quicksand?"