MACGUFFIN WORLD

We touched down on Macguffin World, where
every key unlocked another key, and every symbol 
was referent to another symbol, and each piece of map
was missing a piece of map, including the pieces that
themselves fit into larger pieces, which was all of them -
and the atmospheric conditions were controlled by the alignment of a talisman 
and the native fauna responded to the sounding of a mythic horn
and the shapes on the sand were formed by the movement of the tides,
which were shaped by the phases of the moon, which waxed and waned
and superwaxed, from time to time, and also its corresponding inverse
in accordance with the secret meanings of the shapes on the sand
and the acidity of the water increased or decreased in relation to the will of
seven angelic birds inside of seven crystal orbs in seven ancient temples
and every piece of detritus was the antagonist in the
hero's journey of another piece of detritus
and in landing on the planet we had set in chain a cascade
of events that had been prophesied millennia hence - although
no one noticed, because everything else that happened had
also been prophesied millennia hence, and our landing on
the planet had been just one small link in something else's
cascade of events, and was neither noteworthy nor interesting
to anything else on Macguffin World - not until we made
a principled decision to leave Macguffin World forever
in the spaceship we owned and were allowed to do with
anything we wanted - and found ourselves pursued by all the
odd pieces, the other halves, the broken corners, the
crystals of no consequence, the lesser tomes, the
junk gloves, the empty boxes, the watery potions, the
weak swords, the dull stars, the worthless rings, the
harmless A-bombs, the ashes of an unrelated corpse and
empty briefcases and irrelevant blueprints and napkins
with no great insight jotted down on them and symbols to which
the appropriate meaning was confusing or long-forgotten, each seeking
the element which would make them the most important part of
an elaborate plan that would solve everything and save the universe.
But we escaped too fast. Who knows what might have happened
if they had caught us. We might have fit in with them, or
they in with us, or the distinction may have
been meaningless - but in any case
they didn't, and
everything remained the same.