The morning comes over the horizon, in a flash of stinging light. The thin atmosphere is of no comfort. The sun comes blazing through as if the sublands is exposed to outer space coming into contact with the direct sunlight. It shoots through the air like a stinging pulse of irritation and assaults the senses. Harshly zooming into the eyes of any onlookers to any given morning.
The corruption of the light, being in the throes of a time of death to all under the stars outside, is a cruel limbo. Harsh and unforgiving. A horrible hour over the hour that will end the day in very short order.
Winter is an ugly time. An ugly season. A season of death. Dead limbs and leaves all over. Nothing tidy. Unlike Spring and Summer that clears and keeps green the ground and life outside under the stars. Oh December, I would send a wall of fire at your approach. Burning you up into ashes, as you make ashes disguised of flake and drizzle.
An Observation by Iggy 2015
Monday, September 7, 2015
Friday, September 4, 2015
The Insidious Month of March
Lest we forget the fateful Ides, and the fact it's still winter for this month, the month of March is not a friend. It's an enemy. Enemies lurk and then reveal themselves in full view in this month. Anything you believed before will be shown to be the exact opposite. For this month is not the place to prosper. The most skilled will see it coming but even then it will still show even further treachery.
The Romans seemed to dislike this time of year. It made them alert and paranoid. And with good reason. There's nothing muted about March unless you ignore it with all your willpower.. Outside, in the outdoors, is an ominous place in this month. Things fall. Clouds look menacing. Nothing pleasant to be seen here.
It stands on two slippery slopes across the valley between winter and spring. It likes its days short and its nights long and it threatens to kill the future. March has always done that. It's not a good customer. It's in a costume from the last masquerade that doesn't know the party ended. A very strange party that people left early from, because of some premonition about death. That's how March goes.
An Observation by Iggy 2019
The Romans seemed to dislike this time of year. It made them alert and paranoid. And with good reason. There's nothing muted about March unless you ignore it with all your willpower.. Outside, in the outdoors, is an ominous place in this month. Things fall. Clouds look menacing. Nothing pleasant to be seen here.
It stands on two slippery slopes across the valley between winter and spring. It likes its days short and its nights long and it threatens to kill the future. March has always done that. It's not a good customer. It's in a costume from the last masquerade that doesn't know the party ended. A very strange party that people left early from, because of some premonition about death. That's how March goes.
An Observation by Iggy 2019
Thursday, September 3, 2015
The Beastly Month of February II - February Is So Bizarre
It's always the first hours of the dawning of the first of the month of February that you feel you're repeating last month. So you hunker down for more of the cold and think to yourself; enough of winter already! But February will have all these warm and sunny days right in there. You're gonna think Spring has already begun, but you know it's February.
Some snow falls. For a day. Then melts like some forgotten popsicle left unnoticed. It did that, it did, it was like a day in Spring for a few hours, summer-like then went straight into the dead of December. That was unnervingly odd. Then it went balmy.
In a Leap Year, such as this year, February's going to give us one more day. Granting us the last few hours into the next month, when we can hang on for just a little longer. As if time has stopped and the ease into March will flow normally.
But it isn't normal, is it? This extra day is riddled with inconsistencies. Strange dreams and weird roads. That's the bizarre effect of February. All those days you know something's gonna happen. It happens but you were asleep, or dozed out or maybe in a self-induced coma. Either way, whatever it was, came and went. It becomes some delusory event that you probably didn't want to notice anyway. Because you're really just gliding on through February, knowing that there's no way you'll ever seize this strange thing that it is.
It's a month that will not be had, and I suspect doesn't want to be counted, it wants to exist in its own world. The world of parallel seasons, Winter into Spring, or more likely dusk into dawn with no pesky high noons or alarming definite strokes of midnight. It's like the wee hours, the hours you're aware are there, but as February would have it, the hidden time was only lurking, then disappeared with a foggy pillowing of mist and cloud that you know wasn't in the forecast.
An Observation by Iggy 2012
Some snow falls. For a day. Then melts like some forgotten popsicle left unnoticed. It did that, it did, it was like a day in Spring for a few hours, summer-like then went straight into the dead of December. That was unnervingly odd. Then it went balmy.
In a Leap Year, such as this year, February's going to give us one more day. Granting us the last few hours into the next month, when we can hang on for just a little longer. As if time has stopped and the ease into March will flow normally.
But it isn't normal, is it? This extra day is riddled with inconsistencies. Strange dreams and weird roads. That's the bizarre effect of February. All those days you know something's gonna happen. It happens but you were asleep, or dozed out or maybe in a self-induced coma. Either way, whatever it was, came and went. It becomes some delusory event that you probably didn't want to notice anyway. Because you're really just gliding on through February, knowing that there's no way you'll ever seize this strange thing that it is.
It's a month that will not be had, and I suspect doesn't want to be counted, it wants to exist in its own world. The world of parallel seasons, Winter into Spring, or more likely dusk into dawn with no pesky high noons or alarming definite strokes of midnight. It's like the wee hours, the hours you're aware are there, but as February would have it, the hidden time was only lurking, then disappeared with a foggy pillowing of mist and cloud that you know wasn't in the forecast.
An Observation by Iggy 2012
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
The Beastly Month of February
Usually I like to ignore this month in general and be grateful it's the shortest month of the year. It's hung right in the midst of Winter and teases of Spring to come. It mocks back at the landscape and takes in the bleakness and sends a few dark tidings in its wake.
Oh the time of February, the time that wound down from the frenzied January. The long December before that tied off with celebrated days and long past when February comes and settles for its reign. Its waif-like arms enfold the air but it never grips too hard. It doesn't have to, it's a dread in dreary tones. It's unnerving without announcing itself.
When the last week of February begins to close and March is almost ringing, the dolesome touch of a sedentary force restricts enthusiasm and makes no impression of hunger or strife but in a backwards fleeting way it gives no solace. But that's the way February began too. It's one long day and night disguised like a whole month. Some weird inverted time frame. It has to be because you never feel like you've slept, waken or eaten.
It's almost like you're suspended in a force between struggle and unwilling resolve. The Beastly Month of February feels dead and it's like standing in the Realm of the Dead. Or rather limply tilted against a wall of fog. This is February's terror on the humans.
One bright spot shines, though, on Valentine's Day. It wasn't seen as such a hopeful day in 1929 come to think of it, though. So onto the strange murmurings of February that winds on, and we hear, but we don't answer because February only hears us once every four years. When that extra day we wonder at. Even then we don't really know why we would say a word.
An Observation by Iggy 2010
Oh the time of February, the time that wound down from the frenzied January. The long December before that tied off with celebrated days and long past when February comes and settles for its reign. Its waif-like arms enfold the air but it never grips too hard. It doesn't have to, it's a dread in dreary tones. It's unnerving without announcing itself.
When the last week of February begins to close and March is almost ringing, the dolesome touch of a sedentary force restricts enthusiasm and makes no impression of hunger or strife but in a backwards fleeting way it gives no solace. But that's the way February began too. It's one long day and night disguised like a whole month. Some weird inverted time frame. It has to be because you never feel like you've slept, waken or eaten.
It's almost like you're suspended in a force between struggle and unwilling resolve. The Beastly Month of February feels dead and it's like standing in the Realm of the Dead. Or rather limply tilted against a wall of fog. This is February's terror on the humans.
One bright spot shines, though, on Valentine's Day. It wasn't seen as such a hopeful day in 1929 come to think of it, though. So onto the strange murmurings of February that winds on, and we hear, but we don't answer because February only hears us once every four years. When that extra day we wonder at. Even then we don't really know why we would say a word.
An Observation by Iggy 2010
Monday, August 3, 2015
Dual World Time Travelers
It was in dreams, where I have seen
Landscapes wherein one hill peered out on deep blue sky
Then another rising mountain feature steep and serene
Passing by paths that wind into infinite paths' supply
The scales of time, travel and recall
They are sighted and gliding on echoes of galactic sprawl
A ghost planet nearing and to a ghost world must go
A world's past with mighty works can tread backward flow
Idumean Arch, A Shell Of Escape & Dual World Time Travelers
This story of time travel is a strange one and should be told. It reveals a multitude of purpose within a limited application of such a phenomena. For in the universe, linear and outward time is a dominant factor.
It begins in the far back ago. Ages past. A very steep range of time in a world's calculation in its unique orbit. It so happened that in this unfathomable past that a people had constructed an artificial planet. Having its own air and a set temperature. It was set to orbit and remain as a sort of passage of escape should it ever be needed. To keep a few lone travelers within its sphere. There they would remain but not age, and after an extreme long duration it became a lost entity still existing, long since muted. Dead like and drifted away. They called it the Shell of Escape for long script purposes and named it Ollarkynn Exeo.
In the ages that accumulated after losing track of Ollarkynn, the onward generations of people, still having the knowledge of this creation and thinking it lost to the stars, constructed a small container and device that would be capable of finding it and in that creation a pulse that could bring it back within orbit as the satellite it once functioned as or destroy it if it had become too dangerous or decayed after so long. By now Ollarkynn was a legend and a very distant prehistory of something more unknown to them than remembered.
It was a place, but it was merely a gateway or a suspended place that would not function in the usual cosmic ways. They knew something from long ago was traveling in space with them, this Shell of Escape, and they finished a task to create this container and device, like a radar or homing beacon and then contain the shell, the moon that drifted away.
The aforementioned device was a confined element of pure celestial energy. Compressed within the strongest element of their world. Lead ice and layered pitches of their own planetary sounds when they were used to break barriers past their own planetary path and go into a farther point ahead. But when Ollarkynn could not be brought back within the time they conceived would be reasonable, they safeguarded the container and device and locked them inside a housing chamber and buried it far beneath the grounds of a desert. Then documented all they had done and created and what its purpose was.
Now it is more than nine thousand long orbits since then, and this is where the story of the quest for a time traveling device and the purpose of destroying a malignant threat posed on a world called Idumean Arch begins...
In its present time, the gathered forces that consisted of military and scientists, this world had to succeed in this mission or perish out of existence. There was no other way. The task was known but it would never be easy. This was an impossible goal that had to be reached.
It was already a foregone conclusion that Ollarkynn would overshadow then be drawn into Idumean Arch's gravity to collide and disintegrate. They needed to find an object, a device from the past and bring it forward in time. It simply did not exist in their present time. "Where to begin? Let's start with the planet's orbit and rotation and its placement in where it will be in three orbit's time." The tall commander in white and hollow gray relayed to his fellow mission team members.
From there it was a matter of calculating movement and then the matter of harnessing the energy to reverse the planet's orbit to a past point in time without taking the planet itself with it, but a grounding platform adhered to an energy being conducted through a ship worthy of space travel to act as a make-shift planet.
"Are we taking the world back in time, or just traveling in a small number to the past?" Echoing the thoughts of the rest, a secondary guide asked, as the outline for this operation started to shape. But it would be tedious and difficult. "There's probably a way to just use the pathway with the same organic matter from our world and use an energy orb of making, but would all the matter or content of the world from the past be there if we arrive?"
It was discovered that they wouldn't encounter anyone from the past, nothing organic. All would be static. To recreate a path back to a path that had already been passed while their planet raced on its journey. But the energy and anti-matter they'd need to accomplish this feat was already being calculated and built. They could go back to the past to retrieve the ancient device, as it was an inanimate object and not organic at all, but they would have to develop a way to travel around on a static landscape that wasn't still in the physical universe to them. Instead they would have to, in a way, blend in with the essence of a dead plane or dimension where nothing moved through the entire sphere. A virtual dead zone where there would not be one wind, one sound from any source of the planet's vibrations or wavelengths. Merely an echo of where it once sailed.
And time would not pass at whatever point in the planet's past they arrived to. It would all be stagnant, although time would still pass in their world of the present. If they had known the point of origin where Ollarkynn Exeo had been at any time in their last thousand or so orbits, they could have made a way to go back in time there and find out what had went awry. However even if they had known, it was safer to stay within the orbiting sphere of something as solid as their own world. Eventually they would know the way to the strange small planet of old. In time.
A remote connection was fashioned to be tethered to the team that would land, more or less, where a world had already passed. The only solid ground there would be what the elements could conjure within the recollection of the physical universe in that instance of time. Suspended in each path of its journey by the energy nodes that could not be appropriately measured. All they could do was make a guess and test each passage in sharp seconds and clicks. But their time was running out and they had to send out their team.
A chilly sting of air rapidly melted to a warm and almost uncomfortable heat when they used the final construct of a capsule that propelled them into their destination in the past. The speeds had to be reached where light went in reverse, a negative speed forward, but exceeding backward, and when the vessel gained the momentum to follow the trail of orbit behind the planet, the travel back to a time already coursed through, was achieved.
At first it seemed nothing had changed, a dullness, as if still in a dream but now lucid and confusing surrounded them. A vast landscape of a settled dust. Everything looked hollow and lifeless. But there was treasure here. They had to find it and fast. The time they would be there might not be parallel to the time in their world and there was no way to know if anything aligned as it should. The mechanism and energies used to accomplish the feat of going back in time and place to something and somewhere already passed, was monumental in and of itself. But they had no time to take in that awe. They were on a mission after all.
The ancient records had shown that the object they sought was buried in an abandoned shrine that had been through an age underwater and then eventually turned back into desert. This is where they were now. At the time before the waters took hold. To set upon a quest to go into the past, to reset another world, and save something of the first world.
The eerie way of things here, they noted, as they flanked what was then, all seemed like a forgotten story that was never repeated, and pages were left open to fill in the blanks. That was the overwhelming feeling they experienced as they walked through the best planned route of this past world. They recognized nothing here. It was as if they landed on another completely different planet. But they were here, on their own world.
The quest now lived in dead places of muted tones
Barely visible paths woke and stirred underfoot and swift step
Like a passing dream of steep ways and shallow cones
Built up dunes that stretched over leagues of a whispering web
A sound echoing that gives no direction of its voice
Laboring through twines layered in thousand circle design
A time from a time that would lead to no other choice
But to come and gaze again upon infinity of the most sublime
After much time, and fearful of the time it felt to them, they located the shrine. The dry path was outlined with a shimmering light that emitted from a distant moon, and upon detection of where the light came, they were taken aback to see that Ollarkynn appeared to be in their dull lit sky. But it was just a reflection as to what would have been in the past. And it seemed just as muted and lifeless as the ground they presently stood. It was as if looking at a reflection in the haze of something that would disappear instantly if the slightest sound were made. They advanced into the shrine. It was difficult and oft times dangerous.
The geological form of things were naturally much different in the past. Waters had come and gone and shifted and settled in different areas than their present time. Although they were set fairly close to the last known location of the shrine, it would prove to be exhausting to tread these ancient routes. There were no ruins because all non-organic matter there was as if it was back then. They only knew part of what to expect from historical recollection.
After a time they secured the device and containment matter. The signal was sent forth to bring them back and return to the present of their time. Samples of the past were gathered and brought and as the journey was draining, they needed a turn of light in the present time to replenish. The sleep was deep so there were no stirring of events to rattle the mission team. But the presence of Ollarkynn was now very visible in their present sky. This was an omen with a vengeance. An entity on the mythically named Shell of Escape sought to escape from its host world. The energy being brought with it would be such that an intentional collision was designed and being carried out by the entity of this little world. Guiding it back and into the main world of its creation. But the entity was properly said to have been the little world itself.
There was little time to lose. The mission team was made fully aware on these turns of events. It was expected. Knowing from the historical telling that this was a possible outcome, the mission to retrieve the device and container was that much more than the exploitation of time travel. This was going to save their world. The only thing left was to understand how the mechanisms work and what to do.
"It had been gone even in those days we went back into, how was it then that we saw Ollarkynn?" The answer was not there, and the nearest guess was that somehow the device had some sort of hold on the phantom world and only passing by and through time's regular flow it could visibly be seen then. But when those times were being lived, the device cloaked it in that era apparently. It was only back in time through the passage that it revealed what a current flow of time had hidden. That's how the device worked. Like an Ark that hid another existence but once passed, it had no energy to bounce living light and movement on anything within its scope.
But none of this was in play now. The strange world was back and it was in stark existence. The dread was growing and the ways of the device and container had to be examined and applied with speed and accuracy. There would have been ancient writings on these matters but much was also lost in translation. This was, as in the travel back to the past, all best guesses and what they could apply scientifically. But it proved the past and its primitive language had the simple answers to capture and contain the rogue planet.
The device was once known as a light splitter. Of sorts. It was an energy manipulator that took light particles and separated them into a base element that solidified like single layers of ice-like substance and sprung to attach to a larger body that reflected light and so on. It could bounce off of many smaller objects in the air or in space, until reaching its target. The more surface it could use to bounce, the stronger the hold it could achieve. Like a web.
Light splitting was an art in ancient times. A magic used to sway the movements of the Ollarkynn Exeo from the grounds of Idumean Arch, this is what it would take to halt the impending collision of this returned vague and ghost-like world.
After making the apparatus needed and launching tested signals they positioned small floating bases made of little more than woven reed and twine. They were closing in on the target. The night air hung heavy. All was ready. Standing by was repeated and echoed through many voices. Awaited, the globular essence of the Exeo rose on the horizon.
The distinct markings on its surface was visible and pale. The horizon of its sphere could also be seen from the surface as if looking into a reflection of another world. A passing mystic vision of long ago. The bewilderment was intense. But it was showing to be moving closer to the planet's surface with a sustained movement of orbit that was not controlled by anything they knew. There was a will within the sphere and there was nothing to indicate any being or entity was living anywhere on Ollarkynn. But something was there. Someone was, no doubt, still existing there.
As such, no plans of destroying the target were ever devised. But the device they retrieved from the past was the key to the survival of their world and of Ollarkynn Exeo.
With a sudden force of wind and light, the base of the device shook and a light intensified and split into thousands of crystal like points and bounced off the makeshift moons they situated around the planet. Ollarkynn reacted to the light and the features on its surface were far more visible than it was at first reveal. The shadows of the deeper markings became hazier and then shrouded valleys and trenches in a fog. Nothing was detected in any case, to be there, but elements reacting to a natural phenomena.
An orbit was then sustained through a very precise deployment of energy beams of light and mimicked gravitational pull, until it was moving as it had before, without breaking past the alignment of where it had been originally created.
As the orbits of both celestial bodies carried on, the dread faded, and it was hard to tell what feelings they had of the days prior. The sense of urgency was a long gone memory. What remained was the accomplishment of time travel. They were far more advanced in the understanding of their own world now. The small grain of knowledge that the past had brought may not have seemed like much, there was no one to bring forth with the team, but there was something so deep in their consciences now. A connection they were now forever in tune to. A binding of wills, of spirit. Everyone was changed in small ways. In very large ways.
They sought to save their world and they did. They saved more than they knew at the time. Every part of it that ever existed. And that is the tale of Idumean Arch.
The wells of knowledge were deep, and the water welcomed every drop
Bouncing off the waves while underneath a layer stirred with memory
Weaving past a glowing moon to the next cloud top
The journey goes from pieces to endless energy
I cannot say if there were other elements that guided any way past
Landscapes wherein one hill peered out on deep blue sky
The tale spoken and remembered, with a spell it had cast
Passing by paths that wind into infinite paths of abundant supply
~~~
Originally posted on January 19, 2017
Originally wrapped up June 26, 2019
Originally written sometime in 2002
This was to be a novel-length story, having characters created belonging to this world, and detailing far more of the science involved in time travel or time movement as the case may be. I had never had the time to write this to what I had imagined it to be then. There was also no poetry in the original telling. This is a fragment but as some tales go, a fragment from some long ago idea of an event. There is no more I can say.
Landscapes wherein one hill peered out on deep blue sky
Then another rising mountain feature steep and serene
Passing by paths that wind into infinite paths' supply
The scales of time, travel and recall
They are sighted and gliding on echoes of galactic sprawl
A ghost planet nearing and to a ghost world must go
A world's past with mighty works can tread backward flow
Idumean Arch, A Shell Of Escape & Dual World Time Travelers
This story of time travel is a strange one and should be told. It reveals a multitude of purpose within a limited application of such a phenomena. For in the universe, linear and outward time is a dominant factor.
It begins in the far back ago. Ages past. A very steep range of time in a world's calculation in its unique orbit. It so happened that in this unfathomable past that a people had constructed an artificial planet. Having its own air and a set temperature. It was set to orbit and remain as a sort of passage of escape should it ever be needed. To keep a few lone travelers within its sphere. There they would remain but not age, and after an extreme long duration it became a lost entity still existing, long since muted. Dead like and drifted away. They called it the Shell of Escape for long script purposes and named it Ollarkynn Exeo.
In the ages that accumulated after losing track of Ollarkynn, the onward generations of people, still having the knowledge of this creation and thinking it lost to the stars, constructed a small container and device that would be capable of finding it and in that creation a pulse that could bring it back within orbit as the satellite it once functioned as or destroy it if it had become too dangerous or decayed after so long. By now Ollarkynn was a legend and a very distant prehistory of something more unknown to them than remembered.
It was a place, but it was merely a gateway or a suspended place that would not function in the usual cosmic ways. They knew something from long ago was traveling in space with them, this Shell of Escape, and they finished a task to create this container and device, like a radar or homing beacon and then contain the shell, the moon that drifted away.
The aforementioned device was a confined element of pure celestial energy. Compressed within the strongest element of their world. Lead ice and layered pitches of their own planetary sounds when they were used to break barriers past their own planetary path and go into a farther point ahead. But when Ollarkynn could not be brought back within the time they conceived would be reasonable, they safeguarded the container and device and locked them inside a housing chamber and buried it far beneath the grounds of a desert. Then documented all they had done and created and what its purpose was.
Now it is more than nine thousand long orbits since then, and this is where the story of the quest for a time traveling device and the purpose of destroying a malignant threat posed on a world called Idumean Arch begins...
In its present time, the gathered forces that consisted of military and scientists, this world had to succeed in this mission or perish out of existence. There was no other way. The task was known but it would never be easy. This was an impossible goal that had to be reached.
It was already a foregone conclusion that Ollarkynn would overshadow then be drawn into Idumean Arch's gravity to collide and disintegrate. They needed to find an object, a device from the past and bring it forward in time. It simply did not exist in their present time. "Where to begin? Let's start with the planet's orbit and rotation and its placement in where it will be in three orbit's time." The tall commander in white and hollow gray relayed to his fellow mission team members.
From there it was a matter of calculating movement and then the matter of harnessing the energy to reverse the planet's orbit to a past point in time without taking the planet itself with it, but a grounding platform adhered to an energy being conducted through a ship worthy of space travel to act as a make-shift planet.
"Are we taking the world back in time, or just traveling in a small number to the past?" Echoing the thoughts of the rest, a secondary guide asked, as the outline for this operation started to shape. But it would be tedious and difficult. "There's probably a way to just use the pathway with the same organic matter from our world and use an energy orb of making, but would all the matter or content of the world from the past be there if we arrive?"
It was discovered that they wouldn't encounter anyone from the past, nothing organic. All would be static. To recreate a path back to a path that had already been passed while their planet raced on its journey. But the energy and anti-matter they'd need to accomplish this feat was already being calculated and built. They could go back to the past to retrieve the ancient device, as it was an inanimate object and not organic at all, but they would have to develop a way to travel around on a static landscape that wasn't still in the physical universe to them. Instead they would have to, in a way, blend in with the essence of a dead plane or dimension where nothing moved through the entire sphere. A virtual dead zone where there would not be one wind, one sound from any source of the planet's vibrations or wavelengths. Merely an echo of where it once sailed.
And time would not pass at whatever point in the planet's past they arrived to. It would all be stagnant, although time would still pass in their world of the present. If they had known the point of origin where Ollarkynn Exeo had been at any time in their last thousand or so orbits, they could have made a way to go back in time there and find out what had went awry. However even if they had known, it was safer to stay within the orbiting sphere of something as solid as their own world. Eventually they would know the way to the strange small planet of old. In time.
A remote connection was fashioned to be tethered to the team that would land, more or less, where a world had already passed. The only solid ground there would be what the elements could conjure within the recollection of the physical universe in that instance of time. Suspended in each path of its journey by the energy nodes that could not be appropriately measured. All they could do was make a guess and test each passage in sharp seconds and clicks. But their time was running out and they had to send out their team.
A chilly sting of air rapidly melted to a warm and almost uncomfortable heat when they used the final construct of a capsule that propelled them into their destination in the past. The speeds had to be reached where light went in reverse, a negative speed forward, but exceeding backward, and when the vessel gained the momentum to follow the trail of orbit behind the planet, the travel back to a time already coursed through, was achieved.
At first it seemed nothing had changed, a dullness, as if still in a dream but now lucid and confusing surrounded them. A vast landscape of a settled dust. Everything looked hollow and lifeless. But there was treasure here. They had to find it and fast. The time they would be there might not be parallel to the time in their world and there was no way to know if anything aligned as it should. The mechanism and energies used to accomplish the feat of going back in time and place to something and somewhere already passed, was monumental in and of itself. But they had no time to take in that awe. They were on a mission after all.
The ancient records had shown that the object they sought was buried in an abandoned shrine that had been through an age underwater and then eventually turned back into desert. This is where they were now. At the time before the waters took hold. To set upon a quest to go into the past, to reset another world, and save something of the first world.
The eerie way of things here, they noted, as they flanked what was then, all seemed like a forgotten story that was never repeated, and pages were left open to fill in the blanks. That was the overwhelming feeling they experienced as they walked through the best planned route of this past world. They recognized nothing here. It was as if they landed on another completely different planet. But they were here, on their own world.
The quest now lived in dead places of muted tones
Barely visible paths woke and stirred underfoot and swift step
Like a passing dream of steep ways and shallow cones
Built up dunes that stretched over leagues of a whispering web
A sound echoing that gives no direction of its voice
Laboring through twines layered in thousand circle design
A time from a time that would lead to no other choice
But to come and gaze again upon infinity of the most sublime
After much time, and fearful of the time it felt to them, they located the shrine. The dry path was outlined with a shimmering light that emitted from a distant moon, and upon detection of where the light came, they were taken aback to see that Ollarkynn appeared to be in their dull lit sky. But it was just a reflection as to what would have been in the past. And it seemed just as muted and lifeless as the ground they presently stood. It was as if looking at a reflection in the haze of something that would disappear instantly if the slightest sound were made. They advanced into the shrine. It was difficult and oft times dangerous.
The geological form of things were naturally much different in the past. Waters had come and gone and shifted and settled in different areas than their present time. Although they were set fairly close to the last known location of the shrine, it would prove to be exhausting to tread these ancient routes. There were no ruins because all non-organic matter there was as if it was back then. They only knew part of what to expect from historical recollection.
After a time they secured the device and containment matter. The signal was sent forth to bring them back and return to the present of their time. Samples of the past were gathered and brought and as the journey was draining, they needed a turn of light in the present time to replenish. The sleep was deep so there were no stirring of events to rattle the mission team. But the presence of Ollarkynn was now very visible in their present sky. This was an omen with a vengeance. An entity on the mythically named Shell of Escape sought to escape from its host world. The energy being brought with it would be such that an intentional collision was designed and being carried out by the entity of this little world. Guiding it back and into the main world of its creation. But the entity was properly said to have been the little world itself.
There was little time to lose. The mission team was made fully aware on these turns of events. It was expected. Knowing from the historical telling that this was a possible outcome, the mission to retrieve the device and container was that much more than the exploitation of time travel. This was going to save their world. The only thing left was to understand how the mechanisms work and what to do.
"It had been gone even in those days we went back into, how was it then that we saw Ollarkynn?" The answer was not there, and the nearest guess was that somehow the device had some sort of hold on the phantom world and only passing by and through time's regular flow it could visibly be seen then. But when those times were being lived, the device cloaked it in that era apparently. It was only back in time through the passage that it revealed what a current flow of time had hidden. That's how the device worked. Like an Ark that hid another existence but once passed, it had no energy to bounce living light and movement on anything within its scope.
But none of this was in play now. The strange world was back and it was in stark existence. The dread was growing and the ways of the device and container had to be examined and applied with speed and accuracy. There would have been ancient writings on these matters but much was also lost in translation. This was, as in the travel back to the past, all best guesses and what they could apply scientifically. But it proved the past and its primitive language had the simple answers to capture and contain the rogue planet.
The device was once known as a light splitter. Of sorts. It was an energy manipulator that took light particles and separated them into a base element that solidified like single layers of ice-like substance and sprung to attach to a larger body that reflected light and so on. It could bounce off of many smaller objects in the air or in space, until reaching its target. The more surface it could use to bounce, the stronger the hold it could achieve. Like a web.
Light splitting was an art in ancient times. A magic used to sway the movements of the Ollarkynn Exeo from the grounds of Idumean Arch, this is what it would take to halt the impending collision of this returned vague and ghost-like world.
After making the apparatus needed and launching tested signals they positioned small floating bases made of little more than woven reed and twine. They were closing in on the target. The night air hung heavy. All was ready. Standing by was repeated and echoed through many voices. Awaited, the globular essence of the Exeo rose on the horizon.
The distinct markings on its surface was visible and pale. The horizon of its sphere could also be seen from the surface as if looking into a reflection of another world. A passing mystic vision of long ago. The bewilderment was intense. But it was showing to be moving closer to the planet's surface with a sustained movement of orbit that was not controlled by anything they knew. There was a will within the sphere and there was nothing to indicate any being or entity was living anywhere on Ollarkynn. But something was there. Someone was, no doubt, still existing there.
As such, no plans of destroying the target were ever devised. But the device they retrieved from the past was the key to the survival of their world and of Ollarkynn Exeo.
With a sudden force of wind and light, the base of the device shook and a light intensified and split into thousands of crystal like points and bounced off the makeshift moons they situated around the planet. Ollarkynn reacted to the light and the features on its surface were far more visible than it was at first reveal. The shadows of the deeper markings became hazier and then shrouded valleys and trenches in a fog. Nothing was detected in any case, to be there, but elements reacting to a natural phenomena.
An orbit was then sustained through a very precise deployment of energy beams of light and mimicked gravitational pull, until it was moving as it had before, without breaking past the alignment of where it had been originally created.
As the orbits of both celestial bodies carried on, the dread faded, and it was hard to tell what feelings they had of the days prior. The sense of urgency was a long gone memory. What remained was the accomplishment of time travel. They were far more advanced in the understanding of their own world now. The small grain of knowledge that the past had brought may not have seemed like much, there was no one to bring forth with the team, but there was something so deep in their consciences now. A connection they were now forever in tune to. A binding of wills, of spirit. Everyone was changed in small ways. In very large ways.
They sought to save their world and they did. They saved more than they knew at the time. Every part of it that ever existed. And that is the tale of Idumean Arch.
The wells of knowledge were deep, and the water welcomed every drop
Bouncing off the waves while underneath a layer stirred with memory
Weaving past a glowing moon to the next cloud top
The journey goes from pieces to endless energy
I cannot say if there were other elements that guided any way past
Landscapes wherein one hill peered out on deep blue sky
The tale spoken and remembered, with a spell it had cast
Passing by paths that wind into infinite paths of abundant supply
~~~
Originally posted on January 19, 2017
Originally wrapped up June 26, 2019
Originally written sometime in 2002
This was to be a novel-length story, having characters created belonging to this world, and detailing far more of the science involved in time travel or time movement as the case may be. I had never had the time to write this to what I had imagined it to be then. There was also no poetry in the original telling. This is a fragment but as some tales go, a fragment from some long ago idea of an event. There is no more I can say.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Journey North
We had traveled past the 40 degree latitude, after crossing Baffin Bay into the land of Kalaallit Nunaat. We still had a long way to trek before reaching our designated point. The air was always thin and chill that the adaption process was long and exhausting. Slowly we made our way into the icy world at the top of the Earth. The Magnetic North Pole.
For several days there were drastic temperature drops in our thermal readings. We would have to make this journey or head back. The ice so thin and dangerous that a wrong step could prove fatal. Gradually the time came when we drifted into night. It would last until Spring. The darkness disguised the deceptively inviting ice sheet we tread and the white hills seemed to amass snowdrifts into waves, mocking the ocean's flow in suspended brilliance and dread.
I was walking under a fading Aurora Borealis and soon it would be time to set up for the oncoming portal that we would witness of the cosmos.
As I stood there, my cheeks frozen numb, and feeling nothing throughout my body for the environment I had now become a part of. I looked out across the still shimmering white field of ice and snow going on forever. I looked slowly up past the horizon at first, and was held by the slow realization that my eyes were stung with points of sharp light emitting from the stars at only about six degrees. Then I raised my eyes and gazed into the skies. I could no longer feel the ground because it seemed that I stood upon a plane of the universe. Every single star and constellation sprung out incredibly brilliant and overwhelming that I could no longer remember any words and in my throat was caught a suspended gasp and then the tears of unknown longing, and love, and worship filled me and flowed. The beauty of it all was piercing through my soul.
A threshold of forever, into the great field of stars that have no end. The black blankets behind massive diamonds and other gems of indescribable colors and varying points of light shot out like daggers, and the purest blue radiance of the majestic Milky Way towered like heavens of glorious unknown empires, stretching out above everything I had ever known. This is seen by few, and the few who see are never the same again.
The portal was soon to begin its lowering to allow passageway. For hours it seemed we sat in silence. Few winds and the crackling of the Aurora Borealis continued, but fading and muted in the background. Without realizing it at first, a sudden silence fell. At first it seemed the cold had muffled our ears and even our heartbeats seemed quieted. Everything was deathly silent.
A light spilled out of the North and drew closer. We stood and waited. This is it. The portal would take us to witness the splendor of the cosmos. A secret that is the most secret of all the earth, that there are direct ways from here, of interplanetary travel. The journey is the proofing of souls that can attain this gift. To be willing to brave the environments that mimic space and alien planet lands.
When I return, I will tell of all the wonders I've seen.
~~~
Originally written in 2003
This was written to be a novella and this was to be the first chapter. With the following chapters to describe a journey through the cosmos in a light year. But I'm not sure if this will be written as intended. So this is a musing, if nothing else.
For several days there were drastic temperature drops in our thermal readings. We would have to make this journey or head back. The ice so thin and dangerous that a wrong step could prove fatal. Gradually the time came when we drifted into night. It would last until Spring. The darkness disguised the deceptively inviting ice sheet we tread and the white hills seemed to amass snowdrifts into waves, mocking the ocean's flow in suspended brilliance and dread.
I was walking under a fading Aurora Borealis and soon it would be time to set up for the oncoming portal that we would witness of the cosmos.
As I stood there, my cheeks frozen numb, and feeling nothing throughout my body for the environment I had now become a part of. I looked out across the still shimmering white field of ice and snow going on forever. I looked slowly up past the horizon at first, and was held by the slow realization that my eyes were stung with points of sharp light emitting from the stars at only about six degrees. Then I raised my eyes and gazed into the skies. I could no longer feel the ground because it seemed that I stood upon a plane of the universe. Every single star and constellation sprung out incredibly brilliant and overwhelming that I could no longer remember any words and in my throat was caught a suspended gasp and then the tears of unknown longing, and love, and worship filled me and flowed. The beauty of it all was piercing through my soul.
A threshold of forever, into the great field of stars that have no end. The black blankets behind massive diamonds and other gems of indescribable colors and varying points of light shot out like daggers, and the purest blue radiance of the majestic Milky Way towered like heavens of glorious unknown empires, stretching out above everything I had ever known. This is seen by few, and the few who see are never the same again.
The portal was soon to begin its lowering to allow passageway. For hours it seemed we sat in silence. Few winds and the crackling of the Aurora Borealis continued, but fading and muted in the background. Without realizing it at first, a sudden silence fell. At first it seemed the cold had muffled our ears and even our heartbeats seemed quieted. Everything was deathly silent.
A light spilled out of the North and drew closer. We stood and waited. This is it. The portal would take us to witness the splendor of the cosmos. A secret that is the most secret of all the earth, that there are direct ways from here, of interplanetary travel. The journey is the proofing of souls that can attain this gift. To be willing to brave the environments that mimic space and alien planet lands.
When I return, I will tell of all the wonders I've seen.
~~~
Originally written in 2003
This was written to be a novella and this was to be the first chapter. With the following chapters to describe a journey through the cosmos in a light year. But I'm not sure if this will be written as intended. So this is a musing, if nothing else.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Haikus
A Song Of Forgetfulness
In the smoke-filled room
I sing songs on weekend nights,
Lost in the music
Surrounded by friends
Forgetting the vicious weeds,
Not that important
The world filled with doubt
No doubt in a melody
Shut the darkness out
Through the haze and smoke
And the sound of jazz and blues
A single note sways
Warmth
The sun is shining
Crystal blue waters and sand
My destination
I have been pining
Longing to be at the beach
Tropical nation
Long Lost Heroes
Back in ancient times
The Greek countryside in mist
The Ruins still speak
And what of heroes,
Those that legend made quite great?
The stones whisper weak
Every day I sing
And every day I need you
From islands I sigh
Vast seas spilled before
The tragedy pierced my heart
Bidding them goodbye
Tossing Seas
Warm the winter here
Ease of sorrows that have been
No heeding them now
Those little shadows
Holding fear o'er my head
No change in their course
Biting frost outside
Awaiting to fall down dead
Melted by water
Saltwater afar
Saltwater from the stirred seas
Gathered for voyage
Bring across the globe
All winter's fury that freeze
And then tossing seas
2008
In the smoke-filled room
I sing songs on weekend nights,
Lost in the music
Surrounded by friends
Forgetting the vicious weeds,
Not that important
The world filled with doubt
No doubt in a melody
Shut the darkness out
Through the haze and smoke
And the sound of jazz and blues
A single note sways
Warmth
The sun is shining
Crystal blue waters and sand
My destination
I have been pining
Longing to be at the beach
Tropical nation
Long Lost Heroes
Back in ancient times
The Greek countryside in mist
The Ruins still speak
And what of heroes,
Those that legend made quite great?
The stones whisper weak
Every day I sing
And every day I need you
From islands I sigh
Vast seas spilled before
The tragedy pierced my heart
Bidding them goodbye
Tossing Seas
Warm the winter here
Ease of sorrows that have been
No heeding them now
Those little shadows
Holding fear o'er my head
No change in their course
Biting frost outside
Awaiting to fall down dead
Melted by water
Saltwater afar
Saltwater from the stirred seas
Gathered for voyage
Bring across the globe
All winter's fury that freeze
And then tossing seas
2008
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Guardwalking (Shifts In Otherworldly Places)
Guard House
(first shift)
I had never went there before, the far off wall mostly blocked the strange structure beyond it as just a shadow of an undefined silhouette. I was always perplexed by its presence and the varying tales I'd heard. I wasn't welcome with open arms in the village for I could see inside them. The name given to this matter wasn't for witchcraft, but a form of fortunetelling, although I was just a sentry in the night. I kept to myself. I have no recollection of uttering any portends of any event or saying a prediction of any person.
But the silhouette of the dark abode seemed to know, the empty castle stood off in the cold distance. I could brave that way, I could walk there, for I have seen the shapes of the dwellers of the dark. They always moved in scurried pace.
The local folks had begun to bring in their wares for the night, wares that could not be left outside. The axes, the gardening tools, the water vessels. I thought that odd. The moon was hidden behind the clouds. Alone I sat in the guard house, not too far from the well.
The far off castle echoed with the wind. There was something. As my hearing upon night's darkness increased, and those could have been mistaken for footsteps rapidly pounding upon the cold, stone floors inside that empty ruin.
I turned to look at the time. It was 2:34.
The midnight had passed and with it, the sense of ordinary night. The hour was something else now, a timid shutter, as if something in limbo had struggled to escape. A sense of suspension hung in the air. Yet, what is suspended? What nature has subdued itself unto the unknown? The distant castle now seemed more awake, alive, and stirred. The guard house door of oak wood made no indication of the moonlight that spilled all around the outside. I felt its presence, nonetheless.
With even more concentration, I could feel the presence from within the abandoned castle. There was something dull and forlorn about the echoes between the walls of stone and the trees out in the fields.
I walked outside and went to gate of the wall, and took the key to open it, to venture towards the abandoned castle that had stood so long as a mere shadow that cast itself against the nightfall of the village. Two different darknesses between one and the other. Something that seemed to recoil. It seemed the empty place felt as if more afraid than anyone looking in from the outside.
I went in through an open window, where once a stained glass window had been. The broken pieces still on the ground outside of it as well as on the inside. I lit my torch and walked in further.
Night Watches
(second shift)
The floors were solid stone but little else seemed solid. The walls were more twine and broken pieces of the structure than what it appeared to be on the outside. Empty. Dull, and muted. No sounds came from anywhere here. I sensed a time from before its ruination. The faces that were shown to me were those of the villagers. But in much younger days. I was from the deep forests and my work as a guard, a maiden watcher, was not yet a part of my life. But this place seemed to be the dying memories of the villagers. Their past deeds. I began to understand why they wanted to keep it hidden. There was darkness passing through. The ghosts wandered but their tales were kept guarded. I felt that my task was more about whatever I was guarding back in the village, wasn't for the village against this place outside its walls, but more likely guarding the abandoned place from being forgotten by the village. And this was something that some really wanted forgotten.
I went back to the guard house. I rekindled the small fire, and wrapped up in a simple wool blanket. The faded stone of the gates were silent, and the movement of wind had died. Nothing but the anticipation of first light. Twelves hours was exhausting and began to weigh heavy on my eyes. There was stirring out in some grove or forest nook but I paid it no mind. Too far off to concern anyone in the immediate time. I'd drift to a blissful oblivion. The night would come again, soon enough. On my way to the guardhouse, I'd bring with me this time, a small, golden shield. It had been years since I used it last.
During the parallel age between the village and the forests, there was a time of Graveyard Dreams. A few hundred years before, in a time when life had been mirrored by some other world that folk could come, and go in between. Like an alternate dimension into what seemed like a timeless realm. A passage into what could be some near future but more colorful from the bleak reality of the age we knew. It began to absorb in a way, woven intricately into life, and trapped a traveler or two. The only way they could speak to the villagers was through dreams, where they'd see images of them standing or walking in a graveyard that was situated into a back way of a forgotten part of the village. The rock walls that surrounded it always seemed to keep a soft shadow over it.
I laid the shield against the wall beside my sword next to the fire in the guardhouse. Now something else had emerged from the foreboding castle beyond the walls of the village. A visitor came to the iron gates. A cloaked figure with a long staff. I greeted this persona, and he spoke as if far beneath the deepest castle but the feeling was as if he spoke from a place more lofty than the unseen mountains of legend.
"What do you seek, in the night, in this village?" I asked. His eyes narrowed and focused on me tightly. He spoke with an ancient voice, an elder of some far off age who seemed to have gotten lost. "Soon you will have to find your way. Past the villagers. They do not move forward, and they cannot move backward for the limbo they inhabit. But you shall find your way out." As he spoke this, I felt a sense of dread, but ultimately it sounded as if the guarding would cease and the shadows would depart this little gray village.
With the golden shield I could hear things more distinctly in the night. I could see clearer. And in the dawning of the day to come, I again, saw inside the villagers' hearts once more, and I saw death and their wrath to bring death. At first saying nothing, they went about their daily affairs. But as I rose again, I was greeted with queries of why I hadn't used my sword and shield against the night visitor. "He disappeared past the gate, I never opened it." I explained. "The visitor works in Necromantic Ways!" They exclaimed.
This village was becoming more and more clear to me as a place that was built away from the living lands. But what lands I could not name. I was not in this village so much as I was walking along inside a place and time where it is. Or was.
Dreaming Back Awake
(third shift)
The abandoned place outside the village was no longer a point of fear. It was something now in the background. The gold shield had been taken with the sword back to the forests and enshrined by the night visitor. That's what they had told me. I was no longer needed as a guard at the wall and gate of the village, and that when the night came again it would be my last watch, although I wasn't fully aware of this. And the place that had given the villagers so much worry, was to be burned to the ground. They made a spectacle of it.
I watched as the flames engulfed it and I wondered about the graveyard behind the village in the opposite direction. Something instinctively lured me toward it. That a gate was opening somewhere. That it was time to go back to the forests. But the villagers came and wrapped me in a blanket as they lead me to another guardhouse on the darker side of the village between the center castle entrance and the path back into the forests. Here I would meet other guards from the village who once stood watch a long time ago. They wanted reassured that no truth of the past would be visiting anywhere inside the village and wanted to lure that strange night visitor in. So my last night of guardwalking would be deeper inside the village and not in the usual lookout.
Later that night, a few priests came and spoke to me. They seemed agitated and annoyed. They were sarcastic in tone. Sinister in appearance. "What or who is your god?" The mocking priests asked. "Truth." I answered. It wasn't as if I were suggesting any one truth to another, just the idea of it. What it was to me. I kept wondering if I was dreaming all of this. The village seemed overcast with an even heavier cloud. This one was layered and still. There was no movement. The night drew on. This night seemed to have no end.
There was a question of my faith. Secretly I denounced the false prophets, the wicked priests and their gods...whom did not exist but for the evil that could be done in their names. Names that had to be imagined before they could have solidity in the minds of the weak. "You can burn!" They screamed. I wasn't phased. It was as if I was walking through some other place and time.
"I burn with a fire, already." I said. "It's truth! I'll speak of true things and the darkness wails in my utterance. I burn with delight that I know who walked here, and seen the face of the creator! I know his face. His face was once seen here. I remember."
They faded from view as they wandered in confusion, as if walking in circles in unfamiliar lands. I wasn't the only one who had seen beyond the earthly planes. There were others and I couldn't reach back into ancient lore without leaving the walls and I had to stay awake on the nightwatch, and I wasn't able to stay there for more than nine hours at a time. I had to shift back to the sun and live in the light for a time. That was what I had and believed of how time would go here from now on. That I would simply return to the guard house, and my night watch, and walking as a guard when night fell. But that was just my routine that I felt they would bind me to. That the threat of the following night to be my last watch was something of a foggy retreat behind the castles of the lands. Out of some angry backlash about a visitor they didn't know.
But this was not to be. I paused and remembered all the things I'd seen before, and how they'd come to pass.
"There are those who see, those who know how tragedy unfolds in the darkness." I said amid the now muddled voices inside the guard house. "And they weep."
After an hour passed, I was being lead to where others had been before. It was now that I had no sword and shield to defend myself. Now that they were taken away, I was at the mercy of these same angry villagers. They were going to the entrance of a dungeon.
In A Darkened Abode
(final shift)
This place was underground and massive, the floors and chambers were grand in size and the stones laid out were different between one chamber and the next. Some of the chambers had earthen floors, simply smoothed rocks of the cavern they were hollowed out of. Past one area there were huge blades that circled in the middle of the giant room. Like a mechanism that ensured no one would either come into the deeper chambers without harm or to keep anyone from escaping. That's what I'd concluded as they lead me past the blades, from a safe enough distance, as they blocked any way back through by locking chamber doors behind them. If I tried to run, I would have been forced to step into the circling blades. So I had no way that I could see.
Finally we were halted at the place where I would be chained to the stone wall. But that was to be later. They snapped whips at my arms and back when I turned my face away and fell down. I wanted to escape if only to another corner of the chamber. I felt the trickling of blood on my wounded flesh. The walls of the dungeonous chamber where I stood now shackled and gazing at the angry faces of my oppressors, were ominous and from the dim edges of what I could see, shone candlelight from the four corners thereof. I had been chained to the wall for some hours but I could not recall how long I'd been that way. I felt the bruises but didn't recall when they were inflicted. I took blows to my middle, and arms, and head. I felt a chill that embraced me. But a heat of the wounds at the same time.
While the villager lords grabbed at my long hair and gazed at my closed eyes, as if to get one last tear to escape from under my eyelids, I felt no pain. I knew if death were near that it'd be all over and I'd be back home. The cloth I wore as the last remnant of my guard regalia, was a thin white under layer of woven silk, but the back was ripped off when the lashes were struck out at me. I felt tears on my face, but could not remember crying. I felt the strong sword hand of my captor let go of my hair and back away. I looked at them standing in the center of the chamber now, while my wrists were numb and bruised by the iron cuffs that I wore from the cold, stone wall.
"She has to be tried for witchcraft! She has left all behind on this quest for freedom! She must die!" I heard one of the lords declare. But there was a few that wasn't so bloodthirsty, but their courage was lacking. Only words were used as some last miserable defense. No bravery was among any of them, just an attempt to save a life but the most regarded of things was not life itself, but the appeasing of those who held power here. That was what was most sought after. To never offend those that abused power, and if someone's life was to be spared, it surely would have to suit in proper form.
"But surely she has done great good for our people. Can't it be that we may try to understand the reason why she spoke with an unknown at the gates? And saw us as enemies?" Another lord spoke on my behalf but it was too late. I could sense their voices getting louder and louder. I could feel the air around me grow warmer as the fires from the deep parts of the dread dungeon of shadow churned below several chambers of granite and brimstone. As they glared over at me, I looked past them, I saw in a copper bowl's reflection that a hazy, soft expression filled my blue and watery eyes and pierced through the dim lit chamber, and for one moment they stood silent and motionless.
I felt no pain, I felt no sorrow, I felt no remorse for that which I knew I had done in purity, love and honor. The visitor wasn't a stranger to me deep down inside. I somehow knew him. This wasn't his land, but it was obviously not mine, either. I leaned further back until the blistered flesh of my back almost melted with the cool stone wall. I felt a brief moment of relief and I looked up and I heard a soft tune. Vague at first, but unmistakably the same melody that I would hum to myself in dark places when'ere I'd go on high adventure with my now scattered comrades, who had either been sold as slaves or killed.
I began to look past the enclosed gloom of the chamber walls and ceiling. I began to hum my song and it echoed through the vast emptiness like a soft breeze of Spring and I saw that no matter what had happened....what had passed...that those few notes and the feeling of them were more solid and everlasting than anything of this dark turn of events...or of the world. I forgot about the urgency of guarding anything. That was passed.
Finally I closed my eyes again and the voices of the enraged lords were fading as if into nothingness. Then silence.
I had found my way.
~~~
Originally written in October 2002
The first parts of this story were written a year or so after the last part and included in its file in August 2005. It was meant to be a short series or 'shifts' of medieval events subtitled: Various Scenes, Acts, And Deeds.
(first shift)
I had never went there before, the far off wall mostly blocked the strange structure beyond it as just a shadow of an undefined silhouette. I was always perplexed by its presence and the varying tales I'd heard. I wasn't welcome with open arms in the village for I could see inside them. The name given to this matter wasn't for witchcraft, but a form of fortunetelling, although I was just a sentry in the night. I kept to myself. I have no recollection of uttering any portends of any event or saying a prediction of any person.
But the silhouette of the dark abode seemed to know, the empty castle stood off in the cold distance. I could brave that way, I could walk there, for I have seen the shapes of the dwellers of the dark. They always moved in scurried pace.
The local folks had begun to bring in their wares for the night, wares that could not be left outside. The axes, the gardening tools, the water vessels. I thought that odd. The moon was hidden behind the clouds. Alone I sat in the guard house, not too far from the well.
The far off castle echoed with the wind. There was something. As my hearing upon night's darkness increased, and those could have been mistaken for footsteps rapidly pounding upon the cold, stone floors inside that empty ruin.
I turned to look at the time. It was 2:34.
The midnight had passed and with it, the sense of ordinary night. The hour was something else now, a timid shutter, as if something in limbo had struggled to escape. A sense of suspension hung in the air. Yet, what is suspended? What nature has subdued itself unto the unknown? The distant castle now seemed more awake, alive, and stirred. The guard house door of oak wood made no indication of the moonlight that spilled all around the outside. I felt its presence, nonetheless.
With even more concentration, I could feel the presence from within the abandoned castle. There was something dull and forlorn about the echoes between the walls of stone and the trees out in the fields.
I walked outside and went to gate of the wall, and took the key to open it, to venture towards the abandoned castle that had stood so long as a mere shadow that cast itself against the nightfall of the village. Two different darknesses between one and the other. Something that seemed to recoil. It seemed the empty place felt as if more afraid than anyone looking in from the outside.
I went in through an open window, where once a stained glass window had been. The broken pieces still on the ground outside of it as well as on the inside. I lit my torch and walked in further.
Night Watches
(second shift)
The floors were solid stone but little else seemed solid. The walls were more twine and broken pieces of the structure than what it appeared to be on the outside. Empty. Dull, and muted. No sounds came from anywhere here. I sensed a time from before its ruination. The faces that were shown to me were those of the villagers. But in much younger days. I was from the deep forests and my work as a guard, a maiden watcher, was not yet a part of my life. But this place seemed to be the dying memories of the villagers. Their past deeds. I began to understand why they wanted to keep it hidden. There was darkness passing through. The ghosts wandered but their tales were kept guarded. I felt that my task was more about whatever I was guarding back in the village, wasn't for the village against this place outside its walls, but more likely guarding the abandoned place from being forgotten by the village. And this was something that some really wanted forgotten.
I went back to the guard house. I rekindled the small fire, and wrapped up in a simple wool blanket. The faded stone of the gates were silent, and the movement of wind had died. Nothing but the anticipation of first light. Twelves hours was exhausting and began to weigh heavy on my eyes. There was stirring out in some grove or forest nook but I paid it no mind. Too far off to concern anyone in the immediate time. I'd drift to a blissful oblivion. The night would come again, soon enough. On my way to the guardhouse, I'd bring with me this time, a small, golden shield. It had been years since I used it last.
During the parallel age between the village and the forests, there was a time of Graveyard Dreams. A few hundred years before, in a time when life had been mirrored by some other world that folk could come, and go in between. Like an alternate dimension into what seemed like a timeless realm. A passage into what could be some near future but more colorful from the bleak reality of the age we knew. It began to absorb in a way, woven intricately into life, and trapped a traveler or two. The only way they could speak to the villagers was through dreams, where they'd see images of them standing or walking in a graveyard that was situated into a back way of a forgotten part of the village. The rock walls that surrounded it always seemed to keep a soft shadow over it.
I laid the shield against the wall beside my sword next to the fire in the guardhouse. Now something else had emerged from the foreboding castle beyond the walls of the village. A visitor came to the iron gates. A cloaked figure with a long staff. I greeted this persona, and he spoke as if far beneath the deepest castle but the feeling was as if he spoke from a place more lofty than the unseen mountains of legend.
"What do you seek, in the night, in this village?" I asked. His eyes narrowed and focused on me tightly. He spoke with an ancient voice, an elder of some far off age who seemed to have gotten lost. "Soon you will have to find your way. Past the villagers. They do not move forward, and they cannot move backward for the limbo they inhabit. But you shall find your way out." As he spoke this, I felt a sense of dread, but ultimately it sounded as if the guarding would cease and the shadows would depart this little gray village.
With the golden shield I could hear things more distinctly in the night. I could see clearer. And in the dawning of the day to come, I again, saw inside the villagers' hearts once more, and I saw death and their wrath to bring death. At first saying nothing, they went about their daily affairs. But as I rose again, I was greeted with queries of why I hadn't used my sword and shield against the night visitor. "He disappeared past the gate, I never opened it." I explained. "The visitor works in Necromantic Ways!" They exclaimed.
This village was becoming more and more clear to me as a place that was built away from the living lands. But what lands I could not name. I was not in this village so much as I was walking along inside a place and time where it is. Or was.
Dreaming Back Awake
(third shift)
The abandoned place outside the village was no longer a point of fear. It was something now in the background. The gold shield had been taken with the sword back to the forests and enshrined by the night visitor. That's what they had told me. I was no longer needed as a guard at the wall and gate of the village, and that when the night came again it would be my last watch, although I wasn't fully aware of this. And the place that had given the villagers so much worry, was to be burned to the ground. They made a spectacle of it.
I watched as the flames engulfed it and I wondered about the graveyard behind the village in the opposite direction. Something instinctively lured me toward it. That a gate was opening somewhere. That it was time to go back to the forests. But the villagers came and wrapped me in a blanket as they lead me to another guardhouse on the darker side of the village between the center castle entrance and the path back into the forests. Here I would meet other guards from the village who once stood watch a long time ago. They wanted reassured that no truth of the past would be visiting anywhere inside the village and wanted to lure that strange night visitor in. So my last night of guardwalking would be deeper inside the village and not in the usual lookout.
Later that night, a few priests came and spoke to me. They seemed agitated and annoyed. They were sarcastic in tone. Sinister in appearance. "What or who is your god?" The mocking priests asked. "Truth." I answered. It wasn't as if I were suggesting any one truth to another, just the idea of it. What it was to me. I kept wondering if I was dreaming all of this. The village seemed overcast with an even heavier cloud. This one was layered and still. There was no movement. The night drew on. This night seemed to have no end.
There was a question of my faith. Secretly I denounced the false prophets, the wicked priests and their gods...whom did not exist but for the evil that could be done in their names. Names that had to be imagined before they could have solidity in the minds of the weak. "You can burn!" They screamed. I wasn't phased. It was as if I was walking through some other place and time.
"I burn with a fire, already." I said. "It's truth! I'll speak of true things and the darkness wails in my utterance. I burn with delight that I know who walked here, and seen the face of the creator! I know his face. His face was once seen here. I remember."
They faded from view as they wandered in confusion, as if walking in circles in unfamiliar lands. I wasn't the only one who had seen beyond the earthly planes. There were others and I couldn't reach back into ancient lore without leaving the walls and I had to stay awake on the nightwatch, and I wasn't able to stay there for more than nine hours at a time. I had to shift back to the sun and live in the light for a time. That was what I had and believed of how time would go here from now on. That I would simply return to the guard house, and my night watch, and walking as a guard when night fell. But that was just my routine that I felt they would bind me to. That the threat of the following night to be my last watch was something of a foggy retreat behind the castles of the lands. Out of some angry backlash about a visitor they didn't know.
But this was not to be. I paused and remembered all the things I'd seen before, and how they'd come to pass.
"There are those who see, those who know how tragedy unfolds in the darkness." I said amid the now muddled voices inside the guard house. "And they weep."
After an hour passed, I was being lead to where others had been before. It was now that I had no sword and shield to defend myself. Now that they were taken away, I was at the mercy of these same angry villagers. They were going to the entrance of a dungeon.
In A Darkened Abode
(final shift)
This place was underground and massive, the floors and chambers were grand in size and the stones laid out were different between one chamber and the next. Some of the chambers had earthen floors, simply smoothed rocks of the cavern they were hollowed out of. Past one area there were huge blades that circled in the middle of the giant room. Like a mechanism that ensured no one would either come into the deeper chambers without harm or to keep anyone from escaping. That's what I'd concluded as they lead me past the blades, from a safe enough distance, as they blocked any way back through by locking chamber doors behind them. If I tried to run, I would have been forced to step into the circling blades. So I had no way that I could see.
Finally we were halted at the place where I would be chained to the stone wall. But that was to be later. They snapped whips at my arms and back when I turned my face away and fell down. I wanted to escape if only to another corner of the chamber. I felt the trickling of blood on my wounded flesh. The walls of the dungeonous chamber where I stood now shackled and gazing at the angry faces of my oppressors, were ominous and from the dim edges of what I could see, shone candlelight from the four corners thereof. I had been chained to the wall for some hours but I could not recall how long I'd been that way. I felt the bruises but didn't recall when they were inflicted. I took blows to my middle, and arms, and head. I felt a chill that embraced me. But a heat of the wounds at the same time.
While the villager lords grabbed at my long hair and gazed at my closed eyes, as if to get one last tear to escape from under my eyelids, I felt no pain. I knew if death were near that it'd be all over and I'd be back home. The cloth I wore as the last remnant of my guard regalia, was a thin white under layer of woven silk, but the back was ripped off when the lashes were struck out at me. I felt tears on my face, but could not remember crying. I felt the strong sword hand of my captor let go of my hair and back away. I looked at them standing in the center of the chamber now, while my wrists were numb and bruised by the iron cuffs that I wore from the cold, stone wall.
"She has to be tried for witchcraft! She has left all behind on this quest for freedom! She must die!" I heard one of the lords declare. But there was a few that wasn't so bloodthirsty, but their courage was lacking. Only words were used as some last miserable defense. No bravery was among any of them, just an attempt to save a life but the most regarded of things was not life itself, but the appeasing of those who held power here. That was what was most sought after. To never offend those that abused power, and if someone's life was to be spared, it surely would have to suit in proper form.
"But surely she has done great good for our people. Can't it be that we may try to understand the reason why she spoke with an unknown at the gates? And saw us as enemies?" Another lord spoke on my behalf but it was too late. I could sense their voices getting louder and louder. I could feel the air around me grow warmer as the fires from the deep parts of the dread dungeon of shadow churned below several chambers of granite and brimstone. As they glared over at me, I looked past them, I saw in a copper bowl's reflection that a hazy, soft expression filled my blue and watery eyes and pierced through the dim lit chamber, and for one moment they stood silent and motionless.
I felt no pain, I felt no sorrow, I felt no remorse for that which I knew I had done in purity, love and honor. The visitor wasn't a stranger to me deep down inside. I somehow knew him. This wasn't his land, but it was obviously not mine, either. I leaned further back until the blistered flesh of my back almost melted with the cool stone wall. I felt a brief moment of relief and I looked up and I heard a soft tune. Vague at first, but unmistakably the same melody that I would hum to myself in dark places when'ere I'd go on high adventure with my now scattered comrades, who had either been sold as slaves or killed.
I began to look past the enclosed gloom of the chamber walls and ceiling. I began to hum my song and it echoed through the vast emptiness like a soft breeze of Spring and I saw that no matter what had happened....what had passed...that those few notes and the feeling of them were more solid and everlasting than anything of this dark turn of events...or of the world. I forgot about the urgency of guarding anything. That was passed.
Finally I closed my eyes again and the voices of the enraged lords were fading as if into nothingness. Then silence.
I had found my way.
~~~
Originally written in October 2002
The first parts of this story were written a year or so after the last part and included in its file in August 2005. It was meant to be a short series or 'shifts' of medieval events subtitled: Various Scenes, Acts, And Deeds.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams
A Prologue
Distorted Chambers in the Realm of Dreams focuses on dreams and nightmares that have had something going on in them that flowed like a tale. I've only included those which had some sort of 'story' to them. Even if they don't make a lot of sense. But that's how dreams work. Also the focus on time and the lucid dreaming factor. I have seen events unfold right as they happened in real life, but the dream itself would come off as boring or unresolved. In this book of dreams, subtitled Dream-Nightmare Sequence, I have offered up the most vivid of dreams from this time.
The passing of time is different here, there is no hour in minutes of sixty. An hour here can be quite a lengthy travel, or suspended in some backward way. No time is considered. And it can be gone in a microflash, and begin again with no tracking of the previous time, and unlike the first hour, may hold the turn of a day within. Repeating and playing itself back as if recollecting its own raison d'etre. In the same hour. All in the same hour.
If you find that you stand on a shore and see the ocean, as far as the eye can see and it looks endless and wide, but then find that if you run a few paces ahead into the water you risk traveling through the water and on to another place, and you find that there are strange corners or pathways that you cannot reach but see, and there seems to be a boundary there and the water ends at those points. That's when you'll know that you are in a such distorted chamber somewhere out on the Ley Lines.
This could be connected to an ocean in the present time, but it could also be an ocean that no longer exists in the waking world. That is how going from place to place is like in dreams. There's a connection to that dimension, to the present, and to the past. And sometimes if you can walk through certain points where energy flows and you're dreaming lucidly, you can see the future.
Of all these boundaries, like the seas of dreams, you can reach those places, if you know the way. You have to know how to use sound and other elements around you. You won't have the use of your body. Your body isn't here. And that's what allows one to travel through these places. Your body is an anchor, but you are free to go wherever you will. Remember though, there are other entities sometimes.
As there are for the most part no dates for these dreams, I have tried to give an outline of the timeframes they had occurred. At given times I try to point out a date as close as I can figure. I cannot give exact dates for all. But there are some that I can. It is important to note while reading through these recollections of dreams and nightmares that sometimes I'm relating a feeling or what something seemed to me, to be. A lot of feelings are within these pages. What images I cannot conjure to accurately describe the dream, I'm telling you the feeling of that dream and what it was to me.
This little book of dreams and nightmares I had saved in a journal before setting them in proper order for this work. As I seemed to be in the right frame of mind to do justice to the descriptions I had earlier jotted down, I was able to finish a task I wanted to complete. I've written this during what seemed like a lull in time itself when it was dreary outside and there was nothing but an ill wind stirring, between October and December of 1997. A God-forsaken season.
The chapters pick back up after that time at number seventeen.
Chapter 1 Approaching Darkness On A Wall
Chapter 2 Jagged Desert Of Desolation
Chapter 3 There's An Exit
Chapter 4 The Stairs Beyond The Basement
Chapter 5 'Nowhere' Roadways
Chapter 6 The Stairs Beyond The Basement (Gray Basement)
Chapter 7 On A Balcony Waiting Out The Dark
Chapter 8 Dwelling Before An Evil Fortress
Chapter 9 The Stairs Beyond The Basement (Green Basement)
Chapter 10 The Black Tower Of The Black Desert
Chapter 11 Airplane Anxiety
Chapter 12 Crumbling Churches
Chapter 13 Violence Of Demons
Chapter 14 Onslaught Of Nightmares
Chapter 15 Gray Creature Boy Falls
Chapter 16 Other Distorted Chambers & Night Images On The Hour
Chapter 17 Mammoth Waterfall
Chapter 18 Colliding Spheres
Chapter 19 Driving Towards Desolate Land
Chapter 20 Mars Or The Moon (A New Red Planet)
Chapter 21 Escape From The Moon
Chapter 22 Eyes Of The Dead
Chapter 23 Grave Road
Chapter 24 Light Within Darkness
Chapter 25 The Fountain Of Blood And Water
Chapter 26 Hour Ends
Distorted Chambers in the Realm of Dreams focuses on dreams and nightmares that have had something going on in them that flowed like a tale. I've only included those which had some sort of 'story' to them. Even if they don't make a lot of sense. But that's how dreams work. Also the focus on time and the lucid dreaming factor. I have seen events unfold right as they happened in real life, but the dream itself would come off as boring or unresolved. In this book of dreams, subtitled Dream-Nightmare Sequence, I have offered up the most vivid of dreams from this time.
The passing of time is different here, there is no hour in minutes of sixty. An hour here can be quite a lengthy travel, or suspended in some backward way. No time is considered. And it can be gone in a microflash, and begin again with no tracking of the previous time, and unlike the first hour, may hold the turn of a day within. Repeating and playing itself back as if recollecting its own raison d'etre. In the same hour. All in the same hour.
If you find that you stand on a shore and see the ocean, as far as the eye can see and it looks endless and wide, but then find that if you run a few paces ahead into the water you risk traveling through the water and on to another place, and you find that there are strange corners or pathways that you cannot reach but see, and there seems to be a boundary there and the water ends at those points. That's when you'll know that you are in a such distorted chamber somewhere out on the Ley Lines.
This could be connected to an ocean in the present time, but it could also be an ocean that no longer exists in the waking world. That is how going from place to place is like in dreams. There's a connection to that dimension, to the present, and to the past. And sometimes if you can walk through certain points where energy flows and you're dreaming lucidly, you can see the future.
Of all these boundaries, like the seas of dreams, you can reach those places, if you know the way. You have to know how to use sound and other elements around you. You won't have the use of your body. Your body isn't here. And that's what allows one to travel through these places. Your body is an anchor, but you are free to go wherever you will. Remember though, there are other entities sometimes.
As there are for the most part no dates for these dreams, I have tried to give an outline of the timeframes they had occurred. At given times I try to point out a date as close as I can figure. I cannot give exact dates for all. But there are some that I can. It is important to note while reading through these recollections of dreams and nightmares that sometimes I'm relating a feeling or what something seemed to me, to be. A lot of feelings are within these pages. What images I cannot conjure to accurately describe the dream, I'm telling you the feeling of that dream and what it was to me.
This little book of dreams and nightmares I had saved in a journal before setting them in proper order for this work. As I seemed to be in the right frame of mind to do justice to the descriptions I had earlier jotted down, I was able to finish a task I wanted to complete. I've written this during what seemed like a lull in time itself when it was dreary outside and there was nothing but an ill wind stirring, between October and December of 1997. A God-forsaken season.
The chapters pick back up after that time at number seventeen.
Chapter 1 Approaching Darkness On A Wall
Chapter 2 Jagged Desert Of Desolation
Chapter 3 There's An Exit
Chapter 4 The Stairs Beyond The Basement
Chapter 5 'Nowhere' Roadways
Chapter 6 The Stairs Beyond The Basement (Gray Basement)
Chapter 7 On A Balcony Waiting Out The Dark
Chapter 8 Dwelling Before An Evil Fortress
Chapter 9 The Stairs Beyond The Basement (Green Basement)
Chapter 10 The Black Tower Of The Black Desert
Chapter 11 Airplane Anxiety
Chapter 12 Crumbling Churches
Chapter 13 Violence Of Demons
Chapter 14 Onslaught Of Nightmares
Chapter 15 Gray Creature Boy Falls
Chapter 16 Other Distorted Chambers & Night Images On The Hour
Chapter 17 Mammoth Waterfall
Chapter 18 Colliding Spheres
Chapter 19 Driving Towards Desolate Land
Chapter 20 Mars Or The Moon (A New Red Planet)
Chapter 21 Escape From The Moon
Chapter 22 Eyes Of The Dead
Chapter 23 Grave Road
Chapter 24 Light Within Darkness
Chapter 25 The Fountain Of Blood And Water
Chapter 26 Hour Ends
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 1
Approaching Darkness On A Wall
It was daylight that seemed to bend around a heap of darkness. There were dark clouds that hung high in the air. No storms, or rain. But the sheer stark bluish-grey was vivid, and the only light came from even higher in the sky but it was a soft grey light. I stood on a bridge that had elements of the Great Wall of China, but it was much taller and built with large slabs of granite and iron. I looked over the side. Everything was normal. Everything seemed normal.
My mother was driving in a truck to the store. Momentarily we were stopped on the bridge, whether it was the road being too bumpy or car problems, I didn't know. I saw that I was the only one who stood on the bridge and I couldn't climb down over the side. I was a little unnerved at how high up it was. I knew something was wrong. I looked behind, almost stiff with fear I saw a mass of shadow creeping toward the bridge and on toward the area below the bridge. The shadow crawled on to the town, to the people, to my family who were now just below the way. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. I cried out "Look! Look!" and the sound was as if nothing had escaped my lips. "Look! It's darkness! It's coming right this way!" But no one heard me. There seemed to be a vacuum between me and everyone else.
I watched as the mass grew and thickened, softly and subtly. Never did it explode onto the scene, it just crept like a dust cloud. Not unlike pollution from an industry plant nearby. With one last effort I gave one more cry "Look!" and no one heard or gave the approaching mass any attention as it took on a stronger and darker accumulation. With the last breath I cried out again and the bridge shook and began to collapse. Then I awoke.
The tragic form of loss went into memory to filter information received and in a way dulled into escapism. In dreams sadness is felt so much stronger, but a dream is an escape at the same time. I began memorizing every bridge and wall around any city that I could. The unreal lingering in the waking world. Walking on that side of conscience to absorb and count what in real life would now and again unfold. It wasn't just a shadow that would pace the floor wondering what would happen to an unstable bridge. I would be prepared if any instinct may persuade me that there was danger. I would speak long before any bridge was crossed, should that sense fall on me.
The dreams from the night before being disturbed and unspoken. "It's just a dream" they'd say. But there was truth in those strangely lit images, and there were stark coincidences.
With all the constant moving around in the beginning of life, learning the scenery of northwest mountains to desert valleys of the southwest to the coasts of the east, massive paths and memories were embedded early on in life. There were many levels of place, time and memory. And we would always see the ghosts. Seas out in distances, shadows up in the clouds. We had flown and glided above them without fear that gravity was beckoning us back.
When the ghosts were dense. We had to cope. Thus, the nightmares could be overwhelming. But remember this, dear reader, there is nothing that can ever harm you there. It's only in the flesh that we are unable to remember how we do those supernatural tricks.
Circa 1985
It was daylight that seemed to bend around a heap of darkness. There were dark clouds that hung high in the air. No storms, or rain. But the sheer stark bluish-grey was vivid, and the only light came from even higher in the sky but it was a soft grey light. I stood on a bridge that had elements of the Great Wall of China, but it was much taller and built with large slabs of granite and iron. I looked over the side. Everything was normal. Everything seemed normal.
My mother was driving in a truck to the store. Momentarily we were stopped on the bridge, whether it was the road being too bumpy or car problems, I didn't know. I saw that I was the only one who stood on the bridge and I couldn't climb down over the side. I was a little unnerved at how high up it was. I knew something was wrong. I looked behind, almost stiff with fear I saw a mass of shadow creeping toward the bridge and on toward the area below the bridge. The shadow crawled on to the town, to the people, to my family who were now just below the way. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. I cried out "Look! Look!" and the sound was as if nothing had escaped my lips. "Look! It's darkness! It's coming right this way!" But no one heard me. There seemed to be a vacuum between me and everyone else.
I watched as the mass grew and thickened, softly and subtly. Never did it explode onto the scene, it just crept like a dust cloud. Not unlike pollution from an industry plant nearby. With one last effort I gave one more cry "Look!" and no one heard or gave the approaching mass any attention as it took on a stronger and darker accumulation. With the last breath I cried out again and the bridge shook and began to collapse. Then I awoke.
The tragic form of loss went into memory to filter information received and in a way dulled into escapism. In dreams sadness is felt so much stronger, but a dream is an escape at the same time. I began memorizing every bridge and wall around any city that I could. The unreal lingering in the waking world. Walking on that side of conscience to absorb and count what in real life would now and again unfold. It wasn't just a shadow that would pace the floor wondering what would happen to an unstable bridge. I would be prepared if any instinct may persuade me that there was danger. I would speak long before any bridge was crossed, should that sense fall on me.
The dreams from the night before being disturbed and unspoken. "It's just a dream" they'd say. But there was truth in those strangely lit images, and there were stark coincidences.
With all the constant moving around in the beginning of life, learning the scenery of northwest mountains to desert valleys of the southwest to the coasts of the east, massive paths and memories were embedded early on in life. There were many levels of place, time and memory. And we would always see the ghosts. Seas out in distances, shadows up in the clouds. We had flown and glided above them without fear that gravity was beckoning us back.
When the ghosts were dense. We had to cope. Thus, the nightmares could be overwhelming. But remember this, dear reader, there is nothing that can ever harm you there. It's only in the flesh that we are unable to remember how we do those supernatural tricks.
Circa 1985
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 2
Jagged Desert Of Desolation
The desert was covered with a molten lava and fumes of fire leapt up from the ground and distorted the distant road ahead. Short, sharp peaks of jagged rock formations bolted out from the dry, cracked canyon we were traveling through. We were in an old car, trying to drive it through the desolation as the ground rumbled outside and shook the vehicle. It seemed we were still alive, but wondered if we were already melted along with the rest of the world. The conversation went in an odd way. Comparing the car to some metaphor of willpower that only holds together because of the engine rather than having a tank-like outer shell. The roads and the mountain terrain surrounded us in a landscape of Hell.
The glass of the windows seemed to turn into outward vents of steam and I could see the ground rising up ahead. There were streams of lava unrelentingly pouring out of pulsating hills of an angry earthquake. I wasn't sure if I was in shock or if I was succumbed by the heat. I didn't feel any discomfort outside of what I was seeing.
I was in the back seat and looked out of the front window and wondered why the car wasn't stopping. Surely this would be a bad situation to keep going on in this Venusian environment, but also stopping would prove fatal if the car was our only means of survival and protection. I thought it curious that no comments were made about these being the worst driving conditions ever. I wondered even more as to why we were driving in these horrid lands. I questioned my family's sanity and sat back with my eyes tightly closed and felt a cool, soft air against my face.
The car came to a stop. The lava seemed dried up and long crusted over as we stepped out of the car. There was a store just beyond a few swirling fumes of underground pressure. We walked over the tarred surface and went in to ask if they had any ice cold water. They did. It came from an underground stream nearby. A stream that was an iceberg that had been carved out by the lava. And re-cooled by an overcast sky of acid rain clouds. We believed we were somewhere in Arizona, but I'm certain we were nearer to Venus than we were to Phoenix. But it was all the same anyway.
In those days chance meetings were swift but remembered. Yet no certainty, no real knowledge of what the future might bring. It was as if we lived in a state of waiting. Traveling was what we did, and what we dreamed. We were always on the move.
The desert was covered with a molten lava and fumes of fire leapt up from the ground and distorted the distant road ahead. Short, sharp peaks of jagged rock formations bolted out from the dry, cracked canyon we were traveling through. We were in an old car, trying to drive it through the desolation as the ground rumbled outside and shook the vehicle. It seemed we were still alive, but wondered if we were already melted along with the rest of the world. The conversation went in an odd way. Comparing the car to some metaphor of willpower that only holds together because of the engine rather than having a tank-like outer shell. The roads and the mountain terrain surrounded us in a landscape of Hell.
The glass of the windows seemed to turn into outward vents of steam and I could see the ground rising up ahead. There were streams of lava unrelentingly pouring out of pulsating hills of an angry earthquake. I wasn't sure if I was in shock or if I was succumbed by the heat. I didn't feel any discomfort outside of what I was seeing.
I was in the back seat and looked out of the front window and wondered why the car wasn't stopping. Surely this would be a bad situation to keep going on in this Venusian environment, but also stopping would prove fatal if the car was our only means of survival and protection. I thought it curious that no comments were made about these being the worst driving conditions ever. I wondered even more as to why we were driving in these horrid lands. I questioned my family's sanity and sat back with my eyes tightly closed and felt a cool, soft air against my face.
The car came to a stop. The lava seemed dried up and long crusted over as we stepped out of the car. There was a store just beyond a few swirling fumes of underground pressure. We walked over the tarred surface and went in to ask if they had any ice cold water. They did. It came from an underground stream nearby. A stream that was an iceberg that had been carved out by the lava. And re-cooled by an overcast sky of acid rain clouds. We believed we were somewhere in Arizona, but I'm certain we were nearer to Venus than we were to Phoenix. But it was all the same anyway.
In those days chance meetings were swift but remembered. Yet no certainty, no real knowledge of what the future might bring. It was as if we lived in a state of waiting. Traveling was what we did, and what we dreamed. We were always on the move.
Friday, July 17, 2015
Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 3
There's An Exit
The night was a calm, muggy summer. The weather hadn't let up on no one. The humidity was like mist clinging to everyone, but it was pleasant when evening had finally fallen. There was a dewy scent in the air and I had rested and slept.
In this dream no one seemed terribly unhappy and I felt forgetful. I was enjoying my hours, days and nights in a pleasant environment. There were no nightmarish landscapes and all seemed well. It was less stressful in that time. There were a million things going on but they were ordinary things looking back on it. I was somehow oblivious to the chaos. I really couldn't remember what the event was about. But there were a lot of people shuffling around.
I was standing in the lower level of some building. There were no windows, but sunlight came in from somewhere. I could sense it. I looked around and I noticed that I was standing with all these other people who I couldn't see for they were wearing bulky, dark brown robes. Like monks of old. They silently stood there as I stood with them but couldn't figure out how I got there, and noticed that I, too, was wearing a robe like theirs. I wondered at that. I felt that somehow I was either tricked into wearing it or I was merely trying to escape detection.
They started to move and walk up the stairs that wound around the sides of the walls, in two single files. I followed their steps to blend in.
I fell to the back of the line when we all had reached the second level. It seemed that the building was some kind of hotel and there was a huge lobby area with chairs facing some kind of little stage. There were glass doors and windows along the hall and they let in a cascade of sunlight. And there were two main glass doors that lead outside. There were a lot of other people in the lobby walking around, they were dressed in normal gear. The robed people of which there were about fifteen to sixteen individuals, still seemed to blend in.
No one seemed to notice them as they walked past, in and out of the foyer and halls. I knew that was odd. But I felt I couldn't mention it.
I continued to appear like one of them. But as the hooded 'monks' reached two wooden swinging doors that led to the main lobby area, I ducked behind the right side door and hid behind it. I slipped off the cloak and let it fall to the floor, kicking it further into the corner, I didn't want anyone to see it discarded there. I was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and a yellow skirt. I knew somehow I'd still blend in. Nobody saw me. This was what I wanted but I felt nobody would have ever seen me anyway. There was a clatter of a lot of people talking as the lobby was quite crowded. They were waiting for something to start - a show perhaps.
I started walking at a good pace, but not to appear suspicious. I felt apprehensive and that I was in danger if I were discovered, but for the life of me, I didn't know why. I felt as if I were some spy and that my life depended on staying invisible. There was no open reason to my understanding of why this was, but it was. I had nothing to do with the robed people or this place. I just appeared there. But I felt the fear and danger was based on them.
I started for the two main exit doors that led outside of the building. I was halfway to the doors when I felt someone was watching me. I looked around. A few people glanced at me but they were obviously not paying any attention. I breathed a sigh of relief. I kept walking. Up ahead of me from another hallway corridor, I saw mingled with other people who took no notice, a huge dark shadow, like a cloud that grew black and glossy. As it moved in my direction it started to take the shape of a person with horns. I ran top speed to the exit and made it outside. I went into the parking lot and looked around for a car. There were a few scattered here and there. The next moment it changed. The lot was filled with cars and it was evening. The landscaping was the same though, very well taken care of with trees and flower-beds around the curbs. It was definitely a hotel parking lot.
I stood still as I noticed that just a few seconds before, it was fully daylight outside, just a little grey here and there, a soft grey, and very warm but the moment I exited, it was fully night. I longed for that hour because it was so pleasant but there was that shadow loose in that hotel building. So I resigned to the exiting of that hour, and felt no unease. I stood and heard the silence of night's cover, the crickets and peacefulness. No one had followed me through the exit doors. No one even seemed to notice what I had seen. No one was screaming and running out the doors.
I stood under the glow of the parking lot's lanterns and the protection of night's cover. I moved forward through the hours away from the shadow of the halls. It could not follow me then. There was no moon in the sky. I knew I could exit at any time I wanted. And there was a calm silence where only nature could be heard. I opened my eyes and all sounds from outside the window, were the same.
Circa 1988
The night was a calm, muggy summer. The weather hadn't let up on no one. The humidity was like mist clinging to everyone, but it was pleasant when evening had finally fallen. There was a dewy scent in the air and I had rested and slept.
In this dream no one seemed terribly unhappy and I felt forgetful. I was enjoying my hours, days and nights in a pleasant environment. There were no nightmarish landscapes and all seemed well. It was less stressful in that time. There were a million things going on but they were ordinary things looking back on it. I was somehow oblivious to the chaos. I really couldn't remember what the event was about. But there were a lot of people shuffling around.
I was standing in the lower level of some building. There were no windows, but sunlight came in from somewhere. I could sense it. I looked around and I noticed that I was standing with all these other people who I couldn't see for they were wearing bulky, dark brown robes. Like monks of old. They silently stood there as I stood with them but couldn't figure out how I got there, and noticed that I, too, was wearing a robe like theirs. I wondered at that. I felt that somehow I was either tricked into wearing it or I was merely trying to escape detection.
They started to move and walk up the stairs that wound around the sides of the walls, in two single files. I followed their steps to blend in.
I fell to the back of the line when we all had reached the second level. It seemed that the building was some kind of hotel and there was a huge lobby area with chairs facing some kind of little stage. There were glass doors and windows along the hall and they let in a cascade of sunlight. And there were two main glass doors that lead outside. There were a lot of other people in the lobby walking around, they were dressed in normal gear. The robed people of which there were about fifteen to sixteen individuals, still seemed to blend in.
No one seemed to notice them as they walked past, in and out of the foyer and halls. I knew that was odd. But I felt I couldn't mention it.
I continued to appear like one of them. But as the hooded 'monks' reached two wooden swinging doors that led to the main lobby area, I ducked behind the right side door and hid behind it. I slipped off the cloak and let it fall to the floor, kicking it further into the corner, I didn't want anyone to see it discarded there. I was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and a yellow skirt. I knew somehow I'd still blend in. Nobody saw me. This was what I wanted but I felt nobody would have ever seen me anyway. There was a clatter of a lot of people talking as the lobby was quite crowded. They were waiting for something to start - a show perhaps.
I started walking at a good pace, but not to appear suspicious. I felt apprehensive and that I was in danger if I were discovered, but for the life of me, I didn't know why. I felt as if I were some spy and that my life depended on staying invisible. There was no open reason to my understanding of why this was, but it was. I had nothing to do with the robed people or this place. I just appeared there. But I felt the fear and danger was based on them.
I started for the two main exit doors that led outside of the building. I was halfway to the doors when I felt someone was watching me. I looked around. A few people glanced at me but they were obviously not paying any attention. I breathed a sigh of relief. I kept walking. Up ahead of me from another hallway corridor, I saw mingled with other people who took no notice, a huge dark shadow, like a cloud that grew black and glossy. As it moved in my direction it started to take the shape of a person with horns. I ran top speed to the exit and made it outside. I went into the parking lot and looked around for a car. There were a few scattered here and there. The next moment it changed. The lot was filled with cars and it was evening. The landscaping was the same though, very well taken care of with trees and flower-beds around the curbs. It was definitely a hotel parking lot.
I stood still as I noticed that just a few seconds before, it was fully daylight outside, just a little grey here and there, a soft grey, and very warm but the moment I exited, it was fully night. I longed for that hour because it was so pleasant but there was that shadow loose in that hotel building. So I resigned to the exiting of that hour, and felt no unease. I stood and heard the silence of night's cover, the crickets and peacefulness. No one had followed me through the exit doors. No one even seemed to notice what I had seen. No one was screaming and running out the doors.
I stood under the glow of the parking lot's lanterns and the protection of night's cover. I moved forward through the hours away from the shadow of the halls. It could not follow me then. There was no moon in the sky. I knew I could exit at any time I wanted. And there was a calm silence where only nature could be heard. I opened my eyes and all sounds from outside the window, were the same.
Circa 1988
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 4
The Stairs Beyond The Basement
"Those were some foul ghosts, they came in here last night." Debbie said. Motels are magnets for them because so many people come and go through.
"We're all a little tired, it was an exhausting trip, we're gonna have to get home and see what's up." I said after we had all realized that we might have some relatives staying with us. It felt odd, liked mixed feelings.
Debbie looked through the papers, looked up from the table and finally asked me why I look into those dark places like that. I was confused even more why she'd ask me that. I have this gift. But I always thought that everyone had it. It made me feel alone. Because of what I see. Because of what I can do.
I had no answer, I never intend to seek them out. I just want to light up the place so we can live and have a home that is mapped and never lose our way going through all the rooms. The knowledge I sought. But I hated the task of finding anything in shadow. I wanted to help any prisoners of the darkness. So I never let the darkness kill me. I was always two steps ahead.
I paused. There was an open door to the basement.
"You shouldn't feel alone." Debbie reassured me.
But "I do feel alone sometimes. Often."
We were a normally dysfunctional group of people having done amazing feats of survival. Of this day-to-day life and still can't find the stairs to the basement. How long have we lived here, anyway? A month? Two? I'm lost because I'm fighting something bigger than the system of stairs here, I don't know.
I must turn in, the hour is unknown. I can't see it from here. If I walk toward the sound of the clock, I could reach the dining room where it was located, if I keep going on through this hallway.
I had tried to see the clock-face. It seemed to be half past seven now. It can't be that early still, it was eleven forty-five the last time I checked and that was at least an hour ago. This hallway is horribly dark.
"Look! Look! There's that guy!" Rachel screamed as we saw a shadowy man head down the stairs in our basement. Rachel was in the living room area of the basement and she startled me.
I ran after the entity with an intense willpower. I saw the figure disappear into the deep, downward stairwell. I paused. The unknown was no longer a factor and I knew I was in the other realm.
I stood by the basement door that led down the dark, cement stairs. There was very little light coming from the basement room though, when I strained to look further. Then I wondered at the structure I was surveying.
This house's basement has another basement! How could that be? Giving no more thought to it I went down the stairs. I hated this. Everything was so dark but outside light still barely lit the room. So dull and depressed. The paint was peeling. The other basement had to be pitch black. The scent of concrete was strong and earthy, so a flat floor still prevailed below.
The light shrank smaller and smaller as I followed the thin shadow. As it faded into nothingness, the light too completely disappeared. I proceeded. Catching the last trail of the escaped ghost, I gave chase, now the stairs turned into rough slabs of stone, with no solid edges and they seemed to be crumbling under the mounting dust and soil from far beneath the stairs. I choked but I could still smell the cement from up away. The stairs had stopped and ended, and now there was just some tunneled passageway that became so boxed and cramped that it was a struggle just to make any attempt at going through. But it lead to somewhere even further down. If only a few inches down, to a single box or chest containing something antique. I could see even in the dark that tools would be needed.
Time to turn back. It was so dark, so deep. I thought; What the hell is beyond this point? How could we have lived here for a week or was it a month and not even notice this stupid basement? I don't wanna know what's in the next passage! I stood for a moment.
One day I'll shake these foundations with a word or with fire from the sun. I could embody flames and walk like a spark on a fuse. It will be so pronounced that this place will be given to the light. I could attach the vibrations of the earth itself to my footsteps and open the gates of the arch of heaven to see into this place.
With that I fled back up the stairs. Suddenly the coldest touch of vapor rushed up against my spine and blew through my hair. I stopped. I uttered the same thought towards the void around me. My heart was beating so fast as I leapt up and headed for the dining room.
Okay, it's four o'clock in the morning. I guess I'll try to go back to sleep.
"Those were some foul ghosts, they came in here last night." Debbie said. Motels are magnets for them because so many people come and go through.
"We're all a little tired, it was an exhausting trip, we're gonna have to get home and see what's up." I said after we had all realized that we might have some relatives staying with us. It felt odd, liked mixed feelings.
Debbie looked through the papers, looked up from the table and finally asked me why I look into those dark places like that. I was confused even more why she'd ask me that. I have this gift. But I always thought that everyone had it. It made me feel alone. Because of what I see. Because of what I can do.
I had no answer, I never intend to seek them out. I just want to light up the place so we can live and have a home that is mapped and never lose our way going through all the rooms. The knowledge I sought. But I hated the task of finding anything in shadow. I wanted to help any prisoners of the darkness. So I never let the darkness kill me. I was always two steps ahead.
I paused. There was an open door to the basement.
"You shouldn't feel alone." Debbie reassured me.
But "I do feel alone sometimes. Often."
We were a normally dysfunctional group of people having done amazing feats of survival. Of this day-to-day life and still can't find the stairs to the basement. How long have we lived here, anyway? A month? Two? I'm lost because I'm fighting something bigger than the system of stairs here, I don't know.
I must turn in, the hour is unknown. I can't see it from here. If I walk toward the sound of the clock, I could reach the dining room where it was located, if I keep going on through this hallway.
I had tried to see the clock-face. It seemed to be half past seven now. It can't be that early still, it was eleven forty-five the last time I checked and that was at least an hour ago. This hallway is horribly dark.
"Look! Look! There's that guy!" Rachel screamed as we saw a shadowy man head down the stairs in our basement. Rachel was in the living room area of the basement and she startled me.
I ran after the entity with an intense willpower. I saw the figure disappear into the deep, downward stairwell. I paused. The unknown was no longer a factor and I knew I was in the other realm.
I stood by the basement door that led down the dark, cement stairs. There was very little light coming from the basement room though, when I strained to look further. Then I wondered at the structure I was surveying.
This house's basement has another basement! How could that be? Giving no more thought to it I went down the stairs. I hated this. Everything was so dark but outside light still barely lit the room. So dull and depressed. The paint was peeling. The other basement had to be pitch black. The scent of concrete was strong and earthy, so a flat floor still prevailed below.
The light shrank smaller and smaller as I followed the thin shadow. As it faded into nothingness, the light too completely disappeared. I proceeded. Catching the last trail of the escaped ghost, I gave chase, now the stairs turned into rough slabs of stone, with no solid edges and they seemed to be crumbling under the mounting dust and soil from far beneath the stairs. I choked but I could still smell the cement from up away. The stairs had stopped and ended, and now there was just some tunneled passageway that became so boxed and cramped that it was a struggle just to make any attempt at going through. But it lead to somewhere even further down. If only a few inches down, to a single box or chest containing something antique. I could see even in the dark that tools would be needed.
Time to turn back. It was so dark, so deep. I thought; What the hell is beyond this point? How could we have lived here for a week or was it a month and not even notice this stupid basement? I don't wanna know what's in the next passage! I stood for a moment.
One day I'll shake these foundations with a word or with fire from the sun. I could embody flames and walk like a spark on a fuse. It will be so pronounced that this place will be given to the light. I could attach the vibrations of the earth itself to my footsteps and open the gates of the arch of heaven to see into this place.
With that I fled back up the stairs. Suddenly the coldest touch of vapor rushed up against my spine and blew through my hair. I stopped. I uttered the same thought towards the void around me. My heart was beating so fast as I leapt up and headed for the dining room.
Okay, it's four o'clock in the morning. I guess I'll try to go back to sleep.
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