This IS a blogsite. A somewhat personal expression. It should contain personal experiences. So ... no one say after this, that I denied you my personal thoughts.
I just experienced this dream, and it was quite impressive to me at the time. It was a dream filled to overflowing, and being within it was like being inside a bubbling paint can; with all sorts of colors and items flowing out of it and over the rim, to disappear from my sight. And yet, as you will learn, there was very much left in the paint can with me, to occupy my attention.
I will try to account for the central theme of it, as best as I can remember.
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Before I begin, I would like to tell those two SQLD analysts (and their uncle's monkeys) that this was truly a dream. It was not dreamed as a commentary, nor is it a commentary disguised as a dream. My dreams often explore the Truth. It is not written as an attempt to reveal more about the SQLD. If the dream did so, that it what it did. I am literally writing what happened. Nothing more.
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Consider the Man. Consider the Audience. Consider the Dream.
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It began with music. A song which slowly faded into my hearing. It first appeared in its MIDI version, which is very close to the original except without the words. I had heard the song before, but until I researched the song after this dream, I had never known the words to it.
It first sailed into the dream as an LP. A bright and shining black vinyl record of 33 rpm size, that wheeled and spun as it floated into the dream from a far distance off to my upper left. It floated and sailed slowly through the dream several times, casually passing through anything and everything. And then, with complete indifference, it floated out of the dream exit Stage Right. I think that once, it had the words to it. But, the rest of the time it was the MIDI tone version.
It was never loud, or even central to the sounds of the dream. Instead it was always a faded memory. A whisper at times, a rush of departure at others, but always half muted. When I awoke, I remembered the tune and went through my MIDI collection searching for it. It is called 'Englishman In New York', and the original version is sung by 'Sting'. All of which amounts to very little, as you will learn.
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The dream started with Claude Rains leaning down at me, with that mischievous smile of his, and saying (in his best Porter's Style) -- "And, are we having a good evening? Mr. King?"
Let us look at some photographs of Claude, so we all know who I am talking about. Then, we can forget him again, until he reappears in the dream.
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There were women in this dream, but they kept flitting in and out of the action like Ingrid Bergman, at a Casablanca dress shop sale. They were always the objects of some romantic attention; like gypsy dancers leaping in and out of the scenes to briefly catch my attention. If I reached for them, they danced back out of the dream. Soon, they gave it up as the action intensified.
I was in a dark castle of very tall height. It had so many floors to it that I doubted if there was any way to count them all; or if it would be allowed. At this point in the dream there was a large staircase involved, which ascended to God Knows Where. Indeed, the unlit depths of the castle seemed to be filled with moving stars, as though bright stars had been thrown into a dark chocolate ice cream mixture before it was finished, frozen, and packaged.
This was not enough to brighten the interior of the castle, but it did add a lot of ambiance to the staircase decor. The stairway was quite visible to me, reaching always upwards and out of sight. Where the light came from for this was way beyond me, but the staircase was illuminated well enough; and naturally the higher I went the lighter matters became, ever so slowly. The stairs would rise in forty steps, and then level off for a few yards, and then start to rise again; always in one direction directly away from me. There was no sense of other directions, such as North or West.
I was intent upon repairing something in the wall of the staircase, along its right side. The staircase did not have sides, except wherever I became determined to repair something.
I would pull a laser tool out of my tool belt, and zap at a small speck in the wall right next to me. Then, a panel would recede from the wall and slide sideways; to reveal an intricate network of fiber optic cables inside, with many attending small lights of different colors. Having achieved access to the problem area, I would then stick my face into the open space, illuminate everything with my iridescent eyeballs, and look closely at the many optical cables and circuit boards inside. This always scared the bejiggers out of them, and they began to work properly, immediately.
I would then lean back away from the wall, pull on my left earlobe which turned my lights off, and the wall would cease to exist as I turned and began to walk up the staircase again. As I ascended, it appeared to me that I was also walking on the other side of the wall; a wall which was either not there, or was completely transparent.
I looked to my right, and there I saw an identical staircase, with myself slowly walking up the steps. Except, I was dressed as a character in one of my novels. I then got the definite impression that there was indeed something material between us, and I reached out towards my other self with my right hand. My hand hit something; something that was transparent to such an extent that it could not be seen.
As soon as that happened, I heard a voice say -- "These are very serious matters, your 'Sire'."
I turned to see who had said it, and I found Claude Rains standing about eight feet from me in a room that verily dripped of nineteenth century Muscovite/French furniture, and expensive draperies and gas lighting chandeliers. The colors of the room were mostly deep felt and velvet red, with a lavish amount of gold trimming; and for a moment I thought we were in the private car of a Russian Railroad President. Then, I realized we were in a room along the left side of the great staircase.
Claude Rains was trying to tell me something, and it seemed to be important from his mannerisms, but I got sidetracked by a Gypsy Dancer who tried to pull me back out to the staircase, with her dress. She wrapped it around me and tried to pull me away, but I was intent upon something else in the room. She disappeared, as I stepped into the room and went to a rosewood table in the middle of the floor. The table had a dark purple linen cloth on it, and upon that sat a piece of glass that was shaped like a small rectangle; about two inches by two inches by six inches. The edges of the glass object were rounded, but the entire surface had a strange coarseness to it, like glass sandpaper. It was transparent until I picked it up. Somehow, I knew just how to hold it, and once it had registered my fingerprints it began to light up inside. As this happened the Time and Space before it, wherever it was pointed, began to ripple and shift, and shimmer and change.
I put it back down on the table, quickly. I then returned to the stairway, and began to climb again. I looked to my right to see my other self, but instead I saw myself as though in a mirrored staircase wall. I was wearing a tuxedo, complete with spit-shinned shoes and a white dress shirt. In a kind of opaque manner, I could see my other self beyond. He was walking up the staircase, matching every step which I took. He was loading bullets into a large stainless steel revolver.
I turned back to look up the staircase, and I walked into a large room that was complicated by many tall columns imbedded into its walls, like half-relief roman columns all along its perimeter. The room was floored in white marble tiles, real ones, and there was no furniture in it. The walls were colorless, as though displayed in black-and-white (or greyscale), but the upper heights of the room were a marvel of golden ceiling architecture, as though I was in a Montreal cathedral.
I walked up to the walls, and began to puzzle my brain about how to solve their problems. The columns needed rearranging, and it had to be done in the right order. I was involved in this, and remembering a sequence of codes which I had used long ago for just such a situation, when I heard a voice again -- "They will be here shortly, Your 'Sire'."
I turned away from the wall, to see Claude Rains walking across the room towards me. He was now dressed in a black suit, as though he had once been a military man. He looked as though he had decided to continue to wear his black uniform, without any emblems or badges of rank, to which he had added a black cape. It made him look the rogue, and yet the professor at the same time. His hair was now quite white, long and combed back upon his head. He sported a short white beard, and mustache neatly trimmed. He wore a white collar beneath the cape, which seemed to accent his head. His clothing was polished black however, from shoes to collar. He was never a very tall man, but this attire made him seem taller.
I started to hear arguing. I could hear men discussing something, and not agreeing. Somehow, I knew the answer to their problems, and I went out onto the stairs again to find them and tell them. I walked up the stairway again, and rooms appeared along its sides, set into walls that I had never seen before. No room had a door, so I walked into each one as I came to it; because I could hear the arguing. Every time I entered a room, the arguing went away and became loud again in the next room; which was always on the opposite side of the staircase. I zig-zagged up the stairs from room to room for a while, never able to find the men who were talking.
I stopped, and looked to my right again to see if my other self was visible. He was standing looking at me, with a dead antelope draped over his right shoulder. The silver revolver was smoking from its barrel, in his left hand.
I thought of the glass object again. As soon as I did, many side staircases appeared, all of which molded themselves into the grand staircase. Then a lot of corridors appeared, all leading sideways away from the grand staircase. All of them had arched ceilings, and were so long that their lengths disappeared into the distance on any side.
I was determined to get back to that glass object however, so I started to look for a red and gold room as I descended the stairway. As I stepped downwards, the staircase led right into the same lavishly appointed room that I had been in before; only this time the stairs ran right through the room and continued downwards.
I walked to the small rosewood table, and picked up the glass object. As soon as it read my fingerprints, it began to glow and shine outwards with many lights of different colors. Then, I turned and looked upwards along the rising staircase. From far above there had been a sound, like the blowing of a distant horn. A horn made of horn, not metal.
I looked back down at the glass object in my right hand. I pointed it at the far right wall. I aimed it at a spot in the upper left center of the wall. There, amidst the red and gold patterns of the wallpaper, appeared a large circle about five feet in diameter. Its inner circumference was ridged, as though to accept a gear wheel, but there was none. Through the circular space in the wall, I could see another world. Another Planet Earth.
I became gripped in an intense feeling that a choice had to be made. While I was so occupied, the far left wall of the room became filled with large glass windows. The room then took on the appearance of a curio shop, filled with shelves containing antiques and books and lamps, puppets and toy drums and so forth; except for a large space near the windows at the left wall. I had to walk through the shelves to reach this space, holding the glass object in my hand.
As I reached the space, I noticed that the windows were taller than they were wide, and they were held together in place by strong vertical beams of hardwood walnut. Through those windows I could clearly see a vast throng of people, all of whom were either in a hurry or standing looking confused. The hurried ones were variously tromping along the street with loads on their backs, alone and with bitter looks; or marching in groups for the protection of numbers; or driving cattle drawn wagons and horse drawn carriages -- all going from my right to my left in the scene.
They looked decidedly European, perhaps slavic and teutonic. There was no monopoly of body types, facial patterns or class definitions. They were, at a glance, an emergency blend of everyone and everything; somehow molded together into a great moving throng of Humanity, as only great adversity can forge.
Claude Rains appeared again to my right. He was still dressed in black, with his white collar, his black cape and his white hair. This time he was quite agitated. He was quite surprised to see me standing there. With his arms up in the air, and the fingers of his hands stretched apart in warning, he shouted -- "No, You Fool! This is Dresden!"
Instantly, the windows before me flashed, and became almost nonexistent due to an enormous white light that burst through them. As I closed my eyes, I was aware that there should be a shock wave, and everything (including myself) should no longer exist -- but instead I could see, through my closed eyelids, that the light just changed into a cacophony of orange, yellow and red explosions.
I opened my eyes again to see the windows, and the left wall, standing undamaged and immune to the carnage that was occurring outside. But, the sight remained. The wide and cobblestoned street beyond the windows had been filled with immigrants and refugees, and beasts of burden, and the people of Dresden -- when the Fire Storm began. Now, the carts were torn to pieces and smashed about in enormous bursts of flames. Body parts pelted the windows, and smeared the glass dark red for brief seconds; and then the intense searing heat evaporated even that. Inside the maelstrom, there were still people running on fire. In places there were bellies and legs alone, running without upper torsos. Horses exploded, and then evaporated. The buildings on the other side of the street burst apart, showering everything with bricks and mortar and wood chips; but this all evaporated in the impossible storm, before it could reach the windows in front of me.
There was no sound -- except that of Claude Rains. He was standing quite still, about ten feet to my right. He was looking ahead of himself, as if alone and commenting to the Angels about Earthly Matters. The fire storm raged just outside the windows, and I could see both Claude Rains, and the gruesome reality. Smashed faces appeared at intervals, pressed up against the windows with incredible force, and then burning into cinders quickly. Sometimes, only a hand or a shoe, or a purse, or the back of a naked baby would hit the windows; and then explode as if consumed by an atomic rage. Still, there were people running and flailing about in the fires outside. Most of them either fell into burning red heaps; or became torches, white hot in the orange and red fireball.
The street itself buckled and heaved from the ripple effects of the bomb blasts, tossing more refugees, fallen oxen, headless bodies, and bodiless heads upwards; to flash brightly like match heads in the blood-red and white-orange mixture. Everything turned and churned with terrible force, the street being repeatedly painted with blood which was immediately seared off and stone polished again, by another landing death blow from above.
As it all proceeded, he spoke in a detached monotone. "Dresden -- 13th February 1945. 2,431 tons of high explosive bombs. 1,475 tons of incendiary bombs are dropped onto the city of Dresden. Filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Tide of the Soviet Armies, that are driving westwards. There is little military importance to the city, it is incinerated for a show of force and revenge. To impress Joseph Stalin with the 'Allied Might', and to revenge the bombing of English cities. The death toll exceeds 100,000 -- all removed from existence completely."
I stood there, bathed in bursts of incendiary lights, and watched his figure slowly fade out of existence. In my right hand, the glass object began to glow more brightly, as if in competition with the hellish flames outside. Something hit the windows. It looked for a few brief seconds like the back of an old woman, clad in an old brown coat with a blue scarf over her head, who had been opening a door, perhaps to flee from the street. Now, the old woman and the doorway and the door hit the windows together. They then flared up into a cloud mass of white particles, which the fire storm immediately gathered to itself. This was whisked away, and added to the hurricane of flames and fumes, as more bombs fell outside. It all began to become Death Surreal.
I turned away from the windows, and stepped past the shelves to the far right wall again. Through the wide hole in that wall I could see a different world, another Earth. A horn, made of horn, sounded again somewhere above me; far above and away on the great stairway.
I quickly dove upwards, and through the opening. I landed upon a grassy field, almost a lawn, of great proportions. It was scattered with islands of deciduous forests, and the occasional dark blue pool, which was surrounded by a beltway of flowers. The lawn was quite green, and across it was a wide golden road of crushed gold.
That is where the familiarity ended, however. All about this place there vibrated a feeling of unexpectedness, and chance, and risk, and a wideness of uncertainty. This was reinforced, when I looked above me and stared in disbelief into a dark sky of star fields, very close and unaffected by any atmospheric effects. I literally thought that if I reached up, I would touch a star. Or, at least get noticed by it.
I turned back to see that the wall was still there, and the opening was still there. I could see the room on the other side, and the stairway running through it at an angle. The far windows were still ablaze with livid explosions.
I looked upwards again, and this time I noticed that the stars were slowly turning, as if they were affixed to a huge celestial wheel, that I was standing just beyond the edge of. There was a chill up there, and very close, but I was feeling none of that. Instead, I was sensing a keenness of energy, as though someone had plugged the prongs of my shoes into a recharge outlet.
I turned again, and walked out onto the grass fields towards the golden road. At this, there appeared from my left, as though coming over a very near horizon, a lady driving a carriage with two appaloosa horses before her. She did not see me, that was apparent. She, and the horses and the carriage came along the road at sort of a half-speed trot. They were like a seamless video, that was all around me, but it was set for slow motion at half-speed. I concentrated on her face. She looked very much like a young and blond-haired Ingrid Bergman. She was dressed in a richly made dark green riding outfit, with a green coat topped by a high collar in white. All of the trim of her clothing was white.
She never saw me, nor did the horses as they passed right before me. The horses were talking about horse racing and looking ahead, while she was looking upwards and to her left, with a broad smile on her red lips. She had bright white teeth, but it was her expression that struck me. She was looking into her skies with a wide-eyed happiness and contentment with what she was doing, and where she was going, and where she was.
She belonged here. But, here was definitely alien. She was alien. She was happy, but everything was Other Earth. I, on the contrary, had a growing feeling of being in the wrong place, or at least in need of a lot of adjustments. She drove on past me, and I watched her for a moment, then noticed that I was still dressed in a Tuxedo. I was rife to quip that my cane and hat were missing, but then something caught my eyes. Away from me and ahead of me, by about three hundred yards, was a tall wall of grey stones covered partly with green vines. It was nestled into a space between two groves of tall broad-leafed trees. As such, it was shaded from the stars above. But, there was a bright spot in it. The bright spot caught my attention, because of its contrast to the rest of the wall.
As happens in dreams, I covered the space to the wall quite quickly, and then I was standing some six feet before it. Mid-center in the wall's mass was a large opening, with a toothed inner circumference, about five feet wide. Through it, I could see a fascinating three-dimensional view of the interior of some unknown Galaxy. Nebula’s vied with Supernovas and Pulsars for the eye's attention, in a sweeping grandeur of universal colors; and with an attention to detail that was very impressive. This happens from time to time in our lives, as we get so adjusted and complacent to the daily items and events of our existence; and then something surprising and sharp happens, and we are both startled and amazed that our eyes really can see that well.
There was no doubt about it. A Galaxy, that I had never seen before, was just on the other side of that opening. I could not see anything on the near side, however. Where would I land, if I jumped in?
The question never got answered, as I was suddenly back inside the red and gold room from French Moscow. Claude Rains was gone, and the windows on the far left side were now black, swirling black.
I was at a Choosing Point, and I knew it. I looked through the opening in the right wall again. There was no sight of the green fields and forests of the Other Earth. Instead, I was in a room on the other side, identical to this one. There, Claude Rains was standing in the center of the floor, and I was sitting in a red chair, hunched over and staring at a dead antelope on the rug between myself and Claude Rains. I had a steel revolver in my belt, and I was looking down as he spoke.
I could not hear what he said in there, but I heard what he was saying to me in here. I turned, and Claude Rains was standing next to me, pointing at the colorful glass object in my right hand. I could not make out his words, but the meaning was becoming clear. Violence was a valuable commodity to moderate masters. Moderation was always a failure. Moderation always tries to appease. Moderation tried to appease National Socialism. Now, and he looked at the churning clouds of darkness outside the windows, this was necessary. I was welcome, under conditions. I was being given a choice. I could stay here, or jump again -- this time forever.
He explained that here, there was moderation and all of the absurdities and excesses that went with it. He motioned towards the windows, as he spoke. I could stay here, but I would have to repair everything; and moderation was always destroying everything at the same time. The columns of sanity were completely broken and awry because of violent cowardice, and would never be properly aligned again.
But, on the other side there was the complete unknown. And, he emphasized, I was not from there. My chances at survival were completely unknown. Did I not feel the difference?
I was still simmering from the effects of the vibrations on the other side, and it was like an electricity running through my veins. More charged, and on a different frequency than I was used to. There was literally nothing that I could expect on the other side. Whatever was there, I would become.
I stepped to the opening in the wall, and looked through it at my other self. He was going to stay. He said that he knew how to deal with the mazes of moderation. He would survive, and adapt. From his chair he said, in a beaten voice -- "Ich bin ein moderate."
I could not help myself. I shouted through the opening at him -- "And, I suppose you are a jelly-filled donut too!"
I did not agree with his surrender. I understood what it meant, an existence instead of a consciousness. But, I had more life than that and I had gotten a glimpse, however brief, of something far more incredible and greater than this side possessed. Compared to it, despite the feeling of sheer alien existence, nothing here was worth staying for.
I turned to the right wall, and raised the glass object up before me. I pointed it at the opening in the wall, and saw it flash brightly. Then, I saw a dark movement coming at me from my left side, and I ...
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Markel Peters
http://www.voices-of-iowa.blogspot.com/
I just experienced this dream, and it was quite impressive to me at the time. It was a dream filled to overflowing, and being within it was like being inside a bubbling paint can; with all sorts of colors and items flowing out of it and over the rim, to disappear from my sight. And yet, as you will learn, there was very much left in the paint can with me, to occupy my attention.
I will try to account for the central theme of it, as best as I can remember.
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Before I begin, I would like to tell those two SQLD analysts (and their uncle's monkeys) that this was truly a dream. It was not dreamed as a commentary, nor is it a commentary disguised as a dream. My dreams often explore the Truth. It is not written as an attempt to reveal more about the SQLD. If the dream did so, that it what it did. I am literally writing what happened. Nothing more.
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Consider the Man. Consider the Audience. Consider the Dream.
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It began with music. A song which slowly faded into my hearing. It first appeared in its MIDI version, which is very close to the original except without the words. I had heard the song before, but until I researched the song after this dream, I had never known the words to it.
It first sailed into the dream as an LP. A bright and shining black vinyl record of 33 rpm size, that wheeled and spun as it floated into the dream from a far distance off to my upper left. It floated and sailed slowly through the dream several times, casually passing through anything and everything. And then, with complete indifference, it floated out of the dream exit Stage Right. I think that once, it had the words to it. But, the rest of the time it was the MIDI tone version.
It was never loud, or even central to the sounds of the dream. Instead it was always a faded memory. A whisper at times, a rush of departure at others, but always half muted. When I awoke, I remembered the tune and went through my MIDI collection searching for it. It is called 'Englishman In New York', and the original version is sung by 'Sting'. All of which amounts to very little, as you will learn.
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The dream started with Claude Rains leaning down at me, with that mischievous smile of his, and saying (in his best Porter's Style) -- "And, are we having a good evening? Mr. King?"
Let us look at some photographs of Claude, so we all know who I am talking about. Then, we can forget him again, until he reappears in the dream.
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There were women in this dream, but they kept flitting in and out of the action like Ingrid Bergman, at a Casablanca dress shop sale. They were always the objects of some romantic attention; like gypsy dancers leaping in and out of the scenes to briefly catch my attention. If I reached for them, they danced back out of the dream. Soon, they gave it up as the action intensified.
I was in a dark castle of very tall height. It had so many floors to it that I doubted if there was any way to count them all; or if it would be allowed. At this point in the dream there was a large staircase involved, which ascended to God Knows Where. Indeed, the unlit depths of the castle seemed to be filled with moving stars, as though bright stars had been thrown into a dark chocolate ice cream mixture before it was finished, frozen, and packaged.
This was not enough to brighten the interior of the castle, but it did add a lot of ambiance to the staircase decor. The stairway was quite visible to me, reaching always upwards and out of sight. Where the light came from for this was way beyond me, but the staircase was illuminated well enough; and naturally the higher I went the lighter matters became, ever so slowly. The stairs would rise in forty steps, and then level off for a few yards, and then start to rise again; always in one direction directly away from me. There was no sense of other directions, such as North or West.
I was intent upon repairing something in the wall of the staircase, along its right side. The staircase did not have sides, except wherever I became determined to repair something.
I would pull a laser tool out of my tool belt, and zap at a small speck in the wall right next to me. Then, a panel would recede from the wall and slide sideways; to reveal an intricate network of fiber optic cables inside, with many attending small lights of different colors. Having achieved access to the problem area, I would then stick my face into the open space, illuminate everything with my iridescent eyeballs, and look closely at the many optical cables and circuit boards inside. This always scared the bejiggers out of them, and they began to work properly, immediately.
I would then lean back away from the wall, pull on my left earlobe which turned my lights off, and the wall would cease to exist as I turned and began to walk up the staircase again. As I ascended, it appeared to me that I was also walking on the other side of the wall; a wall which was either not there, or was completely transparent.
I looked to my right, and there I saw an identical staircase, with myself slowly walking up the steps. Except, I was dressed as a character in one of my novels. I then got the definite impression that there was indeed something material between us, and I reached out towards my other self with my right hand. My hand hit something; something that was transparent to such an extent that it could not be seen.
As soon as that happened, I heard a voice say -- "These are very serious matters, your 'Sire'."
I turned to see who had said it, and I found Claude Rains standing about eight feet from me in a room that verily dripped of nineteenth century Muscovite/French furniture, and expensive draperies and gas lighting chandeliers. The colors of the room were mostly deep felt and velvet red, with a lavish amount of gold trimming; and for a moment I thought we were in the private car of a Russian Railroad President. Then, I realized we were in a room along the left side of the great staircase.
Claude Rains was trying to tell me something, and it seemed to be important from his mannerisms, but I got sidetracked by a Gypsy Dancer who tried to pull me back out to the staircase, with her dress. She wrapped it around me and tried to pull me away, but I was intent upon something else in the room. She disappeared, as I stepped into the room and went to a rosewood table in the middle of the floor. The table had a dark purple linen cloth on it, and upon that sat a piece of glass that was shaped like a small rectangle; about two inches by two inches by six inches. The edges of the glass object were rounded, but the entire surface had a strange coarseness to it, like glass sandpaper. It was transparent until I picked it up. Somehow, I knew just how to hold it, and once it had registered my fingerprints it began to light up inside. As this happened the Time and Space before it, wherever it was pointed, began to ripple and shift, and shimmer and change.
I put it back down on the table, quickly. I then returned to the stairway, and began to climb again. I looked to my right to see my other self, but instead I saw myself as though in a mirrored staircase wall. I was wearing a tuxedo, complete with spit-shinned shoes and a white dress shirt. In a kind of opaque manner, I could see my other self beyond. He was walking up the staircase, matching every step which I took. He was loading bullets into a large stainless steel revolver.
I turned back to look up the staircase, and I walked into a large room that was complicated by many tall columns imbedded into its walls, like half-relief roman columns all along its perimeter. The room was floored in white marble tiles, real ones, and there was no furniture in it. The walls were colorless, as though displayed in black-and-white (or greyscale), but the upper heights of the room were a marvel of golden ceiling architecture, as though I was in a Montreal cathedral.
I walked up to the walls, and began to puzzle my brain about how to solve their problems. The columns needed rearranging, and it had to be done in the right order. I was involved in this, and remembering a sequence of codes which I had used long ago for just such a situation, when I heard a voice again -- "They will be here shortly, Your 'Sire'."
I turned away from the wall, to see Claude Rains walking across the room towards me. He was now dressed in a black suit, as though he had once been a military man. He looked as though he had decided to continue to wear his black uniform, without any emblems or badges of rank, to which he had added a black cape. It made him look the rogue, and yet the professor at the same time. His hair was now quite white, long and combed back upon his head. He sported a short white beard, and mustache neatly trimmed. He wore a white collar beneath the cape, which seemed to accent his head. His clothing was polished black however, from shoes to collar. He was never a very tall man, but this attire made him seem taller.
I started to hear arguing. I could hear men discussing something, and not agreeing. Somehow, I knew the answer to their problems, and I went out onto the stairs again to find them and tell them. I walked up the stairway again, and rooms appeared along its sides, set into walls that I had never seen before. No room had a door, so I walked into each one as I came to it; because I could hear the arguing. Every time I entered a room, the arguing went away and became loud again in the next room; which was always on the opposite side of the staircase. I zig-zagged up the stairs from room to room for a while, never able to find the men who were talking.
I stopped, and looked to my right again to see if my other self was visible. He was standing looking at me, with a dead antelope draped over his right shoulder. The silver revolver was smoking from its barrel, in his left hand.
I thought of the glass object again. As soon as I did, many side staircases appeared, all of which molded themselves into the grand staircase. Then a lot of corridors appeared, all leading sideways away from the grand staircase. All of them had arched ceilings, and were so long that their lengths disappeared into the distance on any side.
I was determined to get back to that glass object however, so I started to look for a red and gold room as I descended the stairway. As I stepped downwards, the staircase led right into the same lavishly appointed room that I had been in before; only this time the stairs ran right through the room and continued downwards.
I walked to the small rosewood table, and picked up the glass object. As soon as it read my fingerprints, it began to glow and shine outwards with many lights of different colors. Then, I turned and looked upwards along the rising staircase. From far above there had been a sound, like the blowing of a distant horn. A horn made of horn, not metal.
I looked back down at the glass object in my right hand. I pointed it at the far right wall. I aimed it at a spot in the upper left center of the wall. There, amidst the red and gold patterns of the wallpaper, appeared a large circle about five feet in diameter. Its inner circumference was ridged, as though to accept a gear wheel, but there was none. Through the circular space in the wall, I could see another world. Another Planet Earth.
I became gripped in an intense feeling that a choice had to be made. While I was so occupied, the far left wall of the room became filled with large glass windows. The room then took on the appearance of a curio shop, filled with shelves containing antiques and books and lamps, puppets and toy drums and so forth; except for a large space near the windows at the left wall. I had to walk through the shelves to reach this space, holding the glass object in my hand.
As I reached the space, I noticed that the windows were taller than they were wide, and they were held together in place by strong vertical beams of hardwood walnut. Through those windows I could clearly see a vast throng of people, all of whom were either in a hurry or standing looking confused. The hurried ones were variously tromping along the street with loads on their backs, alone and with bitter looks; or marching in groups for the protection of numbers; or driving cattle drawn wagons and horse drawn carriages -- all going from my right to my left in the scene.
They looked decidedly European, perhaps slavic and teutonic. There was no monopoly of body types, facial patterns or class definitions. They were, at a glance, an emergency blend of everyone and everything; somehow molded together into a great moving throng of Humanity, as only great adversity can forge.
Claude Rains appeared again to my right. He was still dressed in black, with his white collar, his black cape and his white hair. This time he was quite agitated. He was quite surprised to see me standing there. With his arms up in the air, and the fingers of his hands stretched apart in warning, he shouted -- "No, You Fool! This is Dresden!"
Instantly, the windows before me flashed, and became almost nonexistent due to an enormous white light that burst through them. As I closed my eyes, I was aware that there should be a shock wave, and everything (including myself) should no longer exist -- but instead I could see, through my closed eyelids, that the light just changed into a cacophony of orange, yellow and red explosions.
I opened my eyes again to see the windows, and the left wall, standing undamaged and immune to the carnage that was occurring outside. But, the sight remained. The wide and cobblestoned street beyond the windows had been filled with immigrants and refugees, and beasts of burden, and the people of Dresden -- when the Fire Storm began. Now, the carts were torn to pieces and smashed about in enormous bursts of flames. Body parts pelted the windows, and smeared the glass dark red for brief seconds; and then the intense searing heat evaporated even that. Inside the maelstrom, there were still people running on fire. In places there were bellies and legs alone, running without upper torsos. Horses exploded, and then evaporated. The buildings on the other side of the street burst apart, showering everything with bricks and mortar and wood chips; but this all evaporated in the impossible storm, before it could reach the windows in front of me.
There was no sound -- except that of Claude Rains. He was standing quite still, about ten feet to my right. He was looking ahead of himself, as if alone and commenting to the Angels about Earthly Matters. The fire storm raged just outside the windows, and I could see both Claude Rains, and the gruesome reality. Smashed faces appeared at intervals, pressed up against the windows with incredible force, and then burning into cinders quickly. Sometimes, only a hand or a shoe, or a purse, or the back of a naked baby would hit the windows; and then explode as if consumed by an atomic rage. Still, there were people running and flailing about in the fires outside. Most of them either fell into burning red heaps; or became torches, white hot in the orange and red fireball.
The street itself buckled and heaved from the ripple effects of the bomb blasts, tossing more refugees, fallen oxen, headless bodies, and bodiless heads upwards; to flash brightly like match heads in the blood-red and white-orange mixture. Everything turned and churned with terrible force, the street being repeatedly painted with blood which was immediately seared off and stone polished again, by another landing death blow from above.
As it all proceeded, he spoke in a detached monotone. "Dresden -- 13th February 1945. 2,431 tons of high explosive bombs. 1,475 tons of incendiary bombs are dropped onto the city of Dresden. Filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Tide of the Soviet Armies, that are driving westwards. There is little military importance to the city, it is incinerated for a show of force and revenge. To impress Joseph Stalin with the 'Allied Might', and to revenge the bombing of English cities. The death toll exceeds 100,000 -- all removed from existence completely."
I stood there, bathed in bursts of incendiary lights, and watched his figure slowly fade out of existence. In my right hand, the glass object began to glow more brightly, as if in competition with the hellish flames outside. Something hit the windows. It looked for a few brief seconds like the back of an old woman, clad in an old brown coat with a blue scarf over her head, who had been opening a door, perhaps to flee from the street. Now, the old woman and the doorway and the door hit the windows together. They then flared up into a cloud mass of white particles, which the fire storm immediately gathered to itself. This was whisked away, and added to the hurricane of flames and fumes, as more bombs fell outside. It all began to become Death Surreal.
I turned away from the windows, and stepped past the shelves to the far right wall again. Through the wide hole in that wall I could see a different world, another Earth. A horn, made of horn, sounded again somewhere above me; far above and away on the great stairway.
I quickly dove upwards, and through the opening. I landed upon a grassy field, almost a lawn, of great proportions. It was scattered with islands of deciduous forests, and the occasional dark blue pool, which was surrounded by a beltway of flowers. The lawn was quite green, and across it was a wide golden road of crushed gold.
That is where the familiarity ended, however. All about this place there vibrated a feeling of unexpectedness, and chance, and risk, and a wideness of uncertainty. This was reinforced, when I looked above me and stared in disbelief into a dark sky of star fields, very close and unaffected by any atmospheric effects. I literally thought that if I reached up, I would touch a star. Or, at least get noticed by it.
I turned back to see that the wall was still there, and the opening was still there. I could see the room on the other side, and the stairway running through it at an angle. The far windows were still ablaze with livid explosions.
I looked upwards again, and this time I noticed that the stars were slowly turning, as if they were affixed to a huge celestial wheel, that I was standing just beyond the edge of. There was a chill up there, and very close, but I was feeling none of that. Instead, I was sensing a keenness of energy, as though someone had plugged the prongs of my shoes into a recharge outlet.
I turned again, and walked out onto the grass fields towards the golden road. At this, there appeared from my left, as though coming over a very near horizon, a lady driving a carriage with two appaloosa horses before her. She did not see me, that was apparent. She, and the horses and the carriage came along the road at sort of a half-speed trot. They were like a seamless video, that was all around me, but it was set for slow motion at half-speed. I concentrated on her face. She looked very much like a young and blond-haired Ingrid Bergman. She was dressed in a richly made dark green riding outfit, with a green coat topped by a high collar in white. All of the trim of her clothing was white.
She never saw me, nor did the horses as they passed right before me. The horses were talking about horse racing and looking ahead, while she was looking upwards and to her left, with a broad smile on her red lips. She had bright white teeth, but it was her expression that struck me. She was looking into her skies with a wide-eyed happiness and contentment with what she was doing, and where she was going, and where she was.
She belonged here. But, here was definitely alien. She was alien. She was happy, but everything was Other Earth. I, on the contrary, had a growing feeling of being in the wrong place, or at least in need of a lot of adjustments. She drove on past me, and I watched her for a moment, then noticed that I was still dressed in a Tuxedo. I was rife to quip that my cane and hat were missing, but then something caught my eyes. Away from me and ahead of me, by about three hundred yards, was a tall wall of grey stones covered partly with green vines. It was nestled into a space between two groves of tall broad-leafed trees. As such, it was shaded from the stars above. But, there was a bright spot in it. The bright spot caught my attention, because of its contrast to the rest of the wall.
As happens in dreams, I covered the space to the wall quite quickly, and then I was standing some six feet before it. Mid-center in the wall's mass was a large opening, with a toothed inner circumference, about five feet wide. Through it, I could see a fascinating three-dimensional view of the interior of some unknown Galaxy. Nebula’s vied with Supernovas and Pulsars for the eye's attention, in a sweeping grandeur of universal colors; and with an attention to detail that was very impressive. This happens from time to time in our lives, as we get so adjusted and complacent to the daily items and events of our existence; and then something surprising and sharp happens, and we are both startled and amazed that our eyes really can see that well.
There was no doubt about it. A Galaxy, that I had never seen before, was just on the other side of that opening. I could not see anything on the near side, however. Where would I land, if I jumped in?
The question never got answered, as I was suddenly back inside the red and gold room from French Moscow. Claude Rains was gone, and the windows on the far left side were now black, swirling black.
I was at a Choosing Point, and I knew it. I looked through the opening in the right wall again. There was no sight of the green fields and forests of the Other Earth. Instead, I was in a room on the other side, identical to this one. There, Claude Rains was standing in the center of the floor, and I was sitting in a red chair, hunched over and staring at a dead antelope on the rug between myself and Claude Rains. I had a steel revolver in my belt, and I was looking down as he spoke.
I could not hear what he said in there, but I heard what he was saying to me in here. I turned, and Claude Rains was standing next to me, pointing at the colorful glass object in my right hand. I could not make out his words, but the meaning was becoming clear. Violence was a valuable commodity to moderate masters. Moderation was always a failure. Moderation always tries to appease. Moderation tried to appease National Socialism. Now, and he looked at the churning clouds of darkness outside the windows, this was necessary. I was welcome, under conditions. I was being given a choice. I could stay here, or jump again -- this time forever.
He explained that here, there was moderation and all of the absurdities and excesses that went with it. He motioned towards the windows, as he spoke. I could stay here, but I would have to repair everything; and moderation was always destroying everything at the same time. The columns of sanity were completely broken and awry because of violent cowardice, and would never be properly aligned again.
But, on the other side there was the complete unknown. And, he emphasized, I was not from there. My chances at survival were completely unknown. Did I not feel the difference?
I was still simmering from the effects of the vibrations on the other side, and it was like an electricity running through my veins. More charged, and on a different frequency than I was used to. There was literally nothing that I could expect on the other side. Whatever was there, I would become.
I stepped to the opening in the wall, and looked through it at my other self. He was going to stay. He said that he knew how to deal with the mazes of moderation. He would survive, and adapt. From his chair he said, in a beaten voice -- "Ich bin ein moderate."
I could not help myself. I shouted through the opening at him -- "And, I suppose you are a jelly-filled donut too!"
I did not agree with his surrender. I understood what it meant, an existence instead of a consciousness. But, I had more life than that and I had gotten a glimpse, however brief, of something far more incredible and greater than this side possessed. Compared to it, despite the feeling of sheer alien existence, nothing here was worth staying for.
I turned to the right wall, and raised the glass object up before me. I pointed it at the opening in the wall, and saw it flash brightly. Then, I saw a dark movement coming at me from my left side, and I ...
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Markel Peters
http://www.voices-of-iowa.blogspot.com/
