This is a transcript of a dream I had a little while ago. Don't worry if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense to me. I'm just trying to capture the feel and emotion of the dream. Hopefully I did so.
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The wind stayed, the sun stood, and he walked on. He walked through the jagged shadows that the buildings around threw on the ground. The strip of sky visible between the towering buildings was ablaze with red. The sun was setting and the sky was announcing its habitual hibernation. He walked over the stone steps, each step reverberating through his body; each step a reminder of how far he had strayed from his goal - of each and every compromise he made to keep things together.
I am these stones, he thought - stepped on and ignored - merely a means to an end. Just a stepping stone to be passed and forgotten. I have sold myself so many times, and for so many reasons, that I no longer own myself. I'm owned by those who don't know me. I was bought by those who quickly climb me, using me to increase one rung on their ladder. To be quickly used up, passed by, and left for oblivion. It was all for others, but was it worth it? That's what this is all being fought about, the price I sold myself for. I may never receive the very thing that I pawned myself for.
He noticed he was staring at his feet as he walked. The frequency of this had been increasing the last few months. He used to hold his head high everywhere we went. He looked into eyes and saw people. Skies would open to his gaze and the sun was always able to find his face. Not anymore. Now the cold gray stone was his comrade; the dirt, his greeter. He knew it was an action of his physical body, but he could feel it weigh down something deeper and heavier. He couldn't hold his head up, and his deeper self - his soul, his consciousness - could tell. It seemed ashamed of the weakness of his body; ashamed of the change and regression of the magnificent specimen he once was. His posture accurately reflected his demeanor. He could hold the facade no longer.
Finally there was an opening in the buildings and the cobblestone stretched out, circling itself, creating a series of concentric circles. The last rays of sunlight reached the ground here. The red sky lent its fiery disposition to the ground around him, and the contrast between the inanimate ground and his own limp body became heavy and oppressive. There were figures here, each one low to the earth, yet their shadows stretched yards away from them. Each huddled mass with its long tail of a shadow resembled a tombstone. That's what this place has become, he realized, a graveyard. Death is no longer an accepted part of our sojourn here, but rather the defining factor of what we have become. The dark thought weighed him down further.
There was a dark mass huddled in the center of the concentric, stone circles. He recognized the bent figure and his solemn walking found a new destination. He walked towards the center of the square.
He found who he was looking for in the middle. "Mars, why are we doing this? Division is the last thing we need. Please." There was pleading in his voice. It wasn't supposed to be there but his fighting spirit was gone - pleading was all he had left. "I'm not asking you to see eye to eye with us. All I'm asking is you step aside for just a little longer until we deal with the larger problem at hand. Afterwords you can hate me. Revile me. Demonize me. I don't ...care. Just give me some time now. Give me this time on credit and you can decide the payment later. Fair or unfair, it doesn't matter. You're holding the lion's share and I have nothing left to barter with. I only have ... myself." He choked on the last word. I don't even own myself anymore, he though bitterly. I'll have to buy myself back from strangers and vagrants just to sell myself one last time to this zealot. He was silent; he had nothing more to say, so he stood before Mars.
Mars was sitting on the cobblestone. His lanky body folded up, his knees against his chest and his arms hugging his legs. He gently swayed back and forth, whispering a haunting melody. There were more than a dozen others following Mars' strange actions - all sitting and swaying, murmuring different tunes. They all seemed to be facing different directions, sporadically spaced; there was no pattern to their placement. Their all maintained the same posture and their movements were synchronized, yet he saw no reason to their placement. He felt uneasy looking at them. This was supposed to be a protest against powers, yet they all looked ridiculous and weak. They looked ready to submit, not fight.
"Stop this," he said. He meant to sound strong, determined - like the leader everyone appointed him to be. His voice came out timid, barely a whisper. He fell to his knees. Speaking louder was an impossibility. The only hope he had of being heard was getting closer. Now Mars' face was only inches from his. His arms hung limply by his side. He felt they should be doing something dramatic: grabbing Mars' in a fierce grip; shaking Mars' until he lost sense of himself; do something, anything. They hung there. He couldn't bring himself to use his arms. Like his voice, there was no energy left. Like his voice, his arms were tired. They had done so much and accomplished so little. They needed to rest, and he didn't know if they resisted him or if he himself was so tired he could not dictate the actions of his own body. "You've caused too much division. You've alienated those from Woodfall, you've made the student body frightened of the Fenix, our protectors. Please, we need them, and you insist on demonizing them. They owe us nothing, and we've nothing to give them. We are relying on their good graces and yet you take their gift and spit in their faces. We need them more than ever now. Please, just accept their gift, even if you don't accept them."
Mars' cadence was unbroken. He didn't seem to notice the figure kneeling before him. Mars' swaying and whispering continued. He was about to get up from his knees and leave - about to give up, accept the situation for what it had become, to take the losses and admit failure. He was about to do all this when he realized that Mars was actually talking in his hushed whispers. "... no ... no. I understand, Ressive. Ressive, I understand perfectly... this isn't about the divisions among us... not about divided people." His eyes locked onto Ressive's. For the first time since Ressive arrived at the square he openly acknowledged his presence.
His swaying continued but his words became audible and lost their manic quality. Mars' voice became loud and clear. It dominated the cobblestone square. No one else responded to the commanding voice, continuing in their swaying and humming, but Ressive knew they heard. This is power, Ressive thought. This is the voice of a leader. Did I ever have this? Ressive thought back and could not recall possessing this aura of authority. He knew he must have at some point, but couldn't recall. He was kneeling before a thin, lanky figure sitting on cobblestone, hugging his legs, and Ressive felt small in the comparison.
"You - Ressive, you simply don't understand. This has nothing to do with dividing Woodfall and Tylo, nothing to do with setting at ends the Diaboles and Kij. There is a very foundational idea that is at play here - far too simple for you to accept. This is about people, Ressive, true, living people. Those 'things' you call Fenix are nothing more than the world's longest practical joke."
Mars was voice was steady. It grew no louder, yet it seemed to gain more power. Ressive felt Mars looking down on him. He blinked and realized that with Mars sitting and Ressive kneeling, Mars' eyes were a few inches below him. Mars was actually looking up into Ressive's face, but Ressive couldn't shake the feeling of Mars' superiority over him.
"I'm talking about life, Ressive. I don't think anyone would argue that a living, breathing organism, regardless of how simple or complex, has, by merit of being living, far more worth than an inanimate object - an infinite amount more. I know you believe these things to be alive. I'm not saying that they aren't, or that we can't know. What I am saying is that they may not be alive and as of now we don't know. We can figure out later, but we should not place priority on these unknowns when we can be saving those that we know to be living. In the worst case scenerio, some lives are lost to save many, many more. In the best case, we sacrifice objects to save lives. It simply doesn't make sense to stop protecting ourselves to discover if these things have a pulse. There was a time for such studies, but the time is gone. We need self-preservation now, and once the threat is gone we can go back to studying these relate-able mystifications. It only makes sense to act on what we know. We are, Ressive, simply asking you to wait. Help us protect ourselves. Once we are safe, we can go back to your debate on these little manufactured riddles."
Ressive had heard all the arguments before. He had countered them all more times than he wished to recount. Try as he may, Ressive could not refute that Mars had logic on his side. But that was the problem: Mars had logic on his side and Ressive only the truth. Ressive himself knew it, but had no proof for his declarations. He had to convince through faith, having people trust that Ressive knew what he was doing, even if he could not explain it. Mars had logic, and simply had to explain the situation to gain followers. He didn't need to trick or pander, he simply had logic, and that was all he needed.
He knew why the reasoning was wrong, but he couldn't disagree with Mars. Mars said so it simply. He didn't demand, he didn't argue. He simply discussed what was happening, and despite knowing the truth, Ressive found himself becoming endeared to the man, the cause, and the voice - though, mainly the voice.
"You need to understand, Ressive, what has happened. A few bleeding hearts thought that they should be treated more like us. They thought placing a dog in smoking jacket could teach it to read. Any semblance of intelligence, any hint of humanity is simply them mimicking us. They are reflecting back what they have seen for millenia. By your reasoning we should give suffrage to looking glass. As you said, they are asking nothing of us. Why is this? It's because they need nothing of us. They need nothing of us because they have no needs. You can kill a million marionettes and never loose a single soul, yet you are asking us to lay down our lives for these empty husks. Now I understand your concern. As you said, what if they are living? We simply do not know this. And now is not the time to find the answer. If we act as though they are not alive, as we believe now, we are none the less for it no matter our course of action and final discovery. If we act as though they are on equal footing with us, we stand the chance of losing very much if we are wrong. Just wait, Ressive. We are not polar opposites in this struggle. Place your trust in me, and we can band together to protect all of us here. None need to die or even worry. Just place your priorities straight, and all will be right."
Ressive found himself once again mesmerized by the silken words just spoken. Once he came to his senses enough to protest, he tried, but discovered Mars' eyes had gone back to staring at some nothing in the distance. Try as he may, Ressive could not snap Mars out of his meditative state.
Ressive slowly rose to his feet, and as he did, Mars right hand left his knees. Slowly the hand raised to the level of his face, opened, with his palm facing to the last remnants of a darkening sky. In the middle of his palm was a small blue flame. The incandescent light cast an eerie hue across his face. The blue light from Mars' tiny flame danced and entwined with the red light being cast from the dying sun. The two colors moved and flowed together adding a regal attribute to Mars' already present sense of greatness. Ressive almost knelt again, this time in worship. He stopped, staring down at Mars. He did not know what to do, so he watched.
Soon the others mimicked Mars' actions. Soon there were a dozen hands with a dozen blue flames all held at eye level. The square was now bathed in the blue light. The murmured chanting became unified and with its unity grew its force. The chanting grew, and with it the tiny flames seemed to burn with more intensity. Soon their words were audible and soon after that, deafening. The blue flames grew brighter until they became blinding. Ressive was forced to turn away. The blue light danced off the cobblestones and adjacent buildings. The shadows that flickered held the taste of a pagan dance; a gesture defiant to the ways of the old gods and welcoming ave to appease a new deity. Facing away, Ressive still needed to shield his eyes. The luminosity of the tiny flames achromatized all the surroundings. The world turned to blue walls and blue stones with black shadows dancing across their faces. The intensity of the sound followed the intensity of the light. Ressive felt the pain in his ears, and threw his hands up to cover them. It was too late, he could feel blood seeping onto his palm.
Ressive never chose to leave, he just find himself running away from the square - running away from the chanting and the chilling blue light. His eyes were closed and his hands up against his ears, yet he kept running. He stopped a few buildings away to catch his breath. but he could still hear them chanting - chanting in a unified cadence - chanting with a single, awful voice, "Mandalia, our lady in white..."
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The wind stayed, the sun stood, and he walked on. He walked through the jagged shadows that the buildings around threw on the ground. The strip of sky visible between the towering buildings was ablaze with red. The sun was setting and the sky was announcing its habitual hibernation. He walked over the stone steps, each step reverberating through his body; each step a reminder of how far he had strayed from his goal - of each and every compromise he made to keep things together.
I am these stones, he thought - stepped on and ignored - merely a means to an end. Just a stepping stone to be passed and forgotten. I have sold myself so many times, and for so many reasons, that I no longer own myself. I'm owned by those who don't know me. I was bought by those who quickly climb me, using me to increase one rung on their ladder. To be quickly used up, passed by, and left for oblivion. It was all for others, but was it worth it? That's what this is all being fought about, the price I sold myself for. I may never receive the very thing that I pawned myself for.
He noticed he was staring at his feet as he walked. The frequency of this had been increasing the last few months. He used to hold his head high everywhere we went. He looked into eyes and saw people. Skies would open to his gaze and the sun was always able to find his face. Not anymore. Now the cold gray stone was his comrade; the dirt, his greeter. He knew it was an action of his physical body, but he could feel it weigh down something deeper and heavier. He couldn't hold his head up, and his deeper self - his soul, his consciousness - could tell. It seemed ashamed of the weakness of his body; ashamed of the change and regression of the magnificent specimen he once was. His posture accurately reflected his demeanor. He could hold the facade no longer.
Finally there was an opening in the buildings and the cobblestone stretched out, circling itself, creating a series of concentric circles. The last rays of sunlight reached the ground here. The red sky lent its fiery disposition to the ground around him, and the contrast between the inanimate ground and his own limp body became heavy and oppressive. There were figures here, each one low to the earth, yet their shadows stretched yards away from them. Each huddled mass with its long tail of a shadow resembled a tombstone. That's what this place has become, he realized, a graveyard. Death is no longer an accepted part of our sojourn here, but rather the defining factor of what we have become. The dark thought weighed him down further.
There was a dark mass huddled in the center of the concentric, stone circles. He recognized the bent figure and his solemn walking found a new destination. He walked towards the center of the square.
He found who he was looking for in the middle. "Mars, why are we doing this? Division is the last thing we need. Please." There was pleading in his voice. It wasn't supposed to be there but his fighting spirit was gone - pleading was all he had left. "I'm not asking you to see eye to eye with us. All I'm asking is you step aside for just a little longer until we deal with the larger problem at hand. Afterwords you can hate me. Revile me. Demonize me. I don't ...care. Just give me some time now. Give me this time on credit and you can decide the payment later. Fair or unfair, it doesn't matter. You're holding the lion's share and I have nothing left to barter with. I only have ... myself." He choked on the last word. I don't even own myself anymore, he though bitterly. I'll have to buy myself back from strangers and vagrants just to sell myself one last time to this zealot. He was silent; he had nothing more to say, so he stood before Mars.
Mars was sitting on the cobblestone. His lanky body folded up, his knees against his chest and his arms hugging his legs. He gently swayed back and forth, whispering a haunting melody. There were more than a dozen others following Mars' strange actions - all sitting and swaying, murmuring different tunes. They all seemed to be facing different directions, sporadically spaced; there was no pattern to their placement. Their all maintained the same posture and their movements were synchronized, yet he saw no reason to their placement. He felt uneasy looking at them. This was supposed to be a protest against powers, yet they all looked ridiculous and weak. They looked ready to submit, not fight.
"Stop this," he said. He meant to sound strong, determined - like the leader everyone appointed him to be. His voice came out timid, barely a whisper. He fell to his knees. Speaking louder was an impossibility. The only hope he had of being heard was getting closer. Now Mars' face was only inches from his. His arms hung limply by his side. He felt they should be doing something dramatic: grabbing Mars' in a fierce grip; shaking Mars' until he lost sense of himself; do something, anything. They hung there. He couldn't bring himself to use his arms. Like his voice, there was no energy left. Like his voice, his arms were tired. They had done so much and accomplished so little. They needed to rest, and he didn't know if they resisted him or if he himself was so tired he could not dictate the actions of his own body. "You've caused too much division. You've alienated those from Woodfall, you've made the student body frightened of the Fenix, our protectors. Please, we need them, and you insist on demonizing them. They owe us nothing, and we've nothing to give them. We are relying on their good graces and yet you take their gift and spit in their faces. We need them more than ever now. Please, just accept their gift, even if you don't accept them."
Mars' cadence was unbroken. He didn't seem to notice the figure kneeling before him. Mars' swaying and whispering continued. He was about to get up from his knees and leave - about to give up, accept the situation for what it had become, to take the losses and admit failure. He was about to do all this when he realized that Mars was actually talking in his hushed whispers. "... no ... no. I understand, Ressive. Ressive, I understand perfectly... this isn't about the divisions among us... not about divided people." His eyes locked onto Ressive's. For the first time since Ressive arrived at the square he openly acknowledged his presence.
His swaying continued but his words became audible and lost their manic quality. Mars' voice became loud and clear. It dominated the cobblestone square. No one else responded to the commanding voice, continuing in their swaying and humming, but Ressive knew they heard. This is power, Ressive thought. This is the voice of a leader. Did I ever have this? Ressive thought back and could not recall possessing this aura of authority. He knew he must have at some point, but couldn't recall. He was kneeling before a thin, lanky figure sitting on cobblestone, hugging his legs, and Ressive felt small in the comparison.
"You - Ressive, you simply don't understand. This has nothing to do with dividing Woodfall and Tylo, nothing to do with setting at ends the Diaboles and Kij. There is a very foundational idea that is at play here - far too simple for you to accept. This is about people, Ressive, true, living people. Those 'things' you call Fenix are nothing more than the world's longest practical joke."
Mars was voice was steady. It grew no louder, yet it seemed to gain more power. Ressive felt Mars looking down on him. He blinked and realized that with Mars sitting and Ressive kneeling, Mars' eyes were a few inches below him. Mars was actually looking up into Ressive's face, but Ressive couldn't shake the feeling of Mars' superiority over him.
"I'm talking about life, Ressive. I don't think anyone would argue that a living, breathing organism, regardless of how simple or complex, has, by merit of being living, far more worth than an inanimate object - an infinite amount more. I know you believe these things to be alive. I'm not saying that they aren't, or that we can't know. What I am saying is that they may not be alive and as of now we don't know. We can figure out later, but we should not place priority on these unknowns when we can be saving those that we know to be living. In the worst case scenerio, some lives are lost to save many, many more. In the best case, we sacrifice objects to save lives. It simply doesn't make sense to stop protecting ourselves to discover if these things have a pulse. There was a time for such studies, but the time is gone. We need self-preservation now, and once the threat is gone we can go back to studying these relate-able mystifications. It only makes sense to act on what we know. We are, Ressive, simply asking you to wait. Help us protect ourselves. Once we are safe, we can go back to your debate on these little manufactured riddles."
Ressive had heard all the arguments before. He had countered them all more times than he wished to recount. Try as he may, Ressive could not refute that Mars had logic on his side. But that was the problem: Mars had logic on his side and Ressive only the truth. Ressive himself knew it, but had no proof for his declarations. He had to convince through faith, having people trust that Ressive knew what he was doing, even if he could not explain it. Mars had logic, and simply had to explain the situation to gain followers. He didn't need to trick or pander, he simply had logic, and that was all he needed.
He knew why the reasoning was wrong, but he couldn't disagree with Mars. Mars said so it simply. He didn't demand, he didn't argue. He simply discussed what was happening, and despite knowing the truth, Ressive found himself becoming endeared to the man, the cause, and the voice - though, mainly the voice.
"You need to understand, Ressive, what has happened. A few bleeding hearts thought that they should be treated more like us. They thought placing a dog in smoking jacket could teach it to read. Any semblance of intelligence, any hint of humanity is simply them mimicking us. They are reflecting back what they have seen for millenia. By your reasoning we should give suffrage to looking glass. As you said, they are asking nothing of us. Why is this? It's because they need nothing of us. They need nothing of us because they have no needs. You can kill a million marionettes and never loose a single soul, yet you are asking us to lay down our lives for these empty husks. Now I understand your concern. As you said, what if they are living? We simply do not know this. And now is not the time to find the answer. If we act as though they are not alive, as we believe now, we are none the less for it no matter our course of action and final discovery. If we act as though they are on equal footing with us, we stand the chance of losing very much if we are wrong. Just wait, Ressive. We are not polar opposites in this struggle. Place your trust in me, and we can band together to protect all of us here. None need to die or even worry. Just place your priorities straight, and all will be right."
Ressive found himself once again mesmerized by the silken words just spoken. Once he came to his senses enough to protest, he tried, but discovered Mars' eyes had gone back to staring at some nothing in the distance. Try as he may, Ressive could not snap Mars out of his meditative state.
Ressive slowly rose to his feet, and as he did, Mars right hand left his knees. Slowly the hand raised to the level of his face, opened, with his palm facing to the last remnants of a darkening sky. In the middle of his palm was a small blue flame. The incandescent light cast an eerie hue across his face. The blue light from Mars' tiny flame danced and entwined with the red light being cast from the dying sun. The two colors moved and flowed together adding a regal attribute to Mars' already present sense of greatness. Ressive almost knelt again, this time in worship. He stopped, staring down at Mars. He did not know what to do, so he watched.
Soon the others mimicked Mars' actions. Soon there were a dozen hands with a dozen blue flames all held at eye level. The square was now bathed in the blue light. The murmured chanting became unified and with its unity grew its force. The chanting grew, and with it the tiny flames seemed to burn with more intensity. Soon their words were audible and soon after that, deafening. The blue flames grew brighter until they became blinding. Ressive was forced to turn away. The blue light danced off the cobblestones and adjacent buildings. The shadows that flickered held the taste of a pagan dance; a gesture defiant to the ways of the old gods and welcoming ave to appease a new deity. Facing away, Ressive still needed to shield his eyes. The luminosity of the tiny flames achromatized all the surroundings. The world turned to blue walls and blue stones with black shadows dancing across their faces. The intensity of the sound followed the intensity of the light. Ressive felt the pain in his ears, and threw his hands up to cover them. It was too late, he could feel blood seeping onto his palm.
Ressive never chose to leave, he just find himself running away from the square - running away from the chanting and the chilling blue light. His eyes were closed and his hands up against his ears, yet he kept running. He stopped a few buildings away to catch his breath. but he could still hear them chanting - chanting in a unified cadence - chanting with a single, awful voice, "Mandalia, our lady in white..."
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