Once Upon a Never...

'kay, so. this is a dream. I've been attempting to commit it to writing for the last.... three or so months. thus far this is as far as I've gotten. I haven't proof read any of it so guaranteed it's wonky. haha. but anyway.

_____________________________________

she is walking.

there are a million lights, in a myriad of colors, so many that it's hard to tell whether they're reflecting off the structures that surround her and multiplying in the air, or whether they are a part of the structures or the plants growing around them, or whether they are a part of her.

the structures are buildings, communal places, or iridescent pinks and blues and purples and greens -- everything glows, refracts. it's hard to look at one thing for too long, because nothing remains the same.

she's walking with people. it's hard to tell how many, because she is so distracted by the almost intolerable beauty of the landscape. "this is paradise," she thinks, disrupted for a moment as someone brushes against her arm.

she looks up, and is mesmerized by the apparition floating above them. It is a temple -- it has to be a temple. no structure that stately can exist and not be a temple, not be holy. it glows of it's own light, which flows across its surface as light flows across the surface of the water when seen from beneath the waves, ripples of light.

suddenly they are in the temple. she can feel the light, as though it is a part of her, and she is a part of it, and therefore a part of the temple. she is aware of the people around her, but only as she is aware of her arm, or her tongue. they are simply a part of her, ans she a part of them.

there is a man, however, who stands separate, apart, a whole entity. his isolation breaks the unity. he is a wedge between she and the temple, she and the others. perhaps he is a wedge for them as well, but she doesn't know, because she is no longer them.

she is separate from the temple, and though she understood it moments before, now she does not understand, does not commune.

"why are we here?"

the man, his name is sal, salvatore, something like that (how does she know, how?), looks at her questioningly. "existentially, or....?"

"no, no, why are we here? in this temple, instead of on the ground?"

"why be on the ground when we could be here?"

______________

she is no longer in the temple, but it hovers on the edge of her thoughts. she feels as though she is forgetting herself. she is missing something that she must find.

_______________

she stands in front of the doors (there are three of them, in a row on a wall. the wall is white, lined with silver), simply standing for a moment in simple silence, admiring the lines of silver, the contrast of the alabaster, the curver of the wall, then she moves forward and slides the second door open just enough to slide through, then slides it shut again. the nearly transparent walls (which are opaque from the outside) let in the brilliant sunlight, which reflects off the silver sculpture that litters the floor, and the silver backing of the single chair in one corner of the small room. it is a quiet place. a place for meditation.

a place for waiting.

so she waits. she sits on the edge of the chair and ponders the silver figure on the floor, and watches as the shadows cast by the silver working on the door and the walls dance slowly across the floor.

________________

he does not knock, only stands for a second, framed in the tracing -- classic greek figure, toned, patient. she knows him, or feels somehow like she knows him. he is familiar in the same way that jesus would be familiar, if you saw him on the street.

she closes her eyes as he slides the door open and steps inside, sinks deeper into herself and her convictions. breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

_________________

two men stood at the top of the steps, surrounded by a retinue of nobodys, men holding books and swords and standards, acting as little more than a nice frame for the stately figures. they were tall, and the token greek/roman stateliness and form was echoed in their movements and their manners. the man on the left could not have been much more than a boy, not a man for long, youth was written so deeply in his countenance that she cannot imagine for a moment his growing old. his hair is a deep chestnut brown and curls gently around his face. his eyes are an unnatural silver and glint in the sun, and he holds a harp in the crook of his right arm. the man on the right has aged, but aged well. he does not smile... in fact, he may be the only sober individual on the podium. His pale grey hair is still full and lustrous.

he speaks to me again, this man who would be my jesus, of turning away, forsaking my faith, becoming one. 

we'll face the unforgivable with a smile on our faces, because it's not good going to death with a scream.  

inquisitor
condemnation with celebration
procession
purification
offering

she turns to him, smiles and says "why be there, when I can be here?"

If the cabin had seemed unprepossessing, the room within it was anything but. Quite the contrary -- it was overwhelming. Keis blinked a few times in surprise as she passed through the door, unable for a few moments to orient herself in space and time, the atmosphere was so distracting. Things were spinning, fluttering, glinting in the light of lamps she was sure must be hanging somewhere in the mess, clinking distractingly as they knocked back and forth off of one another. Strings and strips of leather were tied and wrapped around the supporting beams of the room (there didn't seem to be a ceiling, or perhaps there had been, but it had been removed) in myriads. Different lengths, colors, materials. Objects dangled from the ends of a good majority of the strings, and it was these objects that set the room apart and set her head spinning so dramatically. Mainly, none of the objects dangling above her head and around her shoulders seemed to be of any practical use, beyond swinging a knocking off your head as you tried to maneuver through the room. Keis reached out her hand and sent a string of brightly colored beads spinning into what seemed to be a large gear plucked from some grandfather clock long dead, the sound of their collision swallowed by the hundreds of other tones refracting throughout the room. No, not quite, she thought as she turned slowly in order to survey the room and its odd decor in full. It's that they could have been practical once, or had been practical, but now they're simply swinging from the rafters by frayed leather cords. Once a person got past the initial sensory overload, the scene was quite striking. There, in the far corner of the room, gleamed a garland fashioned of what seemed to be an entire set of polished silver spoons. There were old bike wheels spinning here and there, some with things like feathers or twine or ribbons woven in between the spokes, strings of old-fashioned Christmas lights that flickered now and then despite a complete lack of electricity, keys of all shapes sizes and sheens, zippers and buttons all strung together in brightly colored and shining patterns, ash trays, rings, bracelets, bangles, earrings, combs and brushes, a few mirrors of varied sizes and shapes. She caught a brief glance of what could have been a toothbrush, as well, which nearly sent her into a paroxysm of giggles. It was all a-spin as if a slight breeze blew into the room from somewhere, so many sounds to accompany the astounding visual that moving was more of an all-around assault on the senses. She felt as if she were sitting in on a performance in the symphony hall of the universe, surrounded by stars and nebula and planets, familiar but made completely alien by the surroundings. The floor of the room was nowhere near as exciting as the air above it, though it had a sort of austere beauty of its own. It was inlaid with wood of many different grains and colors and waxed until it gleamed with the reflections from the lights above. The only piece of real furniture in the room was a footstool. Keis wove through the hangings toward the center of the room, trailing her fingers through the strings of beads and pans and scissors and good lord, was that Tupperware?, stopping once she stood next to the stool, and the man who sat on it. He did turn to look at her as she approached, only continued to stare up into a mobile that seemed to be fashioned of hundreds of sewing needles, following its progression as it twisted and glittered on its string, each needle reflecting back the colors from all of the other... flotsam surrounding it. That's what this is. He's just hung everything here. What he's picked up, collected. Each color reflected on the needles reflected in his eyes, which were wide and innocent-looking, more like a child's than a man's. His features, as well, had a beautiful sort of simplicity about them - simple the way childhood is simple, the way pure silver is simple, the way blue sky is simple. Those wide eyes were blue, and they seemed to look more beyond things (and people) than directly at them, and were framed by long dark lashes. His lips seemed prone to smiling, and the slight lines at the corners of his eyes reconstituted the idea. He sat the way a child would sit, all in unnatural angles, and Keis thought that he moved as if he were a finch rather than a person. The he in question was called James. James was a scryer -- a prophet. Something of an enigma, a pariah. He was a not enigmatic because he was a prophet, however, but more because he refused to acknowledge that he was a prophet. Thus, he was absolutely no help to anyone. At least, not to the majority of the people who would seek the assistance of any kind of prophet. And the kind of person James perhaps would have dealt with were more likely to take one look at him and run the other direction. Keis, having traveled further and seen more than most (if not all) of those particular people, had absolutely no problem with James' eccentricity. "James my dear," she said softly, following his gaze to the needles spinning in the unseen breeze, "I need you to gaze the wind for me."

____________________________________________________

Attempt at uh..... location.... description. Which I fail at. So I don't know. There are also a few words in there that I may very well have made up. Because I'm just that cool. My apologies for quite a few incredibly cliché moments. And mid-story entrance. This doesn't really belong to anything, story-line wise, though it might eventually because I like these characters. Characters, places, and storywhatever all copyright to me.