R.S.V.P.
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Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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Chapter XIV
by General (Uncle Claude) Xxaxx
& General (E.J. Gold) Nunan PFC 1st Class Ret.
What an odd sensation? Woo could feel the bottom of her stomach being left on the jungle floor — very much like on the big elevator in Dallas Texas.
“I hadn’t noticed how bright the jungle colors were. Just look at the hues of green and purple. I am sorry master tree I didn’t mean to intrude upon your dreams. Yes, the sun is good, rain is fine and wood burrowing grubs should be eliminated from the face of the earth — especially the fat little white ones that are so greedy.” Paying attention to what was ahead in an effort to not disturb the lay of the leaves, Woo could still see everything around and behind her. The silence was deafening. Every pore of her skin was listening to the sounds of the jungle.
Waiting. Waiting for the passing of transition. Woo made every effort to release herself from the mind, habits and identity of the human primate. Using an instinct, she selected the only obvious strategy — remember oneself as a voyager, separating one’s self from identification with the human primate within which she had been voyaging throughout the lifetime.
Almost singing to herself in the multi-chordal structure more common to the ancient Tibetians of the late twentieth century Woo continued, “The primate consciousness truly has a feeble grip — I release myself, reverting to my native state, the perfect shining void, endless light in infinite expansion; no past, present or future, all experience dissolving into the deep, shining eternal Voidness of the Void.”
Completing this quatrain, Woo slipped through transition. With this transition the last vestige of human identification drifted away leaving Woo standing in a jungle of stillness and silence. Falling backward as a diver leaping into water, Woo fell through the ground feeling a deep, incessant sensation of slowly increasing pressure, of being inexorably drawn downward into a pool of mercury or lead, of melting into the earth.
Before Woo had anytime to do anything other than surrender to the rising sensations a clammy coldness as though one had been suddenly immersed in icewater crept over her now defused morphology. “It begins with uncontrollable shivering, gradually merging into unbreathably hot, oppressively still atmosphere,” she thought to herself.
The atmosphere may have been still but Woo was high into expectation waiting for . . . , waiting for . . . , waiting for what was sure to be next — a sensation of being just on the verge of explosion, giving way to a sensation of total dispersal of self.
That was the worst part of this part. Some how she must just stay together and not allow her attention to wander. Now a feeling of being utterly at peace, utterly alone, completely outside space and time, free of all necessity; a sudden, powerful and thrilling sense of deep, ironic knowledge sweeps through the self, but this great, profound, sweeping, all-encompassing knowledge doesn’t seem to refer to anything in particular.
Time passed, time didn’t pass. For an eternity or an instant Woo floated in the twilight zone between one thing and another hearing only the sounds of silence and moving at the speed of light — stillness.
Woo awoke from the walking dream called life to find herself in a very different world. Things were getting pretty weird there for awhile — just before she passed out, in or over. She wasn’t quite sure how to describe it even to herself. But at least now Woo didn’t have to worry about things being weird, they were positively bizarre and she wasn’t worried in the slightest. They would have been weird if she had any remaining vestige of her normal reactions. In a quiet calm, Woo watched herself navigate the new environment the way a top moves across a landscape. With interest but no passion Woo could see herself standing in the crystal palace. There may be billions of crystal palaces sharing the interpenetrating planes we call reality, but this was still the crystal palace — nothing else could convey the unutterably breath taking awe it inspired.
“Pardon me Hiss Woo. I hadn’t calculated on your being a sensitive. I had given you but a taste of the astral just to test you bonds to consensus reality. I was hoping to eliminate some of the more usual reactions we dragons have come to expect from humans. But expect you to be a sensitive I did not. I could try reducing the radiations to attenuate the effects but as a sensitive you have already began the process of self initiated penetration into what we sometimes call the clairvoyant vision. It will ease up a bit after awhile.”
Looking at what must assuredly be a dragon Woo thought to herself, “The newness and oddity may become familiar.. but never casual.”
“I must agree with you, Miss Woo. Even at my age — which has no communicable magnitude — I have yet to get used to it.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Drak. To answer your next question, you have come to be tested. We wish to see if you are capable of doing more than achieving an academic study of dragon magic. It appears you already know a great deal about the magic of the void. You must be one of the Old Ones.”
“I don’t recall being an old one as you call it.” Where were the millions of other questions that she should be asking? Somehow none of the questions fluttering about in her mind were of enough importance to communicate. The answers where either too obvious or too silly to bother with.
“Drak, I am pleased to meet you. Can you tell me something of this place we are?”
“This is the crystal palace.” Picking an answer from Woo’s mind and feeding it back to her was Drak’s idea of humor — especially when the true answer was too apparent for anything other than no answer.
“And, what isn’t?” Woo quipped aloud, apparently very amused at her wittiness.
Watching Woo roll around on the jungle floor pealing in uncontrollable laughter, Drak thought that he had seen just enough to satisfy even the most conservative members of the dragons cownsil. Surely this was the one they had hoped for. With one inhalation Drak gently pulled the breath from Woo’s delicate lungs drawing her into a deep sleep. There would be much to say tomorrow.
For the moment Drak had a piece of dragon shtick to perform — if this was truly the one then there was much to set in place before she awoke. With a deft twist of the tail — dragons had little dexterity in their hand and foot digits — Drak conjured a cloud of jungle mist into a vision of a young goober. The mists coalesced above Woo’s head drifting gently in the breeze. When the vision was complete, perfect in every detail, with another flick of the tail Drak directed the image to settle onto Woo’s forehead. This is where the miniature goober hovered while Drak intoned a rather elaborate cantation directing Woo to bring the indicated goober with her upon her predicted return to China — whatever the cost, it was imperative that this goober be brought to the dragon clans. And the less Woo knew of this issue consciously the better. Thus no memory of this geas was allowed to float within her accessible consciousness.
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R.S.V.P.
|
Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
|