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The Transformation of Oz - Part One
The Transformation of Oz - Part One
A Faerie Tale of the Multiverse
Prelude…
“Forests are said to be magical places. Some have believed that when you enter the woods, you are in fact entering the tangled tresses of the goddess who is the very embodiment of Earth itself. How many worlds must have such places… and how many goddesses must watch over them? Yet, perhaps all of them are one being whose will stretches forth across all that is. Or one spirit, one power! Such is the way of a many and varied creation.” Thus spoke the last scribe of the city that is, was, and ever shall be. The aging philosopher recorded the reigns of kings and queens, and now he has outlived them all. Long after the last emerald had ceased to sparkle, long after the last of the small folk who so loved the color blue had made the journey to the dimension from whence their ancestors came… he remained. He would have to make a similar crossing now, for there was nothing left here to remain for. The scribe spoke into his recording device one final time: “This land has never been the same since we lost our queen, and her companion the princess. I cannot recall the queen’s name any longer, and I’ve no wish to disturb the messages she has left for future generations. But the princess I do remember: Dorothea. She whom we called the ‘goddess of gifts’! Once I had been cruelly hung upon a wooden cross, by an arrogant plantation owner who was not satisfied with my labors: and so he left me to die after he sewed unto my skin another skin… one of rags and patches. He replaced my organs with straw as they dried and ceased to function, and my blood he switched with sawdust when the last of it had poured out upon the cornfield where my place of torment was set up. Bock was his name, and he is long gone. He tried to convince me that my brain was likewise replaced with straw and sawdust… but in my heart I knew it was there. Even during the time when I gave in to despair and allowed myself to forget! It was Dorothea who helped me to remember myself again. No wizard, no king nor queen. Just a little girl who became a princess! As the wisest being in all of this ancient land, I have foreseen the future. Another child will come in her time, and after her the messiah who will change all things as foretold in our most sacred of prophecies. But first is come ruin, desolation, and forgetfulness. The old powers have moved on, and their peoples have either moved on with them or changed beyond all recognition. I am the last, just as I was the first of the princess’s companions. I read somewhere that the queen will return in the form of a man, and I see the irony in that. Had she not been a man, originally, before the power of a wish changed her… changed him? A lonely man: will she return as, and one very much acquainted with sorrow. The princess shall be reborn as well, and she shall become an eternal child… then, when they both return to this world, another wish shall be made, and by the power it unleashes all things will be changed. I am not to bear witness to those coming events… for the call of those who have moved on is as a siren song to me. Other worlds await me now, and so I leave the future in the hands of those whom prophecy tells us shall come. I have faith that it shall be so. They called me the Scarecrow, but I am the very last regent of the city that is now falling into ruins. I leave this record to history.” And so, the ragged looking man placed the recorder into an alcove of the grand hall and pressed a button nearby it, sealing the last archive for all of time. In the distance, a storm was brewing and by the sound of it… it would be a twister. That is the way the others passed, and the scribe would pass the same way. He waited outside of the palace in which he had spent so many years in stewardship. It was time to let go now… and the first drops of rain caressed the patchwork man’s face. Because of Bock’s cruelty, there was always a kind of pain when he was either too hot or too cold. Soon, that would pass. It is said that when you moved on, you were reborn someplace else. “I will be whole again!” he declared. And soon, the storm was upon the courtyard and approaching the scribe with fury. “The queen shall return, and so I must not fear. I must embrace the whirlwind, and let it carry me unto my fate. Ozymandia, last queen of Oz, and Dorothea, princess of Oz: may your returns, and the fulfillment of prophecy, come swiftly!” Soon, he was wet and in searing agony, as he was every time he got that wet. But, as ever, he bore the pain that had become a part of his daily life. What else could he do? His old friend, the lion man, had taught him much about courage, and the one who was more machine than man taught him of compassion. He was complete, and it was time to join his old friends at last. Somewhere, beyond the storm… over a rainbow… he would pass into legend. In another world, in another time, the queen was reborn as a male child in a modern age. A child that did not fit in, and so became well acquainted with despair! In an age long before that, the princess was reborn early, and so she had to find a way to become immortal, to bide her time.
Forward…
Jonathan Coronis fancied himself to be an ordinary man of his time, yet all his life he felt apart from his peers. As if he actually did belong in another place or time than this one. His love of nature was inspired by much time spent walking in the woods and forests, where he sought peace and more often than not found only loneliness and existential questions. At night, he dreamed of a girl in white, who told him of his past incarnations and spoke of strange things. Things like parallel worlds, and other planes of existence than this one, the one Jon grew up in and thought of as the hub around which reality revolved. He began to believe in reincarnation, and knew he had lived before. Sometimes, what he knew or thought he knew contradicted recorded history, and so he realized that some of those past lives might have been lived on a parallel Earth, where history went differently. It was easy for people to think of Jon as strange, or even crazy. And so it was that in his mid 30’s, he began to know a dark despair. Often, he dreamed of a black demon with his own face, that laughed at him and made him believe he could only fail, but there came a time when he realized this was only his own dark side. And so, he ignored it and focused on the business of just living.
Prologue…
I could not recall a night when I slept better, than that night, under the stars, in that fair garden of the other world. But you are wondering, perchance, of my tale… and how it transpired… are you not? Let us return to the beginning, then. Back to the end of the month of April, the month that is for fools… or so they say. I could best call it a time of self-induced madness, for now I am of the opinion that the normal mores of society are invented to unman men and make of women something less than what they could be otherwise. They are invented to keep us insane, to keep us sheep-like and bound to an uncaring government and a system that is becoming more controlling for fear of losing control. I was pondering this peculiar thought, this very oddest of notions, the day when my entire misadventure began. I was also on the verge of self-destruction because of growing despair at the loneliness of my life, and the immense anger growing within me because of it. Who to take that anger out on? Only myself. And so was the frustration of my anguish becoming something almost tangible to me. I wished I could flee… to another world.
Chapter One: Journey from Despair…
And so was the day in question nearly my last. I was going through the dull motions of everyday life in my home, in a miserable small town with no pity for those who aspire to anything greater than waiting on tables or hashing burgers that only kill people from too much cholesterol. That night, I intended to end my life in some expedient fashion or another, but I was to learn that fate had other plans for me. Mad plans for a madman in a mad world! But was I mad, or just in despair at my awareness and the fact that I was powerless to act upon it at the time? Perhaps the true lunatics are those who know not their own insanity. At any rate, it was dusk when I found myself on my way home from the local library, where I vowed never to return to… for no more was there for me to learn, and the dead had no future. I was walking down the longer road past the nearby cemetery at the time, taking my time to get back. Why rush, after all? So many tombstones, and yet my mother lay in an unmarked grave! I could not bear that injustice, but my stepfather was too tight with his money to care… and I was nearly financially broken from helping others too much. I pondered on what would be done when I died, when all of a sudden a little girl in a frilly white dress came skipping out between the trees on my side of the road, the farthest from the graveyard. She gave me a curious look as she stopped for a moment, appearing unsure of what to say or do. I was a stranger, and little girls were not supposed to talk to strangers in our paranoid and delusional society. “Hello, sir.” She said. “You look kind, but troubled.” I asked her if I might speak to her, if her parents would mind. “No, sir. My parents won’t mind at all if we talk. My daddy is dead, anyway.” I told her that my mother was dead, and she replied: “It’s hard to lose a loved one, but it’s harder to give up on love, like you are doing! Why end your life, sir? Surely, there must be some hope left in it for you.” I then realized there was something strange about this child. How did she know my thoughts, and the reason for my giving up on life? “Child, you must be psychic to see me so truly. It’s not so much that I’m giving up, though. It’s that the world has given up on giving me a chance to find love. Can love even exist in a world so controlling and cruel as this one? Tell me that, if you know.” And the girl moved her golden blonde tresses out of her face for a moment before speaking: “I’m here to give you a glimmer of hope. A chance to recover your mind, before it is past the time for second chances! Follow me, sir. Let me show you a better way.” And so I followed the little blonde girl in white, who led me towards the boundaries of a nearby stretch of woods farther down the road. Soon, she stopped before the forest and took my hand. The last female to hold my hand in any way was my ex-wife. I’ve been alone for seven years, almost eight, and that touch made me weep profoundly. The girl saw my tears and whispered to me: “I know, I know. Let it all out! They say grown men should never cry, but why deny your feelings? It goes against nature to harden the heart, so let it out sweet man. Sweet poet. Perhaps you’ll not need to shed such tears again, eh? That is the hope I offer you.” And she reached around with her other hand and hugged me as if I were a long-lost loved one. “Oh, if you are some angel come to comfort me in my time of need, I am grateful!” I exclaimed. “My pain… it is too much! Take it away, if you can.” She then softly said, in a voice more adult than childish: “I cannot take your pain away, but I can help you to ease it past this time of danger. Follow this child, and before her task is through you will know hope once again, and long for life too.” I returned the child’s hug to show her I was grateful for this second chance at life, and said: “Show me the way, sweet guide. I will follow.”
As we walked along paths only my guide could see, I said to the little girl: “So, who are you? Tell me your name. Also, would you like to know mine?” And suddenly, she turned and looked at me with a familiar understanding as she said: “I know you well enough, Jonathan Coronis. And you know me, too, from your dreams and visions. We are as familiar as the closest of kindred.” And then she wiped some pine needles from the ribbons on her dress before we continued on. The pines of this forest were tall. I’d never appreciated their height, their majesty before today, except for when I was still a teenager, back when life seemed so serious but wasn’t so bad after all. The problem was always me. I never quite seemed to fit in, in any time. I watched my guide gracefully tracing her steps through the woods, one delicate foot forward at a time. I never wanted to be a father when I could have been, and once I really wanted to… I was alone. Yet here I was, catering to the whims of some unusual child who, for all I knew, could have been as mad as I was becoming. For, was it not mad to go with someone you don’t know as far away from civilization as it seemed possible to get? Even so, I could still hear the road behind us. We were not so far from the hustle and bustle of the modern world as I had imagined us to be! It was a beautiful place… sunlight streaming in shafts through the trees like curtains of light. As if some god were showing its’ glory to an ignorant human race. I did not want to go back, only to wherever this compassionate child led me. I was lost in an unending reverie, walking as if in a dream… though I was awake. It was late in the afternoon, and soon it would be night. Fog was just starting to roll in, and it seemed that time itself was passing in ways strange to my understanding. If Alice followed a white rabbit into wonderland… where would Alice herself lead me? The scent of the pines was becoming heady, and I could hear the babbling of a stream somewhere nearby. We were farther and farther into the depths of the green, and the road was gone from view. Good riddance to it, I said, and was lost… happily. Yet, somehow I felt as if a part of me was somehow cast adrift in a dream.
It is amazing how, when you have nothing to lose, you can come to appreciate everything. Even the smallest of things! After what seemed like hours, the little girl stopped her pace and bade me to sit down on a nearby log. She sat down next to me and slung one arm around my waist, as a daughter would. “Jon, this is the green we are in now. The green is the spiritual heart of nature… and it exists in the other world. Most human beings cannot enter it, but you have proved capable of making that crossing unscathed. Let us rest for a bit now; fear not! For though it is night in the world of humanity, here time passes more slowly, and so we have some hours yet before the stars are out in the other world.” The child then leaned her head against me, and just stared off into the woods, seeing something I could only imagine. I kissed her on the top of her head, and said to her: “I wish you had been my daughter.” She said to me, in response: “I wish you had been my father.” And we both wept. She told me that she was born in the 1800’s and ran away from home when her father died. She ran into some woods and almost died there, when the power of the green took her into the other world. “People don’t die here in the other world, so here I’ve been living ever since. I can’t age, and I’ll never die. I’m a part of nature forever, and I like it! But it gets lonely, and that’s why I called you here today. We are the same, in many ways, you and I. Both of us are lonely souls who just need something more in their lives. I’ve been calling you through your dreams, and now here you are. Here we are.” And as she explained this to me, I felt a new understanding growing upon me. “Like Peter Pan, you have brought me to Never-never land!” I said, in jest, and she whispered to me: “That was my favorite story.” And we laughed beneath the canopy of pines, on our little log in the middle of nowhere, yet perhaps also everywhere. “Not just boys become lost.” I said at last. “I realize that now! Thank you.” Just then, she felt a caterpillar crawling on her hand and showed it to me. “This one is called a wooly bear.” She explained, and I remembered my ex-wife and I exchanged a similar moment once long ago. Now, at least, I had a brighter moment to put this memory to. “Yes, they call them that because they are covered in hair, like a bear.” I said. The child was petting the tiny little creature ever so gently with her other pinky finger, so as not to hurt it. She said, almost wisely: “People never stop to consider that life is all around them! If forests were no more, then what of these living things? They’d die. Every living thing has a reason, a purpose to its’ existence. Everything from the tiniest wooly bear… to you, and me.” And I realized, she was wise indeed!
In the distance, I heard the sound of hooves beating on the soil, and suddenly a black figure on a jet black horse rode up and got off his steed, looking me in the face. It was the demon that haunted my nightmares, my own dark side! Only the fiery red of the demon’s eyes showed any hint of light, for all the rest of him was not simply in shadow. He was a living shadow. With a voice like something speaking from under the ground, the being said to me, hatefully: “Before your time in this plane is over, you will undertake a selfless journey for that child at your side. And you will know the pain of failure. Will you laugh when she weeps, and when you weep will she console you? Or will you be unselfish, and prove me wrong, that you… that we… are of a wicked and base nature, unfit for happiness, peace, or glory. Remember! Only beasts live to glut their own appetites, yet what is the worth of one who denies those appetites altogether? Ponder my riddle well, for when we meet again in the still city I will know if you have solved it within your soul. If still my appearance vexes you, then you will know that you have sunk low, for a man who welcomes not to his bosom the dark, as well as the light, is a stranger to himself and a fool towards all others.” And then, as suddenly as the demon had appeared he vanished into nothingness, along with his steed. The little girl looked at me and seemed about to say something, but she thought better of it and instead put a comforting hand out to clasp my own. “Let us be on our way, Jon… there is a chill air here now, and we had best leave it behind us so that the air may warm again.” Was it the painful memory of my past marriage that conjured up that side of me from the ether? I suspected it was, but spoke not again of that terrible being. But was it truly so terrible, or was I merely unwilling to realize that I was not perfect in life, and that no matter how good I fancied myself, there was evil within me in no less measure than the meager goodness I offered to others and basked in myself? Only in my darkest of dreams had I faced myself thus, yet here in this facet of reality it happened. Either I was losing control of my dark side, allowing it to take on a tangible form at last… or I was dreaming darkly even now. Every darkness had a light which is its’ counterpart, and I was determined to counter my own darkness with as much light from within and without as I could muster. I looked at the beauty around me, and at the beautiful face of my child guide, and it was enough to rally the nearly fading morale of my spirit. “Yes, let us leave this place and go to another part of the forest… or whatever you call it. Although I should not fear any part of myself, I still am not ready to face him… me… whatever! I get the feeling that soon I must, but not now.” And so I let the child guide me: onward… my mind and heart open to all possibilities.
Interlude One: The Distant Future…
I am a king, ruling over a still, quiet city at the heart of the Multiverse. I have forgotten my own name, and people simply call me “The Wizard”. I sit upon a throne that has been studded with emeralds over the years, and at my side is the queen. She too has lost her name, and people simply call her “Silveranna” for the color of the slippers she has taken to wearing. Silveranna is a child in body, and I am not. Perhaps our arrangement is immoral and wicked… but were you to know the fullest details of our coming together to rule this realm, you might not judge us so harshly. Today the city may be splendid and beautiful, but it was not always so. The crystal arches that line the rafters of the great hall were once faded and claimed by moss and vines, even as the now magnificent pillars were on the verge of collapsing. A ruby red carpet lines the floor, where once was not any sign of any fabric that was not in tatters, and the bright sunlight that filters in through the stained glass of the windows once shone only through vacant spaces only, with shards of old glass to indicate what had been there before. Green curtains, added by lovely Silveranna in the earliest days of her reign, are arranged at the windows to compliment and contrast the rainbow colors of the glass. Each scene in the windows depicts a moment in our life together, and chronicles how we came to be what we are today. I no longer need to look at them, for I prefer to live in the eternal now. But once, I lived those events, as did the queen. For we are eternally linked, both to each other and to this undying realm! I cannot tell you how to get here, for the way chooses the pilgrim, rather than the other way around. I cannot tell you where this is, for it is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Once I laughed that this domain was the origin of so many fairy tales… but now I know those tales to be based in this truth, so I laugh no longer. All this is beautiful and magical in nature is reflected here, in the other world. Yet, there is darkness too, and it is a part of the land itself. Once, it forced me to confront a side of me that I kept denying, but now I am complete. Few ever really are, and perhaps for my completeness of being I was chosen to become what I now am. This is my story, and the story of she whose slippers are silver. This remembering reminds me of another memory, and so if you have the patience… follow me back to a certain day, a certain time, when I was still mortal. A time when I was lost and ready to throw away all! I was not come hither from over a rainbow, nor carried by a twister. This is not a fairy tale; in life, endings are rarely ever happy.
Chapter Two: Within the Greenwood…
The child led me to a waterfall near a great rocky ridge that did not exist in the “real” world. There, a grove of immense willow trees grew, their branches dropping down like spidery green fingers, to form living curtains that enclosed the pool wherein the waterfall tumbled into. A deep stream led out from the pool, and zigzagged off into unfathomable distances. The light of day was fading, and all had a bluish green tinge to it, here. From the mossy forest floor, to the heights of the ridge and the its’ cliffs above. The girl jumped into the cool water, and pulled me in after her. It only came up to her waist, and so we just splashed around like silly fools. The ribbons of her dress drooped down, her dress all wet, and the girl’s hair was soaked. I looked like a bit of a drowned rat myself, for though the pool was shallow the waterfall sprayed us mightily. It was summer though, and in the heat of that season the cool was welcome. The child was giggling, having fun, and I was remembering what it was like to be a child myself again. At length, she clambered out of the water and I did the same. She led me to a cave behind the curtain of the waterfall, and therein we dried off and shared our stories of each other’s lives. Learning all about me, the girl said: “You are a good man, Jon! Your life was tragic, but so was mine.” I said, in response: “You’re a good person too. I never had thought of myself as good, but you’re helping me to see that I am. Surely, you are an angel.” And the little girl told me her name at last: “I’m no angel, just a lost little girl. Call me Alice, since you want to anyway.” But it was not her name, just my name for her. “Have you no name of your own, sweetie?” I asked, and she explained: “I forgot my own name long ago. Time in this realm kept me from growing up, and immortality has made me forgetful in some ways.” I held her close, for she was crying just a little, and said to her: “Alright sweetie, Alice it is then. Don’t cry; I’m here for you!” And she exclaimed through her tears: “Oh, Jon! You’re the first person to say that to me since my father died. Mother just blamed me for all of our problems, and said I was a burden.” And I kissed her forehead, telling her: “Yet here you are, helping me to let go of all those burdens I carry! You are no burden, Alice. You are the light, and I was in darkness until you came to me. So don’t cry those tears anymore… or you’ll get me crying too.” And Alice smiled serenely, secure for perhaps the first time in her immortal life.
The cave led into an underground realm where mushrooms and toadstools grew to immense sizes, and the stalactites and the stalagmites were joined by time into great columns. Moss still covered the ground, as it had too in the cave, and vines and old roots hung down from the clammy arch of the ceiling high above. These caverns were like an underworld, a magical place of Faerie. Fireflies flitted here and there like fairies themselves, and Alice told me that she was always freshly delighted by this part of the other world. “Isn’t it wonderful, Jon?” And I told her that I agreed, for it seemed like some place out of dreams. Here, other children and some adults played eternal games and frolicked amongst the shadows. They had the appearance of elves, with pointy ears and sparkling eyes, and they spoke all languages known to man, as well as some lost to time. “Who are these people, Alice?” I asked, and she explained to me: “They were like us, but here longer. So long, that they became as you see them now, forgetting their humanity and embracing the green. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that, and Jon I don’t think you will either.” I agreed with her about that. “Perhaps they needed to forget more than we… for we still feel human, at least. Perhaps they did not. You are correct! I could never give up that completely.” Alice took me into another massive hall made from the natural caverns, and therein we met the king and queen of these forgotten people. Upon a large throne of stone, covered in rich silks and furs made from natural things found in the forest, the king and queen sat together, for so large was the throne that they could share it comfortably. From amongst the elfin people came an androgynous-looking lady who placed her palms upon my temples. All of a sudden, I could hear their language as my own and so understand their speech. They called themselves the “Children of Dana”, and lived in Ireland long thousands of years past. When invaders came to their land, at last they retreated after several pointless battles they could never hope to win… at first into the burial mounds of their ancestors… and then, with the aid of their Druid priests and wizards, into the other world. The current king was named Brian, and she who sat the throne with him was named Shannon, after a river in their homeland. Tales of Leprechauns, surely, had their origin with this lost race of people and their great retreat. But no gold was anywhere to be found! The only wealth they owned was what they could harvest from the forest and this domain below. They played merrily on pipes made from reeds, and plucked harps of smooth wood with gossamer strings. The king and queen wore crowns of leaves, and held scepters that were little more than freshly cut branches with colorful leaves upon them. Like all their kind, they wore garments of silk and fur, the same as what decorated their throne. Nothing not of the natural world was part of their society, for they were one with the green itself.
After introductions were over, I was welcomed in a most friendly manner by the Children of Dana and joined in their dances and revelries. As always, Alice was at my side, and they placed on my head an olive-branch crown such as the Greeks once wore. Upon her head, a garland of white flowers that made her appear very beautiful and even more angelic. One of the wild women of Dana took me to the dance, and in between mad, passionate kisses the woman twirled and clapped her hands in a rhythm almost unnaturally graceful to behold. I merely stood, clapping my hands in time to the beat of drums, harps, and pipes. I could not follow the music with any grace… no mortal could hope to. Alice was more used to it, and so she took my hands into her own and eased me into it. As I noticed with the wild woman who had kissed me, these people had no inhibitions at all, and seemed to live life with a zest unknown to “civilized” humanity. Understanding this, I felt more at ease amongst them and less uncomfortable. Perhaps this is why they were mocking called the “little” people… because their wealth was an illusion and they had so little to offer, yet all they had they gave with a kind heart. I sensed no evil in them, only childlike curiosity and pure kindness. “Alice, is this where you live?” I asked my new dancing partner, and the little girl laughed. “No. I suppose I don’t really live anywhere in the other world. Rather, everywhere here is home to me!” and I understood completely, her meaning. This was a natural world in perfect balance, where nothing was unwelcome or out of place. Comfort was all around you; you just had to know where to look for it. I felt like I was in one of those ancient tales, where a man got lost in Faerie and beheld wonders too great to relate. In this way, I felt as if words could not describe what one could simply “feel” in this realm. And, truly, by what thin a veil it is that separates the world I left behind from the one I now danced in without a care in the world! The music seemed to be flowing like a river at this point, all about me. Elfin faces smiling, laughing, and in their midst I held the hands of a child and spun around with her madly. The other world was spinning, and the universe was turning. We were part of the world, the universe, and at one with all of creation. In this oneness, I sensed a great contentment, and a presence of such love, compassion, and wisdom, that I knew we were one with God as well. I laughed aloud, and held Alice up high. She was giggling, and the elves were clapping. I put her down, and we danced together seemingly without end. Time had ceased to be.
Then I was dancing with her in another place, another time. Perhaps all places and times at once even! I was reliving all of my past lives in which I knew her, and beholding lives I was yet to be born into. In some, she was an adult… even as now at this point in the present she was a child. Always, we met… and always came the dance, in some form or another. Her soul was not a child’s, I realized! I always took for granted that my soul was ancient, for I never felt young or innocent, even when I was. But I was not prepared to learn this about someone I took at first to be just a lost little girl, though in truth it had been long since my mind was given to that notion about her, even though we had only been in this realm for so short a length of time. However, in a nearly timeless realm, who can say if it was hours or days since I first encountered her? Perhaps we journeyed along these twisted paths together always, and would do so forever more. My blood was pounding with the music, with these thoughts and visions, and with strange passions becoming unbridled within me after a lifetime of learning to keep them in check. Control is an illusion though, and where there is no need for control, the truth may be seen by all. Dancing in these caverns, I became free of the fetters that had bound me in life, and I did not need to die to experience that freedom! It was all around me, in the hearts and minds of these strange lost people. Singing at the top of my lungs in alien tongues, I embraced my visions and memories at last. All of that was myself, and this was myself too! Only a fool could deny it, and there I saw a glimmer of the deep wisdom in my dark counterpart’s warnings to me back before I and my guide reached the waterfall. When a man ceases to deny himself, he inherits honesty, and through that a kind of fleeting peace. Such was my inheritance now, and I was spending it with vigor as the dance continued on, and on. I found it strange though… that the king and queen of this folk did not themselves join in the dance. They merely sat upon their throne, gazing into each other’s eyes lovingly and without a care in all creation for the world around them. I turned, and Alice was staring at me in much the same way the queen stared at the king. The child said: “Look at me!” in an imperious voice that I heard even above the cacophony of the revelry all around us. And I did as she bade, allowing my gaze to meet her own. Thusly, was I swept away into an even deeper sense of joy and wonder, for when our most intense gazes locked it was as if we became one. We danced and sang as one, and we wept tears of joyful release as one… even more strongly than the growing bonds we shared before, this new bond made of us united in spirit and purpose. It was preparing me for something, although at the time I could not fathom what… and the power of it at length made me swoon. I was lost in dreams of a thousand lives, some on other worlds parallel to this one, and I let myself go.
Interlude Two: The Conscience of The King…
I am still a king, and today the queen and I are faced with the realization that unless we change then the realm we are ruling will stagnate and eventually die. The people of the other world long for a messiah to come and bring about the changes, forgetting that I have ever been that messiah. So many considerations must be thought of first, though! The transformation of the other world will result in the transformation of all realities, for that which happens at the core of creation affects all of creation. A god and a goddess alone are incomplete to guide such a vast altering of the current order… Silveranna and I must become more than what we are. But, surely, we will abandon our humanity entirely then, and that is the one thing we swore never to do! This is why we now sit in counsel with all the nobility and common-folk around us. Even the ancient elves are represented here, for the decision we are about to make will affect everyone and everything. No one must be exempt from the ruling that is to come. One last judgment for the green of the other world, and a new heaven and new earth shall be wrought. Are we, then, God? Or is God what we are meant to become! Were there any power wise enough to tell us, we would heed it and be glad. Are we, then, to become that guiding power? This is both my fear and my hope. Will I be cowardly, or have I the courage to succeed? Will I have the heart to care for so many souls, or will I abandon them to darkness? Will I prove to have had the brains of a king, or the mind of a fool? And so… what will become of this, our home? Silveranna just reminded me of a passage from the Bible in which Jesus once said that only those with minds and hearts like innocent children can so enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This other world has become a heaven to so many over the centuries. A refuge from a world that often cares not for nature and the spirits and souls that have come to inhabit it. Siveranna is a child with the soul of a goddess. So then, I must be a god with the soul of a child. Yin and Yang, ever together! Emerald is so close in color to jade, and in the orient there is much wisdom. I will heed that wisdom when the hour of the change is come, so that the Cosmic Balance will be satisfied. The folk of this realm shall have their messiah, their God incarnate. But will they prove worthy of their own desires, or fall short of the new paradise we intend to create? I can tell no one except the queen that I am frightened. Only she knows my soul and thusly will understand. It has been a long time since I remembered how it felt to be young again, to embrace childlike joy. I long for this.
Chapter Three: Beyond the Wonderland…
I had the notion of time passing, and of my mind slowly returning from some golden dream. I was in the cave behind the curtain of the waterfall and Alice was caressing my forehead softly. “Now, you awake!” she said. “The revelry of the elves can be too much sometimes for mortals. It proved so for you.” And I took her hand and kissed it gently. “Daughter I never had, I did not expect you to still be at my side. Thank you for being there for me!” and at that, the little girl smiled broadly. “I look like the Cheshire cat with this grin, don’t I?” she jested, and I replied: “No, not at all! You look like an angel, Alice.” And she pulled me up with a woman’s strength, until I was on my feet. This surprised me greatly. She wore different clothing now… baggy pants of soft pink silk and a white blouse with puffy sleeves. Her hair was wild, and flowed about her shoulders as she turned her head this way or that. On her feet were old-fashioned sandals. “Alice, how much time has passed?” I asked of her. She shrugged and said: “None. No time passes for us in the green, but time passes for the green itself. We have not aged a second, but it is now night and the stars are out. Oh, let’s go see them, Jon!” And so we rushed out of the cave, and through the woods by secret trails into a grove of mighty oaks. There, moonbeams shone down from the full, harvest moon above. And that moon was one light amongst so many billions of lights: the stars. “They are so clear, here!” I exclaimed. Alice said to me: “That is because here, there is nothing to pollute the air and prevent the light of the heavens from reaching the world of man.” I looked up, and it seemed that I could see into infinity. Stars and galaxies spiraled all about my vision, and the orbits of the planets seemed as much a dance as the revelry of the Children of Dana. Alice pulled me back from that fleeting glimpse of eternity, and I discovered that I was gazing into her pale blue eyes, my own blue eyes reflected therein. “Am I really that lovely to you, Jon, that you stare at me so?” she teased, and I blushed. “I thought I was looking at eternity. Perhaps I was at that.” I explained. Alice help up a small compact mirror from one of her pants’ pockets, holding it so that the moonbeams reflected the cosmos in the tiny sheet of glass. Miraculously, it was like a snapshot of the universe was preserved in that mirror for all of time. “I want to remember this night forever! Whenever I look at this mirror, I will never forget it.” And she confided in me a great deal of her soul. How she had become an adult trapped in a child’s body, and how time made of her something more than mortal, yet still very much mortal in terms of being human. “I yearn to love, to be loved, and yet eternal childhood would rob me of my heart’s desire. I want you to love me, yet you cannot… for lo! I am just a little girl to your eyes. Though I am, in truth, a goddess of the green, lost to time and age. But, tonight I will have my wish. We will take a journey so that it may come true, and before the end of that journey… things will be different, for both of us.” And I nodded, in understanding of her plight.
“Where are we to go?” I asked Alice. She pointed at the horizon, where more trees grew in thick jungles. “That way! To the Eternal City.” And I inquired what the Eternal City was, and the child-goddess explained: “It is the one place in all of creation where even a tormented soul may find peace and the fulfillment of their heart’s desire. I desire to be able to love you… and to have you be able to love me in turn. There, it can transpire.” And I realized just how much I longed for that wish, too. “I must confess, Alice, that I wish you were an adult as well, for I am lonely in the same way you are. I long for love, and to be loved as much I could love another! I have already come to love you as a daughter, in innocence, but…” But that was a lie, conjured up by my adherence to social morality. There was passion in Alice for me, and somewhere within me was a forbidden passion for her as well, that I was keeping locked away. I felt guilty, angry, and I felt diseased of mind. “God, Alice! The thoughts your plight conjures in my soul… it frightens me deeply. I never had such thoughts before, about a…” and she smiled sadly, saying: “I know. Nor had I such thoughts for one of your age.” And we both blushed, chastising ourselves in mind and spirit for what we each was imagining to have been a perverse, selfish notion. “Both of us are old souls, and there lies the attraction of one to the other.” Alice noted, reasoning: “If the magic of the Eternal City can make me an adult, then that attraction could become more without it being wicked. I am perhaps as old as you in all ways but one, even!” and I agreed with her about everything, consenting to this insane mission within the waking dream of the other world. “If we fail, it will be hard to look upon each other in the same way again.” I confessed, and we agreed that should our quest fail then I would return to my world and she to hers. “Strange is it not, Jon? Love will make us either closer or farther apart… and not because we don’t love one another.” And that was the wisest truth I had heard her speak thus far. “Love either unites, or it divides.” I stated, and we set out on our path.
A child does not fall in love, they merely harbor a crush, and so I determined Alice was no child but all she claimed to be and perhaps more. But, an adult does not embark upon a child’s quest, and so I was perhaps childish at heart to cater to such a whim as was hers. Yet was it not mine as well? And so we walked, each keeping strangely silent and distant as we kept our own counsel and spoke not of it… passing natural wonder after natural wonder. “Was this, the cause of man’s fall from the first Paradise?” I once heard Alice mutter, and I knew of what she spoke. This domain was no longer innocent to us, and the magic had taken on a different tone. Alice was grown up at last, in all ways but one… and this was no wonderland. “Night is the time when love moves the heart, and when the moon moves sane men and women unto madness!” I exclaimed, to no one in particular. Alice asked me who said that originally, and I explained that I imagined I had made it up. “Oh, I see!” she said, and we continued on as if nothing had been said at all. I heard wild animals far off… the growling of bears and the howling of wolves. The green was changing to suit Alice’s mood. Was she so much a part of it now, that it obeyed her very will? As she despaired, the land grew darker, wilder, less comforting. Soon, we could be in real danger! “Alice, sweet Alice, your heart is big as a house… but Alice, sweet Alice, you are as small as a mouse. Yet, if you were larger, your heart would expand… and Alice, sweet Alice you would love all the land!” Was a song she kept singing, over and over again as we walked along. I then countered her somber song with a cheerier one of my own: “Along the paths of greenwood land, an angel skipped without a care. Yet loneliness made her heavy of heart, and all the land did scare! But the angel had become so much a part of the spirit of the green… that when it rained within her soul, all around her it could be seen.” And on hearing that, Alice realized the truth, that she had powers beyond her comprehension that were so great, that they depended on her to remain in good spirits for her sake, mine, and even the whole of the other world itself. She then turned around, smiling broadly, and looked deeply into my eyes. Seeing the warmth there, she was restored to her former, cheery self. “Oh, give me a hug Jon! I won’t bite.” And so I did, and it gladdened our hearts. “So, tell me Alice… is the Eternal City by any chance made of emerald? Because I heard…”
I never did finish that sentence, for it seemed silly to me at the time. Soon, I would learn that I was not far from correct about the nature of the Eternal City, but that time was not yet at hand. The grim foretelling of my darker half, that I would undertake this mission and fail in it… that prediction hung heavily upon me, as we left familiar places behind us for stranger shores. Never in my life had I imagined I would be doing this, but here I was in some other corner of creation, helping this immortal child to grow up at last because we allowed ourselves to fall in love with each other. Yet, had we not met and loved before, in many other lives and times, even on other worlds? We had, and so I realized that this had been set in motion by powers beyond my mind’s ability to comprehend. I learned to simply accept it, and found solace in that. Along the way, we passed a narrow arch supported by mighty columns, all of this overgrown with moss and vines. Carved into the arch were fabulous beasts out of old myths and legends, and such a sight was familiar to me, as if I had passed under a similar archway elsewhere, or else-when. I let that sense of déjà vu pass, and attuned myself to the alien sights of the other world’s eternal woodlands. I began to wonder if all here was of woods and forests, and it would be long before we passed into other types of terrain. Long, was our journey, and I thought it must be days that we traveled, until I realized once again that time was almost meaningless as a concept here. I found myself telling time’s passing by the passing of events. My first meeting with Alice, our time with the elves, and other such moments became the anchors that kept my mind from drifting too far into timelessness, and I found them welcome and familiar to me. More and more alien sights danced before my eyes! We crossed over the immense roots of gigantic trees to massive to exist on a physical world… unless we ourselves had gotten smaller. I would experience this sensation again, before we got to the Eternal City. But I put it from my mind to preserve my sanity, and my mantra became: accept the strange, and judge not a thing by preconceived norms. Yet, I feared that should the strange become normal to me at last, then surely I would be insane, for how then would I ever adjust to a normal life again! Even as I thought on this, I saw faces in some of the trunks of the huge trees, the branches of which moved much as arms might move. This was a living world in more ways than one, I thought, and marveled at the sights that made me think this. If the Earth has a soul, that soul is made manifest in the green of the other world. And that, was the closest I ever came to understanding the matter! Alice seemed so at home here, that it nearly frightened me.
A Faerie Tale of the Multiverse
Prelude…
“Forests are said to be magical places. Some have believed that when you enter the woods, you are in fact entering the tangled tresses of the goddess who is the very embodiment of Earth itself. How many worlds must have such places… and how many goddesses must watch over them? Yet, perhaps all of them are one being whose will stretches forth across all that is. Or one spirit, one power! Such is the way of a many and varied creation.” Thus spoke the last scribe of the city that is, was, and ever shall be. The aging philosopher recorded the reigns of kings and queens, and now he has outlived them all. Long after the last emerald had ceased to sparkle, long after the last of the small folk who so loved the color blue had made the journey to the dimension from whence their ancestors came… he remained. He would have to make a similar crossing now, for there was nothing left here to remain for. The scribe spoke into his recording device one final time: “This land has never been the same since we lost our queen, and her companion the princess. I cannot recall the queen’s name any longer, and I’ve no wish to disturb the messages she has left for future generations. But the princess I do remember: Dorothea. She whom we called the ‘goddess of gifts’! Once I had been cruelly hung upon a wooden cross, by an arrogant plantation owner who was not satisfied with my labors: and so he left me to die after he sewed unto my skin another skin… one of rags and patches. He replaced my organs with straw as they dried and ceased to function, and my blood he switched with sawdust when the last of it had poured out upon the cornfield where my place of torment was set up. Bock was his name, and he is long gone. He tried to convince me that my brain was likewise replaced with straw and sawdust… but in my heart I knew it was there. Even during the time when I gave in to despair and allowed myself to forget! It was Dorothea who helped me to remember myself again. No wizard, no king nor queen. Just a little girl who became a princess! As the wisest being in all of this ancient land, I have foreseen the future. Another child will come in her time, and after her the messiah who will change all things as foretold in our most sacred of prophecies. But first is come ruin, desolation, and forgetfulness. The old powers have moved on, and their peoples have either moved on with them or changed beyond all recognition. I am the last, just as I was the first of the princess’s companions. I read somewhere that the queen will return in the form of a man, and I see the irony in that. Had she not been a man, originally, before the power of a wish changed her… changed him? A lonely man: will she return as, and one very much acquainted with sorrow. The princess shall be reborn as well, and she shall become an eternal child… then, when they both return to this world, another wish shall be made, and by the power it unleashes all things will be changed. I am not to bear witness to those coming events… for the call of those who have moved on is as a siren song to me. Other worlds await me now, and so I leave the future in the hands of those whom prophecy tells us shall come. I have faith that it shall be so. They called me the Scarecrow, but I am the very last regent of the city that is now falling into ruins. I leave this record to history.” And so, the ragged looking man placed the recorder into an alcove of the grand hall and pressed a button nearby it, sealing the last archive for all of time. In the distance, a storm was brewing and by the sound of it… it would be a twister. That is the way the others passed, and the scribe would pass the same way. He waited outside of the palace in which he had spent so many years in stewardship. It was time to let go now… and the first drops of rain caressed the patchwork man’s face. Because of Bock’s cruelty, there was always a kind of pain when he was either too hot or too cold. Soon, that would pass. It is said that when you moved on, you were reborn someplace else. “I will be whole again!” he declared. And soon, the storm was upon the courtyard and approaching the scribe with fury. “The queen shall return, and so I must not fear. I must embrace the whirlwind, and let it carry me unto my fate. Ozymandia, last queen of Oz, and Dorothea, princess of Oz: may your returns, and the fulfillment of prophecy, come swiftly!” Soon, he was wet and in searing agony, as he was every time he got that wet. But, as ever, he bore the pain that had become a part of his daily life. What else could he do? His old friend, the lion man, had taught him much about courage, and the one who was more machine than man taught him of compassion. He was complete, and it was time to join his old friends at last. Somewhere, beyond the storm… over a rainbow… he would pass into legend. In another world, in another time, the queen was reborn as a male child in a modern age. A child that did not fit in, and so became well acquainted with despair! In an age long before that, the princess was reborn early, and so she had to find a way to become immortal, to bide her time.
Forward…
Jonathan Coronis fancied himself to be an ordinary man of his time, yet all his life he felt apart from his peers. As if he actually did belong in another place or time than this one. His love of nature was inspired by much time spent walking in the woods and forests, where he sought peace and more often than not found only loneliness and existential questions. At night, he dreamed of a girl in white, who told him of his past incarnations and spoke of strange things. Things like parallel worlds, and other planes of existence than this one, the one Jon grew up in and thought of as the hub around which reality revolved. He began to believe in reincarnation, and knew he had lived before. Sometimes, what he knew or thought he knew contradicted recorded history, and so he realized that some of those past lives might have been lived on a parallel Earth, where history went differently. It was easy for people to think of Jon as strange, or even crazy. And so it was that in his mid 30’s, he began to know a dark despair. Often, he dreamed of a black demon with his own face, that laughed at him and made him believe he could only fail, but there came a time when he realized this was only his own dark side. And so, he ignored it and focused on the business of just living.
Prologue…
I could not recall a night when I slept better, than that night, under the stars, in that fair garden of the other world. But you are wondering, perchance, of my tale… and how it transpired… are you not? Let us return to the beginning, then. Back to the end of the month of April, the month that is for fools… or so they say. I could best call it a time of self-induced madness, for now I am of the opinion that the normal mores of society are invented to unman men and make of women something less than what they could be otherwise. They are invented to keep us insane, to keep us sheep-like and bound to an uncaring government and a system that is becoming more controlling for fear of losing control. I was pondering this peculiar thought, this very oddest of notions, the day when my entire misadventure began. I was also on the verge of self-destruction because of growing despair at the loneliness of my life, and the immense anger growing within me because of it. Who to take that anger out on? Only myself. And so was the frustration of my anguish becoming something almost tangible to me. I wished I could flee… to another world.
Chapter One: Journey from Despair…
And so was the day in question nearly my last. I was going through the dull motions of everyday life in my home, in a miserable small town with no pity for those who aspire to anything greater than waiting on tables or hashing burgers that only kill people from too much cholesterol. That night, I intended to end my life in some expedient fashion or another, but I was to learn that fate had other plans for me. Mad plans for a madman in a mad world! But was I mad, or just in despair at my awareness and the fact that I was powerless to act upon it at the time? Perhaps the true lunatics are those who know not their own insanity. At any rate, it was dusk when I found myself on my way home from the local library, where I vowed never to return to… for no more was there for me to learn, and the dead had no future. I was walking down the longer road past the nearby cemetery at the time, taking my time to get back. Why rush, after all? So many tombstones, and yet my mother lay in an unmarked grave! I could not bear that injustice, but my stepfather was too tight with his money to care… and I was nearly financially broken from helping others too much. I pondered on what would be done when I died, when all of a sudden a little girl in a frilly white dress came skipping out between the trees on my side of the road, the farthest from the graveyard. She gave me a curious look as she stopped for a moment, appearing unsure of what to say or do. I was a stranger, and little girls were not supposed to talk to strangers in our paranoid and delusional society. “Hello, sir.” She said. “You look kind, but troubled.” I asked her if I might speak to her, if her parents would mind. “No, sir. My parents won’t mind at all if we talk. My daddy is dead, anyway.” I told her that my mother was dead, and she replied: “It’s hard to lose a loved one, but it’s harder to give up on love, like you are doing! Why end your life, sir? Surely, there must be some hope left in it for you.” I then realized there was something strange about this child. How did she know my thoughts, and the reason for my giving up on life? “Child, you must be psychic to see me so truly. It’s not so much that I’m giving up, though. It’s that the world has given up on giving me a chance to find love. Can love even exist in a world so controlling and cruel as this one? Tell me that, if you know.” And the girl moved her golden blonde tresses out of her face for a moment before speaking: “I’m here to give you a glimmer of hope. A chance to recover your mind, before it is past the time for second chances! Follow me, sir. Let me show you a better way.” And so I followed the little blonde girl in white, who led me towards the boundaries of a nearby stretch of woods farther down the road. Soon, she stopped before the forest and took my hand. The last female to hold my hand in any way was my ex-wife. I’ve been alone for seven years, almost eight, and that touch made me weep profoundly. The girl saw my tears and whispered to me: “I know, I know. Let it all out! They say grown men should never cry, but why deny your feelings? It goes against nature to harden the heart, so let it out sweet man. Sweet poet. Perhaps you’ll not need to shed such tears again, eh? That is the hope I offer you.” And she reached around with her other hand and hugged me as if I were a long-lost loved one. “Oh, if you are some angel come to comfort me in my time of need, I am grateful!” I exclaimed. “My pain… it is too much! Take it away, if you can.” She then softly said, in a voice more adult than childish: “I cannot take your pain away, but I can help you to ease it past this time of danger. Follow this child, and before her task is through you will know hope once again, and long for life too.” I returned the child’s hug to show her I was grateful for this second chance at life, and said: “Show me the way, sweet guide. I will follow.”
As we walked along paths only my guide could see, I said to the little girl: “So, who are you? Tell me your name. Also, would you like to know mine?” And suddenly, she turned and looked at me with a familiar understanding as she said: “I know you well enough, Jonathan Coronis. And you know me, too, from your dreams and visions. We are as familiar as the closest of kindred.” And then she wiped some pine needles from the ribbons on her dress before we continued on. The pines of this forest were tall. I’d never appreciated their height, their majesty before today, except for when I was still a teenager, back when life seemed so serious but wasn’t so bad after all. The problem was always me. I never quite seemed to fit in, in any time. I watched my guide gracefully tracing her steps through the woods, one delicate foot forward at a time. I never wanted to be a father when I could have been, and once I really wanted to… I was alone. Yet here I was, catering to the whims of some unusual child who, for all I knew, could have been as mad as I was becoming. For, was it not mad to go with someone you don’t know as far away from civilization as it seemed possible to get? Even so, I could still hear the road behind us. We were not so far from the hustle and bustle of the modern world as I had imagined us to be! It was a beautiful place… sunlight streaming in shafts through the trees like curtains of light. As if some god were showing its’ glory to an ignorant human race. I did not want to go back, only to wherever this compassionate child led me. I was lost in an unending reverie, walking as if in a dream… though I was awake. It was late in the afternoon, and soon it would be night. Fog was just starting to roll in, and it seemed that time itself was passing in ways strange to my understanding. If Alice followed a white rabbit into wonderland… where would Alice herself lead me? The scent of the pines was becoming heady, and I could hear the babbling of a stream somewhere nearby. We were farther and farther into the depths of the green, and the road was gone from view. Good riddance to it, I said, and was lost… happily. Yet, somehow I felt as if a part of me was somehow cast adrift in a dream.
It is amazing how, when you have nothing to lose, you can come to appreciate everything. Even the smallest of things! After what seemed like hours, the little girl stopped her pace and bade me to sit down on a nearby log. She sat down next to me and slung one arm around my waist, as a daughter would. “Jon, this is the green we are in now. The green is the spiritual heart of nature… and it exists in the other world. Most human beings cannot enter it, but you have proved capable of making that crossing unscathed. Let us rest for a bit now; fear not! For though it is night in the world of humanity, here time passes more slowly, and so we have some hours yet before the stars are out in the other world.” The child then leaned her head against me, and just stared off into the woods, seeing something I could only imagine. I kissed her on the top of her head, and said to her: “I wish you had been my daughter.” She said to me, in response: “I wish you had been my father.” And we both wept. She told me that she was born in the 1800’s and ran away from home when her father died. She ran into some woods and almost died there, when the power of the green took her into the other world. “People don’t die here in the other world, so here I’ve been living ever since. I can’t age, and I’ll never die. I’m a part of nature forever, and I like it! But it gets lonely, and that’s why I called you here today. We are the same, in many ways, you and I. Both of us are lonely souls who just need something more in their lives. I’ve been calling you through your dreams, and now here you are. Here we are.” And as she explained this to me, I felt a new understanding growing upon me. “Like Peter Pan, you have brought me to Never-never land!” I said, in jest, and she whispered to me: “That was my favorite story.” And we laughed beneath the canopy of pines, on our little log in the middle of nowhere, yet perhaps also everywhere. “Not just boys become lost.” I said at last. “I realize that now! Thank you.” Just then, she felt a caterpillar crawling on her hand and showed it to me. “This one is called a wooly bear.” She explained, and I remembered my ex-wife and I exchanged a similar moment once long ago. Now, at least, I had a brighter moment to put this memory to. “Yes, they call them that because they are covered in hair, like a bear.” I said. The child was petting the tiny little creature ever so gently with her other pinky finger, so as not to hurt it. She said, almost wisely: “People never stop to consider that life is all around them! If forests were no more, then what of these living things? They’d die. Every living thing has a reason, a purpose to its’ existence. Everything from the tiniest wooly bear… to you, and me.” And I realized, she was wise indeed!
In the distance, I heard the sound of hooves beating on the soil, and suddenly a black figure on a jet black horse rode up and got off his steed, looking me in the face. It was the demon that haunted my nightmares, my own dark side! Only the fiery red of the demon’s eyes showed any hint of light, for all the rest of him was not simply in shadow. He was a living shadow. With a voice like something speaking from under the ground, the being said to me, hatefully: “Before your time in this plane is over, you will undertake a selfless journey for that child at your side. And you will know the pain of failure. Will you laugh when she weeps, and when you weep will she console you? Or will you be unselfish, and prove me wrong, that you… that we… are of a wicked and base nature, unfit for happiness, peace, or glory. Remember! Only beasts live to glut their own appetites, yet what is the worth of one who denies those appetites altogether? Ponder my riddle well, for when we meet again in the still city I will know if you have solved it within your soul. If still my appearance vexes you, then you will know that you have sunk low, for a man who welcomes not to his bosom the dark, as well as the light, is a stranger to himself and a fool towards all others.” And then, as suddenly as the demon had appeared he vanished into nothingness, along with his steed. The little girl looked at me and seemed about to say something, but she thought better of it and instead put a comforting hand out to clasp my own. “Let us be on our way, Jon… there is a chill air here now, and we had best leave it behind us so that the air may warm again.” Was it the painful memory of my past marriage that conjured up that side of me from the ether? I suspected it was, but spoke not again of that terrible being. But was it truly so terrible, or was I merely unwilling to realize that I was not perfect in life, and that no matter how good I fancied myself, there was evil within me in no less measure than the meager goodness I offered to others and basked in myself? Only in my darkest of dreams had I faced myself thus, yet here in this facet of reality it happened. Either I was losing control of my dark side, allowing it to take on a tangible form at last… or I was dreaming darkly even now. Every darkness had a light which is its’ counterpart, and I was determined to counter my own darkness with as much light from within and without as I could muster. I looked at the beauty around me, and at the beautiful face of my child guide, and it was enough to rally the nearly fading morale of my spirit. “Yes, let us leave this place and go to another part of the forest… or whatever you call it. Although I should not fear any part of myself, I still am not ready to face him… me… whatever! I get the feeling that soon I must, but not now.” And so I let the child guide me: onward… my mind and heart open to all possibilities.
Interlude One: The Distant Future…
I am a king, ruling over a still, quiet city at the heart of the Multiverse. I have forgotten my own name, and people simply call me “The Wizard”. I sit upon a throne that has been studded with emeralds over the years, and at my side is the queen. She too has lost her name, and people simply call her “Silveranna” for the color of the slippers she has taken to wearing. Silveranna is a child in body, and I am not. Perhaps our arrangement is immoral and wicked… but were you to know the fullest details of our coming together to rule this realm, you might not judge us so harshly. Today the city may be splendid and beautiful, but it was not always so. The crystal arches that line the rafters of the great hall were once faded and claimed by moss and vines, even as the now magnificent pillars were on the verge of collapsing. A ruby red carpet lines the floor, where once was not any sign of any fabric that was not in tatters, and the bright sunlight that filters in through the stained glass of the windows once shone only through vacant spaces only, with shards of old glass to indicate what had been there before. Green curtains, added by lovely Silveranna in the earliest days of her reign, are arranged at the windows to compliment and contrast the rainbow colors of the glass. Each scene in the windows depicts a moment in our life together, and chronicles how we came to be what we are today. I no longer need to look at them, for I prefer to live in the eternal now. But once, I lived those events, as did the queen. For we are eternally linked, both to each other and to this undying realm! I cannot tell you how to get here, for the way chooses the pilgrim, rather than the other way around. I cannot tell you where this is, for it is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Once I laughed that this domain was the origin of so many fairy tales… but now I know those tales to be based in this truth, so I laugh no longer. All this is beautiful and magical in nature is reflected here, in the other world. Yet, there is darkness too, and it is a part of the land itself. Once, it forced me to confront a side of me that I kept denying, but now I am complete. Few ever really are, and perhaps for my completeness of being I was chosen to become what I now am. This is my story, and the story of she whose slippers are silver. This remembering reminds me of another memory, and so if you have the patience… follow me back to a certain day, a certain time, when I was still mortal. A time when I was lost and ready to throw away all! I was not come hither from over a rainbow, nor carried by a twister. This is not a fairy tale; in life, endings are rarely ever happy.
Chapter Two: Within the Greenwood…
The child led me to a waterfall near a great rocky ridge that did not exist in the “real” world. There, a grove of immense willow trees grew, their branches dropping down like spidery green fingers, to form living curtains that enclosed the pool wherein the waterfall tumbled into. A deep stream led out from the pool, and zigzagged off into unfathomable distances. The light of day was fading, and all had a bluish green tinge to it, here. From the mossy forest floor, to the heights of the ridge and the its’ cliffs above. The girl jumped into the cool water, and pulled me in after her. It only came up to her waist, and so we just splashed around like silly fools. The ribbons of her dress drooped down, her dress all wet, and the girl’s hair was soaked. I looked like a bit of a drowned rat myself, for though the pool was shallow the waterfall sprayed us mightily. It was summer though, and in the heat of that season the cool was welcome. The child was giggling, having fun, and I was remembering what it was like to be a child myself again. At length, she clambered out of the water and I did the same. She led me to a cave behind the curtain of the waterfall, and therein we dried off and shared our stories of each other’s lives. Learning all about me, the girl said: “You are a good man, Jon! Your life was tragic, but so was mine.” I said, in response: “You’re a good person too. I never had thought of myself as good, but you’re helping me to see that I am. Surely, you are an angel.” And the little girl told me her name at last: “I’m no angel, just a lost little girl. Call me Alice, since you want to anyway.” But it was not her name, just my name for her. “Have you no name of your own, sweetie?” I asked, and she explained: “I forgot my own name long ago. Time in this realm kept me from growing up, and immortality has made me forgetful in some ways.” I held her close, for she was crying just a little, and said to her: “Alright sweetie, Alice it is then. Don’t cry; I’m here for you!” And she exclaimed through her tears: “Oh, Jon! You’re the first person to say that to me since my father died. Mother just blamed me for all of our problems, and said I was a burden.” And I kissed her forehead, telling her: “Yet here you are, helping me to let go of all those burdens I carry! You are no burden, Alice. You are the light, and I was in darkness until you came to me. So don’t cry those tears anymore… or you’ll get me crying too.” And Alice smiled serenely, secure for perhaps the first time in her immortal life.
The cave led into an underground realm where mushrooms and toadstools grew to immense sizes, and the stalactites and the stalagmites were joined by time into great columns. Moss still covered the ground, as it had too in the cave, and vines and old roots hung down from the clammy arch of the ceiling high above. These caverns were like an underworld, a magical place of Faerie. Fireflies flitted here and there like fairies themselves, and Alice told me that she was always freshly delighted by this part of the other world. “Isn’t it wonderful, Jon?” And I told her that I agreed, for it seemed like some place out of dreams. Here, other children and some adults played eternal games and frolicked amongst the shadows. They had the appearance of elves, with pointy ears and sparkling eyes, and they spoke all languages known to man, as well as some lost to time. “Who are these people, Alice?” I asked, and she explained to me: “They were like us, but here longer. So long, that they became as you see them now, forgetting their humanity and embracing the green. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that, and Jon I don’t think you will either.” I agreed with her about that. “Perhaps they needed to forget more than we… for we still feel human, at least. Perhaps they did not. You are correct! I could never give up that completely.” Alice took me into another massive hall made from the natural caverns, and therein we met the king and queen of these forgotten people. Upon a large throne of stone, covered in rich silks and furs made from natural things found in the forest, the king and queen sat together, for so large was the throne that they could share it comfortably. From amongst the elfin people came an androgynous-looking lady who placed her palms upon my temples. All of a sudden, I could hear their language as my own and so understand their speech. They called themselves the “Children of Dana”, and lived in Ireland long thousands of years past. When invaders came to their land, at last they retreated after several pointless battles they could never hope to win… at first into the burial mounds of their ancestors… and then, with the aid of their Druid priests and wizards, into the other world. The current king was named Brian, and she who sat the throne with him was named Shannon, after a river in their homeland. Tales of Leprechauns, surely, had their origin with this lost race of people and their great retreat. But no gold was anywhere to be found! The only wealth they owned was what they could harvest from the forest and this domain below. They played merrily on pipes made from reeds, and plucked harps of smooth wood with gossamer strings. The king and queen wore crowns of leaves, and held scepters that were little more than freshly cut branches with colorful leaves upon them. Like all their kind, they wore garments of silk and fur, the same as what decorated their throne. Nothing not of the natural world was part of their society, for they were one with the green itself.
After introductions were over, I was welcomed in a most friendly manner by the Children of Dana and joined in their dances and revelries. As always, Alice was at my side, and they placed on my head an olive-branch crown such as the Greeks once wore. Upon her head, a garland of white flowers that made her appear very beautiful and even more angelic. One of the wild women of Dana took me to the dance, and in between mad, passionate kisses the woman twirled and clapped her hands in a rhythm almost unnaturally graceful to behold. I merely stood, clapping my hands in time to the beat of drums, harps, and pipes. I could not follow the music with any grace… no mortal could hope to. Alice was more used to it, and so she took my hands into her own and eased me into it. As I noticed with the wild woman who had kissed me, these people had no inhibitions at all, and seemed to live life with a zest unknown to “civilized” humanity. Understanding this, I felt more at ease amongst them and less uncomfortable. Perhaps this is why they were mocking called the “little” people… because their wealth was an illusion and they had so little to offer, yet all they had they gave with a kind heart. I sensed no evil in them, only childlike curiosity and pure kindness. “Alice, is this where you live?” I asked my new dancing partner, and the little girl laughed. “No. I suppose I don’t really live anywhere in the other world. Rather, everywhere here is home to me!” and I understood completely, her meaning. This was a natural world in perfect balance, where nothing was unwelcome or out of place. Comfort was all around you; you just had to know where to look for it. I felt like I was in one of those ancient tales, where a man got lost in Faerie and beheld wonders too great to relate. In this way, I felt as if words could not describe what one could simply “feel” in this realm. And, truly, by what thin a veil it is that separates the world I left behind from the one I now danced in without a care in the world! The music seemed to be flowing like a river at this point, all about me. Elfin faces smiling, laughing, and in their midst I held the hands of a child and spun around with her madly. The other world was spinning, and the universe was turning. We were part of the world, the universe, and at one with all of creation. In this oneness, I sensed a great contentment, and a presence of such love, compassion, and wisdom, that I knew we were one with God as well. I laughed aloud, and held Alice up high. She was giggling, and the elves were clapping. I put her down, and we danced together seemingly without end. Time had ceased to be.
Then I was dancing with her in another place, another time. Perhaps all places and times at once even! I was reliving all of my past lives in which I knew her, and beholding lives I was yet to be born into. In some, she was an adult… even as now at this point in the present she was a child. Always, we met… and always came the dance, in some form or another. Her soul was not a child’s, I realized! I always took for granted that my soul was ancient, for I never felt young or innocent, even when I was. But I was not prepared to learn this about someone I took at first to be just a lost little girl, though in truth it had been long since my mind was given to that notion about her, even though we had only been in this realm for so short a length of time. However, in a nearly timeless realm, who can say if it was hours or days since I first encountered her? Perhaps we journeyed along these twisted paths together always, and would do so forever more. My blood was pounding with the music, with these thoughts and visions, and with strange passions becoming unbridled within me after a lifetime of learning to keep them in check. Control is an illusion though, and where there is no need for control, the truth may be seen by all. Dancing in these caverns, I became free of the fetters that had bound me in life, and I did not need to die to experience that freedom! It was all around me, in the hearts and minds of these strange lost people. Singing at the top of my lungs in alien tongues, I embraced my visions and memories at last. All of that was myself, and this was myself too! Only a fool could deny it, and there I saw a glimmer of the deep wisdom in my dark counterpart’s warnings to me back before I and my guide reached the waterfall. When a man ceases to deny himself, he inherits honesty, and through that a kind of fleeting peace. Such was my inheritance now, and I was spending it with vigor as the dance continued on, and on. I found it strange though… that the king and queen of this folk did not themselves join in the dance. They merely sat upon their throne, gazing into each other’s eyes lovingly and without a care in all creation for the world around them. I turned, and Alice was staring at me in much the same way the queen stared at the king. The child said: “Look at me!” in an imperious voice that I heard even above the cacophony of the revelry all around us. And I did as she bade, allowing my gaze to meet her own. Thusly, was I swept away into an even deeper sense of joy and wonder, for when our most intense gazes locked it was as if we became one. We danced and sang as one, and we wept tears of joyful release as one… even more strongly than the growing bonds we shared before, this new bond made of us united in spirit and purpose. It was preparing me for something, although at the time I could not fathom what… and the power of it at length made me swoon. I was lost in dreams of a thousand lives, some on other worlds parallel to this one, and I let myself go.
Interlude Two: The Conscience of The King…
I am still a king, and today the queen and I are faced with the realization that unless we change then the realm we are ruling will stagnate and eventually die. The people of the other world long for a messiah to come and bring about the changes, forgetting that I have ever been that messiah. So many considerations must be thought of first, though! The transformation of the other world will result in the transformation of all realities, for that which happens at the core of creation affects all of creation. A god and a goddess alone are incomplete to guide such a vast altering of the current order… Silveranna and I must become more than what we are. But, surely, we will abandon our humanity entirely then, and that is the one thing we swore never to do! This is why we now sit in counsel with all the nobility and common-folk around us. Even the ancient elves are represented here, for the decision we are about to make will affect everyone and everything. No one must be exempt from the ruling that is to come. One last judgment for the green of the other world, and a new heaven and new earth shall be wrought. Are we, then, God? Or is God what we are meant to become! Were there any power wise enough to tell us, we would heed it and be glad. Are we, then, to become that guiding power? This is both my fear and my hope. Will I be cowardly, or have I the courage to succeed? Will I have the heart to care for so many souls, or will I abandon them to darkness? Will I prove to have had the brains of a king, or the mind of a fool? And so… what will become of this, our home? Silveranna just reminded me of a passage from the Bible in which Jesus once said that only those with minds and hearts like innocent children can so enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This other world has become a heaven to so many over the centuries. A refuge from a world that often cares not for nature and the spirits and souls that have come to inhabit it. Siveranna is a child with the soul of a goddess. So then, I must be a god with the soul of a child. Yin and Yang, ever together! Emerald is so close in color to jade, and in the orient there is much wisdom. I will heed that wisdom when the hour of the change is come, so that the Cosmic Balance will be satisfied. The folk of this realm shall have their messiah, their God incarnate. But will they prove worthy of their own desires, or fall short of the new paradise we intend to create? I can tell no one except the queen that I am frightened. Only she knows my soul and thusly will understand. It has been a long time since I remembered how it felt to be young again, to embrace childlike joy. I long for this.
Chapter Three: Beyond the Wonderland…
I had the notion of time passing, and of my mind slowly returning from some golden dream. I was in the cave behind the curtain of the waterfall and Alice was caressing my forehead softly. “Now, you awake!” she said. “The revelry of the elves can be too much sometimes for mortals. It proved so for you.” And I took her hand and kissed it gently. “Daughter I never had, I did not expect you to still be at my side. Thank you for being there for me!” and at that, the little girl smiled broadly. “I look like the Cheshire cat with this grin, don’t I?” she jested, and I replied: “No, not at all! You look like an angel, Alice.” And she pulled me up with a woman’s strength, until I was on my feet. This surprised me greatly. She wore different clothing now… baggy pants of soft pink silk and a white blouse with puffy sleeves. Her hair was wild, and flowed about her shoulders as she turned her head this way or that. On her feet were old-fashioned sandals. “Alice, how much time has passed?” I asked of her. She shrugged and said: “None. No time passes for us in the green, but time passes for the green itself. We have not aged a second, but it is now night and the stars are out. Oh, let’s go see them, Jon!” And so we rushed out of the cave, and through the woods by secret trails into a grove of mighty oaks. There, moonbeams shone down from the full, harvest moon above. And that moon was one light amongst so many billions of lights: the stars. “They are so clear, here!” I exclaimed. Alice said to me: “That is because here, there is nothing to pollute the air and prevent the light of the heavens from reaching the world of man.” I looked up, and it seemed that I could see into infinity. Stars and galaxies spiraled all about my vision, and the orbits of the planets seemed as much a dance as the revelry of the Children of Dana. Alice pulled me back from that fleeting glimpse of eternity, and I discovered that I was gazing into her pale blue eyes, my own blue eyes reflected therein. “Am I really that lovely to you, Jon, that you stare at me so?” she teased, and I blushed. “I thought I was looking at eternity. Perhaps I was at that.” I explained. Alice help up a small compact mirror from one of her pants’ pockets, holding it so that the moonbeams reflected the cosmos in the tiny sheet of glass. Miraculously, it was like a snapshot of the universe was preserved in that mirror for all of time. “I want to remember this night forever! Whenever I look at this mirror, I will never forget it.” And she confided in me a great deal of her soul. How she had become an adult trapped in a child’s body, and how time made of her something more than mortal, yet still very much mortal in terms of being human. “I yearn to love, to be loved, and yet eternal childhood would rob me of my heart’s desire. I want you to love me, yet you cannot… for lo! I am just a little girl to your eyes. Though I am, in truth, a goddess of the green, lost to time and age. But, tonight I will have my wish. We will take a journey so that it may come true, and before the end of that journey… things will be different, for both of us.” And I nodded, in understanding of her plight.
“Where are we to go?” I asked Alice. She pointed at the horizon, where more trees grew in thick jungles. “That way! To the Eternal City.” And I inquired what the Eternal City was, and the child-goddess explained: “It is the one place in all of creation where even a tormented soul may find peace and the fulfillment of their heart’s desire. I desire to be able to love you… and to have you be able to love me in turn. There, it can transpire.” And I realized just how much I longed for that wish, too. “I must confess, Alice, that I wish you were an adult as well, for I am lonely in the same way you are. I long for love, and to be loved as much I could love another! I have already come to love you as a daughter, in innocence, but…” But that was a lie, conjured up by my adherence to social morality. There was passion in Alice for me, and somewhere within me was a forbidden passion for her as well, that I was keeping locked away. I felt guilty, angry, and I felt diseased of mind. “God, Alice! The thoughts your plight conjures in my soul… it frightens me deeply. I never had such thoughts before, about a…” and she smiled sadly, saying: “I know. Nor had I such thoughts for one of your age.” And we both blushed, chastising ourselves in mind and spirit for what we each was imagining to have been a perverse, selfish notion. “Both of us are old souls, and there lies the attraction of one to the other.” Alice noted, reasoning: “If the magic of the Eternal City can make me an adult, then that attraction could become more without it being wicked. I am perhaps as old as you in all ways but one, even!” and I agreed with her about everything, consenting to this insane mission within the waking dream of the other world. “If we fail, it will be hard to look upon each other in the same way again.” I confessed, and we agreed that should our quest fail then I would return to my world and she to hers. “Strange is it not, Jon? Love will make us either closer or farther apart… and not because we don’t love one another.” And that was the wisest truth I had heard her speak thus far. “Love either unites, or it divides.” I stated, and we set out on our path.
A child does not fall in love, they merely harbor a crush, and so I determined Alice was no child but all she claimed to be and perhaps more. But, an adult does not embark upon a child’s quest, and so I was perhaps childish at heart to cater to such a whim as was hers. Yet was it not mine as well? And so we walked, each keeping strangely silent and distant as we kept our own counsel and spoke not of it… passing natural wonder after natural wonder. “Was this, the cause of man’s fall from the first Paradise?” I once heard Alice mutter, and I knew of what she spoke. This domain was no longer innocent to us, and the magic had taken on a different tone. Alice was grown up at last, in all ways but one… and this was no wonderland. “Night is the time when love moves the heart, and when the moon moves sane men and women unto madness!” I exclaimed, to no one in particular. Alice asked me who said that originally, and I explained that I imagined I had made it up. “Oh, I see!” she said, and we continued on as if nothing had been said at all. I heard wild animals far off… the growling of bears and the howling of wolves. The green was changing to suit Alice’s mood. Was she so much a part of it now, that it obeyed her very will? As she despaired, the land grew darker, wilder, less comforting. Soon, we could be in real danger! “Alice, sweet Alice, your heart is big as a house… but Alice, sweet Alice, you are as small as a mouse. Yet, if you were larger, your heart would expand… and Alice, sweet Alice you would love all the land!” Was a song she kept singing, over and over again as we walked along. I then countered her somber song with a cheerier one of my own: “Along the paths of greenwood land, an angel skipped without a care. Yet loneliness made her heavy of heart, and all the land did scare! But the angel had become so much a part of the spirit of the green… that when it rained within her soul, all around her it could be seen.” And on hearing that, Alice realized the truth, that she had powers beyond her comprehension that were so great, that they depended on her to remain in good spirits for her sake, mine, and even the whole of the other world itself. She then turned around, smiling broadly, and looked deeply into my eyes. Seeing the warmth there, she was restored to her former, cheery self. “Oh, give me a hug Jon! I won’t bite.” And so I did, and it gladdened our hearts. “So, tell me Alice… is the Eternal City by any chance made of emerald? Because I heard…”
I never did finish that sentence, for it seemed silly to me at the time. Soon, I would learn that I was not far from correct about the nature of the Eternal City, but that time was not yet at hand. The grim foretelling of my darker half, that I would undertake this mission and fail in it… that prediction hung heavily upon me, as we left familiar places behind us for stranger shores. Never in my life had I imagined I would be doing this, but here I was in some other corner of creation, helping this immortal child to grow up at last because we allowed ourselves to fall in love with each other. Yet, had we not met and loved before, in many other lives and times, even on other worlds? We had, and so I realized that this had been set in motion by powers beyond my mind’s ability to comprehend. I learned to simply accept it, and found solace in that. Along the way, we passed a narrow arch supported by mighty columns, all of this overgrown with moss and vines. Carved into the arch were fabulous beasts out of old myths and legends, and such a sight was familiar to me, as if I had passed under a similar archway elsewhere, or else-when. I let that sense of déjà vu pass, and attuned myself to the alien sights of the other world’s eternal woodlands. I began to wonder if all here was of woods and forests, and it would be long before we passed into other types of terrain. Long, was our journey, and I thought it must be days that we traveled, until I realized once again that time was almost meaningless as a concept here. I found myself telling time’s passing by the passing of events. My first meeting with Alice, our time with the elves, and other such moments became the anchors that kept my mind from drifting too far into timelessness, and I found them welcome and familiar to me. More and more alien sights danced before my eyes! We crossed over the immense roots of gigantic trees to massive to exist on a physical world… unless we ourselves had gotten smaller. I would experience this sensation again, before we got to the Eternal City. But I put it from my mind to preserve my sanity, and my mantra became: accept the strange, and judge not a thing by preconceived norms. Yet, I feared that should the strange become normal to me at last, then surely I would be insane, for how then would I ever adjust to a normal life again! Even as I thought on this, I saw faces in some of the trunks of the huge trees, the branches of which moved much as arms might move. This was a living world in more ways than one, I thought, and marveled at the sights that made me think this. If the Earth has a soul, that soul is made manifest in the green of the other world. And that, was the closest I ever came to understanding the matter! Alice seemed so at home here, that it nearly frightened me.
Published 27th Mar 2015
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Anonymous
27th Mar 2015 6:48am
Jessica,dear little sister,I have yet to read all of this properly but this time you seem to have gathered all your skills,insights,wisdom and creativity... Yes,this world leaves one pondering with questions of why,of how...
Humans seem but limited in many ways and both love and life are a never lasting quest..
I also find shards of Narnia, Alice in wonderland,George MacDonald and other tales.Id say youve given birth to a masterly piece...
"If the Earth has a soul, that soul is made manifest in the green of the other world"
Indeed so,for green represents the heart,as it seems the heart is almost from the other world
Humans seem but limited in many ways and both love and life are a never lasting quest..
I also find shards of Narnia, Alice in wonderland,George MacDonald and other tales.Id say youve given birth to a masterly piece...
"If the Earth has a soul, that soul is made manifest in the green of the other world"
Indeed so,for green represents the heart,as it seems the heart is almost from the other world
I am so very happy that you like this story of mine thus far, dear Mourganna! Indeed, the idea was that the other world in this story is the original archetype of all fantastic lands be they Oz, Wonderland, Narnia, or whatever. Although, in this tale, I took it one step further and also linked the other world to a greater spiritual realm that includes the very spirit and soul of the Earth itself, amongst other things. The Eternal City that features prominently in this story, especially towards the later part near the end, likewise has greater meaning being a place in the very center of the Multiverse and around which everything revolves. So there are many subtle metaphysical concepts involved on many layers and levels, which add to the magic and mystery of the story itself. Indeed, it is intended to leave the reader pondering just how the magic works and why, since curiosity is part of human nature and in part is one of the driving forces in this story, as well as love in various forms and towards the end transcendence beyond the limitations of the human condition. Heavy and powerful stuff, actually, and as you noted the sort of tale that requires a great deal of insight, wisdom, and creativity to weave. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment, big sister! Again, I am delighted you like this. :)
29th Mar 2015 4:11pm
30th Mar 2015 4:11am
Big hugs, dear Grace! Happy to see you're enjoying reading this, my friend. :)
