I slipped down through ranges of existence that got progressively more surreal. Shades I could never conceive names for, filled the uninsulated fields and the non-solids that cloyed my optic nerves. As far as Chase thought, even moments took as much time, if not more, as eternity and, at the same time, it felt like everything was happening so fast that it took only one moment.
Finally, I landed. Not with the abrasive blow that I thought it would give me; but gently, as if I am placing the feather on a cushion. I did so and immediately suffered from temporary blindness due to a light that shined from all directions and no direction at all.
It was an enormous library that I was able to find myself in at that moment. Rows of books continued as far as I could see, with their tops disappearing somewhere above me in what seemed to be feet or miles. There was the smell of dust and mold from ancient papers mixed with the even sharper smell of electricity.
”Hello?” I asked, but my voice resounded strangely. “Is anyone here?”
There was no answer, but there was something in the corner of my eye that I could perceive a movement. I tried to turn my head and found that there was only the glimmering of darkness.
I began to walk, and I stepped very hard on the marble floor, making my movement an echoing process. When I shifted, I saw that something which I could not understand was wrong with the books. Their backs were bare, their jackets smooth. There appeared the titles, as my fingers roamed over them, and they emerged brightening under my digit twice.
“The Complete History of Tomorrow,” one of the themes reads. It took about an hour to get my attention as a reader. “Memories of a Future Past,” commented another.
I pulled a book at random from the shelf, its cover materializing as I touched it: Literally, the title was “The Quantum Mechanics of Dreams. ” As soon as I started reading, something slipped through my fingers, and before I knew it the text was flying around me in beautiful formulae of quantum mechanics.
“Fascinating isn’t it?” a voice interrupted me from behind.
I whirled around, to have the words hover away from me like frightened birds. Everything looked like the epitome of unclaimed misery in the house who had webbed his beard on the floor. It was a rather intimidating look from a man who looked as old as the hills, yet the twinkle in his eyes was that of a naughty schoolboy.
‘ ‘I? I…I am no one,’ He replied to me quietly, almost in a whisper.
He smiled and suddenly, with this slight smile and the speck of gray in his unkept hair, I was sure he was a young boy. Then he was old again, growing as though smoke rose out of the stories, out of the wind. “I am the Librarian, the Keeper and the Archiver of What Is and Might Have Been, But, you can call me Morpheus, Brianne. ”
I blinked, surprised. He asked: “How did you come to know my name?”
“I can recite the names of all the dreamers that have ever set foot in this building,” he stated, motioning around him. And, let me assure you, you are dreaming. Still, that does not change the facts or reality of the situation.
While listening to him, I realized that the library itself had started to change. Soon, the bookshelves started to move like sea waves and books started leaping from the shelf and formed some figures in the air. The floor that I stand on turned into marble, then grass, then water, then into silvery silver.
“I did not get that,” I told him as I tried to balance myself on the slippery ground. ‘I’m here to find something I guess… some guidance needed… answers to the question of what humanity is going to do. ‘
Morpheus sighed, The beard moved and the flowers it entwined blossomed and wilted all at the same time. ‘The great choice, the cosmic game’ he said ‘You don’t know what dreams are, do you, child?’
They stared at me blankly until I finally grudgingly blinked and asked, ‘What happened to your glasses?’ “Erm sleep? Yes, the functioning of neural networks, the brain sorting memories and feelings?”
He laughed, deep, horrible, a sound like wind chimes in a storm. That is what your scientists believe, but dreams are so much more, my beautiful Brianne; they are doors to other worlds, a connection between worlds and, as of now, you are at the crossroads of the dream world.
I noticed how the library was morphing into another place as he was speaking. They see walls dissolving and giving way to shots of landscapes from unknown, other-worldly locales, to the more traditional, urban environment. In this book I saw New York as it is, as it should be and as it should never be. What I discovered concerning humanity is that they rose up while becoming transcendental beings made from pure energy. I witnessed the Earth being swallowed up by cosmic things that could not be explained.
In all of this I saw threads, interconnected lines that gave a work meaning behind it which truly made it a masterpiece. String-like lights enveloped every object, throbbing in a frequency to which Marinda could only respond with acute nostalgia.
“The cosmic web,” I said, and I think I began to grasp things. These are the strands of reality itself. That can only refer to the three of us. Me, Chase and Zoe
Morpheus nodded, pleased. ‘There is so much that you start to observe…except for the fact that you had one question-what is peculiar about the threads?’
I blinked my eyes and looked at the glowing filaments keenly. I sat back to learn more, and then it dawned on me that they were not just joining things. They were. .. Changing them. Creating new reality with each beat.
“They’re… dreaming,” I muttered, making even the words sound ridiculous. A poetic realism, which says: ‘reality is dreaming itself in the process of becoming’.
“Exactly!” Morpheus applauded, and instantly we had shifted to a mud-field under the most incredible star-lit sky I had ever seen. And now you start getting a grip on the essence of the decision facing you.
I pulled my eyes away from the sky above us and looked at Morpheus in bewilderment. “What does this have to do with ascension? With the folding of realities?”