by Yossi Soika
“When I opened my eyes I found myself in a fancy bed in a palace in the City of Dreams. For a few minutes I was dumbstruck, unable to believe my eyes. Not long after that a respectful-looking man entered my room and said, ‘Greetings, most honorable maiden. I have a most important message and I will await your reply.’ For a long hour the man told me the incredible story of the City of Dreams. After he finished he brought up his issue. ‘My Lady, are you willing to be the Queen of the City of Dreams?’
“’You can’t be serious’, I called out and jumped from my bed in a flash. For a moment I felt like I was floating in a dream but I recovered quickly and asked, ‘Why did you choose me to be the queen of a city I have never seen before?’
“The man started to tell his story. ‘I’ll tell you my life story, in a nutshell, and why I found you suitable for the position.
“’Not many years ago I was an acclaimed scientist in the Land of the Ten Tribes, you are familiar with it. One day I carried out a trial on one of in the people of my tribe that ended with disastrous results. As a punishment I was exiled for one hundred years to the Third World.’
“This is terrible, I told him, agitated.
“’It was truly terrible,’ he continued. ‘But I can alleviate the harshness of my sentence by doing good deeds. I had had to prove to my people that I regret the grave mistake, and to dedicate my life to only doing good deeds from that day on. I’m happy to be of help to you, and coincidently I will return to my tribesmen. I’m aware you are on a visit to the Third World and that the pendant on your neck protects you from the prying eyes of the Sons of the Third World. Well, this is a reason for your appointment and because of your vast education that is far greater than that of everybody else in this place. I’m absolutely sure that the Sons of the Third World will think highly of an invisible queen. Of course, we the Sons of the Ten Tribes can see you very clearly, but to the Sons of the Third World your image is a mystery that belongs to the family of gods. I can read some apprehension in your face but you have nothing to fear; I shall guide and direct you, while you, my young friend, can from the life of a queen.’
“But what will happen to my boyfriend, Dan, who was taken to the lake? I asked the man.
“’Well, you have no reason to worry about the fate of your sweetheart. You will meet again.’ And that’s how, my honey, the jester, I became the invisible Queen of the City of Dreams and waited for your arrival there.”
“Now, please tell me what happened to the scientist, Markusha ben-Shusha?’
Melanie burst out laughing.
“I must admit, it took few minutes to realize that I had fallen into the hands of a brilliant imposter. The moment I understood what was going on I gave him some of the blue apples, after I peeled the apple and its blue color disappeared. Shortly afterward, a bluish smoke billowed from his throat. He looked at me in astonishment and started to run to the lake. From a distance I could see three Dolphin People rushing in his direction, lifting him up with their arms, and marching in the direction of the lake. Now dearest, he is living in the hotel where you were a guest, deep inside the lake, but this time as a guinea pig,” she concluded and broke into laughter.
“My, oh goodness,” I exclaimed loudly. “I don’t have the hood, Markusha ben-Shusha, who is visiting the depths of the lake, has it.”
“There’s no problem at all, my worried friend. I have the hood,” she said merrily. “As soon as the scientist started to billow like a chimney, I took the hood from his hand. And now my friend, we are going back to the City of Sodom, straight to the Minderon of the Son of the Planets.”
“That’s impossible,” I protested animatedly. “I’m not going back to the city from which I just escaped by the skin of my teeth, miraculously keeping my head on my shoulders.”
“There is nothing dangerous about it. We shall break into the city on Saturday morning,” Melanie whispered into my ear. “We must see Minderon of the Son of the Planets before we leave the Third World.”
Turnabout
“Melanie,” I repeated several times. “This world is as crazy as ours. We must leave here as soon as possible. I’m dead tired.”
But Melanie didn’t understand why I was acting differently, and asked, “Don’t you want to discover one of the most highly reserved secrets of the Ten Tribes? And the hiding place of the Minderon?”
“Melanie, while you were starring in the role of queen and enjoying your fascinating world, I had to cope with my belly that became as bloated as a balloon, to visit a laboratory at the heart of the lake, then I was turned into an hybrid ape, a dwarf, a Court Jester, and a prince that had to frantically escape. What’s going to happen next?”
“It’s agonizing for me to hear about the bunch of troubles you acquired so easily, but we must not be discouraged,” she whispered playfully. “The Third World is so fascinating and we must go on despite all of the difficulties you have been through. We shall hide somewhere near and wait until the Sabbath starts, and on Sabbath morning we will sneak into the city and, if we are lucky, we will see the famous Minderon.”
With small hesitant steps I walked along the path that led toward the city I had fled like I was being chased by a demon. Our way led us to a field covered with a blaze of colors and wafting of intoxicating and gratifying fragrances. For a long hour we just stood in the heart of the field, inhaled the fragrance and for a few minutes we forgot about our mission.
“What a beautiful place!” Melanie exclaimed with excitement and joy, but she hadn’t finished and the soil started to crumble beneath my feet.
“It’s a trap! We are sinking!” I yelled loudly. Melanie held my hand and said nothing, only her face became as gray as a thunder cloud. “We are sinking into the ground!” I called desperately. “We are sinking…” For long time we struggled to pull ourselves out of the muddy trap, but it was beyond our power. It seemed strange to me, how this had happened on a piece of ground that showed no signs of being swampland. In short time we had sunk to our chests only our hands and heads were above the ground.
Melanie held my hand tightly and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Meanwhile the sound of approaching footsteps were heard. I asked her about it, but she answered feebly that she could also hear them and also the rustling noise of somebody walking on the bed of dried leaves that surrounded us.
“Dan!” Melanie shrieked, “Look, monsters on your right!”
I turned to my right and I was petrified. Dozens of odd-looking monsters streamed from all directions and approached the place where we were trapped.
“Oh God, this is terrible!” Melanie called with anxiety.
At the sound of her cry the animals drew back a little but shortly they returned to gather around us. After I calmed down a little, I looked at them closely. They were giant ants, standing at roughly a foot and a half, with a pair of huge, strong mandibles stemming from their big black heads, but worst of all was the sight of six human feet that emerged below their big bellies.
“They are going to crack us open with their jaws.” I yelled in despair. “But you Melanie, you have nothing to fear. Don’t forget that you are invisible and nothing bad will happen to you.”
However the weird animals didn’t attack… even in my wildest dreams I could not have pictured to myself what was going to happen next.
“Look!” Melanie called. “They are devising something.”
And indeed, a few minutes later a capillary net of ant web sank over my head. Shocked and confused I watched the dozens of human-ants that tied my hands to the cobweb.
What else are they planning for me? Why haven’t they got rid of me yet? Are they going to snare Melanie too with their cobweb? It was only shortly afterwards that I felt the web stretching slowly and strongly and soon I was being pulled very slowly out of the treacherous trap. To my great delight I saw Melanie holding fast to the edge of my net w
ith both hands and escaping the swampy trap too.
Many dozens of human-ants started to roll me inside the cobweb-made net, and started to drag me along very quickly; however to my great surprise I saw Melanie following us.
Scratched and bruised, I was brought to some huge, weird mud heaps in the middle of the field, indented with few openings on all their sides. I’m going to be stored as food for hard times, I said to myself and became withdrawn with apathy. I fear death no longer. With the little strength left in me I raised my head but Melanie was nowhere to be seen. For long time I lay bound, entangled in the cobweb; all my efforts to free my hands were in vain. All of a sudden I saw something unexpected happening, and the human-ants retreated quickly to their huge ant colony while emitting grating sounds. How strange – why are they fleeing? It was probably something enormously horrifying. I changed my position until I was on my side but I saw nothing. Again I rolled onto my other side and then the most horrendous scene emerged in front of my eyes. There are not enough words to express how I felt when I saw a tremendously big monster hovering above my head making whistling noises and spewing blue flames of fire from its eyes. Before I could say anything it landed close to where I was, approached me, held the cobweb with six of its miniature human hands and skillfully removed the web from my body.
“You are free to leave!” I suddenly heard a voice coming from the monster’s throat. I was frozen and half-paralyzed when I tried to stand up. I surveyed my liberator. It was a sizeable bird with an anaconda’s body and a long human head.
After recovering from the unexpected meeting I asked,”Who are you?”
“I’m the Keeper of Justice of the Third World.”
“The Keeper of Justice? You probably meant Keeper of the Law!”
“No. I neither keep laws nor do I protect regimes; I keep the foundations of justice and truth, but I do not represent the local laws here. You must be aware that police are the army of the government, and sometimes they are defending a tyranny or corrupted regime. Some of those keepers of the law might become lawbreakers themselves and they might do with it as if it was their own.”
“That’s fantastic. How did you know I was in trouble?” I asked. The response of the human-monster surprised me immensely.
“I was sent here by the Queen of the City of Dreams.”
“I can’t believe it!” I called out with great excitement. “And where did you meet her?”
“I haven’t met her! It’s impossible to meet the Queen of the City of Dreams; it’s possible only to hear her voice. And now please receive her message, ‘Follow your footsteps back. The meeting will be next to the lake.’”
“Please don’t be angry at me, but I have one more question. How did you became a Keeper of Justice even though you have such a monstrous appearance?”
“Ha-ha-haash,” a strange noise was emitted from his throat. “It’s better for a Keeper of Justice to look like a monster than to look like a good-mannered person with the soul of a monster.”
It concluded its speech and then thrust off speedily at great altitude to a forest on the horizon.
Scratched and bruised I made my way back to the lake. Hybrid human-monsters that serve as the Keeper of Justice – maybe it’s a proper solution to a backward world, haunted by hatred and ignorance, I reflected. Although I felt pain all over my body I increased my pace as I walked toward the lake.
From a distance I was able to spot Melanie standing next to the lake, gazing at it.
“Melanie! Melanie!” I called from great distance, but she didn’t budge an inch. I hastened my pace to abridge the distance between us until I reached her.
“Melanie!” I called loudly but she didn’t even bother to turn to me.
But after a while she turned, looked at me closely, and said in a strange manner, “You look excellent. The human-ants didn’t harm you at all. Now have a rest and afterwards we shall return to the footpath that leads to the City of Sodom.”
“Melanie, what do you have in mind? You’re going too far; I don’t think it’s right to return to the city from which I had to escape by the skin of my teeth – you know that I’m in danger of assassination in this city.”
“I know exactly what you are going through, but we must not stop or run away. We will reach the city and hide in its surroundings until the Sabbath begins.”
I was shocked and lost for words when I heard her speak. It even seemed to me that she had lost her sense of logic. But after a while I came to my senses and uttered, “Melanie, it’s seems to me that we shouldn’t look for any new troubles – we’ve had enough. Now let’s go back to the Land of the Ten Tribes.”
“I don’t believe you just said that! You were the one who initiated this entire exciting trip, and now you’re planning to run away? I’m not going to end this journey; not until I see the Son of the Planets’ Minderon. If you want to leave, go by yourself,” she said and handed me my hood.
“Here, take it; you are allowed to leave the Third World anytime you want.”
In that moment I stood amazed at her brave and tenacious spirit.
“You win,” I muttered faintly. “But I have only one request.”
“What request?” she asked defiantly.
“My request is that as soon as we enter the room of the Minderon we make our way out of the Third World.”
“Agreed.” Melanie answered, adding nothing more.
On the Path to Space
After walking slowly for about three hours we saw the city walls rising above the hill.
Melanie stopped and in a commanding tone, she proclaimed, “We should use the time until the Sabbath begins to get some rest and to scout around the city.”
“I’m at your command, Milady, Queen of the City,” I answered wryly, “and now we must search for water and food.”
We were already experienced and knew which fruits were permitted and which were forbidden and we no longer fell into the trap of the fragrant and seductive fruits. The five days of waiting passed quickly, in peace and quiet until the sixth day. In the later afternoon we left our hideout and advanced toward the city walls. On our way we crossed a walking forest and stopped some dozens of feet away from the walls. We very carefully crossed the remaining stretch of fields and orchards, constantly alert, anticipating unexpected trouble but to our great relief we arrived without running into danger or obstacle. It was a sign of the commencement of the Sabbath, when the sons of Sodom and Gomorrah locked themselves in their homes.
The silence made Melanie so happy that she yelled aloud in joy, “I’m so happy! In a while we will infiltrate the strange city and we will see the great wonder – the Minderon, or as it is more familiarly known in the ancient Jewish Bible scroll – the chariot of Elijah.
When the black cloud approached, tension surged through us, but then when it sank over the city and the daylight was darkened, our tension waned.
“Come on, let’s get to work!” Melanie called. She continued, “They are all sleeping and will not wake until Saturday night. We have enough time!” She pulled a rope-ladder with an iron hook attached to one of its ends out of her rucksack. I took it and in a powerful swirling motion I threw it above and over the wall. I made three futile attempts until the fourth one caught, and Melanie cheered, in light of my impressive feat. With cat-like agility she climbed over the wall.
As soon as she was had made it she teased me, “And what is my honey, the Court Jester, waiting for?”
“For the elevator, of course,” I answered with a smile and hurried to follow her. A few moments later we were walking up the street headed for the king’s palace, lighting our way with two flashlights that Melanie drew from her rucksack. The street was deserted and quiet; only the sounds of snoring of the sleeping people were heard gnawing at the deep silence. We quickly made our way to the wall of the king’s palace and easily crossed it.
Melan
ie stopped, illuminated the palace and its surroundings with her flashlight and remarked, “This dilapidated shack cannot be a palace! It should not even be used as horse stables.”
“Melanie, stop bragging! You’ve probably forgotten that all of your subjects and your army are made of Cosmozom, a glass-like material, or in other words, they all look like glass toys. Now let’s go up to the fifth floor. I know every corner here. Soon you are going to see what such a poor place has to offer, unlike your extravagant palace. Please take it into consideration!” I whispered back at her, and I pulled the wedge that was stuck on the wall.
“Oh!” Melanie called in alarm, “I feel dizzy.”
The room rotated around its axis and then stopped. An immensely large door loomed in front of us.
“Go on, Melanie,” I called with great excitement. “Put the key into the slit in the control panel.”
However, Melanie just stood there as though she was possessed by a devil. I called once again, “The Queen of the City of Dreams, stop dreaming! Wake up and turn on the control panel!”
All of a sudden she awoke from her freeze and immediately pushed the key into the small slit on the control panel. Suddenly the room was flooded with a dazzling radiating light. To my great amazement the immense door vanished into thin air. I rubbed my eyes and checked again – indeed, the huge door that had stood there was not there anymore. Instead we were astonished by what we saw inside the vast hall until we froze in our place with our mouths gaping open, for what seemed like an eternity.
“I know who you are and what you want, and now you tell me, where do you want to go? I’m at your command. I have been waiting for you. I’m the Minderon… I had arrived from the Triangle of Light, I cannot return… I’m very damaged… My world-crossing device has crashed… I’m waiting for your command…”