Turquoise Traveller

by David Griffin

  He advanced unwillingly into the morbid and echoing warehouse.

  37 : WAREHOUSE OF WRITHING PIPES

  He came upon a steam engine on its side, with the carriages upside down. They were scattered across the vast, grey area as if they had been swept away by a giant hand. Hiding inside them were more people who had been turned into cardboard cutouts. They peered out of the grimy windows, giving their utterances of ‘te-te-te’, ‘mm-mm-mm’ and ‘zz-zz-zz’.

  Stave made his way between the hefty carriages with their wheels in the air, to tangles of grey pipes on the featureless floor.

  The further into the warehouse he ventured, the more pipes he could see, each side of him. Their ends twisted and turned, rattled, and spurted blue steam.

  A foreboding, an inkling of what was to come: Stave’s skin itched as though covered with insects. A distinct malevolence in the air.

  Lost in nothing but evil – I sense that.

  Shipping containers, painted in blue and nine feet high, barred his way. On top of them were mannequins who looked down at him with unblinking stares. Still they glowed as if lit by neon. Stave found a gap between two of the containers, walking between them with his head up, suspiciously eyeing the mannequins in return. They followed his progress from their vantage point. There was an aisle at the end of the gap. Another line of containers ran the length of it. Some of the animated dummies leapt over that gap onto the top of one of them.

  Stave turned into the aisle and walked the length of it to the last container in the row. He walked around it and the mannequins seemed to lose interest in him.

  Ahead, surrounded by scattered cardboard boxes and writhing inner tubes, stood a mass of articulated pipes – fifty feet across or more, the colour of dark turquoise. They vibrated as they vigorously moved. They curved and curled around each other, disappearing and re-emerging, slithering like huge metallic worms, always in continuous motion.

  Through stinging eyes, Stave watched the intertwining pipes rise quickly above the floor. Below the pipes, a massive mask was exposed, at least thirty feet high, eyes closed on the pale and waxen visage. He recognised it as his own face. The mask continued to rise, then he could see the squirming pipes completely surrounded the death mask, Medusa-like.

  Stave gasped at the extraordinary sight ahead of him.

  Finally, I meet my adversary – the evil Tremelon Zandar, hiding behind a mask resembling my features.

  To his left stood an audience: more agents of Tremelon. Their faces were as pale death masks, placid, with eyes closed. Like the mannequins on top of the containers, they appeared disinterested in him, satisfied only to stand and watch.

  They spoke in unison.

  ‘You. Don’t. Belong. To. Us. Now.’

  The towering, massive mask hovered in the air. Deep growling came from it as if the amplified sounds from a vicious animal.

  All about Stave dimmed, except for the mask. At the periphery of his vision were strange dart-shaped turrets, and spiked shapes illuminated in purple. Before him, Cassaldra as her elderly version stood in a large, grey teapot up to her waist. The skin on her face and arms was crimson red.

  ‘Help me, Stave, I’m burning, I’m burning,’ she cried and gave anguished screams. As she spoke, chicken bones came from out of her mouth. They fell to the floor and lay there, twitching. Stave’s heart lurched.

  He ran towards the teapot and took hold of Cassaldra under her arms, ready to haul her out. But she transformed into a side of bacon. The mottled red and white flesh felt slippery and cold. More screams came from it. Was this really Cassaldra being tortured, or just a nightmare?

  Either way, Stave recoiled from it, a feeling of revulsion overtaking him. He turned and almost tripped over an open coffin. Inside lay the side of bacon, with crabs scuttling over its surface.

  He couldn’t tear his sight away as the glistening flesh rose and fell as if breathing. He looked up as he recognised the voice of someone who spoke.

  ‘She was a good woman.’ It was Quickso Lebum. Stave looked back to the open coffin and saw that Mariella lay there on her back, pulling legs from some of the live crabs.

  Quikso, with his tongue poking in and out, looked to Stave, before reaching out and grabbing him by the throat.

  ‘Give up,’ Quikso said.

  Stave held onto the wrists, attempting to pull his hands away. He felt his windpipe being crushed as he gasped for air. Quikso’s face changed; it was now Cassaldra holding him. She let go.

  ‘Prepare your soul for evacuation,’ she said as her mouth widened and turned downwards in an ugly fashion.

  Stave panted hoarsely and massaged his sore neck.

  ‘You’re not Cassaldra; leave me be,’ he managed to say. ‘I realise you are trying to turn my mind, to lead me into madness, but it’s not going to work.’

  With that said, Stave saw the pipes around the giant mask emitting metal serpent heads from their ends. The serpents let out blue smoke from their jaws, while more came from the floor. Nausea and fright enveloped him.

  The blue smoke quickly thickened and drifted over to him. Stave was choking from it, his lungs filling with the noxious gases. Condemned to suffocation, he coughed as though his lungs might burst, clutching a hand to his mouth and nose.

  This is the end. Windpipe being ripped from me, my very essence leaching away as those demonic metallic snakes give out their foul stench.

  While the odorous fog of blue smoke billowed in the air, shouts of anger, screams and cries of help came from within the moving, larger pipes.

  Stave staggered back across the hot floor, through the smoke billows, struggling to breathe within the toxic fumes.

  He must get out before the gas overpowered him. Already he felt sick and giddy, his lungs hurting badly. He clutched at his stinging throat and still coughed hoarsely.

  My life being ripped from me. My only hope is dream logic to save me.

  Searching hurriedly in an inside pocket of his jacket he found his small brown bottle of cough mixture. He took it out, quickly unscrewed the cap, and drank greedily from it. He gasped for air in between draughts. At first there was no change but after the third gulp of liquid, he felt his windpipe clearing and the taste of menthol in his mouth. Eventually the cough mixture completely eased his aching lungs and shortened breath. The clouds of blue smoke began to disperse.

  Even though I know it would be the end if the mask was removed, I’m almost intrigued by what he really looks like behind it. Serpents coming out of empty eye sockets like his agents? Multiple layers of teeth? Upside-down mouth grinning like the demon he surely is?

  Without warning, the enormous mask began to dissolve, the pipes and snakes about it becoming even more energetic.

  Stave felt his limbs losing energy, a pulling sensation again as though by some organic magnet, towards the massive face underneath the mask. He daren’t look at it, already feeling his very soul ripping from him.

  Haunted by demonic thoughts taking over, his mind unravelling…

  He was succumbing, the final nightmare enveloping him. He sank to his knees, resigned to his fate, holding his head as it pounded as painfully as if from hammer blows, lost in that shroud of evil.

  Articulated cardboard cutouts came jerking and jolting from out of the darkness. They advanced upon Stave with determination, giving their monosyllabic utterances, joining cardboard hands and making a line of defence between him and Tremelon Zandar.

  They were protecting him from seeing his true face. Stave was grateful. He must act fast to save himself – and save all others in the dream realm, including those cardboard cutouts who once were people.

  A few moments to think through his next course of action. He must still follow logic, the rules of the dream.

  ‘To defeat Tremelon is simple,’ he repeated to himself.

  He decided what he must do: he retrieved both the mirror and the magnifying glass from his pocket. Then, with his back turned on the cardboard cutouts and Tremelon Zandar, made the
mirror larger with the aid of the magnifying glass, like he had done in the library foyer. Then he held up the mirror as high as he could manage, judging where best to capture the reflection of the evil face. With the other hand, he held up the magnifying glass, holding it the opposite way of enlargement, and placing it in front of the mirror.

  For a moment, nothing happening of consequence until there were deep howlings and booms like thunder, and vociferous roars like that from an erupting volcano. Stave dared to turn back around, gently pushing through the line of protective cutouts. And there before him, the serpents were no bigger than small worms about the normal-sized head of Tremelon Zandar on grey metal plates of the warehouse floor.

  Stave caught a glimpse of the hideous face and it felt as if someone had pushed a knife into his brain. It was indescribable and haunted his vision, seeing it whichever way he turned. He reeled from the pain of it but continued on his mission. He ran to an empty cardboard box and picked it up. He daren’t take a chance of seeing the true face again so he walked backwards. And once near enough to the head with its writhing pipes and serpents, quickly placed the box over it.

  He turned around, and continued to reduce the box and its hideous contents in size using the magnifying glass, only stopping when it was beyond a mere speck.

  Immediately his body became energised as dissipation of his life forces ceased, and he was no longer under control of the evil and cunning Tremelon Zandar.

  Explosions of colour like paint tins exploding, a beautiful melody haunting the smokeless atmosphere? Neither of these happenings, just a relieved air of finality in the warehouse and of peace at last, no sounds to upset a deep silence.

  The cardboard cutouts had vanished. The agents of Tremelon had taken their masks off and were rubbing their returned eyes as if they had come out of deep sleep, appearing confused and lost. They began losing definition, fading away from the dream realm, back to everyday reality.

  Stave walked further on through the warehouse, now neatly stacked with empty cardboard boxes, and scaffolding holding up water towers. He was alert and feeling more awake than he had for a long time.

  In the not so far distance ahead, he saw a square of light: an exit.

  38 : BEGINNING OF ETERNITY ANEW

  Stave came out into a sunlit glade with a clean and fresh atmosphere, the sounds of a waterfall from afar. He looked behind him. In place of the warehouse was a verdant mountain. It was pleasantly warm as he made his way across immaculate grass, accompanied by a light scented breeze and bird song from amongst the trees.

  Cassaldra Chimewood appeared from out of strong light shafts, rays of light emanating from her. She was dressed in a long gown patterned with silk, her hair plaited, her young and attractive features alive, her eyes bright as she smiled.

  ‘You have defeated Tremelon Zandar. Welcome home.’

  A shower of rose petals fell from the fragrant air.

  A glimmer of more recognition. I am in love with this young woman, I’m beginning to believe it.

  ‘You can hug me if you want,’ Cassaldra said.

  Stave held her close, her perfume enveloping him. It felt natural and right.

  ‘I have hints that I’ve loved you for a long time but yet still can’t recall,’ Stave said as they parted and held hands.

  Cassaldra lowered her head, her plaited hair falling over her characterful face, hiding sadness there, that same sadness washing through Stave’s mind.

  ‘I’ll learn to love you again,’ he said.

  They strolled through the glade, surrounded by enormous handsome trees, and Cassaldra replied, ‘I know. Now the agents of Tremelon have been vanquished as well, you will begin to remember again and never forget. I will explain everything – I will teach you.’

  ‘Thank you. Who was Tremelon Zandar?’

  ‘Maybe fragments of all of our personalities,’ said Cassaldra. ‘Perhaps he was what mortals call a fallen angel. Perhaps it was a test by a higher agency. Or part of your unconscious mind magnified, for you to resolve: the dream within your own realm becoming a nightmare, a puzzle for you to solve. Whoever or whatever he was, he is no longer here, now that he has been eradicated. And maybe your journey has been a lesson, part of another spiritual mountain to climb – the understanding of your next level of reality. But first, you have to be taught all that you knew before, in this reality. This is your realm, your own personal heaven, now united and repaired.’

  ‘I’m not fully understanding what you’re telling me.’

  ‘Soon you will,’ Cassaldra answered as they passed a lake, alive with orange and yellow coy carp. ‘Let me start by mentioning that through all your lives, you have never harmed another being.’

  ‘All my lives?’

  ‘You have lived in previous lives, Stave, as well as the one you’re living in now. All of us here have. It is the learning process of true life. And you attained an understanding of the next level of reality. Because of that, you deserved and was given your own reality, do you see? Let us discuss more when we’ve reached the cottage.’

  ‘But the cottage was destroyed...’

  ‘What you saw was Tremelon Zandar’s evil interpretation of the cottage, what he wanted you to believe had really happened. This is all real and whole again now.’

  ‘Yes, I haven’t felt so real in a long while.’

  They reached a rose-entwined arch to the cottage garden that was plentiful with blooms and wildflowers. In one corner stood an elegant summerhouse next to moss-covered boulders.

  ‘There, let us rest,’ Cassaldra said.

  They sat inside with warm shadows over them, silent for a while, just looking at each other.

  ‘Please be patient with me as I try to understand all of this,’ Stave said finally.

  ‘Of course, I have patience. We can always visit here again at this same day and time for you to remember even more.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make a mockery of time?’

  ‘Time here in this realm can be as meaningful as you want it to be.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’ Stave said.

  ‘No matter for the while,’ Cassaldra replied. ‘Let us leave time manipulation for another day. First though, you must practice dream summoning in your reality.’

  ‘I’ve had some experience of that with limited success as you know.’

  ‘One day you will be even better, as proficient as you were before the forgetting. Orange juice with ice and lemon?’

  Stave laughed.

  ‘As it happens, I would like one of those.’ Two filled glasses appeared on a table beside them. ‘Did I summon them or did you?’

  ‘A bit of both,’ Cassaldra answered. ‘Soon you’ll be strong enough to dream summon anything at any time without too much effort.’ A becoming smile lit her face. Stave looked to her, this young woman emanating pure love. She continued, ‘Dream summoning is a powerful resource here in our realm. Anything of positive good for yourself or for others is possible. Maybe you would like to open a portal to a tea plantation or arrange a visit to a dream cast travel agent beforehand. Or decide you want to meet others for a social event. Then by walking out of your cottage and down the lane you’ll find what was previously not there. Perhaps a tavern filled with noisy and happy folk – your friends, imagined and real. Whatever you wish for becomes reality, as magical or as ordinary as you like. You can have your positive dreams made real. We are creative artists of the dream reality.’

  ‘Where is this dream reality?’

  ‘In our minds, and our minds are all around us. We are pure thought, spirit, love, and energy. We can create anything from the normal to the magnificent: fly in metal birds between cloud stations, create adventure games, stroll across bronze and marble walkways high up in sapphire cities. Or if you wish to be particularly creative, imagine fish racing over fragrant landscapes, or air swimming through the land of the tiny creatures. Imagine other dreams within reality – investigate active volcanos, walking over its rivers of molten lava, for
instance. Eventually create mountains and valleys, plains, cities, jungles and wildernesses. Beyond the forest lies many incredible places, already built by combined mental energies. Do you see? Anything is possible; anything you wish for can become.’

  ‘That’s all too much for me to take in at the moment. I still have many questions though,’ Stave said.

  ‘Yes, sorry, too much too soon. As to your questions, some can be answered, others will be shown, but all in your own time.’

  ‘What about failure? Unless that’s part of the process of self-discovery?’

  ‘You have learned that already, Stave,’ Cassaldra said. ‘Any obstacle can be put into your own path if that’s your wish. Positive random dream sculpting you will be taught again, as well as time manipulation.’

  ‘Isn’t it hard work?’

  ‘Sometimes, but isn’t all creativity? You will be helped by many, including myself, and by the keepers of the chasm.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve met those. Who are they?’

  Cassaldra shook her head.

  ‘No one knows for certain; they are mysterious beings. But for sure, they have their own realm beyond even our imaginings.’

  ‘And what about Mariella Fortana and Quikso Lebum, for instance?’ Stave picked up his glass of orange juice from the table and sipped it.

  Beyond the beautiful garden, a small herd of redback deer stood, eating grass stems by a lake of orchids.

  Cassaldra answered, ‘They are adventurers, like yourself, who were invited to your realm. They too have earned their own realms. You will see them again. They’ll join you many times for real dream adventures where you’ll meet other adventure players. Some are part of your own personality, others are gods and goddesses, and more invited from the mortal realm. And within those games, you can be anyone you wish. Already you are known by many epithets: keeper of the keys, purveyor of wondrous journeys, dream master, to name some.’