Strange Waters
Heck it was weird round there - not even a proper roof, it all seemed to have half fallen down – and despite the lavish setting my second overriding impression was also of irretrievable decline; it was as if the entire civilization had gone way past its peak and was about to slip away. The days here were definitely numbered, and my casual air of interest in the surroundings was, with hindsight, a blatant portent of impending disaster. I had a tendency to go into denial when faced with foreknowledge of unavoidable catastrophe that I was powerless to prevent, probably so as to avoid blind panic.
Determined to put on a brave face and stiff upper lip I asked around a bit, and was directed to an area at the rear of the…hotel, or whatever it was. I had steeled myself to be un-shockable by this point, via the sole virtue of utter oblivion, so when I saw the half-acre pit of smouldering boulders nestling innocently in the back lobby I expressed polite interest and studied it closely. Actually, it was pretty interesting, and soon I was avidly discussing the nature of the geological specimen with a couple of grey-haired chappies who seemed to have come over here with precisely such a viewing in mind.
It all looked pretty dodgy, nevertheless, and when one of them grew tired of waiting for a specific sign of activity from the smoking stones, it was an unpleasant surprise when he suddenly leapt onto one of the flattest rocks and sat on it clumsily with an expectant air. Why the hell did he do that, wasn’t he burning his bum? I watched critically as the whole pit started to shudder and groan, opening in cracks and spurts before our eyes with an unusual lack of noise or disruption to everything around us. In approximately 3 seconds time I noticed that the entire continent had shifted and disappeared under water to completely the bottom of the sea, seemingly miles down. Shit. I looked around wondering how people were breathing, then just as soon wondered how I was breathing. I opened my mouth, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled exhaled – how the hell….how come I was breathing water, did I have special powers?
“Come back now”
Thank goodness that was over – a second more and I would definitely have started panicking – I wasn’t at my best underwater, but always seemed to find myself in that position whenever I went off on my own without consciousness. Why, I asked myself, did ‘holidays’ always end with being captured by the sea? The only time I had really experienced a watery destination and had managed to avoid going under was when I had gone to the prior existence of the light side with my childhood friend, Peter, a place of virtual hieroglyphic communication, very close to the ancient Sanskrit lands. Oh how I would love to recall that tale, for it was truly the epic journey of my most sublime imagination – an Arabian night made day – and there, the water had been azure, the vista of magical blue eternity studded with islands of far-reaching heart-felt wishes. A breathtaking view indeed and if I should ever recall or revisit that fathomless beach of my Odyssey, surely I would declare unto it the homage of a thousand sighs in words, without weeping.
The fantasy of the East as it was in the eye of the creator, reflection in light of the land near and far, mystical pre-incarnation of a maharaja’s dream. Never before seen were those crystal quartets of jewel-like structures, the bathing houses of ideal dimension, gleaming quadratics, defined manifestations of the glittering perception of marble queens. This was no ordinary era, it was the utmost peak of infinity. It was the white age. There were reams of turquoise, ether avenues of ultraviolet stone, columns of mystique, the foundations of purity in a destination almost unseen, all at the origin of eternity’s horizon, whilst onward stretched the shore of our forever on the smoothest sea of love.
But there my memory fails, though in my minds eye I still see the crystal waters, which none can remove from my understanding of mysteries, far beyond the green of the Zoroastrian glade.
“Not so far”
