Insomnia
Insomnia . . . brain chemicals . . . memory and dream . . .
And he's climbing the hill. It reminds him of the one on the farmland behind his house, tall and steep. His children used to sled ride down that hill, one breathtakingly short thrill and then the long trek back to the top to do it all over again. There was another one on the other side, the ravine where the sleds came skidding to a halt long and narrow between the two rises. The high school had a rough track course there in the fall; his eldest use to run it. Came in dead last half the time, but he went to watch her anyway. She used to think there was some mythical land in that old field, that it might appear if you climbed the far rise at the right time.
So there he is, laboring up a steep hill like the one he remembers. Is it the one he remembers? Honestly, he can't recall how he got there. There's dead, trodden down wheat all around him, and it's the barren, blazing heat of summer. Yet he's dressed in his winter wear, an old brown leather coat and an English hunting cap, complete with feather. He loved the eccentricity of that cap, its fur lining and its little feather. He's got his old scarf on, brown plaid with a single thread of blue weaving through it like a river in a desert. Wasn't he somewhere else before?
The fabled rise looms ahead, the mythical land. He knows it's just the other side of town; but the faith of a child is contagious. He was like that once- still is a little. He told stories on his back porch to all his school friends, tales spun from the fossils they'd find in the creek bed. On warm June evenings he'd regale them with legends of a cave on the mountainside above the creek, a passage to an ancient world that he barely escaped with his life. That mountainside had been steep, too. No caves, though; not really. He'd looked.
The crest of the hill looms near, searing heat and stinging sweating seem to abate all at once in a sudden breeze. He wonders, just briefly, what his children saw in their minds' eyes when they pictured another world on the other side of the hill. Then he reaches the apex, and he sees.
A wide, green land stretches out below him. No, a thousand lands. A town built in giant trees by a wide blue lake, autumn leaves rustling in a gentle wind. The gleaming shores of an ocean, Treasure Island in the distance. Castles made of gleaming opal stone, cathedral forests of the elves, savannas of waving grass populated by talking animals and ancient gods. The endless horizons of all the stories he'd ever wanted to tell his children, all the places he'd ever wanted to take his wife. Vistas he'd only seen in postcards laiid out before his naked astounded eyes. It is all too beautiful. He wants to weep. The pristine reaches of the imagination encompass his vision.
And then it condenses, coalesces. One land, wide and green, the first one his eyes lit upon when he gained the rise. The sky's clear, so clear. He's never seen a bluer sky or cleaner clouds or brighter colors of grass and trees and flowers. Below him, in the sweeping expanse of a shallow valley, a homely cluster of houses forms a little country village. There are thatched roofs and log cabins, the like of which his world hasn't seen in many years, the kind his historian's heart loves. There are farmer's fields goldening and puffy white sheep wandering, cultivated groves of maple and birch. And as his eyes travel along one of the humble village lanes, he realizes he is tracing the way home.
"Do you like it?"
He's startled to hear another voice on this hill, having thought himself the only resident of this dream. Turning about, he finds that the way he came is no longer there. In it's place is a towering wood, trees that have never felt the bite of saw or ax or faced the crushing devastation of modern man. It is a forest from the dawn of time, with oaks as big as California redwoods. The shadows beneath those boughs could swallow worlds. A new breeze rises from within, fierce and fresh and intimidating, carrying with it the scent of herbs and loam. It plays in the longer, unruly hair of the man waiting for him at the wood's edge.
Stranger. That's the right word. Not only is the other man unknown to him, he seems unknowable in general. He has the tinge of winter clinging to him, even in the heart of the spring in which they stand. The pale hair is color of January sunlight, the eyes grey and blue all at once, like snow clouds. All the faded tones of the cold months are emblazoned upon the other man, save his cloak, which is dark as the new moon. But winter brought Christmastide and marked the birth of three of his four children, so he finds he does not fear this stranger. Rather, alien as the other is, looking at him is like tracing that little street through the village, like coming home.
"And you are home," the stranger continues, as surely as if the thoughts had been spoken aloud. "You have done a great many things for us, though you do not know it."
He wants to ask! It's on the tip of his tongue. Is this? All his life, he had believed . . .
"Yes and no, not as you might see it," the stranger responds, "I find myself ill equipped to translate your faith. Suffice it to say that all men spend their lives in the service of one power or another, whether they know it or not. Your labors have been for the good of others and the world, and those of us most touched have never forgotten what you have done, or what you will do."
Now he's truly confused. He thought by now surely that he was . . . but the stranger smils, and he knows he didn't need to ask, doesn't need to say anything at all.
"It will all be clear in time. For now," the stranger sweeps a long, graceful hand in a half arc, indicating the village, "go home."
He looks as he is bid, gaze falling again on that lane, winding towards a small cabin. There's smoke rising from the chimney. The leaves of the primordial forest rustle behind him, and he doesn't need to look back to know that the stranger is gone. He starts down the new hill, a thousand times more gentle than the one he'd climbed, feet turned toward home.
And he's climbing the hill. It reminds him of the one on the farmland behind his house, tall and steep. His children used to sled ride down that hill, one breathtakingly short thrill and then the long trek back to the top to do it all over again. There was another one on the other side, the ravine where the sleds came skidding to a halt long and narrow between the two rises. The high school had a rough track course there in the fall; his eldest use to run it. Came in dead last half the time, but he went to watch her anyway. She used to think there was some mythical land in that old field, that it might appear if you climbed the far rise at the right time.
So there he is, laboring up a steep hill like the one he remembers. Is it the one he remembers? Honestly, he can't recall how he got there. There's dead, trodden down wheat all around him, and it's the barren, blazing heat of summer. Yet he's dressed in his winter wear, an old brown leather coat and an English hunting cap, complete with feather. He loved the eccentricity of that cap, its fur lining and its little feather. He's got his old scarf on, brown plaid with a single thread of blue weaving through it like a river in a desert. Wasn't he somewhere else before?
The fabled rise looms ahead, the mythical land. He knows it's just the other side of town; but the faith of a child is contagious. He was like that once- still is a little. He told stories on his back porch to all his school friends, tales spun from the fossils they'd find in the creek bed. On warm June evenings he'd regale them with legends of a cave on the mountainside above the creek, a passage to an ancient world that he barely escaped with his life. That mountainside had been steep, too. No caves, though; not really. He'd looked.
The crest of the hill looms near, searing heat and stinging sweating seem to abate all at once in a sudden breeze. He wonders, just briefly, what his children saw in their minds' eyes when they pictured another world on the other side of the hill. Then he reaches the apex, and he sees.
A wide, green land stretches out below him. No, a thousand lands. A town built in giant trees by a wide blue lake, autumn leaves rustling in a gentle wind. The gleaming shores of an ocean, Treasure Island in the distance. Castles made of gleaming opal stone, cathedral forests of the elves, savannas of waving grass populated by talking animals and ancient gods. The endless horizons of all the stories he'd ever wanted to tell his children, all the places he'd ever wanted to take his wife. Vistas he'd only seen in postcards laiid out before his naked astounded eyes. It is all too beautiful. He wants to weep. The pristine reaches of the imagination encompass his vision.
And then it condenses, coalesces. One land, wide and green, the first one his eyes lit upon when he gained the rise. The sky's clear, so clear. He's never seen a bluer sky or cleaner clouds or brighter colors of grass and trees and flowers. Below him, in the sweeping expanse of a shallow valley, a homely cluster of houses forms a little country village. There are thatched roofs and log cabins, the like of which his world hasn't seen in many years, the kind his historian's heart loves. There are farmer's fields goldening and puffy white sheep wandering, cultivated groves of maple and birch. And as his eyes travel along one of the humble village lanes, he realizes he is tracing the way home.
"Do you like it?"
He's startled to hear another voice on this hill, having thought himself the only resident of this dream. Turning about, he finds that the way he came is no longer there. In it's place is a towering wood, trees that have never felt the bite of saw or ax or faced the crushing devastation of modern man. It is a forest from the dawn of time, with oaks as big as California redwoods. The shadows beneath those boughs could swallow worlds. A new breeze rises from within, fierce and fresh and intimidating, carrying with it the scent of herbs and loam. It plays in the longer, unruly hair of the man waiting for him at the wood's edge.
Stranger. That's the right word. Not only is the other man unknown to him, he seems unknowable in general. He has the tinge of winter clinging to him, even in the heart of the spring in which they stand. The pale hair is color of January sunlight, the eyes grey and blue all at once, like snow clouds. All the faded tones of the cold months are emblazoned upon the other man, save his cloak, which is dark as the new moon. But winter brought Christmastide and marked the birth of three of his four children, so he finds he does not fear this stranger. Rather, alien as the other is, looking at him is like tracing that little street through the village, like coming home.
"And you are home," the stranger continues, as surely as if the thoughts had been spoken aloud. "You have done a great many things for us, though you do not know it."
He wants to ask! It's on the tip of his tongue. Is this? All his life, he had believed . . .
"Yes and no, not as you might see it," the stranger responds, "I find myself ill equipped to translate your faith. Suffice it to say that all men spend their lives in the service of one power or another, whether they know it or not. Your labors have been for the good of others and the world, and those of us most touched have never forgotten what you have done, or what you will do."
Now he's truly confused. He thought by now surely that he was . . . but the stranger smils, and he knows he didn't need to ask, doesn't need to say anything at all.
"It will all be clear in time. For now," the stranger sweeps a long, graceful hand in a half arc, indicating the village, "go home."
He looks as he is bid, gaze falling again on that lane, winding towards a small cabin. There's smoke rising from the chimney. The leaves of the primordial forest rustle behind him, and he doesn't need to look back to know that the stranger is gone. He starts down the new hill, a thousand times more gentle than the one he'd climbed, feet turned toward home.