Nebula at Sea

Act VI. The Transcendent Dreamworld / An Odyssey in Dreams

I'm a speck of dust in this sea of rust

Nothing to lust for there's no one to trust

---

The Ark of Salvation comes to a very sudden halt. The seas are so rough, so full of painful friction, as if there are worn-off tires below the wooden hull, sharply screeching against the dry asphalt of a lonely village's road.

I rise awake with a tingling sense of familiarity.

My deepest slumber, exploring the various ends of the dreamworld; the many stories of the many people of a deconstructed land. A country. A nation filled with lost hope and citizens who have no dreams. A divided region with a single, disappointed heart.

A foolish cloud looms over my happy vibes.

A dread of the unknown haunts my tormented soul. I would want to continue sleeping. Maybe the Ark would move once again. The moldy rope tying the Ark and the pier together will not last forever. This is a large dreamworld; spanning every corner of the seven seas; encompassing every beach of the seven places of worship; swallowing every word of the seven chapters.

If that's the case, why here?

This is the first chapter. Should I disembark, or should I rest?

I have decided. The first chapter will not be written on an old, boring, disheveled Ark.

Thus, let me tell you a story.

I step onto the old pier; as old as the seven histories of seven timelines. I observe the bleak, yet peaceful surroundings. Trees. Trees everywhere. Forests and some purple and pink flowers. More trees clothed with glimpses of the midday sun's holy rays. A garden. A familiar feeling. A nostalgia.

I have been given a warm welcome to the Pavilion of Identities.

Why did this Ark make its stop here? I have been to this place before. It was a bad time. Well, not to say it was bad bad, just normal bad. I am and have always been filled with bad times. Things I do not understand. Events I do not follow. People I do not befriend. Minds I do not comprehend. But I thought that time was over. I thought I have grown. I thought I have moved on from the innocence of childlike perception, and into the realms of adulthood deception.

Adulthood deception.

That is right. I have not moved on, for I never had any experience. I never needed to adapt. University life did not prepare me to adapt to challenges; it taught me to break through them with brute force and constant brainwashing. I believed I was the best, and therefore I was indeed the best. The proof of that was that I suffered more than the rest. That mindset worked in the view of a personal, self-assigned challenge of scoring beyond my expectations, and even that in itself was within my control. I set my goals and I set my target. I freely changed them as I saw fit, and of course I would overachieve.

Adulthood deception.

What is this adulthood deception?

I stroll along this neverending pier, stretching many times as far as the eye can see. I walk for days, weeks, months, years, and centuries, and I finally arrive at the shore. It baffles me that when I first arrived, I saw the most beautiful garden within a stone's throw away from where I was, and now I have traversed too many miles and walked too many steps and yet I am only at the Shore of Cracks.

The Shore of Cracks. The boundary between the overwhelming waters, and the beach full of bloody scars. Bleeding scars. Fresh lines of bright red have been drawn ever so simply onto the canvas of light gold, and too many Faces of Evil lurk around the red cracks. The eyeless, lipless masks float aimlessly, without direction, yet always facing forward, as if embracing the events of time with a spirit of emptiness. These dull-gray facial veils, as large as a human face yet smaller than my own, are known to be blind and thus can never love. Or is it that do not love and thus are blind?