The Seven Kingdoms (10)
The Sixth Kingdom - Part II
Reading time: 10 minutes
Illustration: Activedia
Venturing deeper into the corridor, the murky purple haze turned into a pink glow which alternated in intensity the farther he went inside. A faint, rhythmic throb seemed to move the floor, as if walking inside a cakewalk, and a swelling and dying wheeze could vaguely be heard in the distance.
“Hey, you, move! Coming through!”
With great speed, a figure with a poisonous green complexion came rushing towards Andy from behind. Its facial expression showed a mixture of excitement and anxiety, and Andy had to throw himself against the wall to avoid being trampled by two figures in white scrubs who rushed past, obviously in pursuit of the green one.
Being glued to the wall like the Vitruvian Man revealed that the throbbing was not limited to the floor, but that the whole corridor moved in the faint rhythm. Yet, before he had time to reflect on this startling revelation, another group of figures passed by without paying him any notice. Some were dressed in red suits, carrying backpacks filled with seemingly transparent spheres, while they were being followed by a horde of beige looking dwarfs carrying all kinds of tools. Apparently they had a jolly ole’ time, judging from the alternation of snickering, giggling, laughing, wrapping arms around each other, and slapping each other’s backs. It looked like the dwarfs’ beards, however, were visibly growing as they passed by, and Andy was startled by the sight of one of the dwarfs tripping over his own beard without getting back up, for that did not change the troop’s pace, nor its mood. They merrily went along without their fallen comrade.
When they were out of sight, Andy slowly unpeeled himself from the wall to check up on the fallen dwarf. Sure enough, he was dead, and the stage of decay transformed with such speed that it made Andy thrust himself back onto the throbbing wall. The dwarf dissolved right before his eyes and soon there was nothing left but a little bundle of clothes, a pickaxe, and a pile of dust. Shortly thereafter a few other dwarfs approached, who cleaned up the remains, and continued on their merry way. Also their beards were perceptibly growing.
Catching hold of his breath, which had attempted to run away upon the sight of the dissolving dwarfs’ face, Andy’s attention was drawn to his own arms. For there he witnessed a striking resemblance with the covering of the corridor, which appeared to be somewhat of a transparent wall in which, and behind which, all kinds of movements, along with a faint rhythmic throbbing, could be perceived.
“Are you in it, or is it in you?”
The voice startled him out of his musings about the meaning of his perceptions as he looked around to discover where it came from.
“Ah, an excellent question,” the voice resumed. “Where, indeed, does sound come from?”
Unable to determine the location of the voice, or who it belonged to, Andy suspiciously peered around and unconsciously made himself small as the voice continued.
“Which is, it goes without saying, an entirely different question as: where, indeed, does sound come from?”
Being sure that he was now going completely mad due to multiple people and voices having simultaneously decided to reside inside his mind, Andy sat on his knees, threw his arms in a dramatic gesture upwards, while crying out loud:
“From me! Us! From US! I – no – WE – make all the sounds! HA HA HA! And now we are all going to FLY, because it is time for us to DIE!”
He stood up, turned around facing the direction from which he had entered the mountain corridor, and started running.
“If you take a specific location as a starting point for the origination of sound, then your answer is quite correct. However, since different sounds are being produced continuously at different locations, you have to ask the question forever anew, because no two sounds are similar, nor do they ever originate from the exact same location. No matter how many lifetimes a person is granted, such a task is beyond the limits of any being, human or otherwise. However, there is one place where every sound originates from, and into which it inevitably dissolves. If you ever wish to meet The Dalí, you’d better stop running and come up with a question.”
Andy froze mid-step as if he was being caught trying to outrun the fumes and lava of the Vesuvius when it covered Pompeii, while madness and curiosity were fighting for attention.
“No matter how hard you try to believe that you are mad, you still hold on strenuously to your self, and thus keeping the illusion alive that you are sane. The only difference between you and me is, therefore, that you think you are sane, while I know that I am mad.”
Now THAT sounded eerily like something Dalí could have said. Andy turned around almost imperceptibly, like a cat, as his curiosity gained momentum by the second.
“How can I be sure that you’re really Dalí?” he asked with a slight tremble in his voice.
“Ah, splendid, you indeed came up with a question. Not a very original one, it must be said, but a question nevertheless. We, however, need to work on your sense for opulence, which is one of the reasons for the success of my surrealism. For however destructive it may be, it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision, just like common sense and good taste possess the power to sterilize and prevent any creative functioning. Now, it’s time you were on your way. And while you walk, contemplate the sight of sound.”
Except for the swelling and dying wheezing sounds and the rhythmic throbbing of the corridor, nothing could be perceived. Slowly at first, Andy soon accelerated deeper into the mountain. The faster he ran, however, the more intense the throbbing became, until he had to stop in order to maintain some sort of equilibrium, for it felt as being on a ship in a storm at sea.
“Dalí?!” Andy cried out.
“Do you see the sight of sound, dear boy?”
“What are you talking about? I am about to vomit out my intestines here!”
“Hahahahaha! Oh how we are all thirsty for concrete images. Deluded fools!”
Then, in a split second, the throbbing stopped, the wheezing went silent, and as everything disappeared – particularly the corridor and its floor – Andy plunged into an abyss of concrete nothingness, where the silence was deafening, the darkness blinding, and the unknown … reassuring? For soon the falling speed decreased to a point where he was merely floating. He could feel that he wasn’t breathing, but he also wasn’t not breathing, and the strange sensation of being dead without dying caused rather pleasant tingles to creep up his spine.
‘The sight of sound,’ he thought to himself. ‘Where does sound originate from that it also dissolves back into? And what was that last thing he said? Thirsty for, oh, yes, concrete images. Concrete, definite, specific, set in stone, unchangeable. Unchangeable?’ That last word replaced the pleasant tingles into a cold, unpleasant shiver, covering his entire body, whereupon he looked at his arms – the chubby arms, hands, and fingers, of an infant.
“Hells bells!”
“That is not my band.”
Less than three feet from Andy, the floating head of Jim Morrison tenderly looked at him. What was startling, though, was the absence of any startling sensation in Andy’s entire organism – not even a trace of a beginning to execute his dancing fingers-tic.
“People are strange, when you’re a stranger, and faces look ugly, when you’re alone. But you’re not alone, little one, for that’s impossible. Do you know who you are?”
“Well, you look and sound like Jim Morrison, or, at least his head. And if you are, you certainly did not play in a band with Angus Young, but you were a devil in your own right though, hahaha. As for me…” he halted as a weird look appeared on his face. “These words, I, me, mine…sound…the sight of sound…a ship…floating…I don’t know…”
“There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.”
“Look, you know your name, or at least you think you know. The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are, but you trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange you put on a mask, which is your name. That is going through the first door. However, when, subsequently, an object is cut off from its name, habits, and associations, that is: detached; it becomes only the thing, in and of itself. When this disintegration into pure existence is at last achieved, the object is free to be what it is. That is going through the second door, and, upon turning around, seeing that there never was a door.”
In the glow of Morrison’s head, Andy saw his limbs growing into adolescence.
“How is it that I’m not afraid?”
“Who is there to be afraid of?”
Andy looked around and saw nothing besides the benign, floating head, which did not wait for an answer.
“You are in the visual equivalent of the origination of sound, without which sight and sound as you know it could not exist. So, what do you see around you except this floating apparition?”
“Darkness.”
“And what do you hear when our speech is absent?”
“Silence.”
No sooner had Morrison’s head disappeared, when apprehension for a complete surrender to the void manifested itself through nauseating chills, paralyzing throbs, and uncontrollable shakes which took control of his now rapidly ballooning body. Then, from the depths of silence, Morrison’s voice returned.
“Expose and surrender yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
His body began to feel bloated, the elasticity of his skin being stretched to its limits. The fear of annihilation of what Andy thought to be Andy emerged from the very depths of his being, when suddenly the lines ‘People are strange, when you’re a stranger’ entered his mind, and they were accompanied by the notion that the word ‘stranger’ can only become meaningful when there is a separation of some sorts.
How does separation happen? Where does it originate? The image of an amoeba splitting itself in two appeared in his mind, and Andy asked himself if the two newly formed amoeba’s now saw each other as strangers. If they did, wouldn’t that be strange? When Siamese twins were separated, did they then also regard each other as strangers? If we go through the first door and get cut off, how do we get back?
“No! Really?” he cried out.
It was at the moment of surprising realisation that Andy voluntarily, and fully, surrendered his contrived self. His body exploded in a blaze of light, out of which all the galaxies, stars, and planets of the cosmos emerged. He became the sonic boom the after-effects of which are comprised of the sounds that we still hear on a daily basis. He became minerals generating water; water generating wood; wood generating fire; fire generating earth; and earth generating minerals. He became the ever changing forms of water from liquid, into gas, into solid, into liquid. He became both the creative and destructive forces and their balance as life’s sustaining factors. He became the milky way and the mayfly, the platypus and the mountain, the pyramids and the lightning. In essence, he became you and me.
All he could do, was laugh.
---
Andy found himself on top of a mountain ridge, covered in snow. Sitting opposite him, cross legged, was the old timer, still wearing nothing but his turban and mawashi. A snowstorm raged over the surrounding mountain tops and the elements seemed determined to cause immense havoc with their destructive games. Cold nor wind appeared to be bothering either of them though, and they serenely sat as if it were the most normal thing in the world that they not only defied this devastating blizzard, but were able to perceive it as if it were a refreshing afternoon spring breeze.
“Welcome to Ajna. Now you are.” the hermit spoke.
“Yes.” Andy replied, “it was waves.”
“Yes.” the hermit smiled.
“Crests changing into troughs, full moons changing into new moons, summers changing into winters, excrements changing into foods, ocean beds changing into mountain tops, in endless cycles, and the one unable to exist without the other.”
“Sure thing.”
Andy stared around him into the snowy mayhem for a moment.
“Do you have a name?”
“It is the same as yours,” the hermit replied. “But since you’ve only just started on your journey, you can call me τρίτο μάτι.”
“Just started? How can you tell?”
“You are still thinking in terms of names.”
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