FICTION: SHADOWLANDS

We can almost see you in these shadowlands. But we still have so much farther to go before we know you. We have developed many theories and we are curious to know so much more. Do you hear us sometimes, perhaps even see us? We detect that you do when you reach the shadowlands yourselves. We almost see you there. But not clearly and the memory fades quickly. Not so quickly as yours, however. We see that you forget almost everything.

The Shadowlands are vast and mostly unexplored. Some think they extend beyond imagining though others believe they end where imagining ends. Who can say what is truth and what is false when boundaries dissolve in mist and contours can alter, distorting into imagined shapes?

There are projectioneers who survey the shadowlands, wild and weird eccentric beings who stare through different eyes than you and me. They are wired to moonbeams and burned blind by staring into the centre of stars. They travel naked, daubed in many colours, ungroomed, immaculate.

I am not of their tribe. I am of the median, the median who create this space so others can ride wild upon it. I observe with clear eyes as I see it. I can admire but I cannot emulate. I stand here as guardian, as engineer, as support. I am the foundation of your fantasy and I impassively allow all within the shadowlands.

\O/

Tonight the sphere is particularly active. The dark swirls in corners with colour. Each house stands ready on the same street as ever. Each waiting. All ten million as counted to date. With the same trees, the same pathways, the same lawns, the same windows, doors and shape. All waiting for the points of light to arrive. Almost all is dark and all is silent. Here and there a smudge or streak of colour swirls.

Phrene I

Approaching the door. The door is not black but a very dark blue. Touching the door am inside. A hallway and a dead beast’s head above with beads, a stairway. A door at extreme left and yet another further. Voices at the furthest and music, a piano sounds.

To the extreme right a door. Smoke curls from its lowest edge. Music is inside but other than before. Seeing through this door a table of green, a green square, metal... a firebox. Portraits. Books. Two humans. Soft seats. Two windows together. Sunshine. The humans are indistinct. No projections detected. Excess of hair. Tall.

Withdrawing. To the far door left. Two humans again. Not the same. One beast, alive. Music is emitted at the left from an instrument. A human sits beside it. Indistinct as all humans are. One human sits at a table. No projections detected. A window and dim light. Sensing age.

Withdrawing. To the upper. On the stairs a shadow of a young human. Disappears. On the upper two small rooms, central, one larger to the right. Above four doors. Functional rooms with no occupants. Centrally, no humans. To the right a room of many things and a human presence, no projections detected. To the extreme right another room but no human present. Some tiny lifeforms, dying. Ahead, one functional space, unoccupied. At extreme left one more room, unoccupied.

Moving out observing large objects moving, green... brown. Below, a large flat object, mostly green and a large dead snake pattern of grey and more green. Hard shape of the house emerges.

Humans are present. Five in all. One wraith. An atmosphere of continuum, calm overall with traces of non-standard thought. Colours are muted. A possible knowledge hub exists.

Darker shadowland activity beginning. Humans one and two in room 1r have partially entered shadowlands through some experimental process. This is new. This is not through the shut-off but in waking. Seeing the first signs. The room is darkened, music playing. One human is beneath the green-topped table, the other lies on a soft seat. Projections are emerging.

Human a.

Many stars and a transporting vehicle of speed. Veils of nebulae. Pulsating sounds. Pulsating images.

Thought colours swirl. Purples. Orange. Green.

Human b.

Sexual colours predominate. Diamonds. Crystals. Contours of landmasses arise. Sexual thought colours once more.

Human a.

Sadness. Melancholy. Greys shift to black and return. Inferiority. Despair.

Human b.

Strength. Determination. Thick red forward projection. Hard ego knowing.

Recording all. Returning to replenish. Location noted for future.

\O/

I am steady. I have all in focus. Founded and stable. We will see you. We will gain your foundation. It will only take time. The houses will show us. I will continue.

Phrene II

It is a very old structure, very dark. I smell/feel moss and stone everywhere. Steps upward, a corridor, then sudden light, wind, warmth. Female wave arrives from far, becoming stronger, then three others, male. I trace it to a bank of earth, green covered, trees and water. They make fire. ‘A’,'B’ and ‘J’ motifs appear in an aura knot. Little more before darkness. The female is ‘M’. Presence ‘J’ is a wraith. On this recognition there's a shift. Now in the previous time/space (Phrene I). 'M' and 'A' are within a human knot of fire. The room is dark, firelit, the green square displays its presence dimly, this of metal. There is a roof below a roof and beyond, another. There are many rooms and I see many tableaux, many times. The spirit overall, young. The two are unaware of time. Soon gone. The two times intertwine. What is, what will be... and what will disappear permeates everything now. Sadness prevails then fades, then is gone.

These were not living shadows in these tableaux, at least one not, but bonded in that time. Their surroundings local, wedded to their thoughts. I am returning. No deep insights were gained though I feel for these beings. Who are/were they? I sense a comfortable sense of now though blended by numerous times blending ultimately into a poignant sense of loss.

This is frustrating work. We feel you and can in some way see you. But we cannot know you. Where ARE you? Do you live now, in some future or other world or here, long ago? I long to know though I am employed only to observe.

I lay and contemplate the space between me and the... the what? The vision ones, the time-particles, the shadows of shadowlands as we called them. An immense black lake of time separated us. Perhaps also the great gulf of space too. We didn’t know. But their energy is there, still there, beating like a pulse, like a heart in the darkness. You exist in some form there, in Shadowlands. We search for you there to touch your pulse and join our hearts with yours.

Phrene III

His name is Alan. I’m sure it is Alan. The path to him is winding. Past the entrance there is a large space to the right, a wall and a door to the left. In front, (wooden) stairs. Moving up these to the right is a forbidden door, central slightly left a vacant room, no life. To the right beyond another door, Alan. Wreathed in smoky light. The orbit surrounding the room contains many colours as of a spectrum within cut crystal. A yawning cat, a barge among gigantic flowers, many books.

He looks through me to some unknown distance. His hands turn to unseen objects before him. The clarity here is extraordinary. There is something to be gained in this contact I am sure. The mind present is more apparent. By chance (?) through this region we may reach point of contact. I will try.

I approach, holding back thoughts, expressing only feelings. With no thought, I look and... There it is! He is combined with others from before! The Phrenes are coalesced as we could have suspected. There is the beast of beads and the many wraiths. The connections are many and many moments connect outside of all enclosed spaces, especially in association with the wraith, 'K’.

Pushing my energy to its limit I will abandon all thought to concentrate on the connection.

Does he “see” me at all? I detect something approaching recognition. Could it be?

Suddenly there is a breakthrough. This is what we sought. I see who he is, I see who is Allan, who is Brian, Jim, and Maureen are. I see ‘Morroch’. I see ‘Millguy’. I see all the myriad nights and days and lovers, friends and spaces, the places, the times, the words. It’s wonderful! There it is! Here! It was here where we are now! But so very, very long ago... so impossibly long ago.

But it is clear. We are one. They are part of us. We belong and exist in this continuum, only separated by time, aeons of time. They lived here. They lived like us. Where we are now. This dimension, this place, this reduced plain where we walk now.

Our loneliness is ended. Us few in these few houses left us, this small oasis on this barren rock. Now after all the lost years we can find some solace.

We can know there was another time. We can travel there in that vast sphere and at long last connect. There was once a time when we truly lived. By intertwining minds as I have discovered, we can live there again...

In Shadowlands.