The world in my mind is immense. Larger than any planet we know, perhaps the size of our sun. For whatever reason, this world supports life, and has a gravity and atmosphere similar to our own in spite of its size. The reason for this will be explored in another adventure. This is a world so immense, that one could start walking at birth, and still never reach the other side of the planet before succumbing to old age. The entire planet is interspersed with various civilizations, with vastly different environments, histories, and cultures. Because of the immense distance separating them, most of these civilizations know little to nothing about those outside of their cluster of cities and towns. Some of these clusters are made of dozens or even hundreds of cities, spread out over huge distances, as vast and populated as our own world. The next group of cities over could be anywhere from a few months' travel to decades away. Imagine a solar system full of hundreds of inhabited planets, each with dozens of cities, all combined into one immense planet.
A world so immense is obviously home to vastly diverse environments and physical settings. Oceans as big as our world, mountains so high the clouds merely encircle their base, and valleys that disappear into the darkness of the planet's insides spread across the landscape. One can find in this world cities built in the canopies of trees that stretch a mile into the sky, or farms stretched across plains that disappear into the distance of the horizon, or plateaus housing each their own unique ecosystems. The diversity is immeasurable, though these writings will help to explain what has been explored of this world.
The people and creatures are perhaps even more diverse than its landscapes. People of all different races and cultures dot the surface of the planet. Most will never know of one another, but some individuals devote their entire lives to traveling, exploring, and finding ways to move more quickly across the landscape to better realize its inhabitants. Civilizations and people form relationships across the planet with others they come into contact with, forming alliances or waging wars, or trading ideas and technology.
Every part of this world is in a constant state of growth. This is the world as we know it.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Grey River
The five of us stood on a piece of glass suspended in what appeared to be a hazy, misty space. The rectangular platform extended into the fog in all directions. End to end, it was probably about 60 feet long and 30 feet wide. Above our heads floated another identical piece of glass, about 40 feet up. Between these platforms we stood, unknowing of what lay in any direction from us.
As we stood there, a realization came to us: between these two panes of landscape, we were able to fly. We all understood what we were able to do, but chose not to. Flying just didn't seem right. In another circumstance, it would have been greatly welcomed and celebrated, the ability to fly. Here, it seemed trite. Contrived even. Why fly? What purpose would something so useless serve?
And so we stood. Ten feet on the transparent ground, ten eyes gazing in to the fog. At once, we all realized that we wanted to leave. It wasn't that there was something wrong or uncomfortable about the glass platforms. In fact, it was quite comfortable, the still warmish air that hung with the moisture of the surrounding mist. All the same, we turned to each other and decided to leave. What was more important than where we were now was what lay below the glass through the fog.
We stood near the edge and formed a small, tight circle and wrapped our arms around each other tightly. With a unanimous nod, we jumped as a mass over the edge of the pane. And fell.
And fell.
For what might have been minutes or months, we sunk through the mist. It was a strange fall. There was no rush of air as we passed through it. Our hair and clothes hung as they had however many moments before on the glass platform. The only thing to tell us that we were falling was the knowledge and understanding that we were in fact falling.
And then we landed in water. It as well was a comfortable temperature, about the same as the mist we had just passed through to get to it. With a splash more gentle than it should have been we went under, still clinging to each other. The water was flowing like a river, and the pull moved us downstream as we came to the surface. Though the water had seemed deeper when we landed in it, we found ourselves able to stand on the bottom, with the surface at about chest level.
We gained our footing and surveyed our surroundings. The fog met the surface of the water and blurred it out about ten feet in either direction. Everything was grey. There was not a hint of color, even on our skin and hair and clothes. Just different shades of grey. Even the water rushing around us was merely a darker version of the fog it reflected. We looked at each other, understanding nothing of our environment except for that the water all flowed in one direction. And that was the direction we decided to move, guided by the flow of the river.
Just as it had when we were falling, time begun to lose its points of demarcation and flowed with an almost liquid feel, as if it were no different from the water through which we trekked. Sparse clusters of cattails and reeds grew out of the water every fifteen or so feet, as grey as everything else. Water eddied around the bases of the strangely still plants as fog curled around the tips. These movements were the only ways to visually recognize the passage of time, as though it ran somewhere unseen between the fog and the water's surface, occasionally reaching into the lukewarm media surrounding it.
None of us spoke to or looked at each other. We understood the solemn nature of our situation. We knew where we were: a place that was not quite life and not quite death. A strange sadness, partially provoked by this understanding, and partially by the silent fluidity of our surroundings, filled our hearts. It was not so much a feeling of regret or remembrance of life and the fact that we were no longer a part of it-- there was that small part of us that wished us back to the places we had been to and the people we had been with before we found ourselves dazed and dreamlike on the floating panes of glass. At the same time, we were able to accept what was happening to us. And with the weight of this understanding, we walked. The only sound was that of the water trickling around our bodies as we waded through it.
Further we trekked, without concern for time. All the time in the world-- every moment that had ever passed-- flowed along side us in this place between life and death.
After another indiscernible amount of time, new figures appeared in front of us, unmoved by the flow of the water. We moved closer to them with the flow of the river to realize that they were the backs of tall chairs, extending just inches over the surface of the water. The faced upstream, so that one sitting in them could watch the water flow toward them. They were of a silvery grey metal, plain in design and entirely unextravagant. Perfectly befitting of their environment. I stopped at the first chair we encountered and rested my hand on an edge of the back. Wordlessly, I watched my companions continue onward into the mist. I imagined them stopping one by one at their own chairs, watching in silence as the rest continued on, until the last was left walking alone to his own chair. With their disappearance came the same distance I felt towards my previous life: a vague longing, coupled with the understanding that they were no longer relevant to my halfway existence.
And so, removing them forever from my mind, I turned and sat in my chair. The water now ran just under my eyes, putting my line of sight level with the surface. I knew that breathing was not an issue. Not in a place like this. From this vantage point, the world around me became entirely different, the grey of the water and the mist as the only constant. With my eyes just millimeters above the water, the space between liquid and mist became instantly clear. This was the space that was occupied by time, and by nothing else. But instead of the time I had been traveling with since landing in the river, this substance that passed me was entirely different. I felt time that had happened since me leaving the world before this one. Time that was entirely unfamiliar and uncomfortable, because there was no longer any pieces of me within it. I searched through it as it passed me for pieces of my friends or familiar places, but it was too broad and endless for me to catch anything of familiar significance. It would be like searching for a single, specific drop of water in this river.
And now, a deep, true sadness begun to set in. An aching pain begun to fill my heart, caused by a longing for something familiar. Anything that would keep me even remotely attached to my life I had lost. But there was nothing. Only pain and deep, irrevocable sadness and self pity.
And with that, I stood and turned. No longer facing a life that could not ever be experienced again, but gazing directly into the mist ahead of me that would lead into death. What I saw before me was the same scenery, but a different end to it through the mist. Ahead of me was nothing. All I had left was time that had already passed. With the resolution and death of that time was my own death. There was no life ahead of me, this much was overwhelmingly clear. I would find the end of this river, and that would be the end. Nothing awaited me after this grey in-between existence. I would simply cease to be; that much I was well aware of. There was no poetic quality to this death.
The water suddenly felt startlingly cold, and the mist surrounding me now bit at my nose and ears, chilling what physical semblance remained of my former body through the bones to whatever lay even deeper. Shivering and aching with cold and sadness, I continued forward into what was bound to be the unhappiest of endings.
With the flow of the river, I walked.
And walked.
After an unmeasurable amount of time, or whatever semblance of time now surrounded me, a form appeared to my left. Through the edge of my vision, I recognized it to be a shoreline. I continued to stare intently forward as I plodded on. I followed a near irresistible urge to ignore the grey bank of the river. It seemed an annoyance-- an irrelevant distraction from all that mattered to me now: my resolution, and the resolution to that which flowed around me. Like a fly buzzing in and out of my vision, the shoreline became increasingly more distracting. But still I continued forward, refusing to acknowledge it.
The image became clearer and closer as I moved with the river, until finally it was impossible to ignore. I stopped walking. The pull of the river seem to strengthen as I did so, as though reminding me not to waste my time on such trivial annoyances as a simple shore. Slowly, fighting my urge to continue onward, I turned my head to the left.
Not only was there a bank of dry ground, but past that was a field of reeds and cattails. Beyond the field was a tall grove of trees that rose into the sky, which was free of the mist I had grown so accustomed to. With a shock more fierce than the cold that surrounded me, I realized that I was staring into color. I nearly stumbled into the wake of the river as the array of pigment and light hit me. More vivid greens and blues than I remembered from even my previous life grew in front of me, not ten feet away. Even the water near the shore ran clear and reflected the color and lights of this scenery.
Without so much as a last glance down the path of the river, towards the nothingness that it held, I turned and walked to the shore. The current pulled stronger than ever, and I struggled to keep my footing. And then I was there. I stepped out of the water and onto dry land. The cold instantly left my body, and I felt bathed in a warm sunlit feeling. I turned, and behind me, at the edge of the horizon across the river, which was now only thirty or so feet wide, a pink orange sunrise burst over the green fields beneath it. The sun seemed larger than I had ever remembered it to be. Its warmth erased the sadness and bitter cold instantaneously and warmed that deeper-than-bone part of me. Smiling for this first time since I had entered this grey world, I turned back to the tall trees looming welcomingly on the opposite horizon. A feeling of mental clarity overwhelmed me, as though the river had dampened all feelings and thoughts, and as I left it, so too had I left behind the fog, both physical and mental, that I had been trekking with.
In the branches and leaves of the trees, I could see a flickering orange light that suggested there was a fire below the canopy. Suddenly quite dry, I walked towards the grove, through the waist high grass and reeds. As I neared the far edge of the field, I realized there were other people there with me. Sparsely dotting the grass to both sides and even behind me, other figures were joining me in my walk to the trees.
I recognized every face. They were my friends: those I was very close to, those I had shared my life with, and even those with whom I had only had brief, but meaningful encounters. They were all faces of people I had cared for in my waking life. I smiled at each figure I made eye contact with, and they smiled back, the same elated feeling I was experiencing reading clearly from their expression.
Together we walked.
We reached the edge of the forest and walked into it, between the trunks and under high branches. The thick canopy created a twilit air around us, casting a green and orange light onto our skin. We came into a clearing under a group of large trees. In the center, a tall bonfire burned welcomingly, casting a flickering light onto the bottoms of the leaves overhead. And surrounding the fire was every person I had ever cared for. Sitting in groups, some small and some large, everyone had a happy, comfortable expression as they joked and laughed and told stories and sang songs with each other. Some who were nearer me rose to their feet and ran to embrace me and welcome me to the gathering. Every face read an expression of euphoria
As we stood there, a realization came to us: between these two panes of landscape, we were able to fly. We all understood what we were able to do, but chose not to. Flying just didn't seem right. In another circumstance, it would have been greatly welcomed and celebrated, the ability to fly. Here, it seemed trite. Contrived even. Why fly? What purpose would something so useless serve?
And so we stood. Ten feet on the transparent ground, ten eyes gazing in to the fog. At once, we all realized that we wanted to leave. It wasn't that there was something wrong or uncomfortable about the glass platforms. In fact, it was quite comfortable, the still warmish air that hung with the moisture of the surrounding mist. All the same, we turned to each other and decided to leave. What was more important than where we were now was what lay below the glass through the fog.
We stood near the edge and formed a small, tight circle and wrapped our arms around each other tightly. With a unanimous nod, we jumped as a mass over the edge of the pane. And fell.
And fell.
For what might have been minutes or months, we sunk through the mist. It was a strange fall. There was no rush of air as we passed through it. Our hair and clothes hung as they had however many moments before on the glass platform. The only thing to tell us that we were falling was the knowledge and understanding that we were in fact falling.
And then we landed in water. It as well was a comfortable temperature, about the same as the mist we had just passed through to get to it. With a splash more gentle than it should have been we went under, still clinging to each other. The water was flowing like a river, and the pull moved us downstream as we came to the surface. Though the water had seemed deeper when we landed in it, we found ourselves able to stand on the bottom, with the surface at about chest level.
We gained our footing and surveyed our surroundings. The fog met the surface of the water and blurred it out about ten feet in either direction. Everything was grey. There was not a hint of color, even on our skin and hair and clothes. Just different shades of grey. Even the water rushing around us was merely a darker version of the fog it reflected. We looked at each other, understanding nothing of our environment except for that the water all flowed in one direction. And that was the direction we decided to move, guided by the flow of the river.
Just as it had when we were falling, time begun to lose its points of demarcation and flowed with an almost liquid feel, as if it were no different from the water through which we trekked. Sparse clusters of cattails and reeds grew out of the water every fifteen or so feet, as grey as everything else. Water eddied around the bases of the strangely still plants as fog curled around the tips. These movements were the only ways to visually recognize the passage of time, as though it ran somewhere unseen between the fog and the water's surface, occasionally reaching into the lukewarm media surrounding it.
None of us spoke to or looked at each other. We understood the solemn nature of our situation. We knew where we were: a place that was not quite life and not quite death. A strange sadness, partially provoked by this understanding, and partially by the silent fluidity of our surroundings, filled our hearts. It was not so much a feeling of regret or remembrance of life and the fact that we were no longer a part of it-- there was that small part of us that wished us back to the places we had been to and the people we had been with before we found ourselves dazed and dreamlike on the floating panes of glass. At the same time, we were able to accept what was happening to us. And with the weight of this understanding, we walked. The only sound was that of the water trickling around our bodies as we waded through it.
Further we trekked, without concern for time. All the time in the world-- every moment that had ever passed-- flowed along side us in this place between life and death.
After another indiscernible amount of time, new figures appeared in front of us, unmoved by the flow of the water. We moved closer to them with the flow of the river to realize that they were the backs of tall chairs, extending just inches over the surface of the water. The faced upstream, so that one sitting in them could watch the water flow toward them. They were of a silvery grey metal, plain in design and entirely unextravagant. Perfectly befitting of their environment. I stopped at the first chair we encountered and rested my hand on an edge of the back. Wordlessly, I watched my companions continue onward into the mist. I imagined them stopping one by one at their own chairs, watching in silence as the rest continued on, until the last was left walking alone to his own chair. With their disappearance came the same distance I felt towards my previous life: a vague longing, coupled with the understanding that they were no longer relevant to my halfway existence.
And so, removing them forever from my mind, I turned and sat in my chair. The water now ran just under my eyes, putting my line of sight level with the surface. I knew that breathing was not an issue. Not in a place like this. From this vantage point, the world around me became entirely different, the grey of the water and the mist as the only constant. With my eyes just millimeters above the water, the space between liquid and mist became instantly clear. This was the space that was occupied by time, and by nothing else. But instead of the time I had been traveling with since landing in the river, this substance that passed me was entirely different. I felt time that had happened since me leaving the world before this one. Time that was entirely unfamiliar and uncomfortable, because there was no longer any pieces of me within it. I searched through it as it passed me for pieces of my friends or familiar places, but it was too broad and endless for me to catch anything of familiar significance. It would be like searching for a single, specific drop of water in this river.
And now, a deep, true sadness begun to set in. An aching pain begun to fill my heart, caused by a longing for something familiar. Anything that would keep me even remotely attached to my life I had lost. But there was nothing. Only pain and deep, irrevocable sadness and self pity.
And with that, I stood and turned. No longer facing a life that could not ever be experienced again, but gazing directly into the mist ahead of me that would lead into death. What I saw before me was the same scenery, but a different end to it through the mist. Ahead of me was nothing. All I had left was time that had already passed. With the resolution and death of that time was my own death. There was no life ahead of me, this much was overwhelmingly clear. I would find the end of this river, and that would be the end. Nothing awaited me after this grey in-between existence. I would simply cease to be; that much I was well aware of. There was no poetic quality to this death.
The water suddenly felt startlingly cold, and the mist surrounding me now bit at my nose and ears, chilling what physical semblance remained of my former body through the bones to whatever lay even deeper. Shivering and aching with cold and sadness, I continued forward into what was bound to be the unhappiest of endings.
With the flow of the river, I walked.
And walked.
After an unmeasurable amount of time, or whatever semblance of time now surrounded me, a form appeared to my left. Through the edge of my vision, I recognized it to be a shoreline. I continued to stare intently forward as I plodded on. I followed a near irresistible urge to ignore the grey bank of the river. It seemed an annoyance-- an irrelevant distraction from all that mattered to me now: my resolution, and the resolution to that which flowed around me. Like a fly buzzing in and out of my vision, the shoreline became increasingly more distracting. But still I continued forward, refusing to acknowledge it.
The image became clearer and closer as I moved with the river, until finally it was impossible to ignore. I stopped walking. The pull of the river seem to strengthen as I did so, as though reminding me not to waste my time on such trivial annoyances as a simple shore. Slowly, fighting my urge to continue onward, I turned my head to the left.
Not only was there a bank of dry ground, but past that was a field of reeds and cattails. Beyond the field was a tall grove of trees that rose into the sky, which was free of the mist I had grown so accustomed to. With a shock more fierce than the cold that surrounded me, I realized that I was staring into color. I nearly stumbled into the wake of the river as the array of pigment and light hit me. More vivid greens and blues than I remembered from even my previous life grew in front of me, not ten feet away. Even the water near the shore ran clear and reflected the color and lights of this scenery.
Without so much as a last glance down the path of the river, towards the nothingness that it held, I turned and walked to the shore. The current pulled stronger than ever, and I struggled to keep my footing. And then I was there. I stepped out of the water and onto dry land. The cold instantly left my body, and I felt bathed in a warm sunlit feeling. I turned, and behind me, at the edge of the horizon across the river, which was now only thirty or so feet wide, a pink orange sunrise burst over the green fields beneath it. The sun seemed larger than I had ever remembered it to be. Its warmth erased the sadness and bitter cold instantaneously and warmed that deeper-than-bone part of me. Smiling for this first time since I had entered this grey world, I turned back to the tall trees looming welcomingly on the opposite horizon. A feeling of mental clarity overwhelmed me, as though the river had dampened all feelings and thoughts, and as I left it, so too had I left behind the fog, both physical and mental, that I had been trekking with.
In the branches and leaves of the trees, I could see a flickering orange light that suggested there was a fire below the canopy. Suddenly quite dry, I walked towards the grove, through the waist high grass and reeds. As I neared the far edge of the field, I realized there were other people there with me. Sparsely dotting the grass to both sides and even behind me, other figures were joining me in my walk to the trees.
I recognized every face. They were my friends: those I was very close to, those I had shared my life with, and even those with whom I had only had brief, but meaningful encounters. They were all faces of people I had cared for in my waking life. I smiled at each figure I made eye contact with, and they smiled back, the same elated feeling I was experiencing reading clearly from their expression.
Together we walked.
We reached the edge of the forest and walked into it, between the trunks and under high branches. The thick canopy created a twilit air around us, casting a green and orange light onto our skin. We came into a clearing under a group of large trees. In the center, a tall bonfire burned welcomingly, casting a flickering light onto the bottoms of the leaves overhead. And surrounding the fire was every person I had ever cared for. Sitting in groups, some small and some large, everyone had a happy, comfortable expression as they joked and laughed and told stories and sang songs with each other. Some who were nearer me rose to their feet and ran to embrace me and welcome me to the gathering. Every face read an expression of euphoria
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