[Wyl narrates —A.A.]
4
COMMON GROUND
"Hang on, kid. I won't tell if you don't.
.........................zzzzzchunk!
A still, silent roar echoed up through the core as I neared a return to the base of Gnarly Tree: A deep dark ache it was, painful, bearing energy-in-motion up through my heart-space, up from the pit of my stomach, up from Mother Earth, and rising still from beyond there. Some portal between there and here was breaking open in me. A curious sensation, unveiling within, swirling all through, and growing roundabout my body. Gnarly Tree was awakening, too. Joining in. But the pain remained throbbing. A strange, strange beat to the Rhythm.
Leaves rustled. Gnarly Tree wheezed in the breeze. Peculiar winds spiraled round me. My belly rumbled. My heart ached. The Earth quaked! I opened my eyes, a feeble attempt to quash the pain, to get past it! Some strange, strange awakening this, returning to . . . to consciousness.
I looked out upon the land.
A certain light? A . . . a certain darkness? A dust? A mist? A fog? (No land!) But I could see through the far range of my field, through particles defined—'Some atomic presence?' —the nature of life's light flickering rapidly off and on, in and out of time, each atom of my particular-reality an individualized life all its own. And there seemed an endless number of them—eternal expansion as I gave these bits their due recognition: Made my eyes teared and bleary. Made my heart ache. Made my head spin, made my stomach churn. It was time to . . . to leave this place. Time to go back to the plateau.
I tried to get up, but I hadn't the strength. My legs felt dead, like I'd just walked a hundred miles. I felt limp and groggy; but I pulled myself up, into sitting position, and leaned back against Gnarly Tree.
'Look ahead~~~
My wits drew ahead. I looked again. And there, far away. upon the horizon, from far down the dirt-meadow ahead, came an army of images (yikes!)—warriors on horses, stampeding!—stirring up clouds of particulate-dust, penetrating the mist of my particular perception, mixing it up and bearing down on their prey. I looked to the Sun, brilliant as I knew it to be, but sickly faded now as other images appeared the moment, filling my aura, my eyes as well! And I tried to rise above this low-astral agony. But the siege was quickening as the warriors took flight, their steeds now winged were blocking my light; and the whole of Valley Forest, the woods, the meadow and all (what was left of it!), grew quickly dark.
But, surely this can't be real!
'No less real than the tree against which you lean, or the patch of Earth upon which you rest, or the smells of nature riding the winds, or the winds themselves. No less real than this moment, here and now. No less real than the SOUNDs you hear~~~
And at this moment . . .
...................zzzzzchunk
. . . this moment (now!) brought the sounds down upon my ears. Many wings fusing into one constant tone now. One sound! One constant drone it was—whirrrrrrrrring!—as the buzzing togetherness of those warped winged warriors stretched distorted. Sickening! Morphing! MORPHING! Bug-like locusts they were now (fast and furious!): fast on the scent and anticipating, devouring the diseased their consolidated drive.
YOU ARE READING
The Seventh Direction
AdventureA spiritual, mostly fictional adventure, which takes place in both the 3rd and 4th dimension . . . and perhaps occasionally in the 5th. Under the umbrella of Mother Earth---School of Learning, Freewill Zone---the story, rather than looking at us as...
