Pastle: The World of Light

Chapter 1: The Dream and The World

I had this dream.

It was raining heavily that day, the monsoon had not yet started, and it felt like the rain had come for work early. It was not punctual, it was hasty. The rain didn't stop even into the night, it was pitch black outside for the moon was covered by the stormy clouds that rumbled down, heavy with a clang of metal striking each other. A gloomy night.

I was in my room, situated on the second floor of the building, which had only two rooms per floor. I hated the people I was with and didn't like the way they talked or treated me. There were four or five people in the room, some in mine and some in the adjacent. I was writing something down, copying from the computer screen. The only light in the room, there was no power supply, and the water in the room had risen to ankle height. One person was dictating it to me, the other also noting it down by nodding his head, and one slouched on the bed with one leg up to his chest and the other laid out. A casual enmity hung over the room, or so I could feel it. I hated these people and the way they talked to me. It was suffocating to stay here, but there was nowhere else to go, the rain took care of that. The teacher came into the room, we called him that, or maybe he was a teacher. He was searching for his book, an old empty notebook he had lost, and now he wanted it back. He went to the other room to search for it, then why did he even come here?

Hey, you have his book. You are writing in it, the slouched person said to me, and I could sense envy in his tone. So what? I found it. He should take better care of things, and now it's mine. I said. I continued writing, they were getting on my nerves always ordering me around, not taking care of things, and taking everything for granted. Give him back, he angered back still slouching, only his voice had stood up forcing out a war cry. I was in no mood to fight, I had enough of those. Enough of this sick place. I gripped the book almost wanting to rip it apart, but I was unlike these savages, I changed my hold into a gentle one and then went to the next room. My feet were drenched in water. The coolness of it calmed me down and even cooled my temper, which when I mused upon was sheer idiotic. I handed the teacher his book. I noticed the rain had stopped pouring and there were only faint traces of it outside, it was trickling.

Likewise, I set out of the house, it was the middle of the night and the moon had decided to show itself now that the clouds frolic had ended. They were happy, or it seemed so. Everything was so uncertain. I climbed down the stairs, once where there were cemented stairs now lay wooden ones. Creaking with every step I took down.

The stairs opened into a field as far as the eyes could see and were illuminated by the moonlight up high into the sky. The grass looked blue and the smell of rain filled me up, reminiscent of a past gone by. Walking ahead, I was joined by a goat. It was a young goat with black-grey fur and little horns. It could have been either a child or a teen. Furthermore, it was hard to tell with animals what their age was, and could certainly not ask them. But one thing was for certain, it was a she. Her udders were small, almost poking, and not fully developed. There were three. She had trotted her way across from the field to me. I did not know whether it was lost or simply had decided to come my way. She stood meters apart, her eyes glowing in the dark with a shade of green coated on them. She bleated pleasantly as if she was greeting me. I shooed her away, flicking my arm backward and forwards, shoo, shoo. She would not budge and kept bleating in her nonchalant whimsical way, almost like a child's baa baa, boo boo.

I approached her, still standing there. I patted her on the head, stroking it then caressing her fur below her neck. I started walking away and it followed behind me. Oh, well.

We may have walked a mile out or so, and I was not tired neither was the young goat, moreover, it was getting more energetic jumping around sideways. We came across a house in the middle of the field. It was a cottage made out of wood so pale that It glowed in the dark, the chimney spurted smoke and only then I realized it was cold outside, the rain had managed it to do so. I shuddered. The glowing cottage had a barn attached to it, and goats bleated out restlessly, indicating someone had come, me. A woman came outside, in robes made out of silk covering her fine pale skin which the wind revealed plotting with the robes to fly them away. Her hair was open and it flowed ephemerally with the wind. Her eyes were blue.