Noah's Story

*** Part 3 of my story entitled "The Solitude of Fireflies" ***

It all started with a dream.

Or at least it felt like a dream to me. Dark and distant, hazy to the point of imperceptibility, my beginnings were as much a mystery to me as the mind of God. But I can picture the feelings of loneliness and the endless dark, the wind and the rain, the cold and the dust. I'm certain that's where my story began.

I do not remember much about my childhood. The fragments of memories I could glean from the deep recesses of my mind brought back feelings that I would rather not have unearthed. Those painful trips outside with my parents, or those I had assumed were my parents. The loneliness that resulted from the burden of my stigma. All of it. The images were vague but the emotions they evoked were strong.

I crushed the feelings of emptiness and began to look deeper, to the very beginning. That part of my life had only recently started to crawl its way up to the surface of my psyche.

I was borne on the wings of seraphs; beings made of light and myth. I remember this in a bizarre sense of non-existence. It was like floating in forgetfulness, as nothing more than a memory. But a memory not of my past, for I had none. Rather, it was a memory of what I would soon become. It was a recollection of my future veracity. The paradox remained, but for those who carried me, time was inconsequential. It was only an illusion.

They carried me across a void of ens and naughts, an ocean of dead memories and lost reason, and set me down...somewhere. Nowhere. The very first thing I remembered was that it was cold and dark. I was frightened, lost and alone. Trees, layered in the darkest of shadows, shot up into the night sky all around me, blotting out the stars. It suddenly occurred to me that I was in a forest. I did not know how I knew this; the words and their meanings were inside my head the moment I required their use. I could feel the wood breathe in the discordant chime of the nocturnal animals that thrived within its vastness.

I had wrapped my arms around my shivering, naked body and stared at the shadows between the trees, forming shapes in my head. Shapes of monsters and demons; images drawn from mankind's darkest fantasies and made real, or as real as my young mind could conjure. I could taste my fear; see it catch on the breeze and whirl around me, forming intricate patterns in the air, dancing to the tune of my newly discovered emotion.

I thought about the ones who brought me here; those who set me down upon the surface of this world and departed, leaving me alone. I was not like them. I could not go back, for they were light and I was ash; a being of dust to walk upon dust. I despised them.

In the distance I saw beams of light float between the branches of the tress, and I heard sounds that clashed with the natural milieu of the forest, sounds of friction that did not mix with the screeches and hoots from the creatures of the night.

Cars. The word popped into my head just before my body lunged in their direction. I stepped out into the open, away from the empty gloom of the forest and onto the cold hard tarmac of the road. And then I was consumed by a light that burned my retinas. My only thought was that they had returned for me. But that was all I had time to consider, before blackness consumed me.

That single memory had eluded me for twenty-two years, until my awakening. Until my encounter with Eden.

That event is so vivid, even now, that I could almost step across the boundary between reality and dream and live it again. I could picture Mari, standing right in front of my eyes, her beautiful face smiling at me, completely oblivious of the colossal globe of purity and radiance that hovered right above our heads. I could feel the enormity of its secrets, sense its longing to open the doors of reason and flood the world with epiphany.

And presently, as I wait in the shadows of a dead city, I can still feel the tug of its desire, trying to pull me back to that place where it all began. But I ignore it ruthlessly. It's been two years since that moment, two years since I've taken to hiding within Illusion, shielding myself from the world until I sort things out in my head. But I'm tired of waiting. Tired and ill.

This kaleidoscopic underworld is starting to take its toll on me. It's hard to focus sometimes, with layer upon layer of what constitutes reality blinding my sense of reason. Where is Up, when there is no Down, and vice versa. Everything is exactly the way it was before I stepped over, but yet completely different in a higher context. When it rains I can see, actually see, people in other places and other times running through puddles, laughing and shouting and swearing and dancing, wearing raincoats and umbrellas. I can see people crying with grief or happiness; sense the rolling of the sea, the crushing vigor of the waves upon the beach and the rocks. I can even smell the salt breeze.

When I watch TV I can see the moment through a thousand different eyes, all with their own emotions and lifestyles. It's an acutely tumultuous experience, and I'm starting to feel myself slipping. Sometimes, after these visions, the emotions that I felt linger inside me, just a little bit more every time. I fear that before long I may not know who I am anymore, becoming part of the fabric that makes up this land of dreams.

So I make a decision, quickly and painlessly. I step across; feel my mind slip through a medium of something that feels as tangible as water, and then I'm back, in my own world again. And it looks so...mundane. But right now, mundane is paradise.

I take a deep breath, clearing my head, and look around. During my self-induced exile I've learned a little more about who I am, who I was. What was it that Mari said? That together we will "shatter the world". It seems like a good place to start. I will prove to myself that you were real, and that I wasn't dreaming. Maybe then I can fulfill my providence.

The sun is just about to set in the distance, and the sky above is gray and gloomy; the perfect summation of the past few weeks. The autumn chill pierces the skin even through my thick winter garments, and the rain falls lightly upon the earth, bending to the free forming doctrines of physics. And even in this seemingly random event, I can see a pattern that's so clear it may as well be written in neon and imprinted upon the sky for all to see. Illusion has not left me entirely, it seems.

For the rest of the city's inhabitants, it all makes for a rather depressing scene. Nighttime will present itself soon and unlock new fears upon the masses. Not the fears of missed hair appointments or pressures at work, but the fear of the unknown. That is when I move out into the open.

But I am not the only one to walk these darkened, empty streets with intent.