The Beasts Between Both Worlds – Chapter 3

*Scene 01* 6:22 (Xarmnian Fleas)

The field of tall, yellowed grass, rustled and sighed in dry protest at the rush of the early morning wind passing through it. Cross breezes rolled in lapping waves across the slopes in regular patterns making the land seem alive with rippled golden fur stretched over the ribs of a rapidly, panting dog. Early morning mists fled at the hush and push of the stirrings of the coming dawn.

Concealed deep among the field’s heaving golden pelt, a company of large, brutal men lay hidden and nestled within. Dark human fleas, sniffing for blood, sharpening their knives, waiting in a carefully planned ambush, conceived by their chieftain, Helmer, a Bergenian of the mountains.

A subversive herald, scribbling chronicler of the Xarmnian capitol news, had dared to steal away unauthorized from the capitol city, taking his small nuclear family with him.

They had tracked the man for days through the forests, choosing not to simply impede and accost him, but rather to let him think that he had evaded them. Waiting to see where he might go and to whom he might talk.

The whispered rumors of a nascent insurgency, rising up from the ashes of the one they had brutally quelled in the past had reached them. This man’s timely flight offered Helmer an excellent opportunity, though the man did not know it, to quell the uprising in it cradle. It was time to expose and make an example of this man and his family to all who might try to follow in the man’s footsteps. It was finally time to gain the gratitude and notice of the dread sovereign whom he served for years in anonymity.

“People too often forget what is good for them,” Helmer had told his band, raising his blade to gleam in the midday sun, pulling it clean through the oily cloth now caked in grime and gore, “That is why it is our fortunate job to remind them from time to time.”

A dead farmer lay in the grass at Helmer’s feet–his vacant yet terrified eyes stared blindly and unblinking into the bald and naked sky. Dark crimson spread and faintly siphoned through a vicious gash in the man’s chest, where Helmer’s knife had entered the man’s lung and heart. He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. As had the whimpering child they found hiding in the golden grass, now bound and gagged into silence, awaiting its unknown and austere future of servitude in a Xarmnian Labor camp.

The new generation of subjects would have the lesson instilled fresh upon their minds, and–if the fame Helmer sought was to be realized–the brutality of the lesson would also live in their nightmares.

If they were to uncover the spies in the outer lands merely by waiting a few days to move in, so much the better, Helmer had reasoned.

The man would surely rue the day he had ever dared write more than he was told to. What he would soon be forced to witness being done to his own wife and children, would leave an indelible and terrifying mark upon his mind that would sear Xarmnian terror into his psyche like a fiery brand burning into his very soul.

“Carvis,” Helmer grunted. “Take the farmer’s whelp up the road a ways. Take one of the horses and tie it to the saddle. Wait for us. I don’t want to risk it making any noise and giving our position away, before the scribbler and his brood try crossing this field. It is clear now that he is making his way towards the village of Crowe. I have my suspicions, but I think I already know who the man was coming to see. We’ll drag the man into the township and make our example of them there. The high plains peoples have been neglected for too long. It is time they have an incident that make the wider news circuits of the outer lands.”

The crushed footpaths into the field were made sporadically and stealthily by the now hidden troop of individual Xarmnian soldiers who had deliberately fanned out around the perimeter and then converged upon the central point where they had agreed to lay in wait. The idea being that a walking path of a grouped company trampling through would appear more suspicious to anyone attempting to evade capture. The various stirrings and furtive movements in the field grasses, however, had attracted the attention of the farmer and his whelp to the trespassers on their land, but their voices of their potential alarms were now forever silenced.  But the open field stirrings had also attracted another’s interest as well. And the interested third waited impatiently in a rapidly dug tunnel not more than fifteen to twenty feet from below their feet to hear the quiet voices of these coming brutal invaders rising in a sonic crescendo of sudden alarm.

*Scene 02* 3:53 (Attack from Below)

The attack began with a small hidden fissure, moving silently beneath the grasses, at the base of the  dried yellow stalks, cutting a jagged path through their tangled roots like a pair of shears. The men above did not know what was happening to them when suddenly the sky and land around them seemed to cant and tilt and the ground below them crumbled into a gaping trench, an oblong death arena defined by fault lines.

Those along the edges, frantically clung to clumps of grass, unsheathing their knifes, stabbing them into the ground, reaching for the flailing arms and legs of their comrades, doing all they could to keep from sliding into the opening and deepening darkness below.

Sand and dirt poured into the widening trench, filling the air with powdered grit and the blowing stir of dried husks. The wind sighing through the grass above had picked up, hissing in breathy fury. The land of the yellow field buckled, heaved and shifted, as more islands of the fissured-land began to topple and lean into the breaking and falling shelved ground below.

In the swirl of rising dust and gaping grey darkness, some large behemoth moved swiftly across the gaping chasms, tunneling rapidly through the subterranean gulf, causing more of the ground around them to shift, sink and crumble away into the deep.

Large spines, of what look like a jagged row of up-ended slate stones, tore into the land like a buried chainsaw, rising and cutting its supports away. As the creature thrashed and roared, its full-throated-fury and rock-breaking impacts echoed ominously through the hollows of freshly-cut underground caverns. And, as if in response to the bass rumble of the beast’s terrible exhalations, a series of high-pitched treble notes answered the percussive sounds in trumpeted furbelows and glissandos. The deep sang its mortal symphony.

Helmer felt the sinking and wrenching of his gauntlet grip on the twisted stalks of yellow grass and the twisting of his dug blade in the canted ground. He numbly realized that his legs were quickly being crushed by the collapsing ground, and that the higher pitched sounds below were the screams of pain and terror coming from his fellow Xarmnian warriors. He winced, trying to shut out the image of their limbs–arms and legs that have served at his side and marched to his command–being torn from their bodies in the crushing maw of a surging and thrashing, subterranean monster.

His leg had fallen into a fault line and had twisted, as the buckling ground closed back suddenly and heaved buried rocks against it, before it crumbled away. The burning pain overcame him and his tenuous grip faltered.  The light of the coming dawn, and the rim of golden grasses slowly retreated from him. As he slid feebly away into the gaping darkness, he smelled the wretched scent of rotting fish. In the suffused light, between the clouds of swirling dust, he saw the terrifying gleam of two massive eyes–one ice-blue, the other the color of night, both the size of table plates–move swiftly towards his broken body, eager to welcome him into his eternal grave.

*Scene 03* 12:08 (Leaving Camp)

“We need fresh water,” I said, “One can go several days without eating, but not without fresh water. We’ve got to stay alert and hydrated. Your packs have a leather bladder in them. Pull it out and follow me.  There is a footbridge over that river about 500 feet from here.  Keep your heads down below the embankments.  A few trolls have been known to lurk hereabouts.  They are servants of the beasts and would love to see us made helpless before the monsters that have caused such terror and destruction.  They love to create a ruckus and rouse the creatures to descend upon the unsuspecting victims.  They will see you hiding and get the monster’s attention and draw it to your hiding place.”

“Trolls?!” one of the company asked, startled.

“A relatively recent development, I’m told, but yes.  Those things are here too.”

When they hesitated, I lost patience again.

“Quickly now!” I barked at the others still lingering, as I led those closer to me down towards the brook to quickly fill their water-pouches.

“What about those noises?!”

“I did warn you there are savage beasts here, did I not?” I turned back, “Well, there is no beast so savage as dying of thirst or hunger. Besides, if we get further down the road without water, whatever is out there will soon overtake us as we begin to suffer for the lack of it.”

We wind our way down from long hill leading back up to the story bearer’s shack, to the stream and carefully cross the planked bridge to the other side of the river.  The stream is a cut tributary, and the river widens up ahead.

Remembering the man’s predicament, I searched my memory deciding that it must be where the story-teller was confined and recently loosed.  Great slabs of rock overhang the river’s embankment.  We can see the place where a large slab tore into the river as it slid from its precarious perch on the hillside.  Then we see the torn branch.  One end was twisted and chewed.  A smaller rock is embedded near the place that the large boulder once lodged.  The thick branch was used as a lever.  Sobered by that realization, we look around us and sniff the air for any signs of the beast or malefactors who would have done this.  Whatever was here did its cruel deed and has long since gone.  There is a disturbing sense of some collusion here, though.  An implication of both mankind and monstrous beasts working together for some dreadful yet unknown purpose.

We knelt at the stream quietly, listening to see if the terrible noises would continue, but they did not.  An eerie quiet settled in the aftermath—disturbing and portentous.  Silent…  Dare I say it?  …as a graveyard.

When each of our party had filled their water skins, I demonstrated how to twist off the top and secure it with the strap loop for carrying over the shoulder and along their side.

When anyone was tempted to speak, I placed two fingers over my lips, indicating that it was not yet safe to do so.  I could tell Miray wanted to say something, but she pursed her lips, drew a finger across them, made a pinching sign with her small fingers, and tucked something “invisible” away into her dress pocket.  With an emphatic nod afterward and a thumbs-up sign, I knew we understood one another.

We had journeyed away from the bungalow cabin and its scrub garden and the small brook, doing our best to keep low and between the wild hedgerows and chaparral bushes.  We skirted the shadowy areas, trying to keep out of the open as much a possible.

We travel onward…across a partially irrigated plain and some farmland pastures.

Landmarks I once knew are now barely recognizable. I search for familiarity in the face of the terrain but see only its aging stranger. It has been such a long time since I have traveled this back country. Most of it is overgrown with wild rye and sage scrub. The wheat-colored grasses, once short and green, are now long and thick, combed out by the salty sea breezes that climb over the brow of the cliffs. The land is yellow, gray, and dusty. Loose sand, stripped of vegetation, from the sea beyond has blown inland. In some places it formed dunes that rise out of the swales and collected in heaps filling the rain gullies, displacing the freshwater. The farmlands are abandoned, and the once cultivated field rows are now choked with weeds from years of neglect. Gray, jagged, rock juts out from the landscape, reminding me that the bones of the land are weathered and protruding, becoming more angular, as the once fat fertility of the land is stripped naked with time.

I do not remember the walking distance to the sea road to be as far as it seems now. My uncertainty and hesitation must be evident for and I can hear the low murmurs of the company following me. I see their furtive glances at each other, as I have to stop from time to time to scan the layout, to be sure that I am remembering the way. As I said, it has been a long time.

I lead them up through a ravine and we climb a switchback rise that I am certain leads to the cut road on the shelf-ledge above that allows wagons to pass carrying their freights to the coast land. The road used to be far more traveled, and its placement was fairly evident from a distance, for merchants and families used to frequent the path perennially. But now, its foot-hoof-and-wheel-packed surface is hard to discern. The land is growing wild, covering its old scars with ragged weeds. I locate the bare tracings of the road indentations of wagon and carriages wheels long since passed. I point to them, showing the others the outlined remnant of the road which I believe will lead us to the wayside Inn ahead.

I think of the words of the Ancient Text, and see the evidence of its fulfillment all around me:

Highways are empty, there are no travelers. Treaties are broken, witnesses are despised, human life is treated with disrespect. [Isaiah 33:8 NET]

If the roads are this far gone, Begglar’s Inn, if it even remains, cannot be faring so well. Fear threatens the edge of my mind, as I realize that this in-country walk, upon which I am leading these travelers, may merely be a reminiscent and haunted tour through old graveyards and tombs.

I try to shake the thoughts away. How can a journey even begin if it starts with such a failure to find hope and a despair of ever reaching a destination? At some point, I need to climb to a high place to see if the Praesporos Stone still gleams, but the sky above is too clouded, and there are few places here where such a vantage point is even possible.

But I do know of one that is not too far from here. The place where The Eternal Marker Stone stands. Begglar will know its location, even if my sense of its place has faded. That is where we need to begin. I feel a certainty and assurance of that thought stir within me. That is where any further progress into this Mid-World always should begin. It is the place from which all journeys start. All journeys, even those thought to be occurring solely in the Surface World, though few there are now who are truly aware of it.

After about an hour or so of such travel, I gathered the group to me.

“Those noises we heard in the distance may be all for tonight.  We should keep moving.  There is a small village ahead, that I would like us to get to before full sunrise.”

“What was that back there?!”

“What are you not telling us?”

“Are we safe out here alone?”

“Do we do nothing to stop these whatever they are?”

So many questions, that I did not know which to answer, so I just focused on what our goal was, “Our mission here is to recover that which was stolen, to carry it through dangerous territory to the gate in the mountains without getting killed in the process, and to rescue the stories that are being held prisoner in these environs.  Other than that, we are only passing through. The less engagement we have with either man or beast living here, the better.”

“Passing through?  What kind of a quest is this?!” one asked feeling indignant over my answer.

“Mister Brian, I don’t know what you mean about rescuing stories. It sounds so odd. What do you mean by that?”

I had hoped to throw the most complex part of our being here into the mission mix, without fanfare, but the woman seized upon it and cornered me.

I sighed, “I wish you hadn’t asked me that, just yet. There is a better place to hold that discussion–to give it more clarity and weight–but not here. It will all make more sense to you when we get there. There is something I need to show you first, and it has to do with each of us personally. The why’s of each of you specifically being called here. Suffice it to say, for now, that what I refer to as ‘Story’ is an essential part of ‘Being’. I know that sounds cryptic, but again, we are not yet where we should be, to fully understand what is meant by it.”

“‘Being’, huh?” she folded her arms. “As in human beings?”

“The man we…,” she emphasized with raised finger quotes,” tuned into…in that cabin back there, he had a story, and we just left him there and offered no help.  Is that the kind of non-engagement you mean? How exactly is that saving him, I’d like to know? You can’t just walk through an unknown place and not engage with its people.”

Whether she knew it or not, this woman was striking at one of my most vulnerable points. In the back of my mind I could still hear The Pan’s threat, and I knew, all too well, the toll it had taken on me.

It was hard telling them what I did not think they were prepared yet to understand, so I doubled-down, “Our main goal for being called here is to find our way through the badlands to the fabled gate of Excavatia.   We are not to directly engage the enemy in combat, if we can avoid it.  The more involvement we have with the people here, the more we endanger them.  We are outsiders. There are militant groups, literal kingdoms, here that will punish them severely for any involvement with us. Though we may defend ourselves, we are not coming to these moments as soldiers for the oppressed.  We are not ready to join their internal conflicts.  There may be a time for that, but right now we have one very specific mission.  The days of this land are numbered too.  This world is under extreme pressure from the Surface World above it.  The internal problems of the oppressed here are connected to problems we face up in our world in ways few can comprehend, but to serve them all we must not be distracted from our purposes for being here.”

“Well that’s encouraging!” a young woman threw up her hands, “Can you believe this guy?!”

I sighed, exasperated and tried to explain, what I knew was going to sound even more bizarre to them.

“Look,” I said searching the area above us to see if there was something I could point to, but the cloud cover was thick and formed a low ceiling, “Parts of the Surface World are leaking through into this sub-country.  The ceiling of this world, while invisible to the untrained eye, is fissured.  Occasionally, strips of it crack and flake off and spin to the ground of this Mid-World, like peeling paint.  Every time it happens, something from the Surface World gets lost here. Or I should say, buried here. Eventually the whole of the Surface World will come crashing down here, if we don’t open the gate to Excavatia soon.”

“Peels off?” a man asked.

“Yes. It looks like a kind of snowfall, but it is not wet or cold.  Some of the mountainous shoulders of this land are covered in a kind of…” I broke off, but he and the expectant look of the others, made it clear that I had to complete the statement.

I closed my eyes for a brief second, knowing this was going to come out wrong, but I had no other immediate thought that fit, so I continued, “…well…dandruff.”

“Now I’ve heard it all!” one huffed and gestured exasperatedly with the backs of his hands at me.

“Wait a minute,” another said, “White stuff from the sky.  Do you mean like Old Testament kind of Exodus stuff…  Uh!  What was that called?!”

“Nope.  Sorry folks.  This stuff ain’t manna.”

“Manna! That’s the word I was thinking of!” he pointed.

“Manna literally meant: What is it? But as ambiguous as it may be, when you actually see it, you’ll agree it is not something you might want to try and taste. It curls and flakes, like overstretched plastic.  If you see bits of the sky fall to the ground, know that it has been happening for a very long time here and no one I know of has ever identified it as a food source. It is more like what I said. Dandruff…or to be a little more direct about it, very much like dead flakes of skin.”

“Ewww!” one of the girls recoiled. “Cool!” one of the boys remarked.

“This is just so gross, I can’t even…” a young woman said, holding her stomach and looking like she might choke up what little remained of her last meal.

Another turned on me, incredulous scorn on his face.

“Why would the ‘sky’,” he emphasized with finger quotes, “fall to the ground? Pray tell us, Chicken Little.”

Others chuckled and I sighed and smiled, bemused at the jab, knowing this all would be very confusing to them.  It was to me too until I was given the contextual lens from which to view it.

I thought I might just try a different tact.

“This space of imagination is being crushed,” I answered, when the giggling had died down, “If you have a belief in the Creator, you should know that the words we speak are containers for more than just concepts. They can have a presence. They can make you feel, they can teach you, they can hurt you, they can do a great many things good and bad, but even with all of that capability, there are some things they cannot adequately do or express.  Words are unwieldy vessels when the concepts and whatever else they are meant to contain get too large for them. This is what we term to be ineffable. These are the things that must either be demonstrated, if possible or accepted by faith. A faith that requires an openness to imagination, but also an ability to perceive the truth of something that can only be approached by concept.”

“You all wanted to know something about the Mid-World, and only this much I can tell you for now.  The ultimate fate of this place determines whatever happens in the Surface World above it, but at times that seen world collides with this one and during those collisions there are breaks and bridges between the two.  Experiences here give some drift to what happens there. So, for now, our focus has been brought here and this is why you experience what is happening here in a way more vividly than that of any dream.”

“You and I, we all are travelers here upon one of those bridges of collision. But we aren’t the only beings that have used it to cross over. And about those others, you will need to be warned.”

*Scene 04* 3:59 (Aftermath)

In the aftermath of the attack, the oblong trench reeked of death.

The screaming had stopped, but the smell and tang of the recent slaughter still lingered in the stilled morning air.

A man, his wife and two small children, mere moments from discovery before the ground ahead erupted into chaos, now huddled together in the yellow hay field, not more than twenty meters from the almond-shaped crater that had been torn into the ground, suddenly swallowing up the hidden band of Xarmnian soldiers that had been lying in wait for them.

The man covered his small family with his body. His two children tucked tightly between himself and his wife, curled into Nautilus-shaped fetal positions.  They had lain there, shaken and terrified by the terrible sounds erupting all around them, as the ground heaved and descended, engulfing the men in violent carnage. Yet, whatever had attacked the soldiers from beneath, had not come out into the field above or into the light of the rising sun. The man and his family had no way of knowing whether the beast still lurked below, or if more of the Xarmnian soldiers would soon follow and discover them hiding there. Movement through the grass would be heard if they rose up to make a run for it, and they were pretty sure the children would have the hardest time of it. There was no way to know for sure that they wouldn’t be spotted by a horse patrol, so the only thing they could think of is to lay still and keep quiet for as long as they could and wait and listen.

They listened for a long time-to the echo of distant screams, to the rumble of falling rock and debris, to the hiss of the rising wind moving through the grassland around them. No sound of hoof-beats, no further shouts of alarm or of the footfalls of walking men, moving stealthily through the field.  After a long while, they could also hear strange fluttering and flapping noises coming from the trench.

From above, the almond wound in the golden field appeared strikingly like a giant eye, with a dark black iris and pupil in its center. Upon closer inspection, the black, striated iris and dark pupil were composed of hundreds of carrion birds that had swooped in and gathered within it to join the feast of leavings by the subterranean monster who had finally quitted the area, and descended back into its carved abyss.

Though the beast had descended deeper into the underground, savoring the terror and flesh of the men it had pulled down into its abattoir, it could still hear the rapidly beating hearts and pumping blood of the family of four several meters above it.

It hungered for them as well, but they were beyond its savage reach, separated by an impenetrable barrier shelf of stone that impeded its ability to create an even wider crater to engulf them as well. To reach them, the beast would have to surface from the underground, and emerge under the growing light of the new dawn. And it was not ready to endure the burning such exposure might cause for a few more meager morsels.

*Scene 05* 6:17 (Co-Located)

The group began to draw closer to me and Miray as we walked overland, skirting the old dirt road from a distance that allowed us to seek cover in the low scrub and trees that bordered the way.

“I have always believed it was important that the world above be kept separate from this world beneath it, but sometimes whether we wish it or not, there is a blending.”

“I told you all to remember that we are only passing through.  The portal we used to get here only opens at certain times in the supernatural history of the Surface World.  This may seem confusing, but whether you acknowledge it or not, we are both there and here at the same moment, but our awareness is presently here.  That is the best explanation I can offer you for now.”

“Are you saying we are not actually here?”

“No.  I am not saying that.  What I am saying is that you, I, we are all metaphysically here.  Co-located, if you will.”

“Woah!” a teenager exclaimed, “that is… that is awesome.”

“So we’re not just dreaming this?” a girl asked shyly and in a wavering voice.

“Does it feel like a dream to you? How often do you register feelings of hunger or thirst in a dream? So many of the mundane things human’s experience in waking, are present here. These natural things are not merely conjured up by chemical processes in the brain attempting to make cognitive sense of an imaginary experience. It shares qualities with a dream and is like one in many ways, but it is so much more than that. Think about it. When have you had any other dream where you actually notice the feel warm sand or the wetness of water?”

They pondered that, but one of the younger boys in the group smirked.

“You’re not asking us to confess to incontinence?”

I frowned and others groaned at that, but did not dignify it with a response. The guy was nervous, and I could tell he was the type that coped with discomfit using the cover of ill-timed humor, but I saw no point in calling him out on it, so I continued.

“Dimensionality is kind of confused and blended here.  Something extremely heavy up there must be passing overhead…and honestly it makes me very nervous. Sometimes things fall through.”

Though I did not speak it aloud, I remembered.

In the times when I saw it happen before, I remembered feeling like Fiver the Rabbit, in Richard Adam’s very fine novel Watership Down, hiding and shivering in an underground burrow with something that sounds like an armored convoy of tanks rumbling and growling above threatening to crush us all in our warren.  The very air feels heavier and almost stale where once it was crisp, cool, and bracing.

“You be sure and tell us if that is about to happen.  Now, what about these things making those noises that had us all scared to death.  What are they?”

“Before you are shocked, I need to prepare you and warn you about the dangerous beasts that walk between the worlds.  There is one creature that causes such terror and trepidation to all the “stories” that occupy these lands.  Its name…I shudder to say it out loud here…is Hollywood.”

“You gotta be kidding me!”

I raised my hands trying to placate them a bit, “There is a twisted reason for its name down here in the Mid-World, but that too will be explained later.  There are supernatural beings in the between worlds that pass around life unseen in the Surface World, and they are tied to certain activities among mankind.  They are active there, but not in a direct physical sense, but more in a moral sense, and at times do manifest themselves in part but never in full.  They are confined to the in-between of this world and ours, unless…”

“Unless?” another asked.

“Unless some of us come through a portal, and then they are permitted the jurisdiction of pursuit. For there is some part of each of us that draws them.”

They were all quiet, looking from one to the other.  This was all a little much for the first day of our journey together, but they had pressed me into it.

“This thing you said was…Hollywood.  Is it some sort of animal?  Monster?  What?  How is what is here and what is there connected?”

“There is a duality with these particular creatures that connects to each of us, that I can best relate in a sort of parable if you will bear with me.  The One, in His days in the Surface World, used this method of explanation as well when the concepts had larger meanings.”

I judged that we were far enough away from where the terrible noises had come from to relay it safely.  I then told them the tale of Hollywood…

*Scene 06* 15:24 (The Torches in the Holy Wood)

The Torches in The Holy Wood – Story #2

“Long before my first time here in the Mid-World, there was a mystical forest within these lands known as ‘The Holy Wood’.  There is a large beast that is half-human that presently has jurisdiction over that ancient and mysterious forest, and it is heavily guarded by the half-man, half-beast creatures that are under his rule.  It is from the darkness of this mystical wood that the violent creature known now as Hollywood emerged.  Legend has it that the beast was summoned into the Mid-World out of a portal pool within the ‘Holy Wood’.  That forest is full of mystical pools with waters that mirror haunted areas of the Surface World where the Enemy of all has supernatural strongholds.  Some are connected to people and others to places and events in Surface World history.”

“That vile, pernicious creature called Hollywood here is not just a beast, it has sentience and is a sadist.  Under its crushing elephantine feet and piercing claws stories die horribly prolonged deaths.  With Hollywood, the phrase “Death by a thousand cuts” is more than just a cliché.  Hollywood does not just let its victims die a quick and easy, merciful death.  Oh no!  It revels in their agony.  That is the Mid-World version, but the Surface World version reveals its evil sentience.  The iterations of this creature are mirror images of each other, only like a concave or convex mirror the source appears differently depending on the place in which it occupies.  The Surface World image is clearer (think of the reflection in the flat-surfaced mirror) in its malevolent intentions, than is its Mid-World image.  So, it is better if I describe the Surface World version in terms of a parable.  Its Surface World version is a kind of collective monster that delights in dangling hope and the promise of financial freedom before its victims and then dashing those hopes…over…and over…and over again.  A collective monster here in the Mid-World is represented by physical mass, but there it moves behind the scenes of daily life as we know it.  You have got to understand that the Surface World and the Mid-World are not as far removed from each other as you may think they are.  There in the Surface World, it operates as a creature of deception offering a birthright trade and a sucker’s bargain to its human prey.  That conniving beast is very powerful and influential in the Surface World.  We’ve yielded it too much power over the years. There it wears a thousand glamorous faces airbrushed and lighted to perfection.  Here it is just a nasty, putrefying giant with skin that looks like the gnarled wood bark of a blighted tree.  Its sweat is acidic.  You will smell it long before you ever see it.  The odor alone will make you heave and your eyes water.  Suffice it to say the closest approximation I can give for it would be…if you even can…to imagine a gym bag full of sweaty workout clothes, left in the toilet stall of a steamy locker room in a puddle of coagulating and congealed urine for about a month.  Imagine what a pair of socks moldering in that bag in fermented sweat and BO might smell like to the janitor who discovers the bag and foolishly opens the zipper to see if the said owner of the bag left any evidence of that ownership within.  Such an unfortunate experience might make the most sedate, sleepy-eyed, good-natured, prim and proper person let fly some series of shocking expressions that might sunburn the backs of your earlobes in a dark room.  You may think this is just hyperbole.  That a few discreet smears of Vick’s Vapor Rub under each nostril might mask such an incredibly foul stench.  You would be wrong to take that wager or risk.  In the Surface World, that carefully cloaked fiend is saccharine scented.  Its voice–mellifluous.  It is attended by a slavish retinue of self-important sycophants.  These lead representatives live in lofty urban towers high above the “unwashed masses”.  They are invested in illusion.  That is their livelihood.  They step on scarlet walkways to and from chauffeured conveyances and claim to be an advocate of the greater good of the people.  Where have we heard that before, I wonder?  At least, in these lands, the beast they serve above shows so much more of its truer self while hunting in these lands.  Here, the creature is a raging brute.  It has no apparent friends or followers here.  Its stench ensures that the populace here give it a wide berth, and make every effort to avoid it if possible.  Hollywood, however, pursues the same driving obsession in these lands that it gorges itself in on the Surface World.   Admiration, adulation and a kind of worship.  Its frustration to find such similar awe here drives and fuels its brutal and destructive rages.  It must have its desires appeased.  It demands it.  Here it uses the tools of fear and terror to gain a degree of its insatiable need.  It is only when it reaches such levels of infuriated frustration that it inadvertently kills its victims.  Once dead, the victimized story can no longer beg it for mercy.  Its mangled body is to Hollywood merely a broken toy that the monster can no longer play with.  Petulantly, it must stomp away to seek another “plaything”.  Strangely enough, Hollywood does the same thing on the Surface World.  It seeks a creator, a torchbearer in that dark world.  It promises the torchbearer an offering of fame and great fortune if it will lend its light to Hollywood for the opportunity to project it to the awe and amazement of the masses.  If the torchbearer yields the light of its burning story, the beast smiles.  It offers the bearer a codified writ of promise enumerating the benefits to the bearer for an exchange of the light.  It seals the deal by wining and dining the bearer.  Assuring them that they have done the right thing…for the greater good.  The light is taken away for prepping for the grand projection moment.  In the meantime, the room grows perceptibly darker in the absence of the torch.  The bearer’s name is barely inked upon the codified writ before the torturing begins.  The arguments for taking away this,…altering that,…adding a visual effect to enhance the projection of the brightly burning torch…begins.  When next the torchbearer sees their firebrand ensconced in a metal brazier, the flame is barely flickering.  The darkness around it is almost palpable.  The smiling beast proudly flourishes their artistic and interpretive work of diminishing the brightness of the light.   After all, brightness might offend the sensitivity of viewers who are averse to its intensity.  In the waning sputtering light, the torchbearer sees his name engraved on the handle of the torch as an acknowledgment of his role in bringing the flame forth.  Sickened by the engraving that he clearly did not carve, he begins to protest.  That sweetly saccharine smile returns on the broad face of Hollywood, only this time, the teeth displayed seem to have a pointed quality.  Its eyes seem feral, with almost a luminous yellow tint to them.  In such moments the creature walking between both worlds does not seem so unlike its appearance when it walks these lands.  Slowly it raises the codified writ, only this time the paper is etched in a sort of colored iron, under an ornate and felt-lined frame of gilded gold.  The glass is tempered and thick, magnifying sections of micro-sized text which allow the bear to make significant alterations and affix the perpetual use of the torchbearer’s name to the result.  To the torchbearer, it is the first of many cuts and further indignities to follow.  When the light is finally projected to shine before the masses, it is only a mere silhouette of the sickly glow that surrounds it enough to shamefully illuminate the torchbearer’s name as the creator of such brilliance.  Sadly, that cut deepens with each public showing until finally, the other beast called Obscurity, who also stalks this world, mercifully swallows it up.  A more recent indignity has been devised, however, and may perhaps be far worse than the first wound given.  As in the other world, Hollywood hates to give up a toy.  So it has invented something to allow it to find Obscurity’s latest purge and keep playing with the story’s digested heap in a recycled form.  This pernicious practice is simply called…“The Re-Boot.”

“It is said that the creature, Hollywood, has a hidden Museum of IP.

“I. P.  (That’s Intellectual Property, for those who may not know.)  It contains a particular wing kept for the most part in pitch darkness.  The wing of that Museum is ironically called “The Hall of Torches”.  Some have been unfortunate enough to see it.

“Over time, Hollywood has collected many torches from Torchbearers.  The Hall, when illumined, has a large thick red carpet running down its center gallery.  The walls are lined with those gilded and framed codified writs in engraved colored plates.  Before each ensconced frame, there is a stone pillar-pedestal containing the blackened torch in a hermetically sealed half globe.  The globe ensures no air may get to the dead torch so that it is preserved and may never be used again as a source of light.  That is terrible enough but at the base of each glass-globe is a golden eye-ring and a golden manacle.

“Clutched cruelly in the manacle is what remains of the torch bearer’s severed hand.  It is a grisly spectacle to be sure.  Like a serial killer’s sick fetish, this “Museum”, so-called, is actually a Mausoleum.  A pride wall of grisly and decaying collectibles.

“I was told that torchbearers get manacled shortly after signing the codified writs.  That’s when they discover that they are chained to the gilded frame.  They are dragged to The Gallery.  The frame is hung in the nearest vacant light-box on the wall.  Their now sealed torch is riveted to the top of each pillar-pedestal before it and torchbearer is shackled to the eye-ring anchored in the stone column.

“They are left that way to shout and protest, plead and beg for days in utter darkness until they are once again visited by Hollywood touring and admiring his private gallery.  The torchbearer can barely see as the hidden motion lights in the ceiling only illumine the progress of Hollywood like a pagan deity.  A few days in the Mausoleum would unnerve anyone.  The smells there are diffuse but slightly pungent and sickly sweetened by decay.

“Upon encountering the Torch Bearer propped against the base of the column, arm slackly hung from the shackle above him, the beast asks them if they desire to leave their tour of the gallery.  Most all nod a weakened assent, whereupon the sycophant legal attendant, trailing Hollywood in shadow, steps forward brandishing a large scimitar. They seize the Torch Bearer by the outstretched arm and promptly remove the Torch Bearer from his manacle…and his hand.

“The Torch Bearer is given a tourniquet to staunch the flow of blood from his severed arm.  His mouth is gagged to muffle his agonized cries and he is literally tossed out of the building onto the street beyond the gates of the grand studios.

“He or she, for Hollywood, does not discriminate in stealing from Torcher Bearers of any gender, race, ethnic origin or religion, is left with the choice to either slink off into their old life or learn to make use of their remaining appendages.  Some choose to find a way back to Torch Bearing again.  Some are simply unmotivated to do anything but to mourn the loss of their limb and torch.  These are the ones that the other beast called Obscurity lurks in the shadows for.  At the right time, they will become MIA from friends and family and all who might possibly recognize their one-handed attempt to seek the gilded glow of fame and fortune.  And in that unguarded moment, Obscurity will step out of the shadows, seize them and they will be eaten by it.”

*Scene 07* 17:39 (Trading Torch Lights for Darkness)

“Boy, I’ll bet you are a riot reading your kids’ bedtime stories.  What a gruesome tale!”

“These are troubled times, and gruesome or not, the danger is real. Hollywood here is an obvious corruption of the place name from which the Mid-World’s monster emerged, but it is an even darker corruption than it might seem. Many things created for good are corrupted. This monster’s name trivializes something that has brought true redemption to mankind, namely the symbol of The Cross. That is why the creature’s iteration here is truly vile in all aspects of its physical form in this world.”

“Wait a minute. I’m not sure I understand. What is the relationship between the collective ‘Hollywood’ of our world and the disgusting monster here?”

“The monster, like us, occupies a co-locality. It is there and here, depending on its focus. All the accolades it achieves there, do not offset its constant reviling here. In the Surface World, one cannot easily see its form, but think of it like a living spiderweb. It has tendrils, web-like strands that reach and connect its agents of deceptions throughout the world. The people it uses and manipulates may not even be aware that they are connected to it, but a black elixir feeds all of its agents causing them to have an unnatural hunger to corrupt all signs of innocents it finds. It’s dark, pulsating heart is pumping these toxins into them through each connection, driving them into addictions and madness until all it touches ultimately succumb to its poisons.”

“Surely, you are not saying everything connected with Hollywood in our world is bad?”

“I cannot conclusively say that. No. There are a few workers in the network that resist the monster’s influence, and have squeezed of the flow of the monster’s black blood, but they are rapidly being found out and hunted by the Hive Mind. The monster is not averse to severing its own limb of connection, anymore than its is averse to cutting the hand off of a Torch Bearer.”

“Torch Bearer,” one of them said, “What do you mean by that?”

“Anyone with a creative gift bears a light into the darkness of our world. Creatives are reflections of The Master Creator. The works of their hands and minds are like lighted torches in the darkness, and our Hollywood has made it its mission to diminish or snuff out those lights of creation.”

“But what if we are not creative?” a young man asked, “Are we immune to it?”

“Not in the slightest. All are susceptible to it. In one fashion or another. Every human in all creation have been given unique gifts by The Master Creator. It is in your very being to express it, though some do not find out how. There is something in each of you, that the dark things want kept in the darkness. But the Master Creator is looking to make you shine.”

There is a passage from the Ancient Text that says this:

“For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you.”  [Isaiah 60:2 NKJV]

“You are intended to reflect the lights of glory. So it is important for you to understand the nature of what these beings are.  What drives them. They are actively trying to diminish all lights of imagination and to redefine all truth about your being. They set up myriad substitutes to distract people from ever finding real transforming truth. These dark creatures are every bit creatures of the mind, but here in The Mid-World they have form.”

“So how do we fight a mind creature?”

“You must fight it with the truth, and learn not to let its form deceive you or dissuade you from personally seeking that truth. At the start of your sojourn here, I reminded all you that you each have a light to bear and your own torch to carry through the dark places. You found an torch in each of your packs that I’ve given you. Let that be a physical reminder of that fact. You were brought here for a purpose. You were called to find out more about yourselves than you may have ever thought to ask. This journey, if you learn to walk it by faith, will reveal that to you and so much more.”

“Now that you understand what I mean by a Torch Bearer, think of the fire by which you light that torch as your own personal story. There is something about you and your story that will bring light to others. If no one else chooses to do so, you do have a story of your own to light your torch with.  Don’t be deceived or lured by silvery lights that glisten and promise fortunes for you.  It was not a life of leisure and ease which gave you the stories you could tell.  Don’t fall victim to the beasts between the worlds.  They want to snuff your light into meaninglessness. Keep creative control of the torch you bring to light.  It is your responsibility to bear it and determine where to illuminate the shadows in your world.”

“But I do not understand how anything in my life could bring light to others.”

“And that is why you must be very careful, because sometimes even your own light can be hidden from you. You cannot assess what you have experienced and who you are as a result, may affect another one who is seeking. That is where you must trust in The One who called you here, to reveal it to you. There is another verse that is important to remember. It is in the Ancient Book ascribed to the Prophet Daniel. He lived in a time of great sorrow and darkness, when he and his people were in captivity as slaves.  The One revealed many things of the future to him, and so he writes:

“He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what [is] in the darkness, And light dwells with Him.” [Daniel 2:22 NKJV]

“The beasts between both of our worlds are creatures of darkness. The Ancient Text also says:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places].” [Ephesians 6:12 NKJV]

“These creatures may cloak themselves in the trappings of light, but it is their chief purpose to bring darkness and separate people from light.”

“Think about the decline in literacy, for example. There is a Surface World practice in the USA on August 9^th of each year on a day called ‘National Book-Lovers Day’, where people who are aware of the difference celebrate those torches once proudly lit and held forth to transfer light from one generation to the next.  Lights and torches closest to the source of their creation, shine the brightest in a long dark night.  But at any given moment, when I hear some people recommend such torches to others, I am brought to dismay to also hear a growing number decline to gather around those lights.

“‘No’, they say dismissively.  ‘I’ll just wait to see what Hollywood makes of it later as a projection.’  And so another light fades, crackles, smokes and darkens.”

“People are giving away their light to Hollywood’s interpretation, and so losing the experience of the brightness of the original light.  This world you are in now is the Meta-Physical echo of that Surface World. It looks different through the lens of experience, but if you learn how to see it, you will find that it is in many ways much the same.”

Miray raised her hand, she’d been listening intently to my story and our discussion, and I grinned wondering what her young mind might have made of all this.

I knelt down on my heels so she could see she had my full undivided attention.

“Yes, my dear.  What’s your question?”

“So macha-physical is like someone walking between mirrors, like at the carnival?”

“Meta-physical, yes.  Its perspective is called metaphysical realism and it is rooted in the idea that things, objects, and the truth exists independently of what we think of them.”

She regarded me with a puzzled look, so I tried to simplify it. I spied a small stone laying along the roadside, and reached to pick it up and held it out to her.

“It is like this. This rock was laying here, but only now, by me picking it up and holding it here in my hand, do we all notice it. If we had kept walking along, we might not have ever looked at it, like we are now. It has a smooth part here, and a rough side here,” I indicated with my finger.

“What color do you see?”

Miray reached and took it into her small hands and turned it over and over.

“It has some green here, but it looks like it is not part of the rock.”

“Very observant. That is called lichen. It is a kind of fungus that grows on trees and on rocks.”

“Fungus?” She wrinkled her nose, looking like she might pitch the rock away from her.

“Don’t worry. It’s not that kind of yucky fungus,” I smiled, and added, “Mushrooms are considered fungus too. What else do you see?”

She turned the rock again, moving her hand away from the green patches, and said, “There’s a kind of red on it, and the rest is white and grey.”

“The red is mostly likely a kind of rust, because there may be some traces of iron in the rock. The white part may have either some limestone or some chalk in it, I am not completely sure. Now tell me, in just what you have learned about this rock, did the rock have all of those traits before we picked it up to look at it?”

“I guess so,” she grinned at me.

“Did the rock exist here before we noticed it?”

“Yes.”

“And when we looked at this rock together, did you know that the green parts might be fungus and the red parts might have iron in them before I told you about it?”

“No,” she shook her head slowly.

“So when you looked at this rock you saw it one way and I saw it just a little bit differently. Yes?”

She nodded.

“So in your understanding, and in my understanding, even though we see a little differently, this rock remains the same as it was, even before we noticed it together. You saw it one way, and I saw it one way. But when we both shared our thoughts, we can now see this very same rock with an understand that both of us brought to it. And we both learn by sharing the way we see this rock. Yes?”

“Yes,” she grinned again and then said, “Can I put the rock down now?”

“Yes, you may.”

I then stood and turned to the group.

“What I just showed Miray is how each of us can view something that has its own external properties, but we may both see it slightly different, depending on our perspective.  The rock has its own characteristics that remain, even when we do not think to give it notice or consideration. The truth of the rock, exists, no matter how differently we may perceive it. That is what I mean by an external truth that does not depend on our viewpoint.  But our viewpoint, can be adjusted as we learn what we observe might mean with sharing and study.  This is a humble position, rather than an arrogant one. Truth is external to our perception. Grasping that gives us the ability to learn about something beyond our direct experience and come to an agreement about it with others.  Just like an object placed between two mirrors may reflect an image differently in each mirror surface, it does not necessarily mean that the true appearance of that object is accurately captured by what is seen by reflection.  There is a truth that exists outside of each reflection.  In some, it is distorted.  In others, it is diminished or revealed by the amount of light that is available when the reflection is cast.”

Miray tugged on my pant leg, wanting to join the discussion again.

“Like carnival mirrors.”

“What?” I knelt down again.

“In the carnival mirror.  So, I’m not really fat, short or stretched like a bean pole.  I am me, and it is the mirror doing those funny things.”

“Exactly!  You’re very sharp, kiddo!”

She beamed.  “I met a physical realism,” she said carefully as if tasting each word.

“That’s how I am going to ber’member it,” she announced emphatically, placing a small hand on her forehead, “’cause the pictures I once had here before are missing.  I’ll find ‘em.  Just got ta keep lookin’.”

I rose and turned to the others.

“There is a traveler’s inn just over the next rise.  It is at the upper end of a small village.  I know the innkeeper, or once did, if he is even still there.  We have to be careful though.  Much may have changed since I last saw him and his wife.  The condition of this road does not bode well. Much of it has been overtaken by the wild grassland. A road more traveled would not have as much overgrowth. So I would imagine that fewer people stop at the Inn now because it is evident that fewer people travel these parts.

“Still, we all need a rest from the journey so we will camp near it.  If he’s still there, perhaps, he will help us get provisions and a hot meal for the journey ahead.  He is a peaceable enough fellow now, but that wasn’t always so.  He was hunted by the Xarmnians, and had to redefine himself completely from what he once was to protect his family. He’s had a hard time of it and he has become more fearful and nervous.  Those qualities might not make him the most dependable person that he used to be, but perhaps he will still do us a good turn, for old time’s sake.  I don’t have much, but I will pay him what I have for his troubles.

“For a while he had a good thing going.  He used to share many stories in his inn, brought to him by travelers from many different places.  Countries far and wide would yield him their experiences and legends, fairy tales and myths.  You can tell a great deal about a place by listening to its folklore.  Perhaps we might meet one or more guests there if it proves safe enough.

“But as for those noises we heard before… well, just watch yourself.  If you are downwind of Hollywood, at least you will know it is coming.  If you are upwind of it…  Be prepared to get a firm grip on your torch and light it when told.  There should be enough of us by now that it will turn and flee if we shine together.”

As we continued our trek overland, I pondered the state of the Surface World’s version of Hollywood.

It is a shame.  Long ago, Hollywood was not the monster it has become today.  It didn’t smell that bad either.  Yes, it has always had at least the smell of a wet dog or some particularly stinky cheese, but it changed and devolved into the beast it is today when it discovered it had no way of igniting its own light.  It was a borrower before it became a thief.  It once enjoyed and appreciated the lights…before it became a collector of hands.  Is it cliché to say, “Keep your hands to yourself?”  I wonder…