Sleep, stones, figures, figure, tree, horse, dreams.
His vision, a deserted place that was a plain, no life to be found, a broken place where no life could be found. A barren place where no life could be found. There was not anyone, not any plant nor animal, not dead but empty and void, not hurt but numb, not asleep but unconscious. No wind lifted the airs, no water flowed onto the earth.
The plain empty, all quiet with no sound, nor absence of sound. No sky, horizon of white on white, no eye to see, no ear to hear, no sense to feel, not here, not now. No time, no passing of time, no past before or present now or future to come. Held just so, caught.
Now, a point, a mere speck, high and grey, as small as is possible. To darken and grow, a movement of across or nearer. Then thickening, waxing, filling, darkening, a gathering of pace, a sense of impending action.
Sudden, wasn’t, now is, time beginning, quickening and remorseless speed with noise of air violently. An impact, here, not there, upon the plain, upon the ground from on high, there to here. It had come out of the sky to crash into the ground.
Time passing, some time, more time, silent, glowing from its violence. Cooling with more time.
In time, without portent, a grain of sand fell away, two grains of sand are falling aside, ten have shifted, the ground has moved. In between, a point of colour, some colours, all the colours must become, a shoot must discover, an arm must become a shape and split, in two and four, growing now, twisting and swaying, splitting, and redefining, following and finding. Sending roots to find, finding, sustenance to receive, growing and maturing, becoming a growing thing, some growing things, a world of life that was not there before.
As if he were standing, kneeling down. Look here, just here, no here, where the two rivers meet. To look closer and see, and see life in a glistening drop. Closer still, so busy, so fast, merging, changing, dividing. Around the sundial’s face, a circle, complete with moments to measure, a gift of time to discover, a guillotine of seconds to disappear. Then, each measured, the steps must continue, not a process, an evolution of colour and colour’s vehicle, mass and body, skin and bark, offal and eyelash.
In dream clear to his eye, that which is, cannot, may, should not be, cannot be held. It overflows, breaks its mould, mould everywhere. At his feet, stepping back, run away, it is bigger than he, he laughs in disbelief, backing away watching the explosion until he is in a forest of forms, animal and foliate shapes.
Light, cut low by the voracious light eaters, gets dimmer. Droplets of water, of blood, of slime clinging to the surfaces and falling into the mouths and roots, absorbed and taken.
It was on him and in him, feeling right, not wrong, to bath in being, lie down with the lion and the cantaloupe. Celebrate the becoming, within and without.
He woke in peace and lay quiet for some time, nurturing the feeling of well being that his dream had imparted. Rising later he tended to his mount, Prosek, before taking some water and bread that he had there.
The Guardians of the Cave 