An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

Drawn by memories of his parent's ramblings, they made their way to a cluster of huge domed churches under an ancient, imposing wall of dark rock, and soon found themselves walking down a rough, cobbled lane. They walked hand-in-hand along this narrow path, taking in shops full of loden capes and rustic leather goods, and as it was midday the air smelled of heavenly creation and they came upon a menu posted outside an old hotel restaurant -- and as such, a tradition was born.

For the next few years they returned to the hotel, at first in summer but then one year they came at Christmas, and over time their story melded within those stone and timber walls, became something fine, worth remembering. They grew to appreciate that traditions like their's were unique, something to cherish, and the man was certain that their firstborn was conceived within these timbered walls, and the memory brought a smile to his face.

But even as change is inevitable some patterns can never be broken, and his wife's sudden passing left a dark chasm within his soul, a cold place no memory could warm, so it had been years since he'd come back to the hotel. Now his mother-in-law had the kids and he was alone in the dining room early on this Christmas Eve, and he regarded his surroundings as one might a very close friend...as someone or something that could be counted on...as that one constant in an ever-changing universe. So he held the room up to the light of day and peered deep into the well of the past. He looked around the room at tables and chairs and pictures on walls and regarded each as a bulwark, a wall that kept an overwhelming tide of pain from rushing in. He smiled at himself, at his weakness, for there was no sense of irony or self-contradiction in his understanding of the moment.

After picking at his food he signed the bill to his room, then walked up narrow stone steps to the reception desk and got his key to -- their room -- the same room they had first taken not so many years ago -- and every year thereafter -- and with that very much in mind he went to take a nap, and to wrestle with memories that rarely left him alone for long.

His was, of course, not a restful sleep, and the dreams that came to him were troublesome, and in the end most unwelcome. He watched great gouts of flame streaking through the air, walls of molten lava swallowing cities -- the very end of time unfolding all around him, or so it seemed, and when he woke he felt a chill spreading over his soul.

He showered as the sun set, and he dressed, looked at his hair in the mirror before grabbing a sport coat and heading out into the night. The air on the street was still warm, too warm for Christmas, and there wasn't a trace of snow to be seen anywhere. He took off down the Getreidegasse, intent on window shopping if he had to do anything at all, but he soon turned to the massive cathedral under the cliff and looked at it for the longest time. Without really knowing why he made his way slowly to the plaza that surrounded the huge building, then walked completely around the structure once. When he'd made his way around he stopped outside the entry, regarding the implications of passage as he looked at the massive doors. He felt he had come upon a sudden choice, that an unwelcome decision had come for him, and he shook his head, made his way up the broad steps -- hesitating only once -- before he stepped inside.

Churches, indeed, anything to do with religion had always made him palpably nervous, and now walking into this overwhelming space he felt no different. Thinking back, he reckoned it had been ten years since he'd been in any kind of church, and he -- almost -- wondered why. While he'd never considered himself an atheist, organized religion had always made him uncomfortable...just as his father had, behind closed doors, expressed dismay at the religious impulse -- and that, he knew, made his decision to come here all the more unusual. Yet it was, perhaps, a feeling of community he sought this night -- of all nights -- the spirit of continuity and certainty he found lacking in an increasingly uncertain world. Yet even with this vague feeling lurking in the shadows, he knew these needs would most certainly remain unmet.

The place was almost empty, though it was Christmas Eve, and while it was a weeknight the nave was starkly barren, and he thought about the spirit of community -- and how that fabric had been ripped asunder over the past ten years. And now, with events in Israel spiraling out of control, had faith finally given way to despair?

Still, there were a few people under the transept, perhaps tourists like himself, though there was an organist practicing somewhere, and the air inside the vast space rumbled and pealed as disjointed chords burst forth in thunderous waves -- like breaking waves of chromatic dissonance -- flooding the ancient space with soul-jarring contradiction.

But walking down the central aisle amidst these concussive refrains, he was suddenly overcome by a sense of the familiar, a feeling that was at once as comforting as it was confusing. He stopped at a pause in the music, looked at the massive columns and timeworn pews, then he felt a dizzying shimmer, an electric pulse rippling through the air, and he watched as lights inside the cathedral flickered -- then went out. He ducked -- instinctively, perhaps -- then noticed the temperature inside the cathedral had plummeted and that it was now very cold -- in an instant so cold vapor slipped past his clinched teeth -- when the breath he'd been holding finally slipped past his lips.

Light, pale light returned, and he noticed people -- the people he'd just seen gathered under the transept -- were gone. Indeed, all that remained now was a bitter cold that felt -- completely unfamiliar.

And yet -- the music remained, only now the sharp, penetrating notes of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto Number Three danced in the air -- and it was soon apparent the organist was a master. Suddenly drawn to the music, he walked through the choir to the organ, and he stood watching in awe as the organist, an overweight, middle-aged man, flew through the piece without a single sheet of music in view. The organist and his instrument were as one, and the man suddenly felt the organist was none other than Bach himself. Looking at the man he smiled, felt he was observing some sort of play from backstage, for whatever else might be happening -- the organist was certainly dressed for the part!

And it was then, too, that he noticed the organist was playing by candlelight. Indeed, looking around the inside of the cathedral he observed that the only light came from hundreds of flickering candles, and that the air had grown brutally cold.

He turned, suddenly quite afraid, and hurried back through the choir and down the central aisle to the entry, and he pushed the massive doors open as far as he could -- but he was pushing against heavy snow now, and as he pushed his way outside he saw deep snow everywhere he looked, a vast expanse of pristine, knee deep snow -- and huge, fat white flakes falling at an impossible rate. He looked across the plaza toward the Getreidegasse and saw not one street light burning, not one open shop, and feeling an edge of inrushing panic he trudged off through the snow, hoping to make his way back to the hotel while he still could.

He'd never, ever in his life felt air this cold, and after only a few yards he struggled against the weight of the snow, and the sudden force of unexpected wind -- a roaring gale that seemed to suck the air from his lungs. He paused to catch his breath and could just hear the last refrains of Bach's concerto dying in the wind, and he turned, looked back toward the cathedral hovering over the snow-covered plaza. The same shimmering air he'd seen inside the cathedral filled the plaza, a vast blue aurora pulsing with unseen life, then a vertiginous sensation fell over him. The aurora enveloped him and he felt something grab him by the throat and push him to the ground; he tried to fight the feeling, to lift his face from the howling snow, but then his face was pushed down again, down into suffocating stillness, and howling darkness came for him.

The shimmering halo seemed to wrap itself around him, and he felt for a moment that he was falling -- up! Something had him and was pulling him -- where?

And in the next instant he was standing before a shop window -- it looked to be an art gallery because the only thing in view was a single, ornately framed painting behind a huge window. The only light in the universe seemed to come from an intense light shining on the painting, and he turned, looked around this universe but all he could see was inky blackness, a deep still that enveloped everything beyond the confined gallery window. The vertiginous effect was complete now, and nausea wracked his body as he fought to make sense of this place.

Yet worst of all he realized his hands were bitterly cold, painfully so, and he looked at his clinched fists with sudden concern. His fingers were white, almost frostbitten, and there was snow and ice coating the tops of his hands, yet in that instant, inexplicably he realized the air was impossibly hot now. He looked at his hands again and saw ice melting from them, yet he noticed there was still thick snow tucked into the cuffs of his trousers. Still, he couldn't see the street, or anything at all beneath his feet for that matter, only the same inky blackness that surrounded the gallery window, and he reached out to steady himself.

He wanted to turn and run, but then the thought struck him -- there was nowhere to run "to" -- for it was almost as if his body was adrift in deep space. The feeling of vertigo grew overwhelming again, enveloping him completely, and bile-tinged panic gripped his heart as he felt his stomach tumble away in the dark.

He turned, looked at the painting in the window, regained some semblance of place and forced himself to calm down, to breathe slowly, deeply. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them next he saw a star reflected in the window, or what he took for a star, but when he turned to look at it there was something wrong. It, whatever "it" was, was moving, and quickly, too.

It was, he saw, moving towards him.

He instinctively shut his eyes, if for no other reason than to shut out this impossible world, then sudden understanding came for him. He was asleep. He had never left his hotel room, and this was all a dream -- a hideous dream -- a world inverted -- on itself.

He opened his eyes, willed himself to wake, only now the star was very close, yet the air around him was still preternaturally quiet and inky black.

He blinked, tried to shut this world out, to center his eyes and mind. "Wake up, Goddamnit" he shouted at the sight -- his hands clasped -- unconsciously, perhaps -- under his face.

As if in prayer, he realized.

The star, a pulsing blue-white sphere, settled in his hands, and he watched sunspots on it's face and coronal loops erupting from it's surface and, totally confused now, he turned to the painting in the window and looked at the image as it blazed away in the intense light, then -- with a start -- he saw the organist from the cathedral -- standing beside him now -- and he too was looking intently at the painting in the window.

"Interesting, don't you think?" the organist said -- out of the blue.

"What?" The man turned and looked at the organist; the musician, for that was what he must be, was dressed in knickers and still had on the long top-coat he'd worn in the cathedral. And his hair was, what? A wig? A powdered wig?

"It's an interesting painting, don't you think? But -- do you remember that day?"

"What?" the man stammered.

"Do you remember," the man said, pointing at the painting, "that morning? The old woman with the easel?"

"Remember? Remember what?"

"Look at it, would you? Tell me what you see?"

He looked. Again, and for the first time. A boat, a sailboat, lay at anchor in a picturesque harbor. A small harbor, one along the Mediterranean, perhaps in Italy. The boat's name was just barely legible in the light: Springer. There was a man standing on the back of the boat -- with a dog by his side, looking down into the water. Looking down at -- what? A dolphin?

"So? Do you remember that day?"

The man stared at the scene yet he felt nothing, no memory came to mind. "No. Why should I?"

"Ah. Well...it was a thought."

The man turned and looked at the organist, saw two scars under the man's right eye, but then the organist's form shimmered in the air, began to fade...

"Who are you -- and why am I here?"

The organist laughed, kindly in his way, yet there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. "You may call me -- Johann, if that suits you, and perhaps, when next we meet..." the wavering shape sighed as it faded away, back into the shimmering sphere.

Yet the man saw the faint outlines of an odd smile afloat in the pulsing air, and then all was black, even the painting in the gallery window faded from view, and he felt himself falling, falling...down through clouds to an earth far below. For a moment he thought he saw an airplane, an old airplane, soaring inverted over an amusement park, a park shimmering in vibrant light, full of life -- then he saw the same gouts of flame, the molten walls of lava he'd dreamed of earlier...

He was conscious of laying in bed, that he was in the hotel, aware of sweat forming on his neck and running down his back, then he saw his jacket, draped over a chair by the window, while his shoes and trousers lay in a discarded heap on the floor just outside the bathroom.

"Damn, that was the worst nightmare I've ever had in my life," he said as he pulled himself up from the bed. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and saw the last remnants of snow melting inside the cuffs of his trousers. He staggered under the weight of his many illusions and fell to his knees, and in the next instant he saw men crawling in the window, assault rifles in hand, laser beams zeroing in on his chest...

Then there was thunder and lightning, and he felt the world spinning.

Like he had been pulled inside a tornado, spinning violently as walls of light came for him, then he was adrift on a sunless sea -- crying -- praying -- wondering what had happened to the earth.

+++++

The Massachusetts Bay Colony, New England

Yesterday

The girl walked along the seashore collecting driftwood to use for their evening fire, though she stopped to pick up seashells from time to time, or the odd, brightly colored stone she happened upon. While not quite bored, this was a chore she took upon herself several times a week, and the routine wore on her. Her's was an important task, however, for her brothers rarely had time to spend gathering wood after a long day working the fields, or worse still, hunting in the woods west of the colony. There were bears about -- now that autumn was at hand -- and there had been reports of wolves taking livestock south of the colony, near William Bradford's plantation.

Of even greater concern? The local "natives" -- for what had once been a strained, if somewhat cordial coexistence had after only a few years fractured as colonists -- like her brothers -- encroached on the native's territory and had openly, if not brazenly taken game from their land. Though open hostilities were rare, colonists spent most of the summer reinforcing the colony's outer fortifications, and a few of the "Indians" she had run across on her beachside gatherings had treated her with cool reserve. Still, despite the language barrier she had made more than a few friends in several nearby villages, and she liked, for the most part, the native women she had met.

Yet even so, she counted "Indians" -- along with the dangerous indigenous wildlife one could happen upon at any time -- among the things she cast a wary eye for. Her brothers had taught her to trust little in this dangerous New World, and it was a lesson she had grown to appreciate after listening to other colonist's stories.

From time to time whales visited the inner bay, and on hearing the unmistakable sound of a whale broaching, then clearing water from it's blow-hole, she looked up from her chores and turned to see what she guessed was a mother and calf swimming along just off the rocky beach. The girl stood, transfixed, for she had never seen a pair so close to shore; indeed, she felt a mad, impulsive desire to rush out into the water and swim with them.

As if reading her mind, the mother turned away from the beach and disappeared beneath the surface; her calf dutifully turned and followed, and the girl looked after them wistfully for a time, before turning her attention back to gathering bits of wood.

And it was just then that she heard a rustling in the tall grass that lined the beach, and she froze, looked intently for the source of the sound. Turning her head just so, she picked up the noise again, only she realized the sound was a lot closer than she'd previously supposed. Now she wondered how long it would be before this thing revealed itself.

She did not have long to wait.

Not so very far away, perhaps ten feet, maybe a little more, a smooth, bronze haired catamount slipped quietly from the grass and onto the beach, turning it's head away from the girl, and then -- after a moment -- directly at her.

The cat seemed to stop breathing, then lowered it's head a bit as it stared at the girl.

The girl knew the outermost ramparts of the colony's protective wall were almost a mile away, certainly too far to offer any protection now, and as suddenly she knew her life was over. It was as if all decisions concerning the time and place of her death had just been resolved, and now there was nothing left to do but calmly wait for life to unfold as it was meant.

The cat turned -- and began walking her way.

And it was then that she noticed an arrow sticking out of the cat's right flank, and that the animal appeared quite ill. The cat walked almost as if it was taken with too much drink: it wobbled, she saw, unsteadily her way, and as the cat drew near she sensed that the animal was in a deeply fevered pain.

She knelt on the beach and held out her hands -- as if to show the animal she posed no threat -- but as the cat drew near it simply collapsed onto the sand by her feet. She moved slowly to it's side, leaned over and stroked the cat's head, felt it's nose. Hot and dry, so hot in fact the flesh seemed to be afire.

Then she looked at the arrow.

It had penetrated the cat's rear leg on the right side and gone all the way through, leaving the arrowhead to repeatedly slash against the flesh inside the cat's left leg. Both wounds were maggot-ridden and filthy and, she assumed from the look of them, very badly poxed. The only thing she could think to do was wash the cat's wounds, try to get the arrow out. She stood and turned to the sea, then stumbled backwards in shock.

The whale -- the mother, she assumed -- had returned and was now impossibly close to the beach, but it was the whale's small, brown eyes that gripped her heart. Their was a penetrating directness in the animal's gaze that disoriented the girl, and for a moment she feared she was, in some obscure way, being judged. She could make out deep scars on the whale's side -- two of them just beneath one of it's eyes -- and wondered for a moment if she, too, had been hurt.

Without really thinking, she walked slowly to the water's edge and cupped water in her hands, then walked back to the cat and rinsed it's weeping wounds. She returned to the water again and again, until she was satisfied all the dirt and pus were gone and that the wounds were running clear, then she turned to the arrow's shaft.