once upon a time

I had a dream.

I was up to my chest in a golden field of gently waving grass, and all the way to the horizon there were these enourmous, sharp, craggy boulders. I didn't know where I was, but it felt perfectly normal to be standing there in the middle of nowhere. I got up, and started to walk around. I climbed on some of the boulders and got a couple little cuts on my hands, but they didn't hurt much.

I started to think that this place had no end when I saw the ruins of a great tower right nearby. It hadn't been there before, but I felt like it decided when to show up and when to leave by itself. The tower was a rusty gray colour, made of these stones of an inconceivable size. They were maybe 20 feet tall and 8 feet wide, each intricately carved with patterns of flying beasts and geometric designs. After I had somewhat goten over the shock of seeing such huge cuts of carved stone, I noticed the little staircase winding up the side. I climbed up and up and up and up and I felt like it would never end.

But it did. And the view was... underwhelming. It was just the same thing I had seen before: the wheat-golden grass, the pointy rocks, all stretching out to the limits of my vision. It was beautiful, but in a stark and minimal way. When I lay down to rest, I saw the sky: a dark, dark blue, filled with stars like someone had dropped a bag of sand and it burst, scattering white-hot grains to the edge of the world. I had never seen a sky as clear as that. And it was a strange and wondrous twilight-blue sky, with not a single familiar star, consellation, or moon. My eyes started to get heavy as I star-bathed in the silver light, and I fell asleep.

The last thing I remember was the moon, tiny and shy, staring to creep abouve the horizon as if it was afraid to see this unknown intruder.



Then I woke up.