Tonight I dreamt I was a girl, sired by two grand forces of Nature yet orphaned by the two. What caused the death of these two parents I know not, but surely nothing is eternal. Therefore, I set out to wake Father from his deep slumber.
I conjured him on a wide, empty street, ashen like Pompeii. He was a concoction of life, ghost and past: feeble and mistrustful, his beard occluding his true thoughts when he did speak, a rather sporadic eventuality. Yet I guided him - half convincing, half dragging - to the Hospital where we would carry out our... my purpose. To guide Father through the entrance proved much more demanding than I first reckoned, we only crossed the threshold after I persuaded him that I had brought him here to be restored to his full life. The deserted reception room was wholly formed of moving walls, shaping and reshaping itself, slowly guiding us onward as it diagnosed Father's ailment and readied itself to transmute his weakness into strength.
I remember, quite distinctly, the pictured design that would transform the elder sinews of his brain into a young, spirited hive of thought. But I could have never been prepared for the metamorphosis that would ensue. His force was taken from its withered, fleshy scallop and poured into a golden egg, a round Colossus of heavy, elongated eyes; of ample, frog-like jaw; whose stumpy legs and arms gave him a deceptively endearing aspect, much akin to Humpty-Dumpty. Yet the movement within his heart, an orange sun he literally wore upon his sleeves, suggested it could not be felled nor raised by horses or men.
Thus, Father and I went on along the shifting corridors and stairs of the live building, gaining height as we searched out the fourth floor. The higher we went, the quieter the corridors became, and wilder and broader our urban landscape became, increasingly evidencing that it was built not for the likes of me, but for my Father's kin. It was upon the third floor, I believe, that we chanced upon some respite from the pervasive stillness, as we encountered a nursing mechanism, a marble coloured, smaller and milder replica of my Colossus. Before I knew it, Father turned and deftly pounded upon the dwarf with his paws, cracking his frame like an eggshell.
"Do you think you can do anything?" I shouted in fury at Father.
His deep eyes twisted towards me and his voice, bottomless as mine was high, replied: "Yes."
"Then learn love," I said, now calmly.
The light within his bare heart swirled upon his hands, and now emerged from every opening of his armour, his eyes the searchlights of a lighthouse, roaming the meaning in my request. Suddenly all quietened down, he stood the same and I could not tell if I had dreamed his sudden enlightenment. Time would tell, I told myself.
Soon we found ourselves before the stairs to the fourth floor. As we scaled them, the ambient changed from the gelid precision of the hospital to the warm inhospitality of a great mansion. The now-wooden stairs faced a dining room that, judging from its crude aspect, must have belonged to the servants. Upon the stark oaken table sat two bowls of olive-coloured soup. We could not help but enter, unaware of the unseeable presence of legion spirits in the room, their ruddy auras balancing the green colour of the death realm we had entered. As we consumed the soup, perishing with each spoonful, behind us a window opened within the door-frame revealing to all present but Father and me, the satisfied eyes of Mother.
I conjured him on a wide, empty street, ashen like Pompeii. He was a concoction of life, ghost and past: feeble and mistrustful, his beard occluding his true thoughts when he did speak, a rather sporadic eventuality. Yet I guided him - half convincing, half dragging - to the Hospital where we would carry out our... my purpose. To guide Father through the entrance proved much more demanding than I first reckoned, we only crossed the threshold after I persuaded him that I had brought him here to be restored to his full life. The deserted reception room was wholly formed of moving walls, shaping and reshaping itself, slowly guiding us onward as it diagnosed Father's ailment and readied itself to transmute his weakness into strength.
I remember, quite distinctly, the pictured design that would transform the elder sinews of his brain into a young, spirited hive of thought. But I could have never been prepared for the metamorphosis that would ensue. His force was taken from its withered, fleshy scallop and poured into a golden egg, a round Colossus of heavy, elongated eyes; of ample, frog-like jaw; whose stumpy legs and arms gave him a deceptively endearing aspect, much akin to Humpty-Dumpty. Yet the movement within his heart, an orange sun he literally wore upon his sleeves, suggested it could not be felled nor raised by horses or men.
Thus, Father and I went on along the shifting corridors and stairs of the live building, gaining height as we searched out the fourth floor. The higher we went, the quieter the corridors became, and wilder and broader our urban landscape became, increasingly evidencing that it was built not for the likes of me, but for my Father's kin. It was upon the third floor, I believe, that we chanced upon some respite from the pervasive stillness, as we encountered a nursing mechanism, a marble coloured, smaller and milder replica of my Colossus. Before I knew it, Father turned and deftly pounded upon the dwarf with his paws, cracking his frame like an eggshell.
"Do you think you can do anything?" I shouted in fury at Father.
His deep eyes twisted towards me and his voice, bottomless as mine was high, replied: "Yes."
"Then learn love," I said, now calmly.
The light within his bare heart swirled upon his hands, and now emerged from every opening of his armour, his eyes the searchlights of a lighthouse, roaming the meaning in my request. Suddenly all quietened down, he stood the same and I could not tell if I had dreamed his sudden enlightenment. Time would tell, I told myself.
Soon we found ourselves before the stairs to the fourth floor. As we scaled them, the ambient changed from the gelid precision of the hospital to the warm inhospitality of a great mansion. The now-wooden stairs faced a dining room that, judging from its crude aspect, must have belonged to the servants. Upon the stark oaken table sat two bowls of olive-coloured soup. We could not help but enter, unaware of the unseeable presence of legion spirits in the room, their ruddy auras balancing the green colour of the death realm we had entered. As we consumed the soup, perishing with each spoonful, behind us a window opened within the door-frame revealing to all present but Father and me, the satisfied eyes of Mother.
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