Less than two hundred yards down the trail of choice he encountered another three-way branch, and again had to evaluate and choose. He simply shook his head, hardly pausing, and took the one that climbed upward to the right, adding the turn to his imaginary notebook. Within the first mile or so, Tony faced more than twenty such decisions and quit the mental gymnastics required to track where he had come from. To be safe he probably should have always picked the middle path. Instead, his journey had become a jumble of right, left, up, down, and straight. He felt hopelessly lost, not that he had been found to begin with or had any sense of a destination, which only added to his feeling of bewilderment.
What if it’s not about getting anywhere? he wondered. What if there was no goal or objective here? As the pressure to “arrive” eased, Tony unintentionally slowed down and began paying attention to the world around him. This felt like a living place, almost as if it were breathing along with him. The wing-tunes of insects, the calls and color flashes of birds announcing his presence, and the occasional movement of invisible animals through the underbrush only added to the sensation of unsettled wonder. Not having an objective had inherent gifts—no timetable demands and no agendas—and Tony hesitantly allowed the surroundings to begin assuaging the nagging frustration of being so utterly disoriented.
At times the footpaths took him through old-growth timber, a wonder of massive trees standing almost shoulder to shoulder in their grandeur, twisted arms locked in seeming solidarity that darkened the floor beneath their conjoined canopy. Not a lot of old growth left in my life, he thought and shrugged. What I didn’t sell, I burned.
One trail took him under a cleft in the rocky face of the mountain, almost but not quite a cave, and he couldn’t help but quicken his pace in case this little gap closed and crushed him in a stony grip. Another choice took him through a scarred area where fire had some time past ripped the heart out of the woods, leaving stubs and relics of the aged along with scatterings of a new generation of tender growth, feeding off the death of the past and emerging to salvage what had been lost, and more. One path merged and followed an ancient and dried sandy riverbed, while another was a barely discernible climb on velvet moss that swallowed his footprints as he passed. But always another crossing, and more alternatives.
After several hours of hiking, wandering, and wondering, it occurred to Tony that the number of direction decisions was diminishing; options were significantly decreasing. The singular footpath slowly widened into something that could easily be a narrow lane, the trees and brush on either side closing ranks to form an almost impenetrable barrier. Perhaps he was finally getting somewhere. His steps quickened. The thoroughfare, now a road, began an easy descent, the woods thickening until he had the sense of striding down a green-and-brown carpeted hallway with a blue cloud–dotted ceiling.
Turning another corner, he stopped. A quarter mile in front and sloping away from him, the walls of emerald turned to stone. The road ended at a massive door built into what appeared to be the ramparts of a colossal rock structure. The construction was not unlike fortified cities Tony had seen pictured in books and modeled in museums, except this was gargantuan in comparison.
He continued toward what he now believed was the imaginary door of an imaginary fortification. He had never questioned the profoundly inventive power of the human mind, one of evolution’s most impressive accidents, but this creation was staggering and beyond any expectations. He surmised it was the combined result of neurologically stimulating drugs and an imagination unleashed, the collected residue of children’s fables with castles and ramparts. But it felt so real and tangible, like those few dreams he vividly remembered in which the details never escaped, the kind that felt so actual you had to trace your steps to conclude they were impossible. This was like that; real but impossible. The only explanation was that he was caught in the chaos of a most vivid dream!
Such a conclusion was an instant relief, as if he had been holding his breath waiting, and finally his mind had found an organizing principle. It had been stated. This was his dream. This was a projection of an unleashed psyche empowered by medicine’s best psychotropic drugs. He raised his hands into the air and shouted, “A dream! My dream! Incredible! I’m awesome!” It echoed back off the distant walls and he laughed.
His mind’s creativity was inspiring and impressive. As if hearing the accompanying sound track to this movie of his hallucination, Tony did a little dance, arms still raised, head upturned, slow spin to the left, then the right. He had never been much of a dancer, but here no one could see him and so there was no chance of embarrassment. If he wanted to dance, he would dance. This was “his” dream, and he possessed the power and authority to do whatsoever he wanted.
This did not quite turn out to be the truth.
As if to prove a point, Tony pointed his palms toward the distant rock monstrosity, and as if he were a magician’s apprentice, commanded, “Open sesame!” Nothing happened. Well, it was worth an attempt. It only meant that even in vivid dreams, his control was limited. There was no turning back and so Tony continued his walk, enthralled by the grandeur and scope of his imagination. Since this was his mind at work, then all this must mean something, maybe even something significant.
By the time he reached the door, Tony had come to no conclusions about the meaning and import of his vision. Although it almost seemed trivial in comparison to the structure into which it was carved, the portal was massive and made him feel tiny and insignificant. He took time to examine it without touching it. While obviously a point of entry, there were no visible means of access, no knob or keyhole, nothing that would allow him admission. It seemed it could be opened only from the inside, which meant that something, or someone, had to be in there to open it.
“Well, this should be interesting,” he muttered to himself, and raised his fist to knock. Tony froze! He heard a knock, but it wasn’t him; his hand was still raised. He looked at his fist, confused. He heard another knock, strong and loud. Three raps on the door, from the other side. He even waved his fist around in front of his face, to see if somehow he was inadvertently creating the knocking sound, but nothing happened.
And then it came a third time, three raps, strong but not insistent. He looked back at the door. A clasp had appeared where he hadn’t seen one before. How could he have missed it? Hesitantly, he reached out and felt it, a piece of metal cold to the touch that operated a very simple lever that lifted a bar keeping the door in place. He didn’t remember seeing the bar earlier either. Without another thought, as if on command, Tony raised the latch and stepped aside as the immense portal easily and without a sound swung inward.
On the other side stood a man Tony didn’t recognize leaning against the massive doorjamb. His face lit up in a wide and welcoming smile. But the biggest shock was that when Tony looked past him, he was looking up the road he himself had so recently traveled. He was inside the edifice, and without realizing it had somehow opened the door from within. Slowly he turned around to be certain, and it was true. He was already standing inside, looking farther into a sweeping open land, likely more than half a dozen square miles in area. The property was confined inside gigantic stone walls, a boundaried fortress in contrast to the wild and free world outside.
Reaching for the wall to steady himself, he turned back. The man was still there, leaning against the doorjamb, smiling at him. As if caught in vertigo, Tony felt the world tilting and his footing slip, his knees buckled, and a familiar darkness began clouding his vision. Perhaps the dream was ending and he was returning to the place he had come from, where things made more sense, and where at least he knew what he didn’t know.
Strong arms caught and gently helped him to the ground, leaning him against the wall on the other side of the entrance he had just opened.
“Here, drink this.” Through a muddy haze he felt cool liquid being poured into his mouth. Water! It had been hours since he’d had any water. Maybe that was what had happened, dehydration. He h
ad been walking in the woods; wait… that couldn’t be right? No, he was lying in a parking structure and now he was in a castle? A castle, with… with who? The prince?
That’s stupid, he mused, his thoughts a jumble. I’m not a princess. And that made him chuckle. As he slowly sipped the refreshing fluid, the mist gradually lifted and his senses began to clear.
“Dare say,” came the voice, strongly accented, British or Australian if Tony was to hazard a guess, “if you were a princess, you would scarcely fit the fables, being as homely as you are.”
Tony leaned back against the rock and looked up at the gentleman hovering over him with a flask outstretched. Hazelnut-brown eyes sparkled back. He had a mildly stocky build, probably only an inch or two shorter than Tony, and appeared to be in his late fifties, maybe even older. A high forehead and receding hairline gave him an air of intelligence, as if he needed the extra room for deep thought. His dress was old-fashioned, wrinkled gray flannel trousers and a worn brown tweed jacket that had seen better days and fit a little too snug. He looked bookish, his skin the pasty white of long periods indoors, but his hands were those of a butcher, thick and rough. Childlikeness danced on the edges of a playful grin as he patiently waited for Tony to collect his thoughts and finally find his voice.
“So”—Tony cleared his throat—“do all those trails end up here?” The question seemed rather shallow, but in the myriad of so many it was the first to surface.
“No,” the man answered, his voice strong and resonant. “Quite the opposite, actually. All those paths originate from here. Not often traveled these days.”
That didn’t make sense to Tony, and in the moment it felt complicated so he asked another simpler question: “Are you British?”
“Ha!” The man threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, heavens no! Irish! The true English,” he said as he leaned forward again, “although, in the spirit of accuracy, though I was born in Ireland, I am probably thoroughly British by culture. There wasn’t much of a difference when I was young so your mistake is entirely forgivable.” He laughed again and lowered himself to sit on a flat rock next to Tony, his knees up so his elbows could rest comfortably.
Both of them looked back up the road quarantined by woods.
“I will admit,” the Irishman continued, “just between you and me, I have continued to grow in my appreciation for the contribution the British made to my life. However, they almost accidently killed a few of us during the Great War by shelling short. Too few mathematicians, I suppose. Thank God we were on their side.”
As if to celebrate his sarcasm, the man removed a small pipe from the tweed pocket that covered his heart, inhaled, and slowly blew out the smoke like a sigh of relief. The scent was pleasant and lingered until absorbed by the stronger forest fragrances. Without looking, he offered the pipe to Tony.
“Would you like to try? Three Nuns sitting cozy in a Tetley Lightweight, another ‘thank you’ to the British.” He bowed slightly as he finished his sentence.
“Uh, no thank you, I don’t smoke,” Tony answered.
“Just as well, Mr. Spencer,” the man responded wryly. “I’ve been told it can kill you.”
With that he slipped it back into his jacket pocket, bowl down, still lit. A piece of unrelated cloth, trouser maybe, had been sewn into the pocket. Most assuredly smoldering embers had eaten away the original.
“You know me?” asked Tony, trying to place this stranger in his memory, but nothing connected.
“We all know you, Mr. Spencer. But please, forgive my poor manners. Truly bad form. My name is Jack, and I am honored to finally meet you, face-to-face, that is.” He held out his hand and Tony took it, out of habit if nothing more.
“Uh, Tony… but you already knew that? How do you know me exactly? Have we met before?”
“Not directly. It was your mother that first introduced me to you. It is small wonder that you have little recollection. I never considered myself that memorable anyway. Nonetheless, childhood influences have staggering formative consequences, for good and evil, or for life.”
“But how…,” Tony stammered, confused.
“As I stated before, we all know you. Knowing is quite layered. Even our own souls we hardly apprehend until the veils are lifted, until we come out of the hiding and into the place of being known.”
“I’m sorry?” interrupted Tony, feeling rising aggravation. “What you just said makes no sense to me at all and frankly seems utterly irrelevant. I have no idea where I am or even when I am, and you are not being very helpful!”
“Indeed.” Jack nodded soberly, as if that might comfort.
Tony buried his head in his hands trying to think, resisting as best he could the irritation he felt growing. They both sat silently looking back up the road.
“Anthony, you do know me, not well and not truly, but substantially, hence your invitation.” Jack’s voice was sure and measured, and Tony concentrated on what he was saying. “I was an influence on you when you were a young man. That guidance and perspective, shall we call it, has undoubtedly faded, but its roots remain.”
“My invitation? I don’t remember inviting anyone to anything! And you don’t look familiar to me at all,” Tony asserted. “I don’t know who you are! I don’t know Jack from Ireland!”
Jack’s voice remained calm. “Your invitation was many years ago and probably remains at best but a vague feeling or longing for you. If I had thought to bring a book and you could smell its pages, that most assuredly would help, but I didn’t. We never actually met, at least not in person, until now. Would it surprise you to know that I died a few years before you were born?”
“Oh, this just gets better,” Tony exploded, standing up a little too quickly. His legs were rubbery, but his anger propelled him a few steps back up the road in the direction from which he had come. He stopped and turned around. “Did you just say that you died a few years before I was born?”
“I did. On the same day Kennedy was assassinated and Huxley died. Quite the trio turning up, as they say, at the ‘pearly gates’…” He said this using his fingers to form quotation marks. “You should have seen the look on Aldous’s face. Brave new world, indeed!”
“So then, Jack from Ireland, who says he knows me”—Tony again moved closer, his tone controlled even while he could feel his ire and fear pushing the perimeters of internal boundaries—“where the hell am I?”
Jack hoisted himself to a stand and took a position not even a foot away from Tony’s face. He paused, his head slightly cocked as if listening to another conversation before he spoke, carefully emphasizing his next words.
“There is indeed a sense that the word hell might be an appropriate word for here, but then, so would the word home.”
Tony took a step back, trying to process what Jack had said.
“Are you telling me that this is hell, that I’m in hell?”
“Not exactly, at least not in the sense that you imagine it. I am certain Dante is not lurking anywhere nearby.”
“Dante?”
“Dante, with his inferno and pitchforks and all. Poor boy is still apologizing.”
“You said, not exactly? What do you mean, not exactly?”
“Tony, what exactly do you think hell is?” Jack’s question was calm and measured.
It was now Tony’s turn to pause. This conversation was not going in any direction he’d anticipated, but he quickly made a mental decision to humor this curious man. After all, he might have information that would prove useful or at least helpful.
“Uh, I don’t know… exactly.” No one had ever asked him so directly. The question of hell had always been an assumption. As a result, Tony’s response came out more a question than a statement. “A place of eternal torment with fire and gnashing of teeth and stuff?”
Jack stood listening as if waiting for more.
“Uh, a place where God punishes people he is angry with because they are sinners,” continued Tony. “Uh, where bad people are separated fro
m God and good people go to heaven?”
“And you believe that?” asked Jack, again cocking his head to one side.
“No,” responded Tony adamantly. “I think that when you die you die. You become worm-meal, dust to dust, no rhyme, no reason, just dead.”
Jack grinned. “Ah, spoken with the certainty of a man who has never died. If I may, might I ask you another question?”
Tony barely nodded, but it was enough and Jack continued, “Does your believing this, that dead is simply dead and that is ‘all she wrote’; does your believing it make it true?”
“Sure! It’s real to me,” retorted Tony.
“I didn’t ask if it was real to you. Obviously it is real to you, but what I asked was if it was true.”
Tony looked down, thinking. “I don’t get it. What’s the difference? If it’s real, isn’t it true?”
“Oh, not at all Tony! And to make matters even more convoluted, something might be real but not actually exist at all, while truth remains independent from what is real or perceived to be real.”
Tony raised his palms and shrugged, shaking his head. “Sorry, this is way beyond me. I don’t understand—”
“Oh, but you do,” interrupted Jack, “much more than you realize, no pun intended; so let me give you examples that will clarify.”
“Do I have a choice?” Tony acquiesced, still at a loss but more interested than aggravated. Somewhere in this man’s words was hidden a compliment, and while he couldn’t grasp it, he could sense it.
Jack smiled. “Choice? Hmm, good question, but for another time. To my point, there are those who ‘really’ believe there was no Holocaust, that no one has actually walked on the moon, that the earth is flat, that there are monsters living under the bed. Real to them, but not true. Closer to home, your Loree believed…”
“What does my wife have to do with any of this?” reacted Tony, more than a little defensively. “I suppose you know her, too, and just so you understand, in case she’s lurking around here, too, somewhere, I have no interest in talking to her.”