Assignment:
Free journal assignment. Reinterpreting textbook concepts into a story form.
Response:
[Journal] – June 6, 2007
Exploring the White Hot Core
The room is quiet and dark, the air cool and dry. For a brief moment that is all that exists. The click of a button press resonates throughout the room and then a dull glow violates the darkness. The glow is emanating from a soft liquid crystal display. The host body takes its seat in front of the display, as both the conductor as well as the audience for tonight’s performance. Upon the host body taking its seat, the orchestra begins to play. A very soft melody reaches out across the room and fills the space with life. Trumpets, violins, the cello and the piano, all singing their own way to be part of the whole. The slow waltz feels the room, but there are no dancers to be seen out here in this vast space. To find the dancers we must dive deeper into this experience.
Follow the music until it reaches the space where it ceases to be vibration and is instead turned into electrical signal. Follow that canal deeper and deeper into the mass. Halt! Ahead there is a massive storm, an electrical cloud, this is our stop, the main event is about to begin. The world outside these walls is irrelevant. The outside world contains logic, details and a lot of opinion. In here is the world of yearning, of characters and most importantly, the world of the dreamer.
You are here for one reason, to try your key in the lock on the front gate of the subconscious. There will be no time to take notes if that door does open, the thoughts fly free and fast, catch a dream if you can, ride it to its heart and never look back. The storm is slowing and the environment in this space is becoming very still, so absolutely still that motion seems eminent. The space goes dark for a moment, then a spotlight comes to point out the front gate to the subconscious. A confident, deep female voice with enough authority to be a self proclaimed deity speaks “Approach the gate and its subordinate channels, attempt your key, dreamer.” You move slowly to the main gate, and press your hand to the plate, nothing happens, all is silent. You move to the first subordinate passage and place your hand on its door, same result, you are denied entry. You attempt the second subordinate entrance, the entire door shakes and a trumpet fanfare rings throughout the space. The door is gone, replaced by a blinding yellow-white light, radiating from within the chamber to your mind’s eye. Stepping through the passage, your body shakes with anticipation of events to come.
Inside the chamber you see things you’ve never seen before. Creatures that do not exist in the world of the normal and the rational. A bright red mustang with hooves of gold, and a mane of the finest silk. A turtle with a shell of steel and skin of velvet. Anything is possible in this world. You begin to think of the impossibility of it all, and the light in the room grows dim. You feel as though your access to this special place is being threatened, and you focus really hard to eliminate the thoughts of the logical. You circle the thoughts in red and blink twice, the thoughts are removed and the illumination restored to the room. When the lights come back up, the room has changed, different impossibilities exist here now. Rivers are running from floor to ceiling, boats are too. You see a young woman across the forest, she waves to you and then signals you to come to her. She made no visual signal, but you know she signaled for you. Her face is fair and even, her hair straight and blond. Her physical features are so perfectly proportioned, more so than anything you have ever seen in that other world. You look into her perfectly blended blue-green eyes and realize immediately that she isn’t a whole person, she is just the most beautiful shell you have ever seen. She has no name, she has no purpose, she doesn’t even have emotion. As you think that last thought, she creature has emotion, you willed it upon her. She has received your sadness for the situation she is in, and she blames you for not giving her a name or a purpose. She yearns to have revenge upon you for this horrible thing you have done. How could you not give this being a purpose in your plot? You begin to feel guilty for not thinking to give her depth, or a family or even a lover. You look around the room for more inspiration, you see the boats going up the river. Her clothes change, she is in a white uniform with a white hat. A glossy name badge appears on her chest, “Captain Jane Nautical”. She introduces herself “Hello, I’m captain Nautical, but my crew calls me Captain Jane”. She aspires to command a large naval vessel and make her mark on history by traversing the seas.
During your journey through the chamber you meet many other characters. Some are characters you know from your past, some are characters belonging to other dreamers who you know, some are characters you don’t know, but yet seem oddly familiar and others are characters that are foreign to you, who you will get to know in time.
In the middle of the festivities and fun, the sound of an antique clock striking its hour rings through the chamber. The voice returns, “Dreamer, your time is up, you must now leave, but if you return promptly at the same time tomorrow, I will show you more of my world”. You are swept as if by a great wind from the chamber, back to the ‘lobby’ and finally, like a blast of air from a trumpet you are blasted from the canal. You are back in the dark room. The liquid crystal contains a large amount of text, none of it yet making sense to you. The music ends and the lights of the room turn on slowly. You rise from your seat and exit the room, remembering the promise of the great voice, with the words “return tomorrow” staying most clearly in your mind.
You survived your first trip to the core, tomorrow is another day and you must rest for your return. Awaken dreamer, you are ready to begin.