Welcome to another installment of House! Solomon is insistent on taking down the King and clearing the house of the presesnce, isn’t he? Where did we leave off with him? Perhaps a short refresher:
Solomon walked and wondered what he was doing here. Where was this place in relation to the garden? To the corridor? Was he closer to arriving at the tower, or farther away? As insistent as he was about returning to discover more, he began to feel like he knew even less than when he began. He tried not to board this train of thought; he'd been through this over and over again already. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder to see how far he had walked, but the building was gone. There was only the great field of grass behind him. Without any other recourse, he turned his thoughts to what he might find among the trees and kept moving.
Ah yes, he walked out of a building, onto a field, and was heading to the tree line. You can catch up with Part XV here. It’s interesting to consider his “being there too completely”; even when dreaming lucidly, there remains the awareness of the dream, it feels like a dream, it is a dream. And yet, for Solomon, his immersion is such that this dreamspace is becoming a very realspace for him. It almost feels like his explorations are less about acquiring information and more about, well, exploration.
Where was this place in relation to the garden? To the corridor?
These could be the questions of someone with purpose, and a desire to achieve that purpose as quickly as possible. These are also the questions raised by curiosity. Where am I in relation to this thing and that thing? How do I make sense of it, because it is all just so interesting. Is it possible that we, along with Solomon, are being duped into thinking he maintains his purpose? Are we following along, not to see how this ends, but to learn more of this strange Wonderland?
I’ll let you sit with that. In the meantime, here is Part XVI of House.
The sun was steady overhead as he walked. The breeze had died down, and the heat had risen. Solomon removed his shirt quite some time ago, though he couldn't recall having done so. Sweat poured down his neck and over his shoulders. He would, on occasion, use his rolled up shirt to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. With no wind to cool him down and dry him off, he was a bundle of wet, walking misery.
He didn't know for how long he walked. The tree line appeared as far from him as it had at the beginning, and without the building behind him with which to gauge his progress, he had no way of knowing if he was getting closer. He wondered if this was, indeed, the corridor; perhaps a variation of it. The corridor went on forever and ever. This field too felt like it continued on forever and ever. If he didn't stop, would he reach the tower?
The thought of not stopping weighed on him almost as much as his shirt had. The heat was stifling, and growing with each step. He had no water, and he could see no water anywhere. There were trees far ahead, and there was green all around. But no water.
His mind traveled back to the greenhouse. Such a beautiful and lush place, filled with water. Pocket sprinklers would pop up, spritz the plants, and disappear. No part of him would be upset if sprinklers popped up at this moment, in this field. He wished it; willed it; but to no avail. No sprinklers materialized, no water appeared to cool him down and slake his thirst. He walked in heat, thirst, and growing exhaustion.
He wondered about the heat. Everywhere else he had been, the temperature was near ideal. Maybe a little warm, maybe a little cool, maybe humid, maybe windy, but always manageable. Even the bog hadn't been as arduous as this field. And why the field? Such a beautiful scene stretched for miles around him, and here he was baking in it. He had been walking for hours; for days even. Weeks, maybe? What was twenty minutes in this heat? What was 20 days? The field was a mirage. It must be. He was really in a desert. Yet his bare feet told him otherwise. He looked down at his feet. He didn't remember taking off his shoes. Did he arrive in this dream with shoes? He looked at his hands. In one, he held his rolled up shirt. In the other hung a pair of shoes.
How much longer could he continue? The tree line refused to budge, and it seemed no amount of walking would bring it closer. He raised his hand holding his shoes to the trees, as if offering them in exchange for swift passage. The trees did not appear to be interested. He let his hand drop, and with it, his shoes.
Continued after the break
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An old woman risks everything to discover what became of her husband. A tale from the Odds ‘n’ Endings Boutique.
The shoes fell to the grass without a sound. Solomon stopped and dropped his gaze to look at them. He sighed and wondered if he should stoop down to pick them up, unaware he spoke his thoughts aloud. Without thinking, he dropped his shirt. He turned to look at it as well. He determined he could not continue very far without either, so he began to kneel and ended on the ground, collapsed into a pile of flesh and bone. He planted one hand on the grass and pushed himself over to lie on his back, stretching out his leg as he settled. He reached over and retrieved his shirt, placing it over his face.
He was already down here. He might as well take a nap.
Take a nap in a dream. That was a new one for him. He had traveled far and wide in dreams, had chased demons and fantasies, and it had never once occurred to him to take a nap. This dreamspace was different though. There was a whole set of rules in effect of which he knew little to nothing. But who cared about any of that right now. Those other dreams were closed to him. There was only this field, and this heat, and his supreme exhaustion. He was going to rest, then he was going to get up and continue, because if this was the corridor but dressed up differently, then he was going to see it to the end this time.
He was laying on his back in the grass for a few breaths. No more than a few minutes. Through the thin material of his shirt, Solomon watched as the sky grew dark. It then turned an angry red as a horn began to blare, the sound ripping through the quiet over the fields and coming from all directions all at once. As the sound retreated, the sky returned to black, and then it flashed red, angrier, meaner, as the horn blared even louder. The sky pulsed between black and red, as the horn bellowed its cry. Solomon wondered at it in awe, unsure if this meant his salvation or signaled the entry of some greater threat. He was sure this did not mean the arrival of rain. Something tugged at his mind, demanding him to recall the significance of the sky, of the pulsing colors, of the pounding sound. He was on the edge of remembering ...
... when he awoke in the living room, his alarm third and final alarm going off on his phone beside him.
What a close call, Solomon! Now, what would have happened to our intrepid explorer of dreams had he fallen asleep in the field? Would that have been the end of the story? Would he have fallen into another dream, Inception-style? It really matters not, as he was rescued by his own machinations in the real world.
Or was he? We don’t know if he came out of this dreamspace unscathed, do we? We know only that he woke up, and a good thing too, for it seemed he wouldn’t have lasted much longer in it. Anyway, there’s only one way to find out how Solomon moves forward! Come back next week!
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