Origin Story- An Orchestra Imagined and Imbued

"Finish it."

The castle gate shuts behind me with a gentle click, quite unusual for its size. While in this state I do not see any other, even in this antechamber I sense an electricity in the air, accompanying the strong sense that I am not alone. Even from here I see that the main room just ahead is more like an orchard, with trees of all kinds lining what appears to be a massive chamber. I enter and find it is even more amazing than I had first thought, with vines climbing the very high walls and some sort of unseen light source illuminating the entire place. "Cool." It has always struck me as funny that when presented with certain sights, I find my silver tongue fails me. As I mosey down the cobblestone path I wonder at the originator of such a masterpiece of architecture as that which lay before me, originality clearly inked into every detail. Just when I think this room can hold no remaining wonders, the far end reveals an orangery, the color housed reminding me, in a sense, of the reason for my visit.

"Green eyed traveler

Forging a path with fox feet

Through Orange Chaos Storm

In starry eyed dream

A divining oracle

Need not (take/set) the stage

For night is sparkling

Something like magic imbues

But something more pure

It is agreement

So simple yet so potent

It puts (rest/tricks) to shame

So if you agree

To be found in this castle

I'd call myself blessed

For cup overflows

Water ordered (for/from) fine wine

Wine in place of blood

Spirit truth revealed

Family is not only blood

Like the wind it moves

The (ornaments/Christmas lights) up

So like a breath of fresh air

I run like water."

With these words I step into the next room, and find it decorated as if by both a precocious child and refined adult at once, though I suspect the hands are one and the same pair. Personal treasures both old and new are arranged about without concern for appearances, and the authenticity on full display here is endearing. An orrery takes up much of the ceiling, and a veiling yellow curtain around the upper perimeter adds a sense of both class and whimsy all at once. Christmas tree complete with lights and ornaments stands not far from a fully sized and footed ornamental vase with an ornateness that suggests a weighty value. The popcorn machine with full blown movie theater style condiment bar is within steps of both an oversized bean bag chair and a dark leather couch that looks like I would not care to know the price of. These face a wall dominated by a huge, sleek, flat screen TV with googly eyes on the top of it, and a rainbow decorating above. While there is so much to speak of in this sizeable room, my eyes are drawn to the top lit casino quality poker table in the far corner. I notice as I walk over that it looks almost like a hand is in progress of completion. There are chips in three neat stacks along the edge and a pile less organized in the middle, but how long table or hand have been in this state is unclear. At the table itself now I see one hand has been revealed and I let out a whistle: Royal Flush. A tiny smirk forms on my face, chock full o' nonsense and seeing no harm in a performance piece for an audience of none, I present my proposal as if a flourishing avian display. I pull from my pocket the deck of cards I have with me more often than not these days. As I fish out five cards and slowly walk the table's edge, I speak of steps seen in my head.

"Retain the joker and beat a royal flush, coming up aces and roses alike. Five of a kind love, a family all the same, though without their faces it would be one dreary game. So bluff the top hand, and leave table unflipped, for though the game is of cards, the real stakes are friends."

I place face up on the table Joker and four Aces, at the far end position, perhaps a seat saved for me. I then pull out my penny, seemingly returned somewhere along the way, and place it atop the cards "I am all in."

I continue on from this quite unorthodox room, curious as to how the orchestration of these few notes, left in the form of word and card and coin on the table, might play out. My steps lead me through twisting halls, as if fox feet know already where this destination, that feels like an origin point all its own, resides within this labyrinth. Still my mind's eye finds itself back on the couch, marvelling at that orrery (or solar system) strewn above me, now considering its foreign bodies and shape. I get the sense that one more rhymed oration is called for before I see what lay ahead, and so in this dual channeled state I add a third in form of a sonnet.

"Oh you ornery orbs overhead why

If stars realign won't these planet(s) too?

I have seen this change in several a sky

Yet here by (day)light (day)dream remains untrue

Is there a page that in the future (fills/turns)

Or is this fool(')s(') errand fool(')s(') through and through?

Know if in this maze it's found this heart (stills/yearns)

I pictured myself driving home to you

With spirit shiny and hope up my sleeve

With sword drawn right and walking from Phoenix

Though steps unknown in this end I believe

Spirit family will be worth all these bricks

All else is hollow when this has been seen

It is this heartbeat that fills space between."

I blink and find the couch left behind and the twisting tunnels alike, the wall ahead beating red in pulsating shades and the subtle image of leaves of a slightly different shade falling from ceiling to floor. My words can still be felt as an echo in room and on wall, which I find mesmerizing. I lose track of time, and stare as the wall continues its display, until the image loses cohesion, and red fades away. I consider this blank space deeply, more deeply than I have considered any such surface before. I consider paradise both lost and found, and all the foreign lands I have walked to lead here, somehow feeling like home. While perhaps not void in full, words seem to take on similar tangibility here, so I consider carefully what these last breaths taken on this journey might bring forth. While my typical train of thought fails to carry me the remaining steps of this route, an inspiration, known at first contact but feeling as if forgotten for as long as memory serves, creeps in from every crevice, into every crevice, and with a deep breath I speak, now from this path surely walked together.

"I must say, I did not expect journey's end to be a blank space. Though white as a sheet, music still plays; though notes in ink, heart flies off the page; though page is of paper, rings out all the same; though rafters raised after, image comes before; though dust and wind, walk has threaded stage; though stitched of yarn and wonderfully veiled, garment reveals skin like a dream made real." 

I see a figure through trees, and smile at obfuscation, as dazzling haze, gently lifting to reveal flesh and blood spirit imbued, an apple of my eye.