Ruby Rose
Location: Canadian Prairies
Based on a dream of finding myself lost in a long white corridor, but in the mien of a man – Rebecca alias Vincent. Have you ever been lost anywhere, in real life . . . or in dream-land?
It has been written that there are vast hidden kingdoms in massive, life-filled tunnels, constructed by tiny animals weighing less than a thousandth of an ounce each. It is also believed that they have descended from cockroaches some two hundred and fifty million years ago and made their appearance a hundred and fifty million years later when dinosaurs ruled the earth. (as per Ntl.Geo.04.78)
At the beginning, primal men used subterranean refuge from the winter’s cold, the summer’s heat and the savage beasts. They also buried their dead there.
Rebecca, returning home from a party and feeling slightly inebriated, undressed quickly and slipped into bed falling asleep almost instantly. She began to dream – at which time, her mind was released from its housing – thus becoming free to wander . . . somewhere . . .
Vincent had the sensation of falling, falling in an endless tunnel and found himself in a winding underground corridor. It was tubular, white and labyrinthine causing Vincent to lose his balance over and over again. There were many doors all along the sides to which Vincent grabbed at to try to keep his balance . . . but there were no door handles. Looking around he noticed that the walls, ceiling, and floor were all totally white as if painted in order to counteract the cavern-like black of tunnels. Moving through this alien shadowless white world, Vincent wondered who the tunnellers were? And why was it done? Or was this all merely a dwelling in a solitary cavern of his mind?
There was no sun or moon to divide time and Vincent could not fathom how long he had been here and how much farther he had to travel down this seemingly tunnel of eternity. And to what? There were no windows – no trees visible – no animals, rain, wind . . . nothing. There was not even a flutter of wings to be heard but there was a memory of long ago of a faint sighing in trees that came forth every now and then. An exhalation as deep as eternity passed through Vincent – a sigh of longing.
Then he saw them. An agglomeration of people – men, women, and children – were floating along the corridor . . . searching. But for what? Everyone’s hair to include the children, had icy hints of silver and were razored to within a quarter inch all over their heads. Their faces were ashen with no colour. Their vacuous eyes were an elusive, indescribable shade of grey. They were enigmas – walking ghostly people in white with no visible emotion. Listening to them talk amongst each other, Vincent noticed that there was a funereal quality to their voices. They did not appear to see him and floated by . . . around him and even through him. “Wait,” shouted Vincent, “Please stop. Help me. I am lost. Where am I?” But he was alone once more in his white labyrinth. And he travelled on.
Suddenly, there was an unidentifiable noise in the airspace as Vincent walked. A high-pitched squeak! Vincent, with his analytic mind considered the possibility of a security system as old as time mimicking the famous “Nightingale Floors” in the Nijo Castle, resident of the first shogun of Japan that he had read about. When the castle was built, although it was planned for many guards to stand watch over the shogun, extra protection was needed. A space was left between the top floor board and its subfloor. Thousands of nails were then hammered through the subfloor with their pointed tips grazing the underside of the top board. So, if someone tried to sneak in, the instant he stepped on the floor, the n ails scraped the top, making a screeching sound which helped warn the guards of an intruder.
But then, the noise changed to a mesmerizing drone . . . that got louder and louder within the confined airspace of the tunnel . . . causing shivers of fear to pass through Vincent . . . fear of the unknown.
As the termite-mounds – composed of several tons of soil that had been adhered and grew all around the outside of the tubular corridor – burst into life with thousands of soldier termites ready to stab with their razor-sharp jaws . . . Vincent emerged from his phantasm state to staccato words perforating him: “Wake up Rebecca, wake up. You are having a nightmare!” . . . reducing him to a mass of disconnected nerves. In the bed, Vincent struggled back to consciousness as if emerging from suffocating oleaginous waters . . . leaving the hazy corridor of his recent memory and the gauzy parade of people in white milling about . . . in abeyance until . . . the next time.
Vincent woke up to acknowledge once more one’s own anima – the womanly aspect of one’s self . . . as Rebecca, and leaving the nightmare behind.
“The Passage”
By Ruby Rose
By Ruby Rose
It has been written that there are vast hidden kingdoms in massive, life-filled tunnels, constructed by tiny animals weighing less than a thousandth of an ounce each. It is also believed that they have descended from cockroaches some two hundred and fifty million years ago and made their appearance a hundred and fifty million years later when dinosaurs ruled the earth. (as per Ntl.Geo.04.78)
At the beginning, primal men used subterranean refuge from the winter’s cold, the summer’s heat and the savage beasts. They also buried their dead there.
Rebecca, returning home from a party and feeling slightly inebriated, undressed quickly and slipped into bed falling asleep almost instantly. She began to dream – at which time, her mind was released from its housing – thus becoming free to wander . . . somewhere . . .
Vincent had the sensation of falling, falling in an endless tunnel and found himself in a winding underground corridor. It was tubular, white and labyrinthine causing Vincent to lose his balance over and over again. There were many doors all along the sides to which Vincent grabbed at to try to keep his balance . . . but there were no door handles. Looking around he noticed that the walls, ceiling, and floor were all totally white as if painted in order to counteract the cavern-like black of tunnels. Moving through this alien shadowless white world, Vincent wondered who the tunnellers were? And why was it done? Or was this all merely a dwelling in a solitary cavern of his mind?
There was no sun or moon to divide time and Vincent could not fathom how long he had been here and how much farther he had to travel down this seemingly tunnel of eternity. And to what? There were no windows – no trees visible – no animals, rain, wind . . . nothing. There was not even a flutter of wings to be heard but there was a memory of long ago of a faint sighing in trees that came forth every now and then. An exhalation as deep as eternity passed through Vincent – a sigh of longing.
Then he saw them. An agglomeration of people – men, women, and children – were floating along the corridor . . . searching. But for what? Everyone’s hair to include the children, had icy hints of silver and were razored to within a quarter inch all over their heads. Their faces were ashen with no colour. Their vacuous eyes were an elusive, indescribable shade of grey. They were enigmas – walking ghostly people in white with no visible emotion. Listening to them talk amongst each other, Vincent noticed that there was a funereal quality to their voices. They did not appear to see him and floated by . . . around him and even through him. “Wait,” shouted Vincent, “Please stop. Help me. I am lost. Where am I?” But he was alone once more in his white labyrinth. And he travelled on.
Suddenly, there was an unidentifiable noise in the airspace as Vincent walked. A high-pitched squeak! Vincent, with his analytic mind considered the possibility of a security system as old as time mimicking the famous “Nightingale Floors” in the Nijo Castle, resident of the first shogun of Japan that he had read about. When the castle was built, although it was planned for many guards to stand watch over the shogun, extra protection was needed. A space was left between the top floor board and its subfloor. Thousands of nails were then hammered through the subfloor with their pointed tips grazing the underside of the top board. So, if someone tried to sneak in, the instant he stepped on the floor, the n ails scraped the top, making a screeching sound which helped warn the guards of an intruder.
But then, the noise changed to a mesmerizing drone . . . that got louder and louder within the confined airspace of the tunnel . . . causing shivers of fear to pass through Vincent . . . fear of the unknown.
As the termite-mounds – composed of several tons of soil that had been adhered and grew all around the outside of the tubular corridor – burst into life with thousands of soldier termites ready to stab with their razor-sharp jaws . . . Vincent emerged from his phantasm state to staccato words perforating him: “Wake up Rebecca, wake up. You are having a nightmare!” . . . reducing him to a mass of disconnected nerves. In the bed, Vincent struggled back to consciousness as if emerging from suffocating oleaginous waters . . . leaving the hazy corridor of his recent memory and the gauzy parade of people in white milling about . . . in abeyance until . . . the next time.
Vincent woke up to acknowledge once more one’s own anima – the womanly aspect of one’s self . . . as Rebecca, and leaving the nightmare behind.