The Singing Time
I stir from a thought and open my eyes to see an empty white room, all around me. I stand up to look around and now notice that a figure is standing with its back to me, several metres away. It wears a long black cloak with a hood drawn as to hide its form, face, and current focus.
I walk up next to the figure, making no effort to hide the sounds of my footsteps. As I approach and clear the edge of the hood, I see the face a man looking down at the top of a white pedestal in front of him. As I continue to talk around him, now opposite him at the pedestal, I look again and realize that it isn't just anyone, but me, who is looking at the pedestal! From this vantage-point, I can also see and hear what he is looking at. There is a shallow basin atop the pedestal and there is a small plot of sand and water inside it. The movement of the waves and the depth of the image implies that this is merely a window through to somewhere else. The waves make a calming and oddly familiar sound as they gently lap against the sand.
For a moment, I find myself as mesmerized as my counterpart by the sight and the sound and then he speaks, without his gaze leaving the water: "It is one of the only things left, in this place. Yet somehow, I never bore of it. Such a calm memory etched at so many aligned temporal indices, it is clearer than any other."
"I know that this is your first visit to this place but you will come again before you create it. The time must be drawing nearer if you are here. Am I right in assuming that you can hear the singing?" He grins oddly as his eyes turn up from the basin and look into mine.
Stunned for a moment, I find my voice and respond, "Yes, I have been able to hear the singing but this is the first time its sound had ever carried me here. Where are we?"
"You will know when you need to know but, suffice to say, the singing called you here since you were getting close to the moment. I don't know if it is mockery or mercy but everything in the moment is peace. You will know."
"The moment?" I ask.
Grinning again but this time his eyes fixed on the basin, "You will know or you could guess. Either way, I think we would reach an understanding. For now, however, you must return to your place. Know, at least, that there is a sort of light at the end of this tunnel, though I wish it could be for other reasons."
With that, the vision quickly fades to black and I feel myself falling. In the distance, I can hear a human voice singing at one constant and unblemished tone. Just as I realize this, however, I open my eyes to see the world is as it always was and there is no sound but the murmurs of those around me and the forced air of the vents.
Soon, perhaps,
...Nights
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