12. She took the candy bar out of her mouth, sealed it up in a wrapper, and put it back on the shelf.
The gas station paid people to come, siphon gas out of their cars and store it in tanks underground. Business picked up. She started wearing a uniform.
They hung up a Now Open sign. She walked backwards out of the gas station, unemployed.
A destruction crew came and dismantled the structure of the station. They dug up the tanks and drove them away on trucks. They filled in the holes.
The space was an empty lot for a while. Bull dozers came and pulled out the contents that dump trucks carried there. A crane came and erected a large warehouse. People crept into the warehouse and surreptitiously left supplies. The supplies sat there for a while until other people came and took them away.
The warehouse was destroyed and replaced by a smaller storage barn. The barn was full but got quickly depleted by people coming and taking things.
Pretty soon there was nothing left so, with hammers and saws, they took the barn apart. They cut the wood of the barn into trees which they planted in the barn’s place. The whole area was nothing but woods.
There were make-shift huts made with lashed-together branches scattered sparely in the woods. The people living in them had come from the east and had spread themselves out to claim this land. They were waiting for the rest to come so they could settle.
There was a sound echoing though the woods reporting from hut to hut and seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. It was a groaning sound like the yearning of the ancients striving forwards to the promised fulfillment.
Every head exposed itself into the cool air, listening to the lurch and groan of that hopeful sound.
There was a second sound that accompanied the low rumbling and it was of a higher pitch, blending into itself and unable to be interpreted.
The woods in these parts were sparse and they would need to cut very few trees to bring in the shrine. They had cut down many trees on their long trek and incurred the wrath of many settled ones. But the shrine was the most important thing. It was the shrine that defined them as a people.
Bodies followed heads out of huts and the people were beginning to walk to the east from whence the shrine would come. There were supplies and goods and tools and animals and people coming as well. But for these the forerunners would have stayed in their huts. It was the shrine that beckoned. It was the shrine they would welcome.
The Almost Venerable One had sent with them a diviner and it had been the diviner who chose this place. They had been chatting and talking to one another. Exchanging jokes. Every span of woods looked exactly the same as that before it. They could have continued walking until the earth dropped off into the void at the Western Front. But with a series of whistles and clicks, the message was sent to the scouts that the diviner had stopped.
The diviner stood with eyes closed, hands outstretched. Everyone was silent, watching. The diviner bent down and scooped up a handful of soil, smelled it then tasted it. They watched as the diviner walked in a spiral out from the initial stopping point making gestures to those who followed. They drove stakes with different colored flags to mark the site of the shrine, the area of the temple, and the perimeter of the town.
They waited patiently in their camp that was not yet a town for months. The shrine and all those coming with it moved slowly, the great wagon wheels needing to be coaxed to carry its heavy load. At tight passes and steep ravines they had to detour around. At thickets of woods or weeds they hacked their way through.
And now finally the first sighting of the shrine had been made and the forerunners prostrated themselves in welcome.
The shrine was an ornate, immense cube carved from metal and precious stones depicting feats of valor and glorious rapture to the Internal One. The exact measurements of the cube were unknown as it was blasphemous to measure it. But it was large enough to hold probably up to a dozen people though it never did. As far as anyone knew, no one had ever been inside the shrine.
The wagons were creaking and rolling forward being pulled by two large ropes that the devoted held.
The second sound which meshed into itself at a distance became the tintinnabulation of hundreds of bells being rung.
The forerunners surrounded the wagon and pointed the direction to where the shrine would rest, some trying to find a place on the ropes so that they too could share in its coming.
The people all talked and laughed and caught each other up on their journeys. The forerunners told the newcomers of the aspects of the new land and the newcomers regaled the forerunners with their hardships encountered in the long trek home. For this was their home, now and forever.
Once the shrine had been taken off the wagon and set on its holy ground consecrated by the Almost Venerable One, the crowd dispersed and began to make preparations for the night.
They walked through the woods imagining what it would be like when they built homes and streets and stores. They would transform these woods into a town. People began to stake claim to various pieces of land. The town would start out small, clustered around the shrine but they had foreseen its expansion and set up outlying huts to protect their claim.
One family was working on felling a tree and fashioning its branches into their first makeshift home. Most of the trees would be down in the coming weeks and months but they tried to leave some so that their town would not be entirely barren of greenery.
The Almost Venerable One wearing the ceremonial elephant headpiece was making rounds in the space dedicated for the temple.
There was plumbable water running under the ground but the nearest river had been passed thirteen miles back. In the morning, the Almost Venerable One sent the first delegation of retainers to fetch river stones for the making of the temple.
He awoke in the middle of the night, the dream still fresh in his mind. He lay in bed and stared straight at the ceiling over which shone the same stars that shone down on those first settlers of this town some one hundred years ago. He no longer felt that it was a product of paint fumes. This was something real. It was happening to him. He should embrace it but he found it difficult. What would people think? They would find out that he was flouting the laws of nature (and most likely The Company) and they would make him stand in front of the wall that he had worked so hard to paint white and they would paint it red with his blood.
They didn’t do that kind of thing any more though. Or at least they didn’t advertise it.
He lay in bed at 4:32 a.m. and had difficulty getting back to sleep. He wanted and feared the dream. He worried over it until fatigue overtook him and relieved him of the need to choose.
He woke up at 12:15, his sheets tied in knots around him. He didn’t remember having returned to the dream. It wasn’t the kind of dream one forgets on waking.
next
The gas station paid people to come, siphon gas out of their cars and store it in tanks underground. Business picked up. She started wearing a uniform.
They hung up a Now Open sign. She walked backwards out of the gas station, unemployed.
A destruction crew came and dismantled the structure of the station. They dug up the tanks and drove them away on trucks. They filled in the holes.
The space was an empty lot for a while. Bull dozers came and pulled out the contents that dump trucks carried there. A crane came and erected a large warehouse. People crept into the warehouse and surreptitiously left supplies. The supplies sat there for a while until other people came and took them away.
The warehouse was destroyed and replaced by a smaller storage barn. The barn was full but got quickly depleted by people coming and taking things.
Pretty soon there was nothing left so, with hammers and saws, they took the barn apart. They cut the wood of the barn into trees which they planted in the barn’s place. The whole area was nothing but woods.
There were make-shift huts made with lashed-together branches scattered sparely in the woods. The people living in them had come from the east and had spread themselves out to claim this land. They were waiting for the rest to come so they could settle.
There was a sound echoing though the woods reporting from hut to hut and seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. It was a groaning sound like the yearning of the ancients striving forwards to the promised fulfillment.
Every head exposed itself into the cool air, listening to the lurch and groan of that hopeful sound.
There was a second sound that accompanied the low rumbling and it was of a higher pitch, blending into itself and unable to be interpreted.
The woods in these parts were sparse and they would need to cut very few trees to bring in the shrine. They had cut down many trees on their long trek and incurred the wrath of many settled ones. But the shrine was the most important thing. It was the shrine that defined them as a people.
Bodies followed heads out of huts and the people were beginning to walk to the east from whence the shrine would come. There were supplies and goods and tools and animals and people coming as well. But for these the forerunners would have stayed in their huts. It was the shrine that beckoned. It was the shrine they would welcome.
The Almost Venerable One had sent with them a diviner and it had been the diviner who chose this place. They had been chatting and talking to one another. Exchanging jokes. Every span of woods looked exactly the same as that before it. They could have continued walking until the earth dropped off into the void at the Western Front. But with a series of whistles and clicks, the message was sent to the scouts that the diviner had stopped.
The diviner stood with eyes closed, hands outstretched. Everyone was silent, watching. The diviner bent down and scooped up a handful of soil, smelled it then tasted it. They watched as the diviner walked in a spiral out from the initial stopping point making gestures to those who followed. They drove stakes with different colored flags to mark the site of the shrine, the area of the temple, and the perimeter of the town.
They waited patiently in their camp that was not yet a town for months. The shrine and all those coming with it moved slowly, the great wagon wheels needing to be coaxed to carry its heavy load. At tight passes and steep ravines they had to detour around. At thickets of woods or weeds they hacked their way through.
And now finally the first sighting of the shrine had been made and the forerunners prostrated themselves in welcome.
The shrine was an ornate, immense cube carved from metal and precious stones depicting feats of valor and glorious rapture to the Internal One. The exact measurements of the cube were unknown as it was blasphemous to measure it. But it was large enough to hold probably up to a dozen people though it never did. As far as anyone knew, no one had ever been inside the shrine.
The wagons were creaking and rolling forward being pulled by two large ropes that the devoted held.
The second sound which meshed into itself at a distance became the tintinnabulation of hundreds of bells being rung.
The forerunners surrounded the wagon and pointed the direction to where the shrine would rest, some trying to find a place on the ropes so that they too could share in its coming.
The people all talked and laughed and caught each other up on their journeys. The forerunners told the newcomers of the aspects of the new land and the newcomers regaled the forerunners with their hardships encountered in the long trek home. For this was their home, now and forever.
Once the shrine had been taken off the wagon and set on its holy ground consecrated by the Almost Venerable One, the crowd dispersed and began to make preparations for the night.
They walked through the woods imagining what it would be like when they built homes and streets and stores. They would transform these woods into a town. People began to stake claim to various pieces of land. The town would start out small, clustered around the shrine but they had foreseen its expansion and set up outlying huts to protect their claim.
One family was working on felling a tree and fashioning its branches into their first makeshift home. Most of the trees would be down in the coming weeks and months but they tried to leave some so that their town would not be entirely barren of greenery.
The Almost Venerable One wearing the ceremonial elephant headpiece was making rounds in the space dedicated for the temple.
There was plumbable water running under the ground but the nearest river had been passed thirteen miles back. In the morning, the Almost Venerable One sent the first delegation of retainers to fetch river stones for the making of the temple.
He awoke in the middle of the night, the dream still fresh in his mind. He lay in bed and stared straight at the ceiling over which shone the same stars that shone down on those first settlers of this town some one hundred years ago. He no longer felt that it was a product of paint fumes. This was something real. It was happening to him. He should embrace it but he found it difficult. What would people think? They would find out that he was flouting the laws of nature (and most likely The Company) and they would make him stand in front of the wall that he had worked so hard to paint white and they would paint it red with his blood.
They didn’t do that kind of thing any more though. Or at least they didn’t advertise it.
He lay in bed at 4:32 a.m. and had difficulty getting back to sleep. He wanted and feared the dream. He worried over it until fatigue overtook him and relieved him of the need to choose.
He woke up at 12:15, his sheets tied in knots around him. He didn’t remember having returned to the dream. It wasn’t the kind of dream one forgets on waking.
next