Where It Led Me (407 hits)
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Submitted by Scott James (View user info) at 2004-11-21 11:12:52 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
New Year's Eve
There was a foul wind howling throughout the city that evening. Pieter Galt felt its rapier wit tease and torment the base of his spine as he treaded carefully along the icy sidewalk to his home. Not for the first time, Pieter cursed the fact that his car was at the garage for repairs.
It was bad enough that he had been forced to walk to and from work each day but his misery was compounded even further by the fact that he was no closer to securing funds for his expedition. His mind ached with uncertainty. It was as if the missing link in the equation was just out of sight and that all he needed was one moment of inspiration to gain a moment of clarity. A second expedition into the jungles of Sudan would be crucial if Pieter was to find a cure. Of that much he was certain.
Pieter stopped at a crossroads to wait for passing traffic. He looked to his left and saw a bunch of hooligans lurking in the shadowy recesses of an alleyway. Curious, Pieter squinted as he saw the three young men horsing around as they sprayed their gang tags on the alleyway wall. Pieter shook his head, smiling wistfully and absently stepped off the curb.
Fifteen minutes later he arrived home. Home was the twenty-second floor condo of the Palisades apartment complex that overlooked the bay. Pieter briskly hurried through his front door, shuddering as his body adjusted to the warmth, and set his bag on the floor. Thirty minutes after that he was well on his way to being drunk.
Pieter had never taken too kindly to vodka. It never seemed particularly keen on him either; he was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol after only a third of a litre. As he sat back in his recliner he absently thought of the future of his project. It was always going to be ambitious but he was a brilliant man. Just like his father. His theory was as sound as any other. There had to be a cure. He believed there was only one place to find it and to do that he would have to go back to the beginning, before the dawn. But as the midnight drew closer, Pieter found he was wondering whether or not he was genuinely closer to a discovery or merely pursing an egotistical folly.
"What next?" He wondered aloud and passed out.
Fade in.
Kamal rose from his slumber shortly before dawn. He had been dreaming again. It was a dream of darkness; A dream of silence. And then in one flickering moment, there was a flash of light. An explosion so bright and beautiful he felt it burn his eyes as he slept. But he was powerless to look away because it was only a dream.
Outside of the cave Kamal could hear the rage of the blizzard as it tore into the side of the mountain. Finally awake, his eyes tried to adapt to the gloom of the cave. He was resting atop a pile of animal skins, next to the flickering embers of a fire he had set for the banquet the night before. It has been an evening of some magnificence and with good reason.
The ritual was over.
Furthermore, creating and sustaining the fire was the last and most difficult of the three trials. It took more patience than the hunt itself and only the thrill of the killing the mammoth was more satisfying than seeing the twigs and dried leaves ignite because of him. Kamal ran his gaze over his sleeping kinsmen and wondered if they too were dreaming the same dream he had. Sadness filled his heart for when he attempted to remember the dream it began to fade away like the last snow before spring.
Slowly Kamal rose to his feet and manufactured a bright and flaming torch from the dying embers of the fire. Carefully, he crept silently into the recesses of the cave until he came to the wall. The wall that exhibited his tribesmen's past. It was their legacy -A testament to the trials and rituals that had led their ancestors out of the cave. He picked up the brush that was dipped in the paint pot and began to weave his dream on the wall.
Outside of the cave, the blizzard continued to rage against the side of mountain. Kamal and his tribesmen would not see the sun for another week.
Fade Out.
It would be nearly five thousand years until anybody saw Kamal's legacy. Mountains crumbled into the ocean. Stars were born and died. His people never returned to the cave for the wall of dreams had been lost to darkness and it was a terrible omen.
A long time passed.
The winds above what became known as the Atlantic ocean began to stir. Something was about to happen. Somewhere between Greenland and Iceland a ship carrying an expedition of Norse explorers was sailing home. Its captain was Bjarni Herjólfsson. Bjarni was a legend in the Norse community. He was a fearless explorer and a ruthless warrior. His exploits were legendary across the whole of Scandanavia.
But as he stood on the stern of his ship Bjarni felt a slight chill at the base of his spine as he spied the storm clouds gathering ahead of him and his crew. Not one of his crew would have ever suspected it but the great Bjarni Herjólfsson was afraid. Unbestknown to them Bjarni had only once seen such a storm in his lifetime. It had claimed the life of his father. In the last few moments before the clouds obfuscated his view of the horizon Bjarni looked up to the heavens and the stars above. In that moment his life came full circle. He knew what he had to do.
When the downpour began the waves were already crashing down onto the deck of the ship. It had already been blown hopelessly off course during the first few moments of the storm and Bjarni was detirmed that his crew would not be pulled beneath the waves of an unforgiving sea. Bjarni and his crew fought with every ounce of courage that they could muster. They sweated blood that night.
The clouds relented. The heavens calmed. The sun smiled down on their efforts. Somehow Bjarni's crew managed to regain their course. But something happened that the captain did not expect. As he stood on the deck supervising repairs to the ship he looked out over the horizon and saw low-lying hills covered with forests somewhere to the west. Though the land looked hospitable, he was eager to reach his destination and spent no time exploring the new lands. He and his men had weathered the storm and were at the mercy of the sea. The ocean was an unforgiving mistress and Bjarni knew it would be unwise to refuse this unique act of kindness.
But despite his urgency to return home, Bjarni would never forget that fateful night and the memories it gave him. As the storm gained momentum, with each following wave battering the ship with increasing force, the crew knew with absolute certainty that the tides would not let them leave. The call of the ocean was too strong. But they were wrong. But worse than that Bjarni would never be able to shake the feeling of missed opportunity that nagged at him when he remembered the lush acres of forest that covered the hills of the horizon that in his rush to return home he chose not to explore. In his dreams he would remember it as L'Anse aux Meadows; the cove in the meadow. His descendents would come to know it as Newfoundland.
A thousand years would pass. Hundreds of millions of men, women and children would die from war, famine and pestilence. History would be born in pain. The changing of time was brutal and unforgiving. Oppression, slavery and ethnic cleansing would echo throughout the ages. But death had no power over the dreams of men. Men like Pieter Galt, Kamal and Bjarni Herjólfsson. Hope can always be rekindled.
In the early hours of New Year's Day, Pieter dreamt long and hard about the future.
He saw the jungles of Sudan. He found the cure he was looking for and finished his father's work. But in the recesses of a small cave he also found a wall: A wall of memories; of dreams; Dreams of silence that were all but forgotten had it not been for the wall and the hope of men.
Bjarni Herjólfsson sailed the ocean for ten more years after his first sighting of Newfoundland but he never returned. Instead, he told the tale to Leifr Eiríksson, a Viking who had recently converted to Christianity whilst in Norway, who would purchase Bjarni's boat and set out to explore the land that Bjarni found. He would go on to found the only authenticated Viking settlement in North America; L'Anse aux Meadows.
Kamal never returned to the wall of memories. Instead, he dreamed. He saw his past, his present and his future. He led his tribe through the eternal winter. He married. He rose a family. And in his last days as the elder of the tribe, he recalled a dream he had long ago. It was a dream of darkness; A dream of silence. And then in one flickering moment, there was a flash of light. An explosion so bright and beautiful he felt it burn his eyes as he slept. But he was powerless to look away because it was only a dream. Only this time the dream did not fade when he tried to remember it. It was as a vivid as the dawn.
The old man, Kamal, smiled as his last breath left him and he returned to the beginning.
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