The Slumber in the Amber
The image of the insect caught forever in an amber stone has always fascinated me. The past has found a way to send a message over the chasm of time. During eons the insect has been preserved unchanged, not experiencing the corruption of time, protected in its resinous sphere, in silence and motionless. If only the insect could survive to see the transcendent new world! Then, indeed, the past and the future would truly communicate, and the line of time, curved in hyperspace, would meet itself.
The motif of the sleep in the amber has played, probably, an important role, a sort of subconscious catalyst, in my deciding to await the future cryogenically preserved. I asked to be put asleep at an age when I was still active and young, thing that was unusual enough. The present had still something to offer me, but the future attracted me even more. I let myself be closed and congealed in a coffin of metal and glass, a sui-generis time machine.
I do not know how much has lasted my slumber, but although I had no dreams, nor the sense of passing time, I woke thoroughly changed, another person, like someone who in his youth had entered in a coma from which he would come out gray-haired, aged and obsolete. The cold vapors cleared out of my view, then the glass cover of the coffin slid away. A long time passed before I could accommodate myself with seeing again and I could distinguish anything. Before me there was a meadow vaguely illuminated, that was stretching toward a claustrophobically near horizon. Above the meadow the sky was awfully black, without stars. Not far from me there was a villa, in the middle of a flower garden, surrounded by a protective small wooden fence. With difficulty, after many efforts in vain, I succeeded to get out of my coffin, and trembling I remembered how to walk. Now, while nearing the villa, I could see behind it, and on the sides, woods, small valleys, hills, and far, far beyond mountains rising high, with their ridges bordered with a red light. The weak light that enabled me to see around seemed to come from the mountains. I did not see any other source of light. There was too much silence around, a heavy silence. I did not hear the passing of the wind through the grass and the leaves, I did not hear the evening song of grasshoppers.
I arrived near the villa and I entered in the garden through a small door, which I found open. The door of the house and its windows with transparent curtains were open. Entering the door, I found myself in a large room, simple furnished, illuminated twilitly by a wall lamp. The room was empty. I looked around for a calendar, or a paper, anything that could tell me the year but I found nothing. Judging from what I could see, I may have travelled in time only for a few years. In the middle of my meditation a door opened and from within the house someone entered the room. It was a middle-aged man, with a neutral and smiling complexion.
"At last you are awake" said he, and offered his hand.
"Am I? What year it is?"
"Eh, here, where we are, the calendar references are not relevant", said he, somewhat troubled.
"Are we not on Earth?"
"In a way, no. But let's take a seat."
We seated one in front of the other, on two comfortable chairs. A shadow of uneasiness passed over the face of my host, without disturbing that moderately good humour which he displayed.
"My mission is to guide you in our world, to prepare you for the shock of the impact. Now I can satisfy the rigors of politeness which demand to starts a conversation with the proper introducing. For you I will be from now on simply "Guide".
"That is not a name. It is a function. But nevermind, my name is --"
"I know your name. But you have grown beyond it --"
These strange words made me wonder a lot and I sensed the need of an explanation, which did not come, though. For a long time he remained silent, so I decided to reopen the discussion.
"I am feeling very confuse. I am extremely curious and intrigued and I have many questions, but I am unable to formulate one. Earlier you said that the calendar has no relevance. This thing disturbes me very much --"
"...that is because here we are outside of time. We are in an existential level outside the physical plane and the space and the time are only conventions here. All you can see around you, including your very person, are symbols, palpable symbols, metaphysical entities. The Universe is this ball of earth we are standing on, floating into Nothingness. The border of the Univers is at several steps from here, there, where the meadow ends in nothing.
"My mission was to easy your impact but I do not know how could I do that. You travelled into future far more than you could imagine. The history of men unfolded in time for as much as the man could not liberate himself from his constraints, but when he gathered enough momentum, the man opened his wings and flew into the strong air of eternity. That is why the far future is no longer a horizon waiting to come but a transcendent realm. From a temporal point of view we are simultaneously in what you call past, present and future.
"I am one of your descendants. We, people of the future, are immortals and omnipotent. In fact these are only minimal conditions to accede to this level of existence or, equivalently, they are natural consequences of being in a superior level of existence.
Shortly after he spoke the last sentence, Guide stood up and disappeared through the door he came. That way ended my first day (so-to-speak) of my initiation in the new world of the future --
In the following days, Guide acquainted me thoroughly with the shocking reality of the future. He told me that, in time, the appearance of phisicality of the ambiance in which we lived will diminish and that I will understand the true nature of things. For the time being though we made excursions on the woody hills from nearby in the same way I would do it on the Earth. The black sky above us remained awful to me. To be forever conscious of that total absence, empty of any signification, surrounding our existence it is a terrible experience. In physical existence you cannot see the Nothingness, you can only think it, and when you try to represent it, you see that it is beyond your powers, like would be to show the fourth dimension. This is a great advantage, and it is only now that I could realize it. I would look often to the sky, but never did I see Guide doing the same. However he warned me one time not to go too near to the border between Univers and Nothingness because it is dangerous.
"How come?" I asked him.
"All that crosses the border disappears forever in Nothingness. There were people who died this way. There were also cases of suicide."
This was an allusion to the existence of other people in Univers, which I was curious to meet. But Guide did not continue the discussion.
Once, without his knowledge, I approached however the border, incited by curiosity and anxiety. I do not know what did I hope to discover. In truth this is the worst thing, that it is nothing to discover. At one point the meadow was cut clear, but this is a deceiving word. Beyond there was not empty space, but nothing. The Nothingness does not have form, or content, does not have dimension, does not have anything. And I could see that. That was the most frightening thing I ever contemplated. From a sure distance I threw a rock into Nothingness and it disappeared without a sound, as a viscous, black substance swallowed it. That someone could through himself willingly in the darkness of Non-being seems to me of an unsurpassed monstruosity. What malignant distortion of conscience, what baneful despair could bring one to such an act? In me the being still reigns fully, maybe that is why I cannot understand.
I returned to the villa determined that if somebody else is living there to find him without fail, and searched it thoroughly. All the rooms were empty. I did not found anywhere traces that someone else lived there, clues to betray a household. All the rooms were furnished the same, as livings, giving the impression of an abstract hospitality, like an official guesthouse. Finally, in one of the rooms I found Guide sitting on a couch and reading a book. At my entrance, with his eternal complexion of moderate good humour, he stood up and put the book away, on a little table. On the black covers I could read the title written in golden letters: "The Holy Bible". I was intending to ask him about the other people in the Univers, but I changed my mind, inspired by a new idea.
"I am sorry if I am intruding, I need to talk to you."
"I am at your service, you already know that."
I took a seat before him.
"You told me that the men are omnipotent. What does this mean? By what this is more than a hollow word? Can I create, if I want, whole new worlds?"
"You will be able to do that, eventually. In fact, it has already been done before."
"Omnipotent? Like God?"
A wave of indisposition contorted for a moment the features of Guide.
"No, answered he after a long while. Not like God."
"That would be the most unquestionable proof that you are what do you say you are. Tell me, there is God?"
"I
do not know, answered he again with difficulty. This is the greatest unfulfillment of human destiny. When we glided into this
level of existence, we hoped that we would see the Face of the God. Instead we
found only this empty plane. The God does not exist, or He is gone, or maybe we
miss something fundamental. If God exists, He should be here. Yet nobody has
seen Him. Maybe He is hidding from us, the proud,
after He showed himself before the humble. Some say that God would be beyond
the ridges, and even there were legends about an overrealm
of solar fullness of being in the valleys on the other side of the mountain,
but those that ventured on those ragged lands perished, engulfed by the ravines
of nothingness which open where they are less expected. Others killed
themselves from despair. We were many more people in the past. Those who did
not die hiking the mountains disappeared in the nothing beyond the meadow. I am
the only one alive and my mission was to guide you when you will awaken. That
mission is nearing its end --"
He seemed to have something more to say, but stopped, as it would have been too
personal to be heard by anyone else.
"What? We are the only men alive?"
"Yes. At times, new people appear, but they share the same destiny, like the rest of us."
"What do you mean by new people appear? From where?"
"Out of nowhere. They just appear. You are forgetting that we do not live in a physical world. The laws of conservation, the causality and every other law are suspended here. The miracles not only are they possible but also are almost a rule, the only one. Likewise some things disappear without trace, so new ones appear. This is a world of infinite hope, but also of infinite suffering --"
I did not succeed to get anything more from him. He remained silent and I left without to understand. His silences like his speeches had a secret meaning, which I did not comprehend until it was too late. After that last discussion we did not talk, although we would meet occasionally in the house or on its whereabouts. Then he disappeared and I never saw him again. Did he killed himself, I wonder, throwing himself in the Nothingness, absurdely hoping that beyond it he would find the wanted fullness of being? Or, rather, consumed by his doubts he disappeared suddenly, disintegrated by the gangrene of nothingness that was growing inside his consciousness? Because the root of nothingness is often to be found in the very core of our being. I never learned what happened to him. Suddenly I was alone in the univers, missing the guiding of my guide. He led me only to a certain point beyond which I could no more rely on anyone but myself. From there on, begun my own mission.
I
spent a long time alone in that valley. In the deep silence that was reigning
there, in that space without limits and yet so narrow, I experienced a strange
feeling, an unconceivable mixture of claustrophoby
and agoraphoby. The coming of Nothingness out from
its hiding, that was its natural state in the physical realm,
destroyed every limits, but at the same time made from the Universe a cage,
though one with invisible walls. I was like a man stranded on a narrow rock, of
only a few square feet, rising up from the ocean, and
all around me only tempest, darkness and high waves. Boundlessness
and prison at the same time. In truth that is how I always lived, but
only now did I realize that.
I liked to walk through the woods that bordered the valley toward the mountains. There, the surprise and the variety would enlarge the subjective space, giving me the impresion of an unending and changing labyrinth. There were some places that I become fond of, and that were familiar to me -- an old, gnarled tree, a flower covered clearing -- but most of all I liked to discover new perspectives over the now familiar places. That is why I used to take large detours, arriving to the goals of my journeys from unexpected directions. It was like if new dimensions were added on the spot, to the familiar image, revealing inner structures of its essence.
I could not keep off my mind the thought that all I could see, the meadow, the trees, the hills, the mountains were much more than they appeared, that they were metaphysical entities. Even I am a metaphysical entity, although nothing seems changed in me, nothing that once was the mortal being made of blood and flesh. In this respect I am myself more than what I appear to be. I am an enigma for myself, a realm to be explored. I was waiting for something, without knowing exactly what. I had only a vague thought that I will recognize it when it will appear.
In the valley there was always twilight, which permeated everything with a sad and ineffable feeling, so common to the sunsets on the Earth. But it was only the sight of red ridges of the mountains, over the top of the trees, that evoked in me the sweet and bitter melancholy of the sunset. I only guessed the immensity of space over which the ridges were sending me that message of majesty, although they looked so much near. That vision filled me with the substance of inspiration like I were a vase. The things became significant, without a real progress of my reasoning faculty. Something misterious and enticing radiated from the far wooden peaks.
I spent so mesmerized many hours, almost without my being conscious. For it was only after a very long time that it came to me the idea that maybe that is what I was waiting for. It is then that I understood my destiny has been determined and I was bound to trust my luck into an expedition beyond the mountains. Maybe I will postpone this end, maybe I will chase my tail like a caged animal in this valley for another while, but the eternity will never end until I will have done this venture. Everything flows to the sunset. The men of the future have spent maybe years lingering in this valley but at one moment the immortality must have appeared to them fad without that something which is beyond the mountains. The single fact that there is something there, meant that that something was missed and that they had to try to discover it at any cost, even at the risk of losing their immortality. I realized that my destiny is merging with the destiny of the men of the future. But not yet. I was not desperate enough. There were things I wanted to understand, problems to be resolved. The expedition was postponed indefinitely.
Eventually I lost the notion of time, but that was to be expected in the realm of eternity. The time thinned and I began to realize my discursive existence. In the physical existence we represent the category of eternity by that of the unmoving, and that is profoundly erroneous. The unmoving is in fact only the border zone between eternity and temporality, as the light is that between the physical universes of high and, respectively, low energies. In all that period I debated within myself all that could have been argued. To examine my own soul it was all I could do, and this activity made me discover many surprising and unsuspected facets of my self. If one asks how rich can be a closed space, the answer is infinitely rich. In the rarefied atmosphere of the heights of the conciousness you can see, if you have time and patience, how things come from nothing into existence, how the apparent homogenity splits in tensioned heterogenities. Regarding the expedition itself, it is not an epilogue of my existence, except only in a discursive manner. I cannot locate its moment. Not even compared with my awakening from the cryogenic slumber. In eternity they are simultaneous. Thus, one day, from hope and despair, I gathered enough courage to set on this expedition. I went straight through the wooden lands bordering the valley to the sunset. The ups and downs of the road alternated rhythmically, although I was trying to cut my way near the lowest edge of the hills. Because of the tangled forest I could not see very far I needed to climb a hill to ascertain that my points of reference were there, where did I think them to be. Judging after these points I was advancing very slowly, so even after days of marching I was not far from the meadow and the villa, and the mountains seemed unchanged, as if I would not really have done a single step in their direction. Though, that was only the easiest part of my journey.
To much my surprise, along the road I encountered small human communities, who at my arrival were welcomed by indescribable enthusiasm. They were saying that a sign on the sky has been announcing my coming and that they were waiting for me. Without much talking they demanded to accompany me in my journey. They were decided to follow me even since the apparition of the sign in the sky, and meanwhile they were preparing themselves. I did not ask them if they were from the generation that underwent the transcendental leap, or if they have been born from the instability of Nothingness. We were talking little, not out of sullenness, because you could often see a smile under a perspired brow, but when we stopped to rest, our conversations were gravitating around our hopes, around the mistery that was waiting for us beyond the mountains, not around the past. As long as we advanced through the wooden valley, my troop grew to the proportions of a small army. Then the human settlements became rarer until they disappeared entirely. Soon, the vegetation was sparse, the trees farther apart one from the other and we began to climb steadily. The mountains were approaching. One of my scout teams, sent to explore laterally to the path, came back with news, which filled us with joy. They have discovered a creek which sprang from an isolated mountain range, and flowed toward sunset through a narrow valley. That meant there was a pass through the mountains and maybe a direct way to the other side of the mountains that nobody had discovered yet. We advanced several days along the creek, on its stony bank. The fresh murmur of its clear water flowing over the smooth rocks was encouraging and exalting. Some said that they have dreamed this river long before. It was another good omen that has been fulfilled. Now we were descending through an arid and rocky country, and the creek was widening and its flow becoming more rapid. The canion was more abrupt, the banks more uneven. We were marching now through a narrow pass, and to the left and the right of us were steep and proud mountain walls. The canion was winding fanciful, and we could not see what was beyond the mountain.
But a great deception was in wait for us. The keys were ending suddenly somewhere in the heart of the mountain and the river dived silently through some falls into the Nothingness below. It was a horrible view. The waters were falling quietly and were decomposing themselves somewhere into the deeps. The rest of the pass was a winding tunnel of darkness.
We had to stop there and to begin again the climbing over the steep slopes of the mountain. The incline was very high and the slippery rocks were giving way under our pressure, falling into the chasm, sometime taking one of us with them. For the first time during our journey I was feeling my heart heavy with worry.
The falls have not been the single occasion where we had to confront the chasms of nothingness. The mountains were full of dark and deep precipices from where not even an echo was coming back. The climbing was difficult but worse it was the fact that we had to do it anew, times and times again. We just were arriving at the top of one ridge that a new one was rising beyond, taller than the first. And between the ridges deep ravines were demanding each time a new tribute in lives. Our number was lessening. You could not see smiles anymore, nor hear optimistic prophecies, but we still kept our determination to continue. The mountain was becoming larger, in height as much as in breadth, and no end was in sight for our journey.
From the alternation of ups and downs, the altitude was getting higher, and with it the cold was growing stronger. We were freezing, and we spent the stops gathered one against the other, but from our blue bodies we could not harness any warmth left. With the cold came the snows and the storms, and much more than these, new and deceiving dangers. We lost more companions here in the crevices than before in the ravines. They would slip through ice tunnels into the belly of the mountain and that was the last that we were to see from them anymore. We were allowed only one slight glimpse of hope. Climbing, not only the harshness of the nature was growing, but also the light that came over the ridges. We had had left behind a long time ago the twilight from the valley. Now the days were white and bright, and even though the black starless sky of Nothingness was getting closer, the light was wrapping us in a protective sphere in which the intensity of being seemed to grow indefinitely.
We have wandered maybe eons amidst the snowy peaks. The most episodes of our journey are hazy in my mind, and seem bizarre like fragments of an intricate nightmare from which I thought I would never wake. The company was reduced at one hundredth of what it was at the beginning. Many died, some turned back, others chose another path to the peaks, and after we parted I did not hear anything more from them, ever. The few of my companions left were scattered behind, on several ridges. I was alone climbing, and, as in a beautiful dream, I was not cold any longer, and the mountain was green and covered with flowers. A salted, scented breeze was caressing my face. I was not daring to hope that all was real and not a dream. I was tired, but new forces, come out of nowhere, gave me the force to continue. Toward the summit the incline grew smaller, and, strangely, exotic vegetal species of a luxuriant richness and beauty were resplendently adorning these unreachable peaks, where the eagle would not fly. A great booming amassed from vast echoes came from beyond the ridge. Finally, I reached the level plateau from the top and I could see unobstructed beyond.
A blue sea, with shining waves washed the rocks at the foot of the opposite side of the mountain. As far as I could see there was only the endless blue sea wrinkled by waves and foam. And hanging over the see there was a golden, bright, shining sun surrounded by an aura of rays, who filled the space with warmth and melted the ice from my heart. Softened, I let the tears flow openly on my face, telling myself without ceasing: "It cannot be a dream, it cannot be a dream, I will make it real! --"