Beldin awoke with a start. Beldin stirred from his dream and sat upright.
Beldin rolled out from under a rock and looked around. Beldin..

Beldin!

That was his name. He certainly knew that. Why wouldn't he know his name?
It was his own name.

But what was this place? How did he come to be here? He grimaced at the
effort required to muster these few questions, and his voice sailed
unanswered into the valley below.

So I'm definitely Bourne.
I'm also definitely Kane.

Fire, synapses, fire! He commanded his brain to begin providing answers,
but there was no clarity, no reason, no comprehension.

Wiggle your big toe.
Wiggle your big toe

He looked again at his surroundings. A rock. A tree, then another. A
stream. A hill behind him. A colorless landscape in dusk's long shadows.

Why this place?

Why here? Why now?

Beldin remembered this: In that twilight state between sleep and awake, the
mind makes its own reality. And then dreams can become real. Or is that
reality can become a dream?

Confused . Awake. Dreaming. Dead, possibly. Beldin bounced from option to
option, but the rules of logic seemed no longer to apply. Each was
possible, each was equally and completely implausible.

If you know the number of the person you'd like to reach,
press pound now.

Such is the case with ontological breakdowns, he mused. Being and not being
there. As Lao-Tzu said, "All things are born of being; being is born of
non-being."

It's just, it's just, it's just,
Just like being there.

Beldin wondered why quantum mechanics and words of great philosophers came
so easily, while explanations for his immediate predicament were non-existent.

Speak, memory!

Beldin sensed that the key to curing his complete neural cataclysm was
waiting to be unlocked in his own memory. In dreams begin responsibilities.
In memories begin understanding. Beldin needed to think. Think and remember.

Ah, the key at last came to him in a white hot flash Beldin would
teleport back to some place in memory, return to a familiar place, and then
all would become clear.

That's it, that's all. But what was the first thing he remembered, or the
last thing? Or had all his memories been erased, wiped clean, overwritten
with bits?

I am putting myself to the fullest possible use,
which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.

The beach! Beldin remembered a beach, the beach, the beach near the
islands. This miserable state of suspended existence was more than he could
tolerate, and if he could only return to the beach, as faded and distant as
it was in his memory.

Beldin faltered, considering the alternatives. Then, with resolve, he
closed his eyes and spoke in a firm voice:

Whenever you find yourself in doubt
Return to where you started out.

The wizard slowly opened his eyes, and took in his new surroundings. A
wooden sign read "NOSE WINNING" in faded letters, which, although it made
no sense to Beldin, he did not question. Any absurdities in his world were
most likely due to the breakdown in his perceptual faculties.

There, the grass, and the trail heading northeast these seemed at once
familiar and strange. Beldin was drawn up the trail, and he gave no fight
to the allure. He followed the trail for a ways as greens and yellows
swirled just at the edges of his vision, until he suddenly stopped,
startled by a sudden division. The road on which he was traveling turned in
one direction, but the path that he was following turned in another. This
again seemed both familiar and strange. Beldin, following instinct, choose
the path.

Beldin felt tired. "I think I'll rest for a while and worry about my
mission and the rest of my adventure some other century." Those words came
automatically, and Beldin was taken aback by the ease with which the words
flowed.

He trudged ahead. There, on the left, was a familiar old stump in the
woods. It had grown, hadn't it? Or was it always ten feet tall? How could
it be familiar when it was so foreign? This mighty fallen tree on the
ground, too, with its twin limbs was it truly familiar, or was it just
that he wanted to see objects and places that were known to him? Was he
merely fabricating memories out of gossamer-thin thoughts?

Beldin made his way to the bare stump, and saw the way he was meant to
follow. A log on the ground pointed to the safety of the rocks. His energy
was fading fast. "This looks older than I do, doesn't it?" he mused. "Oh
my!" he gasped as he settled in. "How does one ever imagine getting out of
here?"



|-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-|
Silent Doug, P41 F542 X73 E11
silentdoug@letterboxing.info
http://www.letterboxing.info


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