It is the eve of the Harvest Festival.

Tomorrow there will be bonfires on Tar Beach and in Park to celebrate.

Tonight, the streets of City are wet and empty. I am alone in the dark and lonely corridors between the silent buildings. Why is it always raining? I guess it hides the tears.

I am Upuaut, born of the Sea and Fire. I am the gray wolf and the Opener of the Way.

Titania in your bubble,
did you ever wish the World would Change?

Be careful what you wish for.

Falling Angel

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In the room named Loneliness, I see a dark cliff. Ocean waves break silver against its base. The waning moon reflects iridescent blue and green across the rippling water. At the top of the cliff, teetering on emptiness, is a glass bubble. It shields two tiny figures.

Inside the bubble, blue and green flashes shimmer on the butterfly-wings of Titania, Queen of the World. She huddles on the ground, her wings folded about her. She weeps. Near her, the winged horse kneels.

Look beyond them—through the bubble—to the moon on the sea. Outside, there are only formless dark shadows, hidden in smoke and mist.

A silver feather falls from the wing of Pegasus. It floats silently to the ground in the still air. His wings lift softly and fall back as he sighs. He is dying. He cannot live and be bound.

Around the base of the bubble there are diamond-cut scratchings—names, and dates, and deeds. One says Mother, another Father: Others say Rape, Brutality, Neglect. Titania, Queen of the World created the bubble to keep them out. They are written in everything she does.

Titania holds her head and weeps. She has long-ago given up flying. Her head aches constantly from beating on the glass, trying to escape. Her freedom is a broken dream.

Her wings were strong. Crusted salt tears have made them stiff. When they are quite useless, she will move to the next room—Heartbreak. And when at last it is too late, and when she understands why her dreams have died, she will move a final time, to the permanent collection, in the last room—the room named Despair.

She has forgotten why she built the bubble. She has forgotten that she continually creates it. She has forgotten the secret key within herself that will break the bubble, lift the chains, and shatter the stone.

She reaches out, wet with tears, to wash away the dust. Where her tears touch the glass, the salt crystallizes, shutting out still more of the gray moon and the gray sea.

I have spent forever, on the outside of the bubble, dying to show her the hidden key. She cannot hear; she does not understand the gray shadows that she sees. Her own name within is the secret key. Freedom so simple, so impossible.

The wind screams in a fury about my head and the waves pound the broken boulders below the face of the cliff. Arcs of jagged lightening flash across the sky while the ground trembles and threatens instant failure. The Earth and the Air conspire against me, but they are too weak—the Sea and Fire have other plans.

I am Upuaut, born of the Sea and Fire. I am the gray wolf and the Opener of the Way.

The bubble shall not stand.

I am a saboteur in The Temple of Self-Imposed Darkness.

The scaffolding is erected and ready. Tomorrow they will move the bubble to the room called Heartbreak. It is one minute to midnight.

I move a single grain of sand.
I have opened a door!
I have allowed Death a place at the table.

The bubble teeters and slowly rolls toward the edge of the cliff. When it smashes upon the rocks below, Pegasus will surely die. Perhaps Titania will awaken then, and remember how to fly. Perhaps she too will die.

Dust to dust, ashes for ashes.
Death is the last hope for the living.
Be careful what you wish for.

There is a Hall of Mirrors in the Pavilion of Silence—four walls, the ceiling, floor—there is nothing more. Here I must look upon myself, not as I wish to see myself, not as I might have been, but as I am. Here in the endless reflections, I stand as Judge. Here in the endless reflections, I will be judged. I am the Dream and the Dreamer, and my dreams are Dreams of Love and Dreams of Will.

I lie upon the floor. A tear slides from my eye down my cheek towards my reflected cheek. I lie upon the floor in the Hall of Mirrors in the Pavilion of Silence at the Crossroads of the Universe. There is blood upon my hands. There is blood in the Mirror of Infinity. There is blood in the Book of Names.

There is a price for opening a door.