Gliding through Alien Skies
(Chapter Four)
The creatures were strange and intimidating with
giant wings folded up at their sides, elongated bodies and heads with large
intelligent eyes but they had small mouths and moved slowly. Their skin was a
gray and very smooth, with their wings a darker hue, almost black. They looked
at once magnificent and quite alien to my eyes, they were about 100 feet long
and 20 feet high at least. Sitting there side by side, they dominated the open
area. How I was able to stand there without running away in sheer terror is
beyond me. If I had angered them they could have killed me with little effort.
There was something else that kept me there, a strange sense of security has
suddenly overcome me, though it wasn’t complete, as I was still badly shaken
up. As I moved closer to the creatures, I noticed that they each had a harness
on them. I began to feel less threatened by them, emboldened, I moved even
further towards them. Suddenly, they turned their eyes and looked directly at
me. My heart skipped a beat. I stopped in my tracks. I stood absolutely still.
They stood absolutely still. It was a standoff between a small man and these
twin beasts. I couldn’t move or breathe and regretted leaving the building. I
was prepared
to run right back inside if they had made even the smallest movement towards me.
Seconds dragged on like hours
then, I saw an outline move out from behind them. At
first I couldn’t tell who it was, but as she slowly walked towards me, I
recognized who it was. This was incredibly reassuring and made all my worries
evaporate. As she moved closer, I could see that she had something in her hand.
It was some kind of handheld device, whose functions I couldn’t understand.
Then she walked towards one of the creatures, I walked behind her and she
climbed up the ladder onto the creature’s back. I and started up on the
ladder, but she looked down, waved her hand and pointed towards the other
creature. Reluctantly, I walked to the other creature, which seemed a bit
suspicious of me. I walked up the ladder, and once on it’s back, I settled
into the seat and waited.
The creatures rose up to their full height, extending
their legs until I was more than 100 feet up in the air. I looked at her atop
the other creature. She smiled at me, the harnesses began to glow and a
protective glass like the one I had seen in the earlier dream emerged from
nothing and enclosed the areas where we sat. These glass shields protected us
with their strong yet porous construction allowing us to feel the wind as the
creatures began to our weight from side to side. The creatures moved into a
position with her beast in front of mine. Her beast unleashed a mighty scream,
and began to run incredibly fast, it extended it’s wings, lowered it’s hind
legs slightly, then with a massive energy burst jumped and soared into the alien
sky. My creature followed the same technique, though it might have been able to
sense my fear since it’s scream wasn’t as loud. The creature quickly caught
up with the other one, and we were soon flying side by side atop them, surging
through the planet’s atmosphere at an incredibly fast speed. I looked down and
could see the planet quickly growing smaller as we moved away from it. I looked
ahead, and saw the universe ahead of me. I looked at her and she looked very
happy. The dream I had before began to make a lot more sense, it was a kind of
preparation for this, and I was glad she had given it to me, for it set the
stage for this new journey we were about to share with each other.
I turned my head back around, and the huge
machines, glass structures and mountain ranges that had been my basis of
relation to this world slowly vanished in the distance, becoming ever smaller,
resembling microscopic dots until they dissolved into what appeared to be little
more than small points on the surface of the planet. The creatures gradually
slowed and turned around. I looked at her and she glanced at me, and I saw her
eyes were almost glowing with the excitement. We were facing directly towards
the planet now and it was an absolutely beautiful globe, radiating it’s
perfection into space. In I turned back once again, and saw the blue sun in the
center of this universe. It looked smaller against the backdrop of stars and
seemed much more powerful than it did at the surface. In the distance I could
see large gas clouds, brilliantly colored drifting through space.
There were
also other distant planets and an endless array of stars in the further
distance. It was an experience that I cannot relay with these words.
Comprehending it in from the vantage point of space was impossible, though I
felt very strongly a sense of purpose and optimism I hadn’t sensed in myself
in many years. As I examined it, the planet didn’t feel as static or cold as
it seemed when I was on the surface. I looked at her floating in space on top of
her creature and she seemed to be as moved and enraptured of this experience as
I was.
The surface of the planet seemed very smooth with small bands of clouds
flowing around the planet, giving it the appearance of being wrapped in small
strings of frayed fabric. It seemed rather seamless, but I could also see that
there were different areas and regions that made subtle visual differences. The
creatures began to jostle again and they flew us closer towards the planet. The
different regions of this world began to become more clearly detailed. Despite
the coldness I assumed enveloped the entire world, at it’s equator, there were
huge oceans. On the landmasses in the north, there were huge pulsating areas of
machines, whose motions reflected into space and could be seen clearly even
thousands of miles above them. They were arranged in such a way as to be
absolutely beautiful and geometric in their arrangement. As we drew closer, I
saw that there were huge complexes probably hundreds of miles wide with these
machines pumping in a beautiful unison, these were surrounded by complex
arrangements of buildings, surrounding these were forests, all intricately laid
out and balanced, no element seemed to dominate the landscape.
Up to that point, I had been a passive passenger on
top of the creature, but I could sense that she wanted me to take a more active
role in the journey. I took the controller out from the side of the chair where
I had placed it and held it in my hand. The creature let out a sigh, and his
whole body quivered, apparently signaling that it was ready to accept my
direction. I was a little nervous to be honest, fearing that I could get myself
killed. She moved behind my creature. I was now leading us on the adventure,
pointing whichever direction I wanted. After several minutes of figuring out how to use the device, along
with sudden jarring changes in directions, I quickly found it very simple and
began to pilot the creature rather smoothly through the surface. After this the
main difficulty was in deciding which of the many areas I wanted to glide
towards to examine closer. I could feel her approval coming from behind me and I
basked in her spiritual glow. It was a
feeling unlike any I’ve ever had, the sense of freedom and exploration I had
was something I’ve never come close to.
It was an incredible, almost
spiritual sensation, after having felt so pushed around for so long by life - it
was a startling event to come to. I controlled the beast, we began to
learn each other and quickly began to act as one, watching her planet unfold
before my eyes was amazing and the feeling of speed combined with the large
planet spread out before me, caused a great almost spiritually cleansing
sensation to overcome me. I no longer felt alone or cold. I could see the
creatures were beginning to lose patience with our sight-seeing, so I commanded
it to glide in through the planet, slowly descending. We flew our creatures flew
even closer to the world, soaking in it’s richness and beauty. It was quite a
humbling experience, indescribable.
As we passed through the outer edges of the
atmosphere allowing us an even better look at the incredible landscapes before
us. This was a breathtaking world, with incredible canyons giving way to huge
mountains in one areas, creating a dramatic contrast between the landscape.
There were thousands of miles of flatlands containing hundreds of tiny lakes and
rivers. We flew to the planet’s southern edge and saw hundreds of the ice
circles I had described earlier. There were many sporadic episodes in which you
could see one of them explode into the same color that had engulfed her. To the
north of this, the planet was much darker and apparently unpopulated because it
dotted by craters and other impact points, there were machines here as well,
straddling their walls. At these points, the machines didn’t glow and instead
seemed to blend in with the darker areas. These areas of the planet washed by
quickly, and made me wish we could slow down. We slowly began to descend in an
easy glide towards the area where we had originally been. I could sense that the
beasts were a bit tired after such a long flight and needed a rest.
We slowly drifted downward through the alien atmosphere, slowly
gently coming to a rest in the exact same area we had left several hours before
hand. The creatures began to wail as we left them. She went over to the sacred
pool, performed her ritual was bathed in the light green glow and then food
appeared before the creatures. They happily ate their food and we sat down and
watched them eat, both happy to help these beings who had allowed us to see
things we never could have seen on our own. This experience created an
indescribable bond between us, something I can never rationalize or communicate adequately
with these words.
There are many
other experiences that I could share, but this small fragment is all I can
convey without overwhelming myself. Despite all that happened, It was merely a single journey, from a
time I can never forget. Though it seemed to have slipped under the surface as
other things took precedence, I never forgot her or her world. In all honesty, I’ve never really put her or that world
behind me, despite the pressures and realities that have chipped away at my
recollections.
Life resumed, I could almost
detect a feeling of slow, but substantial progress towards a vague resemblance
of normalcy. A strange, alien sense of promise had gradually come back to me,
though not without great effort and several more painful experiences. Yet, I
found myself back in that dark, doomed city after one particularly nightmarish
time when everything seemed to be going wrong. I found myself aimlessly walking through
it's twisting streets, as usual empty and deserted at this time of night
consumed by darkness and freezing under it's harsh frigidity.
The icy mix of precipitation fell onto the streets harder and harder. This time,
I wasn't going to repeat the old pattern of mistakes. I made a vow to myself and
refused to allow myself to
compromise for another elusive prize, sacrificing a large measure my spirit in
the process.
Unlike I had done so many times before, I didn’t turn around and return to
seek the city's empty, transient warmth. Instead, as the storm deepened in intensity,
I ran faster in the opposite direction towards my
destination. Memories of the happy time with her glowed as strongly as they ever
had, driving my each step harder, despite the storm's determination to halt my
progress. My determination fueled to an awareness of the damage done by the debilitating,
frustrating, saddening and deeply hurtful events that have conspired for these
past four years, nearly succeeding at turning promise into vapor. But not entirely. I thought of the mad obsessions with the
meaningless. How I smothered my spirit while others laughed behind my back as
they prepared to plunge their knives into it. I think of all the
betrayals, lies and near catastrophes that have happened, I thought of the way
that this has hurt my spirit almost beyond repair. I couldn't even begin to
describe how damaged and deeply defeated I felt whenever these memories were
jarred. And the knowledge of how this malignant negativity affected all aspects of my life
led to a strange self-awareness.
As I wandered, looking up at the
suffocating buildings, these thoughts collided with each other ever more
rapidly - suggesting something was changing deep inside of me. I could only
reach one conclusion. It was time for me to go back to my true home and make
repairs on my damaged psyche. I reached the edge of the city, which is seemed to
grow ever more desolate as the snow accumulated. The ice froze the tears that had fallen from my eyes, my hands
were numb from the cold and wind, but it no longer mattered to me. I looked back
towards the ugly city with it’s garish lights, and after all this time, I saw it’s empty promises for the lies they really
were. I took the locator from my pocket and followed it’s beeps. I came
to a recessed area in a hidden tunnel under the protective watch of an out-of-the way hill. The ground
was covered in leaves and old dirt, but felt perfectly untouched except for
remains of a stray broken bottle. I push the button and the ground begins to shake and rise. Four
years of dirt, grime, leaves and muck slowly dissolved and a round pool of ice
covered a pool of flowing water. It was exactly as I’d left it. I stood on the pool and rotated my arms
around in the gestures she taught me. The blue and green light slowly enveloped
my body. It washed out the bleak park around me defeating the gloom of this
night with it's bright, green glow. I felt myself
moving at an incredible speed. Slowly, things became still. The light slowly
faded away, and I found myself in an alien yet familiar environment. I felt the
pure cool air on my face and saw the transparent structures and their accompanying
machines churning in silent determination. The majestic, spiked mountaintops
loomed in the distance, brushing the horizon's greenish blue with their divine
peaks. I looked up and out towards, searching the skies for a welcoming beacon.
I found it as I always did with a bit of effort, barely visible, almost hiding
under the clouds. But there it was, still glowing faintly in the distance.
Despite it's weak luminance, the sun was still as radiant and gorgeous as I
remembered it. Instantaneously, the fears and worries that had shadowed me dissipated under the understanding glow of
faint yet friendly blue star.
I was finally home again. - Michael Palisano
Original publishing date: October, 2000 - to coincide with site launch
(above) Original name and logo for this story
