Otherness

“Where are we?” I ask McFizzer as we walk through a particularly beautiful meadow of lush green grass splattered with the yellow and white of a million daisies.

“Not sure.”

“Is it just me or do you feel strange – I can’t put my finger on it - just a strange feeling almost as if I am drunk.”

“A feeling of otherness?”

“I am not exactly sure what you mean but oddly enough ‘otherness’ would describe it. So if you have no idea where we are how come you know we have a days walk to get to where we have to be?”

“I feel it.” As I said before, “Open your mind Tavis – this will all become so much easier for you if you can banish your skepticism and relax and let time flow through you.”

“I will try.”

“Good.” McFizzer stops and places his opened hand above his brow to shield his eyes from a golden sun, “Look over there down in the valley just beyond the purple field.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Keep looking, you will.”

Eventually I see a faint flash of light “I can see it,” I say.

“Good.”

“What is it?”

“It is a flash of light.”

“Duhhh yeah I could have told you that.”

“So why ask me?”

We continue walking toward the light in silence, something about our surroundings demanded peace. Occasionally we pause to take a bearing, but curiously never to rest - for some reason neither of us become weary we just continue walking as if pulled by an invisible force. Eventually we arrive at the field of purple grasses and within a mile of our journeys end.

“It looks like a greenhouse,” I say looking toward the source or the light and then reaching down to pluck a strand of grass from the ground to study the lilac stem and mauve seeds.

“It appears to be a large glass sphere,” answers McFizzer. “Maybe it is a shrine of sorts.”

“Let’s go see,” I say - now leading the way and sucking on the grass. “Hey this grass tastes of licorice.”


Leaving the field of purple grass we enter an area about the size of a tennis court, it is bordered by a low white picket fence and the surface is billiard table flat neatly mown into parallel lines, standing dead centre of this space is a perfect globe of glass about 20 feet in diameter. As we approach we can see that the globe is full of a fluid that is milky white in colour, the liquid is of a density that makes it impossible to see inside beyond the first few inches.

“Interesting.” McFizzer walks up to the globe and pushes his face against it peering in, I stand beside him and place my hand on the surface and I am surprised to find that it is warm almost body temperature.

“I have heard talk of something like this before.” McFizzer announces. “Stand back a little Tavis I want to try something.”

I take one pace back and then I watch as McFizzer sits cross-legged at the base of the globe and positions his hands upon the surface slightly apart. The fluid immediately begins to swirl around – slowly at first starting at the points where McFizzers hands come into the contact with the globe, then the whirlpools increases in size gradually filling the orb causing bubbles to rise as the milky fluid becomes a frothy boiling vortex. As the orb vibrates like a washing machine with a missing leg McFizzer holds steady focusing on the patch of glass directly in front of him, inside the maelstrom continues now with colours flashing through it - gold – red – blue – silver and finally black and then in an instant all is calm.

McFizzer speaks to blackness. “Show yourself, move forward and show yourself.”

Again he summons. “Show yourself, move forward and show yourself.”

Out of the dark viscera looms a face.