Glimmers of light escaped the top of the chasm of glass I found myself encased in. In this hall of a mountain and its king I look to the cavernous facades and see not the stone of a prison but the crystal of an enchanted castle. Its shimmering colors do not stand so far from fantasy in the scheme of reality. What I was doing in this world was a mystery to me. I began my descent into the cavern of glowing light, not afraid, but filled with sunder. Perhaps some act of serendipity had placed me in some starlit cavern among the farthest skies. Perhaps some god in heaven above had called me home to his crystalline palace. Only one thing was for sure, the cavern was beautiful and enticing; thus I made my way deeper.
I descended through a corridor of jagged crystals of untold geometries, in such an organic shape that I had not yet seen their end or their beginning. I had once stepped through this place, in my dreams perhaps, that much I could surely tell. I looked down unto my hand fearing I was some specter, or phantom of the dead: but I took solace at the scrapes and bruises present between my thumb and my forefinger. You see, these scrapes and cuts told me that I was still alive.
I heard some curious voice of a woman, a fat lady perhaps, singing of my end. A twinge of curiosity and fear came over me. For me, a mere man who had lost his name, could not answer. In my vain attempts to speak I realized that I was mute. I relished in the fact that some god or man who had stolen my memory and my voice had left my eyes so that I could feast them upon the glittering caverns that lay before me.
I looked to my left at the end of the passage and a small crawl space blew warm air upon my face. There was no other exit in sight and seeing as there was no exit behind me, it must be surely true that this was the way from which I came, or rather where I should go. I heard a laugh come from deep within the crawl space. I let my curiosity guide me.
I could barely traverse this crux of the journey. As a child I visited a famous cave where a man died trying to crawl such a passage. However I knew deep in my heart that this was not my end, but only my beginning. So my journey continued deep into the chasm of dreams lay before me in splendid harmony with my soul.
I reached the end of the crawlspace and found myself in a tomb fit for giants. Along the walls of the crystal cave were carved buttresses holding the high ceiling up above with heavy hands. At the end of the atrium lay a statue broken and toppled of a woman, naked, holding a torch. Some symbol of liberty from a world long past, among the songs of a woman's whisper guided me to the statue.
Some effigy of glass stared back at me. The woman's eyes were carved out with fractal patterns of paisley tear drops; not in such a way that she was crying, but in a way that she was breathing and alive. Such staunch imagery came into my mind as the whispers grew stronger. I looked to my left as shades of color seemed to erupt in my mind. It was not the way that it was. It was not the way that it is. It was not the way it would be. These sentences came into my mind and shattered my train of thought with a crash. I hadn't the least idea of why I was hearing such things. Perhaps I was mad, after all, considering all the events that I have experienced on this little journey it was not out of consideration that this was some act of lucidity and insanity. Such a thought seemed outlandish immediately upon recollecting the cuts and scrapes on my hands.
One last time I went over the phrases in my mind. It was not the way that it was. It is not the way that it is. It is not the way it would be. As the light glimmered through the room I took a moment to rest and made my way to the dark alcove behind the fallen statue, victim of iconoclasm, and made my way to a nearby staircase made of frosted glass. It was no longer so bright and cheery as I made my descent. The air began to smell and feel as if it were damp, and of moss and cut grass. Ivy grew along the walls of the sparkling rock, and crept here, and there, and all around. In some act of pleasantry I smiled as I made my way into the next area. A menagerie of creatures among an arbor of vines and other flora growing so high that the ceiling seemed, if not impossible, very difficult to reach.
