Winter Sleep

The day began as any other but it would end all too differently. I stood by my window, basked in the pale morning light, holding a cup of black tea from which waving leaves of steam ebbed and flowed and disappeared against the windowpane. And before me was that same old gray sky which seemed to consume the entire landscape. Everything from the dying tree line to the empty roads was almost made gloomy by the bleak color of the unforgiving winter sky. I could not help to think of how desolate the world looked beyond my high tower but it was still early hours, only a little after dawn. As such, I could detain myself in observance of it all, in that morning devoid of people, that drowsy moment just before everyone was awakened, and the world would begin to move.

I sat at my desk, now sideways to the window, about to begin my work but still lingering for a little while longer. Working from home meant I could choose my own time, be it early in the morning or late into the night, as long as in the end the day surrendered its fruits. For however erratic my schedules might be I was never one to neglect my work. It was my pride, the due diligence with which I conducted my affairs, unfailingly so I should add, for as long as I could remember. But I would be remiss if I were to lie, so I do confess that working from home had made me lose track of time every now and again. For example, it became increasingly difficult to remember for just how long had it been winter, as there was no recent recollection in my mind of something other than that pale gray light shining through my window during those mornings and the dark early nights that followed them. Such a thought made me remember the cold, and as a consequence, I brought the teacup to my lips and sipped it, and though I did not exactly care for its taste and texture, it was somehow soothing on such a day. It was as if it would keep me mindful and help me detach from that strange cold, not the one in my body for I tended to my chambers by insulating them from the hazardous winds and rains, but a cold inside me, deep in my stomach or maybe swirling somewhere in my head, traveling all through my body... It almost worked but only for a very fleeting moment, since when I tried to seize that feeling I found it was long gone and any memory of warmth had become more akin to a dream.

As I was about to begin, a sudden gust of freezing wind whistled along my tower and into my chambers, even slashing my cheek as it passed through me. With a jolt down my spine, I rose from my chair but at that same time, the wind slammed the door shut and all sound was immediately silenced. I was then calmed and proceeded to think rational thoughts, but a rather odd feeling struck me for I never opened any of my windows that early in the morning, if ever at all. Where that burst could have come from still eluded me and though the cold cuts on my skin made me feel funny at the time, I now remember them with an exhilaration I care not to describe. And then that feeling intensified, the door to my chambers appeared to be stuck. The handle turned correctly enough but it gave off a dreadful creaking noise, and the more I twisted it the more it seemed to fill with some sort of mushy slime oiling it from the inside. No matter how much I tried it would not move nor did any of the waste that clogged it ooze out, much to my disappointment. Strangely, it was not like something on the other side pushed the door back and not like the mechanism itself was broken. It was of no avail.

With a quiet resignation, I sat back down, returning to my tea and finding it surprisingly easy for my mind to wander away from my predicament. Surely it would fix itself somehow, and if not, sooner or later I could call for help, no matter how much that notion would abhor me. But another notion abhorred me even more. Though still calm and collected, I found I had little to do for the rest of the day. I was just there, shut in my chambers, whiling away the time since my workday was now categorically and irredeemably ruined. I just remained in my chair, at first with what I can imagine as a sullen look on my face, and then I began to lose myself in thoughts, waiting and waiting, and before I could realize, no more light shone from my window. Night had come, as black and cold as whatever remained of my tea, which I then proceeded to swill, knowing full well it would be stagnant. With the bitter taste of it still churning in my tongue, I went to the pitch-black window and drew the curtains so as to shut it away from the world. Upon returning, I found the cup now had the distinct mark of a dried stain in its depths. For no particular reason, I detained myself for a little while, trying to make sense of the shape but finding it nothing more than a very bizarre circle.

By that time I was left with a rather acidic hunger but something else troubled me more than those hunger pains. I had begun to feel a slight pain in my nape, slowly creeping down my spine, a slight pain indeed but so unrelenting. In any case, I was set on ignoring such petty tribulations, seeing as the door remained shut, and since it was now dark I had missed my chance to call upon any charitable wanderer who could have happened to pass below my window. I impassively yielded to the idea and so, very keen on preserving my honor, I laid in bed, decided on forcing myself to fall asleep on an empty stomach but all the while eager to awake the following morning so as to repair the disarray caused by those unforeseeable circumstances. My bones annoyed me yet, for I could still feel the pain in my nape growing, slowly but surely. I would twist and turn in a string of desperate attempts to find a comfortable position to curl up in, finding one only to moments later change again in swelling frustration. And then something assaulted my ears. In the almost absolute darkness of my chambers, faintly lit only by a sliver of moonlight through the curtains, I began to hear crawling noises creeping through the walls. Tiny, almost distant, and far too many to count. A kind of slow, slithering crawl in every direction... When my ears could pinpoint a spot in the wall the sound would shift as if in avoidance of my awareness, completely enveloping me and about to swallow me whole. Then it began to gather in one place and soon enough I tracked the noise. Whatever it was, it concentrated on the top corner of the wall, the very opposite one to where I was. Only when my eyes locked on to its origin was all that clamor very abruptly hushed.

What happened next would have had me retching onto the sheets were I not to have a mercifully empty stomach. I was called upon with a knock at the door... All speech was stolen from me, as was all movement. I sat in bed, with my body wholly paralyzed and my eyes widened, witnessing the serene, moonlit amenity of my chambers invaded by a weird presence. My initial conviction was that the whole thing was a dream, it had to be, it made no difference how real and vivid it was. Even if I was wide awake, it had to be a dream... The knock came again, a resolute sound that would simply refuse to be ignored any longer. Then did the words come to me, louder than one should speak in the night, for I almost screamed in a voice that was not quite my own. Leave me alone, go away, I said. Only now do I see what a pathetic sight that must have been, me sitting in bed, helplessly refusing entrance to my chambers with what I can only remember as the wails of a petulant child. So I remained there, unable to move, my jaw clenching so tight it began to hurt, so much so I thought it would dislocate. Then there was the final knock, sounding exactly like the ones that preceded it. But it was something else that sent me leaping from my bed rather disgracefully, something that I instinctively knew to be a response to my cries. You cannot deny him, it must be done... Those were the words that came to me, whispered from an overwhelming sea of voices, somewhere from behind the walls of my chambers, the same walls that I in my ignorance thought would keep me shielded from the outside world were now irreversibly under siege. I knew at once what to do.

Upon rising and standing as upright as I could, I felt myself turn to face the door like a gentle push had just nudged me on the shoulder and made me walk towards it, almost as if the floor itself had something like its own underwater current. With each step the voices around my chambers grew louder and louder, burrowing and echoing in my ears like yells and war drums reaching their peak but then, when I grabbed hold of the door handle, they all died down. The anticipation of it all made me tremble. There was no turning back and nowhere to run to. With an impulse that was hardly my own, certainly not of my own mind, I opened the door and nearly gasped with horror at the sight.

It was him whom deep down I had always known. His cloak was dark tattered cloth, old rags that must have scuttled along infinite universes, something an inferior person would scoff at in stupidity, unknowing of how purely precious even a thread of his royal cloak would be, so beautifully perfumed with the scent of him. And his crown was so majestic no one could possibly ever wear it, for it grew around his strangely shaped head, all around his blessed body, surrounding him, piercing him, growing in and out of him... When I saw what he carried I fell to my knees in shame, ready to submit to him at once. For he came bearing the most magnificent, impossibly rectangular black box, made of some holy stone that swallowed all light unto itself like something most certainly not of this vain world. What he then made me realize no human reason could explain. He had seen universes be born and die, traveled to and from places no fragile mind could even remotely grasp, he had raised and crushed untold numbers of worlds, near or far apart from ours in what was eternity to our existence but a flicker to his. All throughout the jest of our brief human history, every single great emperor of old and of yet to come have bowed their heads to him, and in the end they were gracefully consumed by the black stars all the same. And in my madness I wanted to turn him away, him who came upon my chambers bearing gifts!

Luckily, my insolence had been summarily forgiven as the voices told me what to do. Submit, they said. I did so. It is yours for the taking, rejoice, rejoice! You who have been graced with the gift of the King! And indeed I was being honored. On my knees I gazed up at him who seemed so distant now, like he was atop a mountain eclipsing the whole world, and yet his arms reached me, presenting the black box before my teary eyes. I had to resist the urge to kiss his strange hands, as his royal fingers so gently caressed my new gift. I let my hand descend into the box and found it had no end, as if my arm or even my whole body could dive into it and wander around inside forever, but just then a new feeling washed over me. It was as if my fingers were dissolving, like my whole putrid physical nature was disintegrating and right on the verge of becoming something far greater. Only then did I see it and I became unable to contain myself. Make me a servant in your kingdom, I screamed. The black tower of leaves rises in the night! I will worship you at its steps, I will howl at the swirling stars in your name! Oh please, do with me as thou wilt, my King! I thrashed and wailed until my voice shook and my knees bled. For all I knew I had been endlessly pleading and would gladly continue to do so. However, I was granted some poisoned mercy as the King soothed my trembling but gave me a far greater pain by removing himself from my sight. And then I awoke to find myself in bed.

My chambers were as clean as I had left them, only now they brimmed with the daylight which crept through the sliver on the curtain, and more importantly, they had been graced by the King's presence. It could not have been a dream, not even a mere fever dream for I had known my share of those. It had to have been a true revelation! The King was true, no... he was the only truth, and he beckoned me into his kingdom. I had discovered secrets no other mortal fool could possibly attain on his own, an understanding not even the wisest of philosophers could so much as glean. I knew at once the glory of the King was to be shared and it had fallen on me to be his prophet, a grand charge before mankind and yet I would remain his lowly slave. There would be more of us as there had been countless ones already. It had been set in motion, an odd quickening, the King's machinations, the wheels had begun to turn towards his great advent! Oh, I could just about feel it but his grace had begun to elude me already. My first impulse was to let my head sink back into the pillow in an attempt to cling to him, to return to the dream, but I soon came to the realization that I was wide awake and with a stupid grin on my face.

Only then did it appear before my eyes. A peculiar stain had grown on the otherwise white wall. It had been there, on the very same spot where the voices rushed to and gathered just before there was that noble knock at the door. I rushed to examine it and saw no more than a slight smudge on the wall, somewhat of a swirling cloud, almost fading and imperceptible. But in my mind's eye I could see it clearly. It was no mere stain, it was a sign! It was just above my eyeline as well it should, for even his symbol should always be looked up to and never down from. I just had to touch it, there was simply no resisting it. I can still remember how raising my hand towards it made me feel, breathing deeper and faster, almost shivering, only for it all to come to a sudden halt when the tips of my fingers did indeed reach it and nothing happened. Yet I would not be deterred. The signs were clear. In my sleep the King would reveal himself time and time again... I am yours, my Lord, now and always, I whispered into the symbol, and I could almost hear it echo back into me, like a kiss.

Returning to the window, I found the morning as gray as any other, just that same winter landscape. I never did have any particular care for it but now I saw it quite differently. My revelation had rendered me unable to gaze upon it without a hint of contempt, although what I felt was mostly complete indifference, a bottomless pit of it. Even my work, which I used to take pride in and was good at, was now utterly meaningless nonsense. I could have destroyed it, all my effort and dedication, all the care I put into it, but my thoughts were clearer. To destroy it would only be to waste more time with it for it no longer made any difference whether the thing was done or undone. It was all so petty and far below me. My work, my whole life's work, turned out to be no more than a little amusement, just some game I whiled away the time with. But no more. The illusion had shattered and however long I pondered on my old life, my old ignorant life, I knew right then I would never allow myself to return to it.

Having turned away from my window and away from my work, perhaps forever, I stood there admiring the symbol on the wall. My neck began to trouble me once again, this constant throbbing pain shooting all through my spine. And of course, my hunger persisted. Yet I would not feel anything at that time. The black symbol called to me, it fascinated me, it drew me in as if I was sinking. Then did the shape dawn on me, the blemish on the wall twisted and turned, wrapping further around itself. The more I looked the more I came to know its shape, circling forever and ever, binding my eyes from the center to the edge and then to the center again, though whenever it did I could never remember from which point I had begun. For the King's glorious symbol, the mark with which he graced the world, was a spiral. And for that reason I came to love spirals, to be so obsessed with them that I almost wanted to become one. But at that time I was content simply by losing myself in his.

Then a moment came whereby, once again, I was shaken to my core. The black spiral began to grow distinctly darker until it seemed to have completely vanished. I am not ashamed to admit I whimpered in despair only to then be relieved by the absurd feeling left by the silly realization that night had come and the window no longer lit my chambers. Indeed, night had fallen, a night as dark as the spiral, and with it came a brand-new anticipation. I would sleep and would then welcome him to haunt my dreams with tales of unspeakable things, full of wisdom and beauty far too sublime for the simpleminded people I had come to pity.

With such high hopes I laid in bed and closed my eyes. And though I tried to mask my excitement and fall asleep my thoughts nonetheless betrayed me. Some worldly pains still troubled me but I could easily neglect them. The problem was that I was not as weary as on that fateful night, so I had to let my mind run free, imagining how, after being taken by sleep, I would depart to a land beyond the black stars, with mountains all around it that rose to become so colossal they would consume this world many times over. And then I would see the yellow fields at the edge of his great city, and the blue shore on the other side of it. I would run through the empty houses towards the King's tower in the distance. My steps would murmur in a hushed echo through the cobblestones, and just over the horizon an impossible light would nearly blind me. The clouds would circle around the tower of leaves in a continuous dance of swirling waves, like an ocean of undying currents in limitless directions, like each shift they undertook rewrote the history of the universe and then changed it back again. However long it took to reach the steps of the tower matters not, for it is a journey I would be willing to take time and time again, just to finally reach it and wait there, looking up and waiting to hail the King.

Still exhilarated, reeling from the intense excitement that often preceded a fever, I opened my eyes, disappointed to find that I had not yet slept and therefore had not dreamt. But the sign on the wall caught my attention. It was now a vivid dark color against the white wall, a shade of black I had seen only once before. The pale moonlight crept through the curtain and though it illuminated my chambers well enough for me to get my bearings, the symbol seemed to swallow all light unto itself. And then did my eyes drift onto the ceiling and I noticed it was almost as pitch-black as the spiral on the wall. I remained there, lying in bed, completely petrified except for my vile neck when yet another vision came to me. It had taken me a while to realize why my ceiling was so dark, as the whiteness of it was not darkened but covered, and whatever covered it, I thought, gave it a new shape by waving and twitching. Then a spiral on the ceiling appeared before me, and then another and another and another. The ceiling was full of them, all these infinite spirals huddling together, some unmoving, others shivering and gluing themselves ever tighter. For in truth they were no mere painted symbols, they were all his many servants who, by revealing themselves to me, had accepted me as their equal. Some of them, without enough surface to cling to, began to slip away from the ceiling, at first elongating their slimy bodies like a raindrop only to then come falling onto the floor with a loud squishy thump. Indeed, it was all part of the King's grace. They had willingly accepted to become his servants and to take on the form of his symbol, the glorious spiral, and for no other reason than that, they became snails, fragile, disgusting snails. And at that moment it crossed my mind how I truly envied them.

Unable to move I eased my disturbed breathing so as to think. My arms had given up, my legs would simply not obey me and even felt so very estranged from me. My neck had begun to turn sluggish like it was full of rust. First came my frustration as I tried to force my body into moving, into releasing itself from its paralysis. My despair came next as I began to grunt, half in exhaustion and half in sadness. Finally, I came to the realization that my body had already been surrendered, it was paralyzed because it was no longer mine, it had been gifted to me, I used to think, though it was now more as if I had borrowed it. And only in that realization did I come to know freedom. I laid there, unmoving, staring at my ceiling, dark and full of spirals, opening white holes where the silly fallen snails had been. I couldn't know if their odious crushed bodies and shells on my floor disgusted me or saddened me. I would eat them raw if the King told me to, every single one of them, or I would cherish and protect them, or I would chuck them in a bucket, shower them with salt and watch them die. But for now it was they who watched me. They began to fall more and more, louder and stronger moist thumps, all over my floor, my desk, my bed... And then a black wave of spirals came crashing into me in what I can only describe as either all of them falling at once or as me falling into them. And it woke me up as dreams of falling often did.

The pale morning light was adequately gentle but it blinded my eyes all the same. I got out of bed with a sharp pain in my back, sore and twisted, and I noticed I couldn't stand quite as upright as I used to. The door remained sealed shut and I had come to expect no less from it. I walked, or rather, stumbled towards the symbol on the wall and was astonished to see its color was fading, almost completely gone. I had to rattle away the thought that it had never been there in the first place... It was now akin to the early signs of humidity on a frail wall, an ugly-looking stain, but it still preserved most of its shape, however much it faded. And in any case, the sign had been there, that much I knew in my heart. I sat at my desk as I always did but something didn't feel quite right. I had to search for my composure as it occurred to me I did not exactly know what to do or if anything was worth doing at all. It felt wholly vain, like my greater purpose was somewhere else but it was becoming impossible for me to remember where. And then it struck me like thunder. My memories were going, my transformation had begun.

I just waited and it couldn't have been long because the gray light was still overtaking my chambers when it began. That same neck pain that had been growing on me like a parasite shot all through my body as if crushing my shoulders and twisting my spine unto itself. It made my whole body shake, my muscles tremble, my skin boil. I reached my back so as to soothe it but found something odd. The bone at the base of my neck protruded in a way I could not remember feeling before, like it was so sharp it could tear through my skin. More than anything I wanted to gracefully accept the fate that had been presented to me, though I still feared it. When the pain eased, in my weakness, I prayed it would not return. But oh... it did. Another sharp tingling sensation crept along my spine. I threw my arms at my back, feeling ambushed by it all, and scratched profusely, convinced it would draw blood. Something was growing out from my back. I could feel its ridges swelling out of my skin and then, caressing it with my fingers, I came to know it as a spiral, and more than that, a shell.

My breathing accelerated, now quite impossible to contain. I was of course aware of what a dishonorable scene I was causing but it could not be helped. Even more so when the seething pain once again shot all along my spine and threw me onto the floor with a shout. It was almost tearing my flesh and bones from within. Touching it I could feel it stretching and protruding through my now pale skin, so much so that I could imagine it was already showing color just under the upper layers of my skin, the skin I would soon shed like a snake. The bone under my neck tore through me in a pain that made me dampen the rug with my own spit. It conjured in my eyes the sight of the bone so white, surrounded by red and pink flesh, all about to be renounced. And through it all my eyes remained wide open but expressionless, because even if I felt dead I was still all too aware to feel it. I tried to reach the chair and pull myself up but it was of no use. My arms were too weak, my skin was now gray and slimy, almost transparent around the edges. My eyes bulged and would soon grow into antennae. My back bulged even further and shifted, coiling into itself. I was changing from within, growing out of the human nature of my body which was now quite useless and soon to be completely eclipsed. After however long the process of metamorphosis took, I managed to regain some semblance of control and thereafter return to my chair, with my eyes forever stuck to the fading spiral on the wall of my chambers.

In that moment of weakness, all too human weakness, I thought of how whenever the pain went I hoped it would never return. Yet now, having begun the first stage of transformation, I simply yearn for the next. I prayed and called out to him to give me my purpose. For even in this new wretched form I know I am his, my new body was his gift to me and all his gifts are to be cherished.

My last revelation was the following. It's quite alright... I know the spiral will one day open. I could have confessed so much more but none of it is worth saying at this point. Whatever was left unsaid is now a much too elusive thing I no longer care to remember.

§

This has been the first story contained within The Wandering King.

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