The soul pilgrim

A fantasy depicting a meeting with my youth adored poet and author Eddar Allen Poe.

The soul pilgrim

A Dream within a Dream Edgar Allen Poe

"You are not wrong who deem

That my days have been a dream;"

 

I've met him in Boston I believed but I wasn't sure at all; as that man with his pale face and his thin moustache, must have appeared in my dreams several times.

These thoughts haunted me when I toured Temple Mount tunnel in Jerusalem. I was lagging behind my group in the badly lighted tunnels, and while I was checking what seemed to me a mysterious sign inscribed on the opposite wall; I lost my group and I took a wrong turn I guess.  That's how I found myself all alone in some murky hardly lighted tunnel, which looked as if its digging hasn't been finished yet.

I called in my despair the name of our guide at the top of my voice, the multiple echoes' waves that returned from the walls of both the narrow tunnel sides, panicked me terribly. The deafening noise augmented my despair.

After a long spell of time in which I'd no idea what should I do, I turned around and trudged back in a vain attempt to find my way in that murky tunnel. I almost stumbled on some animal or was it a human being? His face at the far side of the tunnel seemed to me like a glimmer of light, which his pale and lean face radiated.

'E tu Brutus?' He mumbled in a low voice.

'What, who are you and what did you say?

'Never mind who I'm, you got lost I presume just like me. Do you've a drop of water I'm thirsty.'

I pulled a bottle of water out of my bag and handed it to him.

He quenched his thirst with one quick gulp and returned the bottle to me.

'Who do I have to thank then?' He asked me clearing his throat.

'Oh I'm Roy Pit and what's your name sir?'

'Edgar, Edgar Allen Poe,' He added his last name with some hesitation, and bowed his head as if he was ashamed of, I don't know what.

'I'm so glad to meet you! I admire your poems and writings, and it's my only consolation to my being lost here without hope.'

'Well you're wrong Mr. Pit this tunnel was left in mid work, the diggers will come next morning to continue their work and save us.'

'But wait until the next morning buried alive in this underground tunnel, we'd better try to find our way out.' I protested vehemently. 'The guide and my group members are surely know by now that I'm missing…'

'That's another good reason to stay put and wait for them, don't you think?' He remarked calmly reassuring me.

In a second thought after a few seconds I realized how right he was, all we could do was pass the time chatting till our rescue.

'I took a touring trip with a guide, but how did you get in here I wonder?'

'We've been cooped both of us I guess it's election day in Baltimore and I wonder where're all the others?'

'What are you're talking about? We're not in Baltimore we're in Jerusalem.'

'You mean Jerusalem Ohio; I've never been there…'

'No I mean Jerusalem of the Holy land!'

'Really in Jerusalem of our lord Jesus Christ, it must be a soul pilgrim for I'm… You know…'

'Yeah I know there're several theories about your sad departure, one conception claims that it's the gas lamps that poisoned you, and another one claims you drunk yourself to death.'

'Nonsense, I was in Baltimore I'd to get to Philly and meet Maria Clemm and return with her to Richmond to marry my Elmira, when I was cooped kidnapped in fact with some others; we were detained in a cellar and guarded, there's was no possible escape. It was Election Day in Baltimore, and those hoodlums that kidnapped us forced us to drink whiskey mixed with drugs to numb us. We were driven in a cart from one election station to another, and each time our cloths were changed. I must have lost my conscience and they threw me in some deserted ally. Now all the other theories that claim that I drank with some friend up to my death, or that Elmira's brothers have beaten me to death are lies, which the winning candidate that became Baltimore's mayor bribed the hospital staff and the press to spread these rumors.'  

'So your days were not a dream but a nightmare.'

'Aye my last days on earth. But I see the twinkling lights of torches getting nearer…'

'You surely mean electric torches…'

'You'd better wake up or you'll be late for work,' my wife said opening the bedroom shutters.

 Haim Kadman June the 17^th 2013 " all rights reserved.

Reviews

[Terry Collett]

Fine story, Haim.

[Haim Kadman]

Thanks very much Terry.