The Mystic

A Story by Thomas Kainaroi

I dreamt that I walked in a courtyard with a married couple, a man in a black suit and woman in a white nightgown.

The courtyard was unlike many others, for there were no trees or anything green.  All was made of white stone, complete with statues, walls, and arches.  It dipped down in the center as if it were the inside of a colosseum in miniature.  The design of the architecture appeared as if it were from both the east and the west, but together it was its own unique cast.

The husband and wife were giving me a tour of the courtyard.  Though, I should more specifically say the husband was giving the tour, as he did most of the talking.  The wife simply followed somberly in silence with her eyes to the ground.  I could tell she was upset.  Her face would at times have a look of urgency, as if she needed to tell her husband something important.  However, each time this happened, the husband would wave her away and ignore her, as he continued to speak to me of the courtyard with great pride, which he later told me he had designed himself.

Eventually, the man's wife gave up and looked to me.  "Do you know the Mystic?" She asked.

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders.  She had a look of dismay, and without a word she wandered off.  I watched as the dreary woman walked away.  At that point, the man in the black suit looked me in the eyes with a cold stare and said, "You have seen my courtyard, now you will see your soul."  His pride seemed to have left him.

He produced a dark blue cloth covered with golden stars and covered it over my entire head, hiding my face and barring my vision, my physical vision.  At first all was darkness, then in my minds eye, images formed.  In the beginning it was vague but then all was clear.  I could see his wife, still making her journey away.

She traveled through the remaining premises of the courtyard, which I began to realize how truly large it was.  On the outskirts, the architecture no longer had any cultural significance.  It became strange and surreal.  The woman walked past many statues, all very odd.  One was a giant hand with its fingers stretched out, but instead of thumb, there was a tree.  Another was a nude figure of a man, wearing a box over his head.  In his chest was a hole that went all the way to the other side, so if one were to look through, they would see what was behind him.  Another was a giant chalice, holding an egg.  A crack ran down the shell, as if it were about to hatch.

The sad woman came past many other oddities, and finally reached her destination.  It was a mansion, and like the courtyard, it was also made completely out of white stone.  She slowly made her way up some steps and opened the right side of a giant double door, and entered the mansion.  I was surprised to see that the inside was unlike the outside.  Within it was dark, all were dark colors.  There was something haunting about it.  I no longer wanted to watch, yet somehow I was drawn to it all.

It seemed like the woman knew right were she wanted to go as soon as she walked in.  She made her way over to a spiraled staircase.  Up the stairs she went and came to the top, where a railing over-looked the entire room.  She stepped up on top of the railing and extended her arms horizontally from right to left.  A giant half-circle window was behind her, and an eerie light crept into the house as with all the windows and flooded the mansion with a soft glowing ambiance.

She was about to attempt suicide.

The woman leaped without hesitation from the railing and began to fall down through the room.  I fearfully expected her to reach the ground, but she did not.  Something curious happened.  She stopped in midair halfway down.  The woman stayed like that for about ten seconds, then slowly turned up vertically, still floating in midair.  There was something different about her then.  She was no longer depressed or weary.  There was no expression at all.  Her face was completely blank.

She began to move.  Like a ghost she flew about the mansion in her flowing, white nightgown.  She went aimlessly through rooms and hallways.  I do not know how much time had passed, and it seemed as if the woman traveled through each part of the mansion more than once.

My mind went into a daze, it was hypnotic.  I could not tell if up was down or down was up, there was no sense of direction.  There were times where I felt like I was her, and she was me.

Then, it was as if time itself stood still.  The woman entered a large room in the mansion, one I do not believe she, or perhaps I should say we, had entered before.  There, in the center of the room was a larger than life, floating head of a woman.

It was the Mystic.

The Mystic's skin was a light but somewhat faded pink.  Her chin had pipe-like protuberances of various sizes extending away from her, and it seemed as if they were a part of her face.  She wore a white turban, and in the middle of her forehead was a black gem.  Her expression, like the floating woman, was completely blank, except that her eyes were very wide open, and stared directly in front of her at some unknown source.

"How are you feeling?" asked the Mystic to the woman.  It was a strange and unexpected question.  When she spoke her mouth did not move, and her head bobbed from side to side.  A voice, however, could still be heard, which sounded feminine but at the same time was not quite human.  It was telepathic.

The woman replied with a nonsense answer, mumbled words I could not discern.

The Mystic tried something else, a different way of communication.  She began sending her mental images and numbers, which I could see as well.  The Mystic was sending them to both us.  I can not remember what they were.  It was all so fast.

This went on for a long time, and eventually the floating woman also became a floating head like the Mystic, completely identical except that her skin was of a greenish hue.  They began to communicate, heads bobbing side to side and the conversation was completely unknowable to me, and yet it was knowable.  I can not explain this.

Again, I felt like I was the woman who had attempted suicide.  Then, perhaps I was the Mystic.  Maybe I was both of them at the same time.

I woke up.

6-6-09