The journey

The gray thread of an uneasy vigil and its consequent gray sleep awakes in my mind.


In fact, sometimes we wake up with our minds blank, it takes some long seconds to realize who we are, where we are; what our names are.


These irrelevant seconds are -in this situation- like years of anguish, until the veil of sleep is completely unveiled.
Sometimes -often- this happens as a corollary for a heavy and worried sleep. 
That happened to me today, right now (while I stand up from my bed, I start to put these pieces of the puzzle in order)... actually, it's strange, I seldom remember what I dream, perhaps two or three times a year, and my dreams are always objectively involved with reality, they are never whimsical.


I almost could... swear that they aren't dreams.
I prefer to take them as perceptive experiences in subliminal connection with my reality, maybe with the past... I'll try to recapitulate and settle these pieces on a rational order while I get dressed, let's see.




I was in an oval parlour (I know that my dream was long), I was sitting close to a huge-rectangular table. This room was large and white, with a dozen... no: half a dozen burning chandeliers hanging from the slightly oval ceiling. 
This high stucco ceiling (bone was the color) was admirably decorated with rampant gargoyles... I could note the detail about some almost imperceptible threads of spider webs shining like long and silvery needles in the light. 
I saw this detail in my dream.


The table hadn't anything on it, I was alone in the hall and I got surprised, realizing I was all dressed in an impeccable, latest XIX century's fashion.


I'm sure I was waiting for something to happen there, I didn't feel comfortable there, although... for some reason, I couldn't leave.


In dreams, we do things that look like incomprehensible actions, but these things we do in dreams always have a reason. 

The reality of our dreams is different to the reality of our vigil, but isn't unreal.






The only piece of furniture seen in that enigmatic place was this large table.
Besides the chair where I was seated, a comfortable wooden chair, with huge back, and a red cushion.


And another chair.




The walls were decorated with Arab carpets which were graced with delicate details and manufacture. One of the carpets, the biggest one, featured golden arabesques of peculiar beauty, and its value should be very high... under different circumstances probably I would have felt the serious temptation of the vulgar theft, but I was too nervous and uncomfortable there; and in spite of this, I was -incomprehensibly- drinking a cup of tea. Presumably laudanum.

Minutes later I noted that the tea never got cold. In my dream I noticed this.


The only connection with the outside world, at least as far as I could see, was a big black door, wooden and carefully polished.


The parlour was intensely impregnated with a mysterious smell, like an admixure of vanilla and gas, the silence was absolute.


While I was looking at the curious, pale-green floor, which looked like a rare variety of emery, the black door was suddenly opened with violence, and an indescribably and horribly fresh breeze entered, filling the room. It was a breeze with a certain taste of menthol, and behind the breeze, a man came in. 
I didn't move.


With tender violence he closed the door.
The carpets of the walls were shaken in a spasm: he looked at me.








II)


He was dressed like a gentleman, all in blue velvet, wearing a blue-silky shirt, according to his appearance, he looked like an old, strange man... his hair was white and long, combed in an extravagant way. 
His eyes had a glacial stare
my attention was caught by the color of those eyes, dark yellow, like gold of centuries. Gold.


After a tense but short while, he walked in my direction, his steps, his whole figure showed something vaguely aristocratic and vaguely grotesque... under his thick and grey eye-brows a singular look blazed like an iceberg, a mixture of frozen rage and irony; his face featured one too many grooves.


Grooves.







With delicate gesture, his arthritic hands left his golden walking stick on the table, and a scroll.


Under my astonished eyes, my strange man sat down, and coughing, he started talking, with Balkanic accent.






- "Sir, you're here for a reason, now, you have to go there... "






In that moment he unfolded the scroll over the table, it was a map.


Showing me, he put his finger on a particular place, a village, lost in the Carpathian mountains: R.......






Then -laconic- he just added:






- "Be sure to keep every thing as every thing was commanded, further instructions you'll get, after your arrival."






While he said this, I felt an icy sensation of horror running down my spine, beholding minutely his mouth while he talked... his tongue... was his tongue silvery?






Brusquely he stood up, took his walking cane and left without looking at me, ignoring me completely... while he still was walking toward the door, in that same moment, I realized that this dream was more than a dream, and I was in it.


In my nightmare I realized this.







The door was closed behind my aristocratic and aged dude, with a muffled sound the door, black, one second before my awakening.


Here I am, almost ready for my journey. My train departs from Madrid in 9 hours.