Page 324 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

flourishing like the dawn, its thriving and trilling tones
adding a touch of brilliance to the frail track lighting.
Augmenting his sweeping gestures, the doctor brandished
a long black cane capped with a bulb of cleanest silver. He
wielded the instrument like a conductor’s baton, cultivating
the sonic posture of his voice with a deftness that bespoke
timeless practice.
I stood riveted to the Doctor’s radiant words. “You
have come to this place by no miscalculation of fate nor
the amateurism of chance, that feckless brother to chaos
who would keep his worthless wits. Nay, you come by
this hatchery of hallowed hoopla by nothing less than the
chanceless, fateless mystery of madness. Unheeded yet
instructed, paradoxically prodded into place, you two have
arrived at precisely the perfect point—to be made into ivory-
headed gods of the impossibly possible.
“Recall if you dare, those dark beautiful days that lie
trapped behind layers of forgetful firmament. Take off your
funeral skins and march back into the mouth of that living
madness, where wonders and glory combine with awe
to create perpetual bliss—the perfect ignorance. Become
ancient children wincing at the wonder of it all, guaranteed
never to understand, but only to skip stones into endless seas
and run forever into a perpetually melting twilight.
“Please, step right up and take your places among the
intrepid explorers of the Great Darkness, that time when
men flew to the moon on wings of wishes and wax, and the
night stole into the vaults of forever.”
I climbed the stairs almost unconsciously, snatched into
the orbit of the greatest mystery ever to set a riddle upon the
dead earth. My new view high above the crowd included
an expansive upper area, the floor and walls of which were
a rusty steel web of interlocking catwalks and exposed
joists, all of it supporting a massive dome carved from dirty
white marble. Peering through the grated floor afforded me
a look at those who had failed to survive their brush with
The Red Son | 327