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living years on dream after dream of a world that is precisely
not this one.
“Do you think I leave this bed to eat? Of course not. I
sustain myself there—within the grey drifting fields broken
only by spindly trees and the ruins of visions long since
passed. I partake of the whispering fruit and drink the weird
smoldering waters tumbling across the endless sky like
herds of rushing ghosts. And what about this body of mine,
this youthful weight that lies before you? It is only a point
of reference. My mind has spent so little time here that my
body has barely aged. But I am far from young, farther still
from truly old. I say this only to inform you of the paths
that I have walked to learn what I know—and I know what
I know quite well.” I said nothing, only waited for him to
continue. His eyes returned to the room and back to the
wheeling moths.
With no small amount of concentration, he began a new
tale. “Quite a few dreams ago, I was wandering a damp
passageway constructed from interlocking basements, each
one opening into the next by way of a different type of
subterranean entrance. I encountered an entity who referred
to himself as the King of Cellars. He was an affable old
fellow, so I visited with him beneath the weak illumination
of old and crusty light bulbs. We were having quite a
pleasant time, talking and philosophizing as we drank from
our chipped cups of softly sweetened tea, when from deep
below we heard the savage bluster of numerous and clearly
enormous wolves.
“The Lord of Basements remarked on the sounds only
when he saw how frightened I’d become, saying ‘Mine is not
the deepest kingdom, for far below us lurks a pit deeper than
any traditional spaces—and most non-traditional spaces,
for that matter—could ever hope to admit. Those inhabiting
that great depression are nearly as old as the machines that
gave emptiness its color and numbered the dust. The great
company of the pit are generally a quiet lot, but recently,
72 | Mark Anzalone