Recent DJ Posts

03/04/13

On the Road: Campfire
I am sitting on the side of a road with some other people. I recognize them all. I see MoSh, Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susanna, and Oy all gathered around a campfire. Everyone is watching Roland very closely. Roland is finishing his story about what happened in Hambre with Susan Delgado. He says he didn't meet her where he had said they would meet. He said he knew if he was to meet her he wouldn't have the strength to do what needed to be done. He said he would have liked nothing more than to make a life with Susan, but the tower… He talks for a bit more about why he has to find the tower and fix what is wrong within it. He finally stops and looks around. He looks like something just occurred to him. He says there were parts of the story he himself hadn't remembered until he told it… like the fact MoSh and I were both there. But while he has aged, we were both the same then as we are now. We were part of his ka-tet back then and we are again… ka is a wheel… but how is it that we aren't changed? I tell him MoSh and I travel through both time and space to arrive where and when we need to be, those events in Majis are like yesterday to MoSh and me… I literally rescued Susan yesterday. So what happened to Susan anyway? Roland said he saw in the glass when she was almost burned alive… had been sure she would be… he had already accepted that they would not be together, but wasn't ready to accept that. He says part of him would swear he saw here actually burn…

On the Road: The Emerald City
I am on the road traveling with MoSh, Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susanna, and Oy. There is a palace ahead spanning across the road. The palace is a green crystalline color. There are shoes in the street. It looks like someone left out a pair of bright red shoes for each person in the group. We all pick up the pair of shoes that is intended for us, mine looks like the ruby slippers Dorothy wore in the Wizard of Oz.

We continue to the entrance to what I can only think of as the Emerald City. There is a large gate in the front of the palace, it looks more like a palace than a city. The road leads through the gate and I can see the road extending into the palace. After figuring things out for a short while it is determined that we all have to tape the red shoes together at the same time, three times, to open the door. So everyone puts on the shoes and taps them together. There is a reverberating sound that makes everything vibrate, but nothing happens. Oops… everyone forgot about Oy. The billy-bumbler hadn't clicked his shoes together. So we do the test again, this time with Jake and Roland taking care of clicking Oy's shoes together… and the sound is even louder. The entire structure of the emerald palace seems to vibrate.

The gate doesn't open… it shatters into a billion tiny shards. Fortunately none of them seem to be sharp enough to cut anyone. We go into the palace, following a long hallway to a door at the end. The whole thing looks like the Wizard of Oz. The door at the end has a sign that states the bell is out of order… please knock. The door is unlocked, however, so we go through. There is a loud voice coming from everywhere, asking how dare we enter the presence of the great and powerful Oz. Eddie says not to worry… it's just a bumhug… I think he means a humbug. I think the voice considers itself to sound threatening and scary, but it really just sounds a bit ridiculous to me. Oy is also unaffected by this, he is over near a curtain pulling at it. He pulls it aside to reveal a man there. The man doesn't look good, it looks like a piece of his skull is missing… ouch! He is throwing threats around until Eddie puts bullets in his head. There is another man there, however. He is standing in the middle of the main room where there had been a blazing fire special effect, he is holding the wizard's glass orb. He says he will give us one final chance to cry off and forget about the tower. Everyone says no, they will not do that, including MoSh and me… I tell him, "You wish… not gonna happen." Roland tries to shoot him with his gun, but it doesn't fire. The man laughs at that and says Roland will get only misfires with him. Maybe the bullets are all bad. Roland responds by drawing a gun from Eddie, Susan, and Jake's home world… He draws it lightning fast and fires at the man, who disappears in an explosion of smoke. He does not get away unscathed, however, I hear a cry of surprise and pain before he manages to dematerialize. Now we are alone in the huge room, Roland says he thinks he will have to tell the rest of his tale before we can continue… no… he will have to show us. He points to where the man dropped the wizard's glass as he disappeared. We go over to the orb and Roland indicates we should look into the orb. I don't see anything in it, I wonder why that is. Roland and the others seem to see something in there… and I notice Roland has a shocked look on his face. He says that's not how it happened… but now he remembers differently… which one is true? The first thing I think to say is nothing is true… and everything is permitted, even changing events that have already happened… I look back into the orb and this time I can see an image. Roland is walking down a hallway and into a room. There are shoes underneath the curtains but he doesn't see them. He is looking for his mother. The others are all gathered around as well, all except for Roland. The younger version of Roland turns around when someone is behind him. At first it looks like the witch Rhea, come back for revenge, holding out a dead snake towards Roland. She looks like a corpse. But then that image looks transparent, and it is really Roland's mother.

She is holding out a belt that looks handmade. Roland is drawing his guns, apparently he still sees Rhea. Everyone is yelling at Roland not to do it, it is a trick. I say nothing out loud, but I focus on sending a telepathic signal through time and space… I send a message to MoSh to do the same… maybe it can get through, even just enough to make him hesitate… a second is all it would take… and he does hesitate. Due to my telepathic message? He hesitates just long enough to see the illusion waver… and then he sees her for who she really is. I hear Rhea's voice of rage, yelling curses, saying she will still have her revenge… I am thinking I should have killed the witch in Hambre. Roland's mother interprets Roland having his guns out to mean he knows she had planned on betraying his father. She quickly tries to explain that she didn't know what she was doing, Marten had gotten into her head somehow... he'd been using her the whole time. Roland has no interest in just shooting his mother, he looks around to see if the witch is still present in the room. He looks straight at me for what seems like a long time before turning back to his mother, who says she wants a chance to make up for what she has done. The images around us fade to pink. I feel a bit disoriented and then find I am sitting on the road, it looks like we are far past the Emerald Palace. The others are all there, too, they also look disoriented. From the look of our shoes we have been walking the whole time. I notice the road isn't what it used to be… not really a road at all. And the path of the beam can be easily seen in the clouds in the sky. We are back on track. Roland is looking at me strangely. He says he doesn't know how it can be. He still remembers shooting his mother, but it is like it was a dream… and what we just saw is much clearer. It is here that I wake up.