In the Night Archive the darkness was immense, but there was an abundance of light sources — fireflies, embers encased in jars, and from the vast, arched ceilings, shooting stars.
Velvet and rhinestones were attached to the ceiling to embellish the evening. In the dressing room, grease paint was being applied to the Night Oil Man’s fearful visage.
The darkness became such that there was a public plea for daylight. Day in the underground vault was being manufactured with incandescent light and bird effects and sweet breezes and swings.
Charming scenes of country life were being blocked: barn dances and threshings and fall celebrations. Harvest costumes were tweaked and cornstalks arranged.
Cecil Peter and Wise Jean and their Piggle passed by on a float. From his windy perch, Cecil Peter rehearsed his lines, calling through a megaphone that the Age of Funnels was upon them. Heed this warning, he said. The Age of Funnels always brings madness when it returns, and this time would be no exception. Their first Piggle had been born aloft on the whirling and carried away. Nail down your loved ones, Wise Jean could be heard saying, before it’s too late. And the blue veil of madness, gossamer, beautifully made, unfurled right on cue. Everywhere there were intimations of the Vortex. Stage crews were adjusting the wind machines to accommodate the endless directives of the script.
Farmers and their wives practiced their reels. Small children tugged at the women, and the women directed their attention to something in the middle distance, and it seemed as if something were about to happen, but then just as suddenly, the scene began to recede. Already? the mother said. It had scarcely seemed to have taken shape and it was already dissolving in the haze. The fiddle faded and moved to mirage, and the farmers and their wives and a whole way of life eerily and without music danced away — quaint, iconic, into the ever-increasing distance. A last do-si-do then. Small figures, hauling bales of hay, waved.
THE THEATER UTOPIA had arrived and had taken up residence on the outdoor stage. En plein air—the birds, the wind, the stars, all would be part of the play. Enter warbler, warbling. Tortoise. Whooping Crane. Aunt Eloise and a single bee. On deck was the Bindlestaff Family Circus. And the Arm of the Sea. And the Beloved Bread and Puppets. On the outdoor stage anything might happen.
At the Spiegelpalais the child opened her mouth. Her baby teeth were gone. New teeth were coming in.
At the edge of the meadow, the sleek wolf padding in on rose feet.
BACK INSIDE AT the Court of Miracles, all marveled at the discovery of Dark Matter, and someone lectured about Quintessence and Phantom Energy. At the summit stood the Vortex Man, and all knelt to his power and bowed their heads in reverence. Behold, he said, the planet on the table! It was a blue planet, perfectly round, very beautiful. Is that us? someone dared at last to ask. Yes, the Vortex Man said, a little sadly.
Next to the planet was a human eye, a floating miracle of design. Light enters the pupil, is focused and inverted by the cornea and lens, and is projected at the back of the eye where the retina lies — seven layers of alternating cells, which can convert a light signal into a neural sign. The mother, who had once been a nurse, sighs.
And in the atrium the great orb, which had somehow survived, presided in silence.
A great winged thing was projected now onto a large screen. Behold, the Vortex Man bellowed, the Luna Moth — from the wild silk moth family — and its enormous wings filled the screen. Many gathered, drawn to its light. Behold its diaphanous and fragile beauty, its wings pale green, its transparent eyespots, its long curving tail. Ladies and gentlemen, they love the Persimmon, the Sweet Gum, the Winged Sumac.
In the Miracle Theater a boy’s chest was being opened, and from it a flock of birds flew. It was the time of the Bird Count, and the child was handed a tally book and a pencil. But just as she began counting, a commotion arose, and the birds scattered.
Step away, step away, the Vortex Man implored as a large aquarium draped with a sheath was rolled into the Court. In one elegant gesture, he removed the velvet shroud that draped it.
Behold the creature dreaming in its amniotic sac, the place it will reside these next nine months. Elaborate memory tracks are being laid down there, my friends, from the dappled, shadowed world. Associations and sensations are flooding in and being held by the fluid. See for the first time what it sees. On the overhead projector, the close-ups shot from the fetus’s point of view resembled flora and lacy ferns and fauna.
The dreamy fetus floats remembering nothing, or so we suppose. Ladies and gentlemen, the fetus is remembering right now. And the fluid retains the memory for a thousand years. Note the beautiful greeny-blue umbilicus attached to the world — like a luminous garden hose.
COME ONE, COME all, and I will show you a species of dreamers unrivaled in the history of the world. Lost to us for millennia. The more you learn about them, the more you will love them, these beautiful dreamers, and the more you will miss them. From a distant millennium — now retrieved for the first time ever and coming soon here to the Spiegelpalais. The mystery at the heart of the cosmos remains intact — insoluble to us with our limited consciousness — but not to the Large-Headed Hominid. Come see its majestic brain — with an internal life we cannot begin to fathom. Come have life’s mysteries at last illuminated. At last — all that lies outside our grasp. Find yourself—
On a foundering ship no more.
Hostage to the Concrete Rabbit no more.
WHO ARE YOU? the child inquired of the Vortex Man.
You may be wondering, the Vortex Man bellowed, indeed who I am and why we have all gathered here. For a moment everyone stopped what they were doing and there was absolute silence. At the still point of the turning world, the Vortex Man spoke:
You have come from near and far. You have worked tirelessly, you have been faithful and true. A drama of cosmic proportions is about to be staged. Life and Death before our eyes shall vie for the Mother and Child. And a spotlight illuminates them. Both Heaven and Earth. See how they hover in a hanging liminal place, not quite here, but not quite there either. Death vies for them, but so does Life. Each side possesses its seductions, oh yes, its considerable charms, oh yes. Both sides. It is twilight. Or is it dawn? Who is to say? The body collects both sleep and song.
Who shall be victorious in the end? Even the Vortex Man does not know.
These and other enigmas shall be contemplated. Behold the Luna Moth. And the Wolf. And the Death Cat. And the mossy path. And the snow. And the lavish green dreaming of the fallen tree.
Staged will be the Eternal Questions for all to ponder:
Why is the man drawn irresistibly to the whale, only to murder it?
Why is it that when we might have gone forward, we stepped back?
If the child severs the silk tether prematurely, what does it mean for her?
Why did we hesitate? And when in our hesitations did we become part of the Too Late.
And where is Uncle Ingmar going now in winter with the grandfather clock strapped to his back? These and other existential conundrums shall be pondered. .
And with this, the Vortex Man made his exit.
IN THE WINGS, the Cocoon Theater troupe and the wolf-escorts waited. Dapper, stage right, magnified, Mr. Min stood in blue light pulling swollen bats from a hat.
The Virgin in blue, accompanied by a little deer, and holding a lantern, moved majestically to the center. She’s looking for the child, but the child has hidden behind the mother’s skirt and for now is out of view. The Virgin says she’d like to take the child. She’s come, she says, for the child.