My name is George Salvinger. I am but a poor excuse for a
man. I make a modest income by day from selling other people’s unwanted clothes,
books and bric-a-brac and by evening and during the winter months, I am
generally to be found in my armchair, with a blanket over my lap and a book in
my hand. My wife works hard and feeds me warming suppers whenever I am awake
long enough to feel the need to be sustained by hunks of bread and stew. I have
read many tales, from many wonderful minds. The people inside the covers of
these books are infinitely more knowledgeable and far greater, far more
adventurous than I. However, little did I know that someone like myself,
someone poor, but blessed in so many other ways, would be hailed as the one of
the greatest explorers of all time. Me! And at forty! I have had the most
marvellous new lease of life and all because of my inability to keep my eyes
open!
It was my very habit of dozing off to escape the cold and
hunger of a harsh English winter that brought me fame and fortune. The irony is
not lost on me believe me. It was I you see, who found out the secret to the
realm of sleep. I thought I had hit gold when I realised that there was actually
another world out there, a world with its own rules where we live out another life
entirely. But when I discovered the actual building where we dream - well it
changed my life. I was hailed as a hero. Since making my discovery and naming
the building, I have dedicated my life to exploring the rich and vibrant worlds
inside that miracle of construction. I know I will die before I have fully
mapped all six hundred and sixty six floors of the Dream Arena, for so I named
it, but I shall find a worthy successor to continue my work when the time draws
closer. What follow are some of my diary entries and recollections upon
stepping inside each floor for the very first time.
Floor Number: 104
Environment: Snow and mountains. Sparsely inhabited
Beasts: Oban lion (of the flying variety)
I am a man who is very at home with tea and slippers. The unpredictability
of the outdoors I find unsettling. Imagine my trepidation each time I opened a
new door and set foot inside an entirely new land! But the excitement of what I
might find on the other side of those doors always spurred me on. I dragged my
weary body up the winding stone stairwell of the Dream Arena and made my way to
the next floor on my list to be mapped, floor one hundred and four. I remember
cursing as I slipped over many times on the dank, slimy steps. So as you can
very well imagine, I was not in the best of moods as I stood before the flaking
sky blue door. My hand went up to the symbol carved upon the door. I felt strangely
excited just to its touch. It was unfamiliar, yet uplifting; the symbol of a
lion in full, glorious flight, a proud looking red lion with wings. I took a
rubbing of it so that it could appear alongside the words in my diary for generations
to come to know what was behind this door.
As my fingers clenched around the pitted iron door handle, I
knew immediately something of the world beyond. My skin almost froze to the
metal and indeed it took some considerable and painful prising to remove one
from the other.
When the door finally opened, it was onto the most
magnificent and dramatic mountains scenery imaginable. White witches hats,
dramatic snow laden peaks went on for as far as my eyes could see. The shadows
cast by the high peaks were midnight black, in sharp contrast to the gleaming crystal
white blanket of snow. It was a most peculiar combination for a man more used
to the rolling green countryside of England
Something sizeable moved across my line of sight. I heard
the warning grumble before I set eyes on the beast. My eyes scanned the snow
around me, but the sound did not come from the ground beneath my feet - it came
from the air! Before I knew what was happening I was knocked to the ground by a
giant creature that swooped down upon me. Logic would dictate that it was a
bird, but its size and weight and the sheer force of the punch told me
otherwise. I sat up, covered in snow, shivering with cold and fright, to find
that I was face to face was a lion. It gave me no time think how I should
approach it, before it roared at me, causing a deep crack in the surrounding landscape
and setting a shelf of ice sliding down the mountainside towards us.
I was unable to react from fear. The lion looked into my
eyes for the very briefest of seconds and then spread itself flat upon the
ground and growled ‘Get on!’ My mind went into a flutter. Did the lion just
speak I asked myself? Is it friendly or does it mean me harm? Is this a dream
or a nightmare? But something about the look that we exchanged made me follow
its orders and climb onto the bony part of its back. Suddenly we were airborne
and I can honestly say that I have experienced nothing like it before or since.
Its musty smell was quite overwhelming – sour but intoxicating. I could feel
its muscles rippling under my thighs as I clung on, gripping the creature’s
flowing blush red mane for stability.
This creature seemed to sense that I meant it no harm and
took me high into the mountains, into what can only be described as a snow top
oasis. Inside the crater, for I cannot think of another description for such a
passably warm place, there was a melt water lake and a colony of similar
looking lions with wings. At that time there were maybe sixty or more of the
lions living out a happy life in an otherwise forbidding environment. Now of
course there are many, many fewer, wiped out by the relentless power and
overwhelming number of nightmare creatures flooding the hostile landscape of
this tranquil floor. I was looking down upon an entire colony of mythical Oban
lions and the beast upon which I chanced on that very first reconnoitre to the
level, was their leader and king, Kear. He and I became firm friends over the
years. Many more times did I set foot on their floor and very often I was met
on some cold and windswept peak by Kear himself, for he seemed to have the
uncanny ability to know when I was coming.
I know that others, as they retrace my footsteps will be
eager to know how the Oban lions got their wings. Well this was the story told
to me by Kear in a snow hole in a most aggressive snow storm as we tried to
pass the time and keep from succumbing to the cold.
Seven generations back, Kear’s ancestor first set foot on
level one hundred and four. The lion Goliath, for so he was called, found
himself alone among a scenery that was quite the opposite of what he was used
to. He wandered the foothills of the mountains, trying all the time to head
away from the cold, in the hope of finding milder weather. The fierce, twisted
mountain winds played with him, telling him that sanctuary was further and
higher into the Krugerite mountains, a place where there was warmth and water
and animals to eat. Goliath looked from peak to peak not knowing if this fabled
place, this whispered oasis existed. Lions are not known for giving up easily,
so he decided to try and climb the mountain upon which he stood to see if he
could get a better view of the vast mountain range around him. The Krugerites
however are cruel and despite making several impressive forays further up into the
high peaks, in the end, he always ended up back down at the bottom, further
weakened and often injured from the strenuous climb. It was as if the mountains
enjoyed his company for they would not let him escape. He tried other
approaches, setting his paws for the lower slopes and walking for as far as he
could, but he only ever came across more mountains and more foothills. There was
just no escaping the harsh, permanent winter. Goliath became thinner and
thinner and more and more miserable. He became so malnourished that he began to
hallucinate. At first he thought he could see the warm savannah plains far off
in the distance and then he began to see fellow travellers treading the snowy
mountains beside him.
Goliath knew that he was dying, but was desperate not to die
alone, so he embraced his strange visions and began to talk to the strangers.
Some came and went, snatched away by the biting wind, but one – well one stayed
by his side and matched him stagger for stagger, step for step. This creature
was a tiny, red breasted robin. Goliath asked its name. ‘Oban’ it replied. “That’s
a very grand name for a small bird” said Goliath. The robin flew up onto the
lion’s nose and whispered, “my parents were just ordinary robins, but they
loved fairytales. The most important one to us robins is the story of Oban, the
heroic robin who gave all future robins their red breasts”.
As they spoke, a cold front like no other that Goliath had
experienced pressed in on them. The temperature plummeted to new lows.
Goliath’s beautiful russet mane froze and he tried to dig himself into a small
snow pit to sit it out. Little Oban nestled down in Goliath’s mane and kept him
company by telling him the fairytale that his parents so loved.
Robin’s of old did not have red breasts, Oban began
recounting the story. They were small and brown and cheeky, but they were
plain. A devoted mother gave birth to four chicks, only three of which ever
flew the nest. The fourth, a chick she named Oban, was weak and sickly and
spent most of its time trying to keep warm in its nest. He spent a lot of time
alone, as his mother taught his brothers and sisters about the seasons and food
and the dangers around them. Oban thought of none of these things. He thought
of keeping warm and very little else. A hazy, numb mind, brought on by frailty of
body came over him and he succumbed to the enticing world of sleep. In this
world he had a raging fire around him, a fire that always burned but never
hurt, a fire that kept him warm and comforted him in lieu of his mother’s
embrace. Occasionally Oban would open his eyes and peek out at the real world,
hoping that the fire might be real, but all he ever saw were the twigs and moss
of his nest. For longer and longer periods he slipped into his warm and
comforting world until one day he did not bother to open his eyes and lived
entirely in the world of his own making. On that day Oban’s mother came back to
feed him and found him cold and lifeless in his nest. She put her wings out to embrace
him and kiss him goodbye and when her feathers touched him, a shot of energy
fizzed right through her. For a passing second she felt that their nest was on
fire and she tried to beat it down with her wings, but the flames would not
extinguish. They raged all around her, but they did not burn. They engulfed the
nest and then moved onto her body, passing through her feathers until they
simmered gently inside her breast. She stopped and savoured the warmth, just as
Oban had done. He had passed the gift of warmth, of a blazing red breast to his
mother so that she would always feel the warmth that he had never once felt.
From then onwards, all robins descended from Oban’s mother were born with red
breasts and fire in their bellies.
“That is a beautiful story” said Goliath. “It is, isn’t it?”
agreed Oban. “It is beautiful because Oban gave the gift of his imagination to
his mother. He wanted it so badly, he made it happen, but not for him, for somebody
else whom he loved”.
Goliath smiled and shut his eyes, thinking about the story.
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have that red breast and those cheeky wings
to keep him warm and take him beyond the labyrinthine foothills? As Goliath
drifted into unconsciousness, in his dreams, Oban told him this same story many
times over. Each time, like an infant, Goliath enjoyed the fact that the story
stayed the same, he enjoyed the feeling of security that the words gave him and
wonderful elation of knowing that there was, in the end, a happy resolution. Goliath
sunk his whole being into the story for what seemed an eternity, an eternity
that Goliath was convinced was his pathway to death.
However, wake he did. The snow had stopped buffeting him,
the hole in which he had sheltered was melted and the icy wind was tamed. He
couldn’t believe how different he felt. Strong and sturdy, upbeat and
upstanding. However, Oban the little red robin who had shared his lowest
moments was nowhere to be seen. He got to his feet and stretched out the limbs that
had been crumpled beneath him for the longest time. He shook his damp mane and
to his horror, then consternation and then delight he realised that he was
really quite different. His fur and mane had changed colour. It had gone from a
shade of golden straw to a russet red. There was a beautiful deep ginger tone
to his whole body, a warming glow that seemed to shimmer all around him. Most
alarming of all however was the fact that he now had the addition of wings on
his body. Wings! He looked around again, dying to share this miracle with his
only friend, but the little robin was nowhere to be seen. He wasted no time in
trying them out. Despite his bulk, the wings lifted him off the ground well,
and although he was shaky and uncoordinated at first, he was blessed with soft
landings. Finally he began to get more confident and took to the air to look
for his friend. His new wing muscles worked hard to aid his climb through the
strong air currants around the peaks. He looked down at his shadow and roared
in triumph.
Goliath made it up to the clouds and fought against the
winds that ripped at the fur on his body. He struggled to keep his height, but
all the while he was searching for Oban. Then the wind and the clouds spat him
out into milder air and stronger sunlight. There below him was a shorn off and
hollowed out mountain that could for all the world have been a volcano. At its
centre was a lake. Not a spot of snow could be seen on the ground. Tiny shapes
ran this way and that as his shadow passed overhead. Life! There was life below
and Goliath set down in this new territory. From here he sent out signals to
the surrounding floors of the Dream Arena, calling lions to his oasis and soon
he had founded his very own pack of lions, with the new generation bearing strawberry
coloured fur and wings. He named the new species the Oban lions in honour of
the friend that had given him hope, given him inspiration and ultimately had
saved his life. Indeed from my own point of view, never a truer friend did I
have in all my wanderings through the Dream Arena than Kear and I would lay
down my life for him as he would for me.
Note from the author, Kerrie Clifford. For over ten years,
my mind has been hopelessly lost in the timeless dreamscapes and wonderful
adventures to be had in the State of Sleep
