A Persistence of Dreams
Audio-liburu honi buruz
Inti Mach'ay and the Royal Feast of the Sun. Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District. Above the Sacred Valley. December 21, 1572
The high priest stood waiting for the sun to rise at the Intihuatana stone. The Inca believed the stone captured and held the sun in place along its daily trek across the sky. As a calendar, the stone aligns with the sun's position during the winter solstice. At midday on November 11, and again on January 30, the sun shines directly upon the pillar, casting no shadow at all. The hand-carved base, however, reflects the contour of the Inca Empire. An empire far more significant than anyone knew, an empire currently under assault.
The priest retrieved the set of ceremonial daggers made from bismuth bronze from the tomb. The knives, created in the fifteenth century, are the earliest known artifacts containing this alloy. They were said to be a gift from the gente pequeña, the little people. He would not leave them for the hairy conquerors to find. They stank and had no honor.
Twenty million MesoAmericans disappeared. Ninety-five percent of the Olmec, Mayan, Aztec, and Inca populations just went on a walkabout one morning and disappeared. It was not war or disease, for there were no bodies.
The Compassionist’s Agenda. Three days ago…
A week ago, my life changed. A gathering of dreams came home. I was tired, exhausted, and accidentally drugged. I'd been caring for a friend when the illusions crawled from the darkness onto my deck. They woke something from childhood; memories and dreams belonging to someone else. Familiar, somehow, but not mine. Something in them haunted me for a week. But, as it does, life returned to normal; until this morning. Two of the little ones came back; simply popped into existence along the shoreline.
The Imaginary Resolution Services® were tracking the dreams that visited. They had disappeared after revealing themselves, with no traces anywhere. The only reason 'Homefry' and 'Pooh' came here was to question my friend, the one who started all this in the first place. It seems Leonardo Garfield is the only Grumpmuffin available now. The IRS was hoping to backtrack our visitors from his signature. It turns out that cats are walkers. Their purrs allow them a sympathetic resonance that vibrates the veils open between realities. The Twelyth Teg use their wings to the same end. The rest of us need to use the ley lines, the bismuth veins that crisscross the planet.
Be that as it may, I am going along, too. What I thought was a one-off experience goes much deeper. Children encounter magic because they look for it. It snuck up on me. I did not find the beauty of my childhood again, only to lose it now. If you know anything about me, it should be that I keep a promise. I don't make many, but the ones that I do, get delivered.
Homefry and Pooh, along with me and thee, are going to find our friends and bring them home. Despite the odds, I'll do what I usually do and follow my heart. But first, we need to locate a few things lost to time; miracles. We're going to need them.
Egileari buruz
This book, along with 'A Gathering Of Dreams' are the first two in a planned trilogy. It is the completion of a promise I made to my grandfather. After giving me a journal, Cugh wanted me to tell him a tall tale, "tell me a whopper," he said. I am sure he was busy and hedging his bet about keeping an eight-year-old kid entertained for two weeks. Still, he had planted the thought, and I pledged my commitment during that summer of 1966. Despite that, Adamsville, Tennessee, held other adventures for us that summer, and I never got around to it. These books are that promise fulfilled; this is his story. I do not know that I have delivered his whopper, but I gave it my all. The thing is, the world has changed drastically since then. The books are his tale discovered in hindsight, of my choices and consequences, of lost and newly encountered friends. It became a tale of courage and redemption; it became a roadmap to finding my way out of the darkness growing in the world, back into the light. I rediscovered the magic behind childhood.
My life was always building here. A Persistence rises within the dreams my grandparents planted; the cast of Gathering is in trouble. Every two thousand years, a transformation takes place, and the world changes. But for a smooth transition, the pieces all have to align. Temperaments and attributes fully develop. A cast of wanderers and warriors need discovery. A new group, forged in fire, comes together. A mentor. A child. A plant elemental. A God. A Trickster. A Dragon. A soulmate.
A thousand different pieces. A million clues. If we find our hearts, we get paradise again. You see, God works in mysterious ways. But it has given us free will and placed the clues in plain sight. The story was written and placed in a forever library, then lost. But with any jigsaw puzzle, you begin with the edges and follow the colors. The patterns build with every piece laid until the bigger picture emerges. We only find magic when we look for it.
"A wish is just a wish until wished" What would you wish for if you knew time was running out? What if you gathered your dreams and wrote them all on index cards? What if you trusted the universe to look over your shoulder, to guide your hands while you shuffled, then stacked them face down? Would you have the courage to follow through? Could you find it in your heart to believe? Could you believe in miracles? Could you believe in magic? What would you trade? What is a dream worth? What if the first card turned was: Love
I found hope in the old tales. I believe we all have a book that resides somewhere within our hearts. Whether or not we pull it into reality is always one of perseverance. My tales took on a life of their own. What started as a debt paid; grew into something beyond my wildest imagination. I pray I brought Cugh's tale to a conclusion he would have loved. I hope that I did it justice.
As usual, being self-published, any errors are on me; I tried to catch them all; I am sure I did not. But, I figure if I keep you entertained, you might forgive me for missing a comma or two. I hope you find something you enjoy; I hope you find something that touches your heart.
James Qualls
February 18, 2021
