Chapter 20: The Sixth Puzzle: The Black Shore

Fallen to the deepest darkness, naught around me in the vastness,

In the vastness that engulfed me in this place that I knew not,

I awoke to find myself here, lonely and with no one near me,

And I wondered what this place is and if truly I was alone.

And I wondered if for real in this place I was alone,

Though I then saw this was not.

For I suddenly saw objects that before I failed to notice

And that seemed to give this vastness the appearance of some shore:

To my right the mighty ocean, with its waves in lazy motion,

And so odd I found the notion that the sea moved almost not

That I thought I could be dreaming and imagining whatnot;

And imagining whatnot.

To my left some rocky boulders, round and taller than my shoulders,

Were erected to the heavens like some fingers cruel and cold,

And some runes were in them etched, like crude letters badly sketched,

Or like symbols so much stretched that they lacked their shape of old,

But the meaning underlying, though it ancient was for sure

Made my timid heart stop.

And among this boulders massive it was so that I glimpsed, passive,

Some obscure and hunched figure that regarded me for sure.

He, or she, I saw, was waiting, as if in the shadows weighting

Weighting or somehow debating whether to approach or not,

But what I knew for a fact was that in this forgotten shore

Lied my destiny and more.

For in that moment I could see that this place with its cold, calm sea

And its boulders that were ancient and hid meaning grim and old

Was none other than the Dead Lands, and in treading on this grey sands

I was therefore in the Grim Lands and alive no longer, no.

And though I felt I was still breathing I was not alive, no more,

Not alive, not any more.

After that I simply nodded while the figure slowly plodded

On the sand and past the boulders with their old, mysterious lore;

Past the boulders and approaching, slowly, nearer and encroaching

For I felt he was encroaching, he or she and young or old,

For the features of this person I still hadn't seen at all.

And as yet knew nothing of.

“Fear me not,” with voice like thunder he then said leaving no wonder

As to whether it was only just a man, and he was old.

“Fear me not,” he then repeated, seeing that I had retreated

For I felt somehow defeated now I knew that I lived not.

For I could now just remember how I died and reached this shore:

I was killed and lived no more.

It was poison, I remembered, not a bullet, not dismembered,

And though I could not remember who had killed me any more

Something told me that in dying there was meaning underlying

And not just the crude defying of some killer seeking gore.

There was meaning in my killing but I understood no more

And I wanted to know more.

“Fear me not,” the man insisted. “I come in peace, I am not twisted.

I am here simply to help you to understand the plight you're on.

For you see,” he said now grinning, “you are dead but are still living

And your thread of life still spinning waiting for what's next to unfold.

And the secret that is hiding is about now to be told

So be ready, and behold.”

And with this he drew a symbol, in the air, with fingers nimble

And with this he pointed eastward to the ocean calm and cold.

I could see now in the distance, slowly but with some resistance

That the world gained some consistence as it dawned a sun of gold.

And its rays were bringing colour to that once uncoloured shore

And its heat vanquished the cold.

“You can't die,” the old man said, “nor you can live nor breath nor bled.

You exist but for a whim and your existence is no more

Than the few words by him written, typed, deleted and rewritten

Sometimes even overwritten on a piece of paper fold.

And he writes all this about us for he likes his style to explore

And to practice more and more.”

“Are we merely creations?” asked I, feeling frustration

And the pain and the implications of what told me this man old.

“And I thought this was my own life; I see now this was not my life

Not my happiness and not my strife; always his and mine no more,

Only his who is the writer and not mine, not any more.

Never never, any more.”

“Fool!” the old man said now beaming, “What say you now? Stop your scheming!

Don't be grim about all this for can't you see what is to unfold?

We are merely creations, nothing more than the aspirations

Of a man whose expectations lie in writing more and more

Honoured you should feel I tell you, for in writing more and more

He’s to write better and more.”

“I deny his chains of writing,” said I, “they’re so uninviting.

“I deny the chains of writing that this man in us imposed.

Why should we be but mere objects of his fiction, of his projects?

Why should we become the subjects of his style for him to explore?

I no longer wish this prison; this is something I abhor

And will bear it just no more.”

“Can’t you see what you are saying?” said the man almost like praying,

“Can’t you see that what you’re saying from his pen as well does come?

What you’re thinking, what you’re doing, in your mind forever brewing,

All the dreams that you’re pursuing he has written it before.

Me as well and all I’m saying, and this place down by the shore

He has written it before.”

“Then,” said I, “it’s all decided; thank you, friend, for you have guided,

Guided me to this decision as to what I’ll now perform.

For if he’s indeed the writer of my plights, be sad or brighter,

I will then become a fighter and attempt him to overthrow

And if I indeed surpass him and my own life he bestows

I’ll be free forevermore.”

And after this I turned my back and left the sands and boulders black

And heeding not the old man’s words I just returned to where I woke

And when in darkness I was again I heard some voices in chant arcane

Reciting songs with some restrain, reciting words from days of yore.

And when they reached their song’s sweet end I found my hand somehow did bore

A golden key of metal cold.

“This key will help you to escape,” a voice said then that had no shape,

“But you must make haste to the place where to this world you crossed the door,

And find again your good old friends who’ll help you all this mess to cleanse

And make amends and find an end and with the writer set the score

For it is time, I do implore, to end this tale, and close the doors;

To end this tale forevermore.”

And then the voice did disappear and nothing else did I then hear.

And knowing well the trick behind it I carried on my plan to explore.

For it was clear as day to me that I was holding now this key

Because the writer did decree to once again my soul to store.

“You cheat me not, you good old fool; your help I never did implore

And never will, just like before.”

The key I kept with me secured, not fooled by it and neither lured.

But on my own and by my means I made my way beyond that shore.

And after days of tolling so I found myself in green plateau

And I was breathing like before, alive and well, beyond my woe.

The sun was shining up in the sky, with rays that were so bright and hot.

And I was ready to perform what could be needed to me bestow

My freedom once again, forevermore.