Moon

a work in the tradition of Lovecraft's dream travel tales, hope I got the spirit

I really do hate those nights when the full moon, round as a polished pebble shines through the tattered drape of my room under the old house's roof. I hate this apparently friendly looking face and the cold light it is spreading over the world. And I hate the dreams it is bringing with it. Evil dreams making my sleep uneasy, so that I toss and turn until I wake up in cold sweat.

But it wasn't always so. There was a time the dreams were amazing taking me away from my poor reality. I do dream since a long time but still I remember the way the first dream came to me. My father banned me into that small chamber under the roof for the night because of a minor misdeed. The moon, friendly at that time threw his brilliant light through the narrow dusty window onto my bed and into my face. And then I started to dream. I felt a part of me lifted into this light or better through the light. It was a kind of taking me away to a magic kingdom mortal aren't allowed to enter.

Because of a weird optical distortion I wasn't able to see my own body, but I possessed sensory organs, I saw, I heard and I felt. Around me there was a world so strange and also familiar that it's hard for me to describe. I hovered or flew through sun flushed gardens and groves where blooming trees grew with weird, prismatic colored birds twittering in their branches. I crossed murmuring creeks flowing over colored pebble beds and I felt odors varying from everything I ever smelt. Animals from endless grace played in the brushes and meadows of this landscape while around me other beings floated, some silent contemplating, some sunken in conversations, I from an unknown reason they treated of philosophic consideration.

Apparently I was one of them who hovered above this bright and sparkling land, and I wasn't the boy who was disciplined by his father, but one of those thinkers who disposed of some experience. One of those light beings, who only looked human vaguely as they could form limbs from their bubble-shaped bodies floated nearer to me and bowed.

“Honorable Turan,” I heard a soft voice inside my head without any movement at the face of my counterpart. Obviously dialogues here worked directly from mind to mind without using any organs. “You were away for a long time,” the other entity nourished. “Honorable Baran, my friend,” I replied,” I was on a long journey into realms our priests only are whispering about.”

In real I could remember dark things making my sleeping alter ego shiver. “I was there where colored gases with strange names are whispering monstrous secrets and where weird shadows roll senseless through the darkness. I came to regions where black stone was winding into the sky to hide his builders from the beings whose bodies we live in those other world and who they are worshiped from.”

“Ah, I forgot, you research the darkness instead of enjoying the light around us, “ the light entity replied, and I thought to realize some kind of mockery in his thoughts besides we communicated only in mind like all the other beings around. “Darkness, my friend,” I answered a little patronizing, “the darkness, or better the knowledge of darkness is able to let us understand better the light. Only who knows about the essence of darkness is able to appreciate the light.” “Be careful with such statements,” Baran gave cause for concern. “the priests my take your words as heresy.” “Ah, aren't we all thinkers ans philosophers? Only without pedantic limits we can do our work and let it be sung about by our poets,” I refused his doubts. “But now let us enjoy the peace and the light I had had been afar from for such a long time.”

We floated beneath each other through the light covered landscape until we parted because we were forced to return to the bodies we lived in the real world.

*

It was amazing. Every time the full moon shone from above I tiptoed into the room under the roof to get into this world I not longer was the son of a poor country nobleman but a wise and mighty being among equals. Yes, I couldn't await getting into those world through the bright moonbeam.

Those light entities lived in a kind of theocratic anarchy, means everyone could satisfy his needs without greater limitation. Most of all the priests were a kind of government, but they more cared about morality and used to advise us. We, means the light entities I was one too most of all were philosophers, thinker and scientists who dedicated ourselves the research of the universe. Again and again it happened some of us disappeared for some time to travel the more unknown zones of space to impart the new knowledge to the others. Baran also had such journeys from time to time, but not in those regions I had been to, they had been tabooed by the priests.

But there were other beings I could call my friends, so it came I often sat amidst a group of like minded people on a bright forest glade or one of the large yards which made ample the space between the buildings discussing the meaning of the universe.

But slowly, nearly unperceived there were changings in those world. It nearly seemed a shadow moved between the sun and our world. The colors, once sparkling and clear seemed fading and blurred, the light that shone bright and clear before became weak and sick. Also we light enities changed. The discussions we had became harsh and grim, our positions weren't abandoned as easy as before.

A kind of darkness, inexplicable to me seemed to lurk into our world. Slowly the journeys in those world behind the moonlight from a pleasure turned into a plight I only incurred because I thought to know I was one of a few to opppose the upcoming darkness.

Once I came to those other world I met with a refusal. Seemingly the priests had decided my illegal travel into the regions of darkness were the catalyst for the negative changings in our light world, and they wanted to victimize me. Luckily most of the attendees decided against this, in main because of my friend Baran. Nevertheless I nearly was an outcast and only a few friends, real friends stayed at my side. Those agreed with me we had to stand up to the dark if we didn't want to be overpowered by it.

The trouble was, we were poets and philosophers, not fighters. But on my vacation to the darkest parts of space from the colored gases, most of all from the purple gas S'gnac I learned things explaining the mind of gloom until deep inside of it. This knowledge could help us fight against taking delivery of our world.

*

No one knew his real name, besides he once had been one of us believing in the whispered gossips. Real or not, the one whose name covertly was mentioned in the human world and in forbidden books silently spread as Yog-Sothot impudently surrendered and claimed to give ourselves and our world under his command without a fight.

Naturally his request was rejected keenly and the usurper had to leave empty handed, not without menacing with the most terrible consequences. Besides this evil being turned away from us it had placed fear in our souls, and as time goes by the fear could spread and coming with it the gloom.

A long time had passed in the human world, my parents had died and only left that poorly preserved house I lived in. My life had changed fundamentally, I could live on the income my business yielded. But because of my dreams I had refused to take a wife and to start a family. In this time I lived in the large house on my own as I do still. In general I only use a few rooms in the ground floor but for the time of the full moon.

*

When formerly I sneaked to the room under the roof for my own pleasure it now, after the far reaching change that took place in that light world was a strain I only submitted to because I thought it to be my duty against all the other light entities who needed my knowledge about the dark urgently to defend against those usurper.

Beauty and harmony of the light world were gone since those sinister entity had came to. Suspicioness and enviousness had started to spread. The frankness we had in our discussions were gone.

*

Now, as I am an old man the time has come, the usurper stood at our frontier to take with violence what we didn't give to him without a struggle and propably he will succeed. I am too old to fight, but perhaps it isn't that important on the other side of the moonlight as it is here.

Today I'll climb up the steps to the attic for a last time. I''ll lay on the narrow bed and wait for the moonlight to carry me away into those other world. And I will counter the usurper. I'll be victorious and stay in those light world or I'll perish in the chaos of a universe tumbling in insanity only knowing one sovereign. May the elder gods give my knowledge I got from the outer beings is enough to defeat my enemy. But also if I am able to I won't come back to my haggard body lying in the full moon's light.