《Dreamvendors - short stories》 Across the sky, the river of stars The same evening a new star appeared, a tragedy on the river overtook the people of the small village of Vakr at two bends in the river. The bodies of young Najair and his mother Tarakini were lost in the current while swimming to catch a floating basket. Najair was swept underwater and his mother dove to get him, and neither came back up. The ferryman of the bend, Vasudeva, who had encountered them each day they were alive, had found no trace of the two. The slow Brahmani river carved out deep and fast channels in the bends that changed and shifted like the moon. He stood watch in his loincloth, aged birdlike and with calloused hands trembling, scanning the water¡¯s edge. With his long toes gripping his stout ferry that could carry three large Sindhi or Gir cows, his sobs shook it with little mournful ripples reaching outward across the divide. Vasudeva watched and thought of Tarakini, she who had prayed for a full season for her son to come had suffered in his birth. She bled, coloring the river until her skin was the color of thin clouds. Samanas, wandering ascetics, dusty and unkempt, from downriver, saw the carmine color and came to offer Vedic prayers from the holy book along the riverbank. Chanting under the starlight mist, their voices dabbed the water and swirled through the reeds. The village, breath held, waited. Old women wrung their hands as tales of a pale mother were told to them by their mothers. They cried in secret places as the child cried through the night. In the morning, Tarakini still faintly breathed and the chants slowly dissipated into sighs as her color returned, and so life returned to the two bends. The villagers left lotus and gifts of fish and incense for good health and luck, and after, revered her as Tarakini, Blessed of the river. Her husband, Ravi, offered daily prayers and thanks for his fortune and showered his love upon them. As Vasudeva watched, wails echoed for two days through the village and the scent of incense mixed with tears. Youthful monks in saffron robes tended low fires, their prayers like smoke drifting through cloth. Mourning was not just for the two river-lost, but for the father as well. Honoring tradition, Ravi gave his name back to the Brahman until such time peace found him able to honor his family with the proper rights and return them, even if just in spirit, to the river. Only then could he take a new name or, as tradition, he will wander the world for eternity knowing no peace. The village offered prayers for Ravi and supplied dried fish and bananas for his journey. A passing ascetic in rags with a thin body carved deep with self-denial, mixed crimson dye with saliva from the villagers and painted a thick line of mourning down his chin, marking him a nameless spirit. Vasudeva, a small raft lashed to his ferry, took a jewel from the man¡ªa payment to ferry a spirit. Then he stood aside and let his charge aboard. He was to take this man, this shadow, to the center of the river, and then set him on a journey of no return. Vasudeva pushed the ferry out, the villagers on the bank murmured and pointed. As he finished the push, flower blooms swirling in the current overcame the long pole lifting muck from the bottom of the river. Turning, Vasudeva marveled, the Brahmani was filled with countless marigold blossoms floating down the river. A strong current began with the flowers, and Vasudeva had to brace the ferry. He nodded to his passenger with no name, a ghost, a man he had known as a child who was no more.
The man with no name sat on his small raft and heard the stillness of the village fade behind him as the flotilla of flowers accompanied him. He wished to refer to himself as something, a way to pin himself to this task he feared, but that pilgrimage required he not, so he waited with no name. And he sat in silence with only the scent of the flowers and the river that carried him. The man only glanced as he passed huts and fishers, farmers and goatherds, bathers and women doing laundry. It was a short time before he was far away from his home ¡­ no, he thought, not his home. That was the home of what he was before. And so, trusting the river, he slept until he came upon a small village that looked to be the same size as Vakr and the current left him ashore and the marigolds collected around his raft and the scent brought out all who were awake to gawk and whisper until a kindly monk named Sahil, with a necklace of large beads and a toothy smile to match, came to him and invited him to the temple. Temples are houses of ghosts he had learned, so it seemed fitting that he should break his fast with the monk. This temple was, he understood from Sahil, a famous leaning temple that was so old it had partially sunk and spirits had reinforced it so that it had not fallen on the holy man who had lived there for a lifetime without speaking¡ªwho abruptly left one day, still without saying a word. Having not been a ghost before, he was unsure on what he should say, so he nodded and looked at the temple, which seemed sound, though it was perhaps leaning only a small amount. Sahil talked about the village and with each tale of the life of the village, the veil of the ghost seemed to lift and the man found solace between the people and this monk. Though he didn¡¯t talk, he perhaps felt that the man liked that he didn¡¯t speak and so to keep hearing the stories, he sat and drank tea and ate bread and oil. The monk spoke at length about how the river had brought them a new holy man who didn¡¯t speak, and the pilgrims would return with their money and goods.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. That night he lay on a mat and thought that maybe the river had brought him here to replace the mute monk who had left and this brought him joy, though he was no holy man, and so his ghost quivered and shook his sleep. In the morning, a woman in red and white wearing bracelets and long, bound hair, woke him and asked him to follow. Moving behind her, he inhaled her fragrance and remembered his old life before casting his eyes to the ground. Coming to a stop by the river, his eyes took in his raft and the marigolds. Some were wilting and brown, staining the water. Soon they would smell. The woman in red and white touched his hand and motioned at the raft and his ghost moved there, then his body. He sat, stared into her eyes as she pushed the raft into the swirls of flowers and the blossoms dislodged to travel with him once more. She pointed at the new star above distant peaks and hills. He held up a hand in thanks and watched the wilted blooms sink.
The man, a ghost on the raft, floated with sinking flowers towards the star above the mountains. He passed villages and bathers; he passed pyres and mourners; he passed temples and huts, and he passed families idle on the shore, enjoying the time they had. The river¡¯s scent was unfamiliar here, so far from what he knew. It became pungent due to all it had endured, and the marigolds diminished to only a few. The river left him on a lonely shore as the last flower floated up, still flawless. He picked up the blossom, and keeping its beauty in his hand, thanked the river and began toward the mountain. The river flowed on toward its sea.
An unnamed ghost, holding a perfect yellow flower, walked slowly until finding a road with deep ruts leading to the hills and mountains. He slept along the side of this cart-path as butterflies collected along his hips and legs, fanning their wings. In fitful dreams, he floated over water as he kept drifting farther from an empty shore. Come morning, a passing merchant¡¯s cart with a Samana named Samir hanging off the back called and woke him. He had to run to catch up and join the man. Samir didn¡¯t ask his name as he told him about his journey to see the new star. He said that there were people from a place so far away that ice fell from the sky there and they had set up a contraption of glass and metal that allowed you to see the heavens, and Samir wanted to look. The people also had odd customs and kept their dead instead of burning them and casting their ashes to the river to be reborn. It all sounded disturbing, but bumping along this road into the hills, the simple idea of seeing that one star made his soul start.
In the foothills of a steep and jagged mountain, the people from afar had rows of carved stones and kept asking the man for his name. They explained they kept their dead underground and even laid stones on top of them, which seemed no way to treat spirits. But they also had the contraption of glass and metal and had erected a stone building to house it and keep it safe during the monsoon. The people had many who had come to see the stars. They tried to let each get a look. They kept a list of those that were to gaze through the glass, and for the man, he was on the list as simply ¡°unnamed man with flower¡±. On his night to view the star, there was a star shower, many stars falling were even visible in the dusk light. As the call came for the unnamed, he stood holding the still perfect flower, his clothes now rags, his chin still crimson and his body now gaunt. All stopped to watch the man enter the observatory, which was next to the stones that kept the foreigners¡¯ spirits in place. He nodded when they asked if he, too, wanted to see the new star. Sitting him on a stool, they adjusted knobs and dials and, finally satisfied, gestured for him to look. Bending forward, he gazed into the eyepiece. At first he viewed nothing, but then he saw it¡ªit was not one star but two, smaller and larger, and he could feel their presence. He looked at them for a time and lifted and nodded his head. A sadness took him. The operator of the device said that he would show the man the river of stars in the sky and cranked on a rounded wheel and moved levers. Moments later, he gestured again. Again, with an eye to the device, the unnamed man saw it, a river of stars, and there in the center of a bend, the new star he had followed now clearly laid out in its place, fully visible. He thought of his task and gave the device a bow and shook the hand of the operator and walked outside. The foreign people called them ¡°meteors¡±, the falling stars, and they were exploding across the sky¡ªmore than all the monks in all the temples could count. More than the leaves on the trees, and as the sky fell, it silently streaked to the river far, far below. He stood, bathing in the light of Brahman setting the sky alight in a wonder never seen by man, before or since. The flower in his hand grew warm. He dropped it and it fell apart. The petals landing formed a word, his new name, Shaan¡ªdignity. Under the sky fire, he was unnamed no more. The Grand Villa caper I¡¯m getting away with the crime of the century sitting in an unused small conference room in a rarely used part of a resort hotel. It''s a little warm and stuffy, but I¡¯m wearing a white linen suit. If you¡¯ve never worn one, everything feels like a breeze in white linen. I''ve been a guest here for about a week, along with some crew, and right now we are getting away with the crime of the century. I notice the door open and quickly get back into character. ¡°So, you have been vacationing at The Grande Villa Seaside resort for a week, is that right?¡± an overweight, and obviously out of shape, policeman says as he walks in, he didn¡¯t even look up from his notebook. ¡°That''s correct, officer ¡­¡± ¡°Pederas is the name, and I¡¯m a captain,¡± he huffs, as he sits down, finally looking up, getting to the point with ¡°Where were you when the diamond disappeared?¡± Where indeed.
We will get there, but first I love a good backstory. It all started with an article about a man finding the Midnight Diamond in his dead dad¡¯s trunk, it''s the largest diamond ever found in North America and was famously stolen¡ªand never recovered¡ªby a notorious 2nd story man, Murph the Surf¡ªa stupid handle yes, apparently he got it during a heist in Miami where he paddled in and out on a surfboard, or so they say, and ¡®they¡¯ usually lie. That missing diamond is the ultimate status symbol for every villainous dictator, sheik and supervillain wanna-be on the planet. One of those hired our little crew. And, of course, the crew. Me, my handle is Tumblers, I have connections and I work locks¡ªand look good doing it. I run this crew, of which we have a rotating list of light-touches who have skills, and long resumes, that would keep every detective within forty miles up nights if they knew any of them was near. For this job, I only needed two. Blacklight, she is a specialist with chemicals and a disciple of the Seven Bells techniques of . She-pocketing, she can rob you blind and you won¡¯t notice anything but her eyes. Safetyboy, he is our tech and sets up comms and impromptu listening devices. He can also hack any computer he can see¡ªand even some he can¡¯t see. The plan. The news said that the diamond was to be auctioned off at The Grande Villa Seaside Resort in two weeks. Safetyboy helped some people lose their reservations via a ¡°website glitch¡±. One of those was for newlyweds¡ªso sad.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The diamond would be flown in and transported, by truck, to the resort with a full security escort. The resort has a lower level vault that is guarded and impenetrable. I¡¯m not thinking about tackling impenetrable, that¡¯s for big crews, I was looking at how they plan to move the diamond in and out of ¡®impenetrable¡¯ and we found several leverage points during the transport, specifically the elevator to the main level, the backroom for the auction, and of course the post purchase. None of this looked good. Checking the other guests to the resort, a name stood out, ¡°John Gold¡±. I know him as Jack ¡°two-finger¡± Gold. He was a listed bidder. Two-fingers is good, but he is more of a bank guy, not a ¡°stones¡± guy. But if he is a bidder, then I will bet that he will be in that purchase room to inspect the diamond after purchase. New plan¡ª¡±get in that room.¡± Blacklight stole a replica of the Midnight Diamond a year before, just to make sure it wasn¡¯t the real thing¡ªit wasn¡¯t. We want some of her Seven Bells tricks. Safetyboy will coordinate the surveillance, power, and communications. We need him to take out the cameras, halt the elevators and ?make a lot of noise with security if we need it. At the resort, we are set up for the big night. Safetyboy now knows the routines and the protocols for security. Blacklight has lifted security cards and room keys. We were ready. That¡¯s when Two-fingers spotted me, came up and sat at the bar and said ¡°You ain¡¯t getting it Tumblers¡± and then walked off. Great, now it¡¯s complicated. The evening of the auction, Blacklight rolls through the crowd like a hoover, scooping up billfolds, wallets, and dropping them in a trashcan we place near the ladies. Nobody is using cash here, anyway. I use a keycard to get into a service area and work my way back into the interior of the resort''s main building. I can hear distant gasps and applause. ¡°He won the bid. Get into place,¡± says Safetyboy¡ªsounding like his mouth was half-full of fake cheese puffs. I step into the room. Jack sees me and yells ¡°thief!¡± as the lights go out. I¡¯m out of the room fast with the genuine diamond, and pass it off to Blacklight, who says ¡°Neptune, poison ivy¡± a phrase, and I know it. She turns while walking away and says with a smile, ¡°also, I emptied the trash into Gold¡¯s room.¡±
So where indeed? I look up at the police captain and look as sincere as I can¡ªwhich is quite a bit. ¡°Sir, I was in the crowd, and I think I had a billfold stolen from me!¡± I said with a little exasperated flair. ¡°Everyone did, we are pretty sure it is this guy Gold, but he doesn¡¯t have the necklace¡± he said. He waved me out after getting contact details and verifying my identification. I pass Blacklight, and nod. I walk past the fountain with its marvelous details, so many smaller statues around the feet of Neptune. Fish, clams, chests and sunken ships, some rocks and between the legs in the back, a small sculpture of an urn, wrapped in poison ivy. Waiting in line to have my person and luggage searched, I pull out my phone and verify my reservation for next month, an artists'' convention. The Wall The ticking of my pocket watch is keeping me company. I can¡¯t move to see the time¡ªnot that it matters¡ªnobody can hear me and they are looking in the wrong place. I just wanted out. I needed fresh air and to move freely and stretch my legs; just to get away. Of course, I end up trapped and unable to move, listening to time stroll past, a fitting end for a wasted wish. My partner and cellmate, Murph, the rat, got cold feet at the last minute and snitched. Guards were closing in and I panicked. I had to abandon the plan and improvise, and here I am. ¡°Never trust a guy named ¡®Murph''¡° will be my mantra if I get out of here. But that is a big ¡°if.¡±The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The plan was good; I found a way out through walls, a truly slow way, but it was a way out. Two years setting this up, introducing cell-made acids in key areas of the walls, letting it slowly work. Concrete is tough. It takes months for acids to work. I made small holes in walls to pour my mixtures in, refreshing them as often as possible. Of course, I didn¡¯t tell ¡°Murph¡± about every tunnel I made. He didn¡¯t know about this one that I used to escape the guards. But now they are looking in the wrong place. I¡¯m thirsty. When the pocket watch stops, it will be thirty-six hours since I went in. Tick, tick, tick¡­ A dangerous idea ¡°I built the second machine. It may kill me, but I intend to use it,¡± I say. ¡°There is no evidence this will work, zero guarantee here,¡± says my friend and cohort, Andrew. He is idly scratching some initials carved into the picnic table we¡¯re sharing and pushes up his glasses, which half-disappear into dishwater hair. I can see bags under his eyes now as he continues. ¡°Listen, when this was only research, it was fun to debate, but you built it. You really built it! I¡¯m compelled to report this to mental health services, if I have to.¡± ¡°What, why? You helped me prove it,¡± I say, then¡ªbefore he can get a word in, ¡°yes, the multiverse is real, and there is no concrete evidence that our consciousness follows the path where we live the longest. But the research, my friend, indicates that this is the only way it can work.¡± Andrew gazes upward and waves at someone. I turn and notice a dark-haired adjunct I have met once before, Stephan, walking across the park. He adjusts the thick black frames on his glasses. He¡¯s in one of the soft sciences, anthro or econ, if I recall. ¡°Here he is,¡± says Andrew, standing up to shake hands. ¡°Perhaps you can help me talk some sense into this guy,¡± he says, glancing at me with a tired smile. ¡°You remember Stephan, right?¡± ¡°Yes, what department again?¡± I ask. ¡°History,¡± he says. ¡°I¡¯m not hardcore like you physicists, but Andrew thought it would be helpful to have another viewpoint on your theory. You may also be surprised that history can provide a sane context in a fast-changing world.¡± ¡°Alright, you may know of our experiments,¡± I ask as he nods. ¡°Good! The basics of it are that when we run that famous double-slit experiment, the one that shows the quantum-mechanics wave-particle duality, it displays that an observer, just by observing, has a profound effect on the experiment,¡± I say, while watching him to see if he follows. I continue, ¡°We decided to figure out what that was. Some physicists subscribe to the waveform collapse theory¡ªthat our minds collapse multiple realities in on themselves¡ªas the only option for a particle being in two places.¡± ¡°Yes, it was in the news article I read about you guys,¡± he says. ¡°Well, that never sat well, and I thought instead that we are riding along in multiple universes and our brains are just making sense of reality splitting itself. This was what started it all, but then we were talking with some friends at CERN and they had tried the experiment inside the accelerator and discovered some odd readings. Digging into that data, we realized one¡ª¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Only broad strokes,¡± interrupts Andrew. I stop, realizing he won¡¯t know what I was about to say, ¡°Oh, yes, yes, you know about the new particles they inferred,¡± I ask with a nod from Stephan. ¡°In the CERN data, we found we could detect the presence of those, but couldn¡¯t directly observe them. However, we determined we could create a localized inference detector and make it small, small enough to fit in your pocket.¡± I pull out a little black project box with dials and switches turned at right angles. There is a large green LED that blinks once. ¡°With this,¡± I turn it over twice, ¡°we proved photons in the experiment really were in two places at the same time. In fact, they were in separate universes. That is where my latest theory comes in.¡± ¡°Crazy theory,¡± Andrew says. The LED on the box flashes. ¡°Think of it like this; I¡¯ve formalized in my unpublished paper that our consciousness follows along in whatever universe, in the multiverse, that we live the longest. This means that you are not part of all universes where you are dead. Anything that happens that could cause your death will not happen¡ªfor you¡ªbecause you can only be in the specific universe where you live the longest. The rest effectively collapse for your consciousness, which just skips to the one where you live.¡± I stop to let it sink in. The black box blinks. ¡°If I may ¡­ There are historical anecdotes here,¡± says Stephan, ¡°many believe in alternate histories and think that we reset the timeline dozens of times during the cold war, there were many close calls, almost too many. It was considered a miracle we didn¡¯t blow the entire world up during the Cuban missile crisis. I guess with your theory, maybe we did.¡± He looks out over the park as the sun sets. ¡°Exactly,¡± I say. ¡°I survived being drowned, falling from a cliff, being hit by a car, and I know I should have died each time. Every person alive has a story about how they almost died, and many have multiple experiences. This cannot be a coincidence.¡± The project box flickers. ¡°The problem here,¡± Stephan says, ¡°is that if you publish this, and the media get word, then the natural thing people will do is decide what they want¡ªand if they don¡¯t get it¡ªthey will kill themselves over the lottery, an audition, a contest, a job, a Nobel prize, anything else they may want badly. It¡¯s a dangerous idea.¡± As Stephan realizes the full implication, I say, ¡°I can¡¯t publish it until I prove it.¡± ¡°Wait, how are you thinking of testing this?¡± Stephan asks. ¡°I¡¯ve built a machine that wirelessly connects to the lottery results, I key in a ticket I bought and if the numbers don¡¯t land for the ticket, it injects me with enough morphine to do the job,¡± I say as I roll up my sleeve, exposing a small device wrapped around my forearm, it already has four numbers alight on its screen. Andrew jumps up, ¡°get that off!¡± ¡°It will kill me if I take it off before the sixth number,¡± I say. A fifth number appears and the box blinks. Stephan looks on in horror. Andrew covers his eyes. The box blinks. I need more each time ¡°The first time I turned one hundred years old, it was a simple affair. It was just a few old friends and song. Now, look at what you¡¯ve done!¡± I said, waving an arm over the crowd, two-hundred assembled on the open-air roof, the 59th floor, of Sestina tower¡ªmy home. Many laugh in their birthday hats, some smile, and others stare blankly back. With concern, I note those. ¡°It will be good to be young again. I¡¯ve forgotten what it feels like!¡± I continued, looking out over the city lights, the half-moon arcing between buildings, moonlight reflected like a knife. ¡°So, I¡¯ll close with a verse.¡± I say, as the crowd ripples with murmurs of anticipation. With a simple spell I weave beats in time with the power of the Cant, my power, where I get my title, ¡°The Poet¡±. Everyone present knows this one. It¡¯s the finale of my most famous poem. I begin.
might youth and ardor benight your brow forget, forget no more wind, and power fleet and flow curve and spline The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.forget, forget no more water laps memories, licks sunburnt wounds of the day, of the day, the day comes yet, for me forget no more
I let the incantation lightly simmer on the silent crowd and take a breath. ¡°It¡¯s wonderful to see you all tonight!¡± Leaving the stage, I stumble slightly. I¡¯m spirit-withered, reaching so many with the embrace. They feel warmth and love¡ªeven peace. Well, most of them, those who can, do. My table, a short distance from the stage, slightly elevated, blurs. I¡¯ll need to rest. ¡°We have a problem.¡± I say low, as I sit¡ªmy old knees aching. Simi, my assistant, looks up from a screen and glances at the dour-faced attendees. ¡°I see,¡± he says shortly, my poem not having affected him, and continues, ¡°Those look to be trouble. I¡¯ve heard reports of this over the last twenty years, but coming after you? Time to clean house.¡± ¡°In another hundred years, it could be even worse,¡± I say, nodding. I notice dinner has been served. I pick at it and wait. ### ¡°You ready?¡± Simi asks, rising to accompany me. I nod again and get up to begin the walk to a large brass container, vaguely bell-shaped. My body hurts with the effort. A century of planning. The crowd¡ªmy crowd¡ªparts for me, making a path. Climbing in, I see those blank stares. My meticulous work, ruined¡ªworthless to me now. Their "will" stolen by an unknown with the Cant, a brazen attack, personal. Once in, I begin my spell, the one I have primed everyone here for decades to receive. The brass purrs as I begin my verse. Dinnerware rattles, the purr becomes a hum and sustains. I draw from my crowd, first a sip, then a torrent. Less than expected, I won¡¯t be as youthful as I wanted. I¡¯ll find these bold witches who have stolen from me. ¡°Forget no more ¡­¡± My crowd, my sustenance, chant. It¡¯s my birthday.