The train was en route. Night had settled on its tracks. It sped forward through a countryside that edged off from the city perimeter. Shaking its carriages here and there, oblivious of the souls it contained. One purpose – delivery – moved it forward. Passing stations not on its itinerary, whilst its occupants, voicing each their own agenda against its rattle and grind, waited with their expectations, in seats, in the aisles of its skeletal metallic system. Removed in their eventual disembarking, time dissolved their stories, the rails continuing against all odds in their perpetual forward motion and thrust of the train and its cargo of suitcases, occupants and sundries.
The train halted. The door opened. Leo disembarked on platform 15 Light Track Station. For all intent and purpose Leo was on a path to the World Diner 112. Being of a punctual and decided nature required double checking of a watch and the station time piece. Exactly 10.45. Needing another 26 minutes of time, to make it to the final destination, Leo heavily rolled the suitcase towards the brightly lit exit.
Let’s leave Leo for a while – or at least 26 minutes to get to that destination – and let me tell you a little more about the world diner 112 where Leo is headed.
The World Diner has many stories connected to it. It would be hard to pin it down, but let’s start with some history. It had a menu, composed and detailed for travelers across the universe. Simply a limited number of choices, constructed as starters, mains and deserts; taste tempting options, that accompanied many otherwise understood stories. And coffee machines that continued to brew and brew, as stories unfolded over steaming hot cupped beverages. What it meant also, to know and meet the baker, the cook, the helpers and servers and, of course, the many, many diners. So where does one begin the recount? The last time the light flashed, and the globe blew, I was looking towards the last booth…I heard her say,” I don’t want it deep fried, grilled, charred or something quite burnt”. Anja knew how it should be: those chocolate brownies, the bakers favorite starter, not a desert, a savory something, served with bitter sweet coffee. Who knew where it would take you. The baker knew those diners before they arrived.
Anja wasn’t really sad or happy. She smiled at times and, even though she knew it required less muscles to maintain a grin, she didn’t really feel the lack of effort to be happy that was prescribed by the Magic Company. Mostly she felt her face drooping and her eyes watered over, and the incessant rantings of the Magic Company (the ruling party) on the third storey of Terra Firma, gave her a headache. She felt lonely and displaced, and each time she checked her admission ticket to the third storey she was convinced there had been an administrative hitch…..she felt she needed to speak to the Prescriber….but was scared….what if this really was her lot…and the Prescriber became angry at her for not being grateful. Why, she asked herself, was she here….if she was so not here…
It’s not what you would have expected. Time moved around, and then somehow swung full-force out and back. The Present was always a definite….but one might sometimes by chance, or haphazard intention, step into the past or future. The Earth now as we know it, had three upward layers, leading up and away on the cosmic staircase….or the cosmic super-enhanced escalator, to the train and its rails, that serviced different stations and administrative departments….with a rest stop layover on Level Three….where we find the Magic Company and its registered employees, the World Diner 112 and Anja, a number of diners, servers, the cook and baker, and the soon to be arriving Leo. The World Diner 112, and everything above original Ground Floor Earth, was considered to be the fourth dimension of reality. The now discovered realm. The Prescriber had clearly enacted with his councillors, in the year 2038, that there were at least three dimensions before the fourth to be investigated…and that scientists with the requisite skills, would be tasked with this on a continuous basis. Anja had applied for an assistant research position. She had handed in her applications on ground level…been approved and received her travelling papers and ticket, and boarded the same train Leo had taken three days ago…..waiting in World Diner 112 and sleeping over when tiredness took her, at Motel 122 across the road. How boring, however, it was to be stationed here for almost 68 hours, with no distractions except a menu, tasty as it was, and the continuous rantings of the Magic Company congratulating all travellers on a safe arrival into the fourth dimension of reality.
Everyone knew the coffee was really good here. Anja wanted to start understanding, or at least venture a glimpse into the two levels below….something exciting had to be lurking there. Why had earthlings been jolted into this realm without going through the evolution or experience of the other two levels? And who was to say that below came before that up high? So many research questions to be jostled with ….and now, scribbled down in Anja’s purple, flowered notebook, strewn with chocolate brownie crumbs, Anja sighed, her cupped coffee half-full, caught a server’s attention……
Leo, pulling a large suitcase against what can be described as the setting sun in a fourth dimensional reality, was not in the most energized state of mind. Walking on this dimension was similar to old-fashioned walking on the moon….one felt a slight lift that contested gravity at each step, and then there was the suitcase that lifted and settled, making the wheeling apparatus seemingly useless at moments. Leo had accepted the position of research assistant with slight reluctance. Settled in Ground Floor Earth ways, there had been little desire to travel out of set boundaries. Having just settled the seeds in the garden back home, ready for spring, and having to leave their growth up to a stranger’s care did not feel appealing ….Leo was essentially a settler not a traveller or explorer. For Leo, the myriads of understandings and interpretations of otherness could be found in the unique growth of one’s own garden….and truly in the sand, earth and soil, where one had uniquely popped into the universe. Using a microscope in one’s own kitchen accompanied by a good cup of coffee, could easily enlarge any perspective of reality. There were indeed many worlds to be discovered in one’s own backyard. Leo was, however, also a mediating philosopher. The truth needed to be sometimes experimented with, if only to hear the hidden voices who had not always been allowed expression in the past, and so, with some personal reservations, this journey to discover the significance of the other dimensions of reality, under the present World Diner, but above Terra Firma, was underway, signed up and undertaken…
(to be continued)
Aster x
