The World of NightsEnd

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Though rumors have inhabited World Net for over forty years there is absolutely no evidence that a place by the name of Haven exists. The idea of a militant religious society that is a training ground for future infiltrators of our peaceful society is at best urban legend and at worse vile propaganda. Haven is simply the invention of lesser minds incapable or unwilling to accept the harmony our world now affords.

GPP Guardian August 2185

As the moon set leaving Devil’s Canyon in total darkness the sun rose in a far different place. And as the old man rested in the same dream he had experienced on thousands of others nights a young man awoke and faced the day half a world away.

Wesley stretched and looked out across the placid lagoon that nearly surrounded the narrow point of land where his hammock hung. Ti plants grew nearby providing a lush green canopy above Wesley’s head. It was hard to believe that these benign looking plants which provided flax for their clothes and writing material for their translations could also capture minds in narcotic stupor if drunk from too freely.

After rinsing off in the lagoon and eating some mangoes Wesley turned his attention back to what most young men of his island did. He stretched once more and hunkered over his translation papers.

Since the bronze skinned and blonde headed youth was not of the Council he was not tasked to translate anything so important as Scriptures or the Teacher. Instead he was given the mundane task of trying to fathom the language and meaning of some curious papers that had been stored at the Council building for as long as anyone could remember.

Wesley was not the first to work on this particular task. He was the third generation of his family to do so. First his grandfather, then his father Graham, and now he labored in solitude on the mind-numbing job of translating four pages of incepheribale gibberish.

He stared at the second line of the second page for the hundredth time in a week. Images and meaning formed in his mind in a way that no one beyond this island could ever understand. Just as a sculptor sees the fished product in an untouched block of wood he could see meaning and connections of letters, words, and thoughts where others only saw blots of black on pages of white.

Wesley was no genius or savant. It was simply what the people here did. They existed to translate and understand words. In particular they lived to translate and understand a singularly important book the Teacher left behind after his death. But that was for more important people than Wesley and that was fine by him. He translated because that is who the people of Haven are; translators.

A drop of water fell on the back of his neck and Wesley wiped it away unconsciously. Then another, and another fell. He looked up at the clear blue sky and scowled. Laughter erupted from above him. He looked up and threw a shell in the direction of the laughter.

“Ow! What’d you do that for?” A slightly taller young man dropped from the tree like a monkey leaving its perch. He laughed again and looked over his friend’s shoulder. “Make anything out of that business?”

Wesley shook his head. “Not really. Father managed to break the basic code of the languages alphabet some time ago but it still makes no real sense. The alphabet is more like a vast library of symbols that all build on each other.”

His friend sat beside him and nodded. “Wish I could help you but I’m no good at such things.”

Wesley nodded. His friend Judson was certainly a strange one. He seemed brighter than any other his age on the island but had no natural translating abilities at all. What he did have however was envied by all. He was a dreamer.

“Any new dreams lately?” Wesley asked absent mindedly as he looked back at his work.

“Yea, and I think this one may be worthy of the Council.”

“What was it?”

Judson stood up and threw a shell into the lagoon. He looked like he always did. Like he wished he could follow that shell away from here to somewhere else. But everyone knew here was all there was. Why long for anything else?

“Can’t say yet.” Judson’s reply was short but not curt. I need time to talk with father and consider it in context of the Scriptures. But I’ll tell you this much. It’s all most here.”

Wesley marked his place and stood by his friend. “What’s almost here?”

There was a brief silence as Judson looked over Wesley’s shoulder and across the quiet lagoon. His eyes focused on the horizon where the ocean’s thundering breakers crashed in on themselves beyond the lagoon.

Wesley turned to see what his companion stared at so longingly but all he saw was endless water. What else was new? After all, Judson was the Dreamer, not him.

Judson lifted his bronzed arm and pointed to the Eastern horizon. “The time for me to see what’s out there.”Without further explanation Judson turned, and disappeared into the lush green undergrowth.

Wesley watched him leave and shook his head. “Dreamers,” he sighed, “can’t understand them but we all wish we were them.”

Wesley ran his finger across a Ti plant leaf as he turned back to his papers. Not realizing his hands had been wet he picked up the first page and froze in horror. He had just committed the cardinal sin for translators. The torn Ti leaf had left its sap on Wesley’s fingers. Now that same watered down sap had left two distinct purplish finger prints on the margin of the page. He had tainted the translation.

The teenager caught his breath as he held the page up to the sunlight. If he had permanently marred this page he would have dishonored his family. Three generations had handled these pages with such care that not one smudge or mark had ever been left on any of them. Now he managed in one careless moment to mar his family’s proud tradition.

The South Pacific sun shone brightly through the page as Wesley held it up to the sky. And then all concern about damaging the page vanished. “Well what do you know?” Wesley examined the finger printed margin more closely and fell to the ground picking up his writing instrument. He looked at the margin and then at the first page. Back and forth he went, his eyes bouncing back and forth in rapid succession.

Writing instrument went to blank paper and Wesley wrote. He wrote through the noon meal and until the last light of evening was gone. Several times his mother came to call him but seeing him writing she retreated quietly. The first tenant of the island was to never interrupt a translator for any reason.

With little sleep and the flickering light of torches Wesley wrote until his hands hurt. He wrote until his eyes could not focus. He wrote as all translators did; until he finished. The next morning he awoke with a start. He had written for so many hours straight he couldn’t discern between dream and reality. As he walked slowly along the sugary white beach near his house it finally dawned on him what had happened; he had dreamed.

Of course, everyone dreams in some form or another. But this was not some dim echo of subconscious or past experience. It was as though he had really been there. This was something mysterious … holy. Wesley sat on a fallen coconut tree and closed his eyes. Yes there it was. The dream was there to play back in his mind like turning the pages in a book.

… He was walking with his freshly translated papers in hand through the forbidden northern tip of the island. Actually it was more avoided than forbidden. For reasons lost in time people seemed to be born with a natural aversion to the place.

“Where are you going?”

Once again Judson had dropped in on his friend without warning. Wesley stopped and turned. He held out the papers, handed them to his friend and turned to walk again.

“I don’t understand,” Judson called from behind.

“You will.”

After another hours walk Judson and Wesley topped the rocky outcropping that overlooked the sea to the north.

“What are we doing here? There’s as much nothing here as everywhere else on this island.”

Wesley smiled. That was the enigma about Dreamers. They saw great and wonderful things yet to be but seldom appreciated where the here and now. He didn’t bother to answer but instead walked over to a small rock that had the shape of a half moon. Wesley placed his hand on the top of the rock and pressed down. To Judson’s surprise the rock sank about two inches followed by the hissing sound of escaping air.

Wesley turned the rock, a distinct clicking sound accompanied each turn. He stepped back and calmly took his papers from Judson’s hand. A whoosh of stale air suddenly rushed from a hundred different sources around the rock. Both boys jumped back instinctively as a slight tremor ran under their feet.

And then in happened. The little rock rose in the air followed by more of the rock beneath it until a mound of rocks stood before them about ten feet high. As they timidly approached the mound both boys could plainly see that these were not really rocks at all.

Every child in Haven memorized Genesis by the time they were six. All knew that intelligent design is clearly discernable. Things do not just happen. Everything has reason and design. This odd mound of rocks that rose up to form what was obviously a doorway was put here by someone. But who and why?

Wesley tried to in vain to push the door opent. He strained until his arms hurt and fell back panting. Judson hesitantly stepped past his friend and ran his hand along the surface of the door. It was smooth as glass and cold. He closed his eyes and whispered some words Wesley had never heard before. “Therefore go into all the world.”

“What did you say?”

Judson locked eyes with his friend and smiled. “This is the way Wesley. This is the way to what is out there and I must go.”

Wesley stared wide-eyed at his friend. Somehow he understood but he didn’t know why. All that was out there was water and more water. But no, he knew in his heart that was wrong.

Judson laughed. Without even looking back Judson pushed the door and it opened silently, more stale air escaping around him. He turned while standing in the doorway.

“What should I tell everyone?” asked Wesley.

“Tell them I have gone into the world.”

“But will I ever see you again?”

Judson looked toward the blackness beyond the doorway and then back to where Wesley stood in the bright South Pacific sunlight. “Yes my friend, we will see each other again but I don’t think it will be here.”

… And then the dream was gone. Wesley stared out across the distant waves trying to make sense of it and why he had been granted this honor. He was a translator not a Dreamer!

A hermit crab scampered after the retreating tide and Wesley ran over to help it find the water that eluded it.

“Oh well,” he told the crab, “it was just a dream after all. I’d better take these papers to father before he wonders what has happened to me.”

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NightFall: Second Revision July 2008
All Rights reserved @ 2007