As
they followed the ageing grey haired Man of the Hill they took in
their surroundings and started to realise the scale of what he had
built here, tucked in the rocky mountain's feet away from any prying
eyes and any obvious resource that would attract too many visitors.
It was huge, almost big enough to be called a town in it's own right.
Just how this one man had achieved all this, working alone and from
what they'd seen of him using only stone tools and his hands. He clearly must have had access to an energy source that they didn't understand and could not see. The
same question seared through all their minds as they gazed around
themselves in awe; how was this possible?
"Welcome
to my home." He suddenly announced, waving his right arm back in
a grandiose gesture of invitation. "Such, as it is." He
added.
"I...I..."
Geoff stammered.
"Fuckin'
wow!" Said Claire, "how did you find this place?"
"Find
it? I was told where to come by the visitors." They all slowly
turned their gaze towards him as he continued," When the change
came to us all. I was visited by some strange folk. I do not know if
they were people from another time, or another place. I am not sure
that they were even people as we understand the term.
"I
had been living in a shelter I'd bashed together out of bits of wood
and tent canvas and the like. They arrived in what I can only
describe as a craft made from light. Not solid you understand? Not
made from matter as we would make something, but made from light. I
can think of no other words to describe what I saw.
"
They approached me, seven of them in all. They appeared as humanoid
figures yet oversized and somewhat overwhelming in their
attractiveness. At first I was afraid of them, yet they soon calmed
me without recourse to any words, and then they circled around me and
each in their turn came forward and placed first a kiss, and then
their finger upon my lips.
The
friends had now huddled in close and were listening very attentively.
This was what they had all come to find, this was the story from the
old man himself, the truth about what had happened here.
"In
each kiss, " his eyes glazed as he stared, as if into time
itself, and recalled the wonder he had felt. The old man continued " I
absorbed a great store of knowledge and wisdom that comes from that
'other' place on the far side of the abyss. There are no words
adequate to explain what was transferred to me with each kiss from
those beings.
"Yet
with each finger that they placed," his tone and countenance
darkened as he continued his recount of events "I was
restrained, limited, forbidden from communicating, transmitting or
recording in any form what they had given me. With that knowledge I
am permitted to apply - I have begun to build again."
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