Ep 14 - The Show part III
Flambeau River State Forest, Wisconsin, October 24, 2014
<As Naran reflects on the Didelian show, memories stir. Need to catch up? Find the previous chapters here: Table of Contents >
Immersed in darkness and comfortably sitting in my reclined, velvet chair, I take a sip from my drink. It’s made of some sort of sweet berry combined with fresh mint and chips of dark chocolate. All things I love.
I hear the restlessness of the audience around me. Something is happening. I look toward the center space below but see nothing different. The Arena is still submersed in darkness.
I feel Psyrah’s hand in my hair, and she pulls lightly so that my head tilts backwards. Then I see it.
High up in the Arena, several spheres are hovering. They look like planets, yet I do not recognize them. As a child I was fascinated by planets, and I knew all the characteristics of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune by heart, so it is easy to tell these planets are not from our solar system. Three of them have rings around them like Saturn. One of them is a blue planet, and two are bright red. In total, I see nine planets hovering over us.
Slowly, they start to lower into the Arena. After a few minutes, the closest beige-colored planet is hanging only a few feet over us. It is so detailed that I can distinguish different types of beige, blue, and green. Even though the beige dominates the entire planet, I can clearly distinguish small patches of water in an ocean of sand.
Then, a large globe lights up unexpectedly in the middle of the Arena. It is immensely bright, and the Arena looks like it’s on fire. I hold my hands in front of my eyes to get used to its intensity after so much darkness. I know this massive ball of light is a sun. The planets start to quiver and slowly begin to rotate around their axes. Subsequently, they all find an orbit and hover around the large sun at a comfortable speed. I get to observe every single one individually, but after a few minutes, the planets speed up in their orbits and go faster and faster around the sun until it becomes hard to distinguish them from one another. The sun shines brighter and brighter, and when it becomes almost too blinding, a huge explosion happens in the middle of the arena, and I cover my face with my hands. The sun has exploded, and it has taken all the planets with it in its blast. Now millions of shimmering and shining particles rain down on the audience. They land in our hair, on our skin, on the seats, and if I hadn’t protected my cup, in my drink. When I hold out my arms, the shimmers cover my skin. They are tiny, perfect little golden stars with pointy edges in all directions. I squeeze one between my fingers, and it instantly crumbles to golden fairy dust. With the dust, I draw a little line of gold on Psyrah’s cheeks, right under her eyes, and then do the same to myself. Psyrah smiles; we look like golden royal warriors. Around us, I see the audience covered in gold and people playing with the dust.
The lively sound of a flute rises up from the heart of the Arena. On the floor, a small white dot of light becomes visible. The rest of the floor is still completely black. The dot moves slowly over the ground of the inner circle and leaves a white line. It works like a crayon on a blackboard. Meanwhile, a string instrument weaves its notes through the flute’s music, and a harmonious conversation between the two instruments arises.
Then, a second dot lights up, and a turquoise line starts to appear, a third dot in indigo comes in, and before we know it, an illustration of a landscape emerges on the floor. The illustration shows outlines of a mountain ridge with fluffy white snow-covered tips. A waterfall runs down between the mountain’s crest, and the three dots paint a lake below the foothills. Trees and rocks appear on the edge of the water. Then purple dots paint several birds in the sky, and a small boat in the middle of the lake is the last detail they add.
The dots disappear, and the duet of the flute and string instrument completes. A new melody sets in, carried fully by the string instrument. A tall man walks out into the heart of the Arena. His movement is light, and it looks like he dances over the floor. His hair is held back with silver pins, his face is painted with blue and white lines, and around his eyes there are shades of silver—it’s as if he is wearing a mask. His waist is draped with fabric, which is held up by a large iron belt inlaid with large dark stones. On this belt he carries various tools I can’t immediately identify. His upper body is unclothed, and I see the sharp outlines of his muscles. His arms look particularly strong, and on his back, a massive tattoo covers his shoulder blades. It is a perfect geometric shape of a seven-pointed star within a heptagon, filled-in with black and white.
I realize who he is. It is the man who helped us with the tickets; it is the man who was standing next to the old woman. Now he is wearing different clothes. It is Kai, the famous main performer of the Didelians. An entire episode of Unraveling Didelis was dedicated to him. He has abilities none of the other performers have. He might even be able to fly.
Not many other details are known. He has not allowed any interviews. They say he is in a relationship with a woman named Idum. It is said that they are married and have children. Idum is the other main artist of the Didelians, and their performances together are known to be phenomenal.
The man is barefoot, and he glides over the painted lake in the drawing on the floor. Every footstep on the image causes ripples circling outwards, making the lake look like real water. Suddenly, the surface of the lake becomes reflective, and the floor turns into a gigantic mirror. The light in the Arena becomes brighter, and I see how the floor reflects the sky and the man. The lake on the floor has turned into real water! Abruptly, the man sinks into the liquid up to his ankles. How can a sand floor turn into a real lake? What kind of powers do these people have? A gasp of excitement runs through the audience.
The ripples of the water made by the movements of the man overflow the shorelines and splash on the drawings of the rocks and trees. The moment the water touches the illustrations, a roaring sound of parting earth is audible, and the Arena quivers. Real rocks rise from the ground. On the other side of the lake, trees push themselves out of the sand surface and thrust their branches high up into the air. The water of the lake rises, and the man is now submerged to his knees in the lake water. The illustrated white outlines of the boat are still visible but lie deep under water. The man wades toward the drawing of the boat, bends forward, and pushes his entire hand under water. Instantaneously, a white boat rises to the surface. The bow has a red dragon head, with large white teeth and a long split tongue, carved out of wood. The stern has the long tail of a dragon that curls upward.
“Wow… Beautifuuull…” The words crawl slowly out of Psyrah’s lips.
The man steps out of the water into the boat and pulls out a oar whose tip is carved into white-scaled skin. It looks like a dragon paw with red, long nails. Then, a roaring deafening sound of breaking rocks echoes through the Arena, and our seats vibrate heavily. The drawing of the mountain moves, and massive masses of rock grow upward into the sky. When the noise dies out, we are presented with a high solid wall of stone in the back of the stage that reaches all the way up to the open roof of the Arena. It looks identical to the mountain painting on the floor. The entire painting, now in 3D, fits perfectly in the heart of the Arena.
In this new silence, the flute fills the sound stage. The light becomes brighter and brighter, and it looks like day in the Arena now. White snow falls from one dark cloud that hangs over the mountain, and lands on the top of the mountain ridge. At the same time, a huge waterfall pushes its way through one of the mountain gorges. Even the birds have come to life and circle around at the top of the Arena. I look around me and see people laughing and pinching each other to check if they might be dreaming.
The man in the boat now paddles through the lake and approaches the waterfall. He goes straight toward it and, when he is very close, takes something that looks like an umbrella out of his belt. The handle is made of crystal, and when he opens it, I see nothing but a crystal umbrella skeleton; there is no protective fabric.
With the half-complete but useless umbrella over his head and an oar in his other hand, the man approaches the massive stream of thunderous water and the boat moves forward without hesitation. The audience shifts in their seats uncomfortably. Some people slap their hands in front of their faces while others look away.
Instead of reacting, I observe. I ponder the situation. Surely he won’t throw himself under the strong stream of crushing water! There is no way that this man called Kai would let himself be crushed by this torrent. I have to admit that I’m also quite tense while watching this man approach the waterfall fearlessly with nothing more than a piece of fragile crystal to protect him.
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