Colossus

by Gary Mark Lee

night engulfed them but now they were free, free to move and hunt and live. Even the Frozen Sea awoke a bit, at the edge where the water kissed the land small cracks began to show, and from those cracks tiny creatures climbed out of their watery homes and clawed upon the crystal sands, a few at first but they were soon followed by more and more, a hundred, a thousand, a million, all of them scurried about in a quest for something that they only knew.

  More light filled the chamber.

  “Mushrooms” Friend suddenly said.

  “What did you say” the old man asked.

  “Mushrooms, I remember mushrooms”.

  “Those small fungus like plants that grow in the darkness, do you like mushrooms?”

  “No, I hate them” Friend’s voice was filled with anger, “they destroy everything good”

  This made the old man laugh, “mushrooms are harmless and provide a tasty meal if properly prepared, first you wash them thoroughly then place them in a sauce pan with just a bit of butter and then you….”

  “Wait!” Friend said, “I think I see something, yes, I do see something in the darkness, it’s a small thing but it there and it seems to be growing, how very strange? Now it seems to be moving a little, getting bigger and bigger…..I think I have seen this before, yes, I’ve definitely have seen this before!”

  “I think I see something also” the Old Man said, “is it a bright light that you see?”

  “Yes, that’s it, I see a light, I know light, I like light…it’s bigger now and I can see more, I can see more!”

  The control room began to glimmer as a point of light slowly emerged, it shown like a small star in the dim chamber and as it grew so did the light in the room, no longer a cold gloomy place it was now a warm world.

  “I can see now” Friend said, “I can see!”

  Like a phantom the light turned into a man, not tall or short or fat or thin, just a naked man like a million other that once had called earth their home, his face was familiar to anyone who had seen a face and his eyes were eyes that had seen enough to know. He stood there for a moment looking around the chamber and seeing all the strange things it contained, at last the image man turned to the thing in the chair.

  “I’m not alone”.

  “What did you say?’ Old Man asked.

  Friend didn’t answer for a moment to two and just stared at the withered thing sitting in the command chair.

  “I’m in a room with a dead man” Friend finally said.

  “A dead man you say?” the Old Man’s voice wasn’t surprised or afraid, “are you sure he is dead?”

  “I think so” Friend said as he continued to look at him.

  “Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people” the old man commented.

  The phantom man lifted his hands and looked at them, he saw his hands and the wall behind, “I’m in a room with a dead man and I think I’m a ghost”.

  “Well this all seems very strange indeed” said the Old Man, “usually it’s the other way around, first you die then you see a bright light then you pass beyond, it seems you have the whole thing backwards”.

  Friend started to walk around the chamber with his feet not touching the floor, he looked at the machines and the walls and the wires and the chair again and he just shook his head, “where ever I am it’s not very comfortable, it’s all metal and wires and cold, but somehow it does seem to have meaning….” He moved closer to the lifeless man in the chair, “I don’t know, it’s strange yet I think, I seem to think that maybe, maybe, maybe?”

  Outside the Dot-flies were beginning to swarm, rising up from the warming water and floating like periods in the air, and with them came the Day-crawlers and rainbow colored Shimmer-wings dancing in the sunlight, and feeding on them were Jaw-snappers and Tongue-shooters hungry for a meal, the cricket click of their eager mandibles filled the air with a castanet song as they gulped down mouthfuls of life.

  Then plants began to grow, small vines broke from the sleeping earth and slowly move up the giants metallic body towards the ever growing sunlight, small green fingers gripped to the pitted surface holding on for dear life as they intertwined with others of their kind, every upwards building a living ladder to the sky.

  “Wait!” the Old Man said, “I think I see something also, yes, yes, I see something now, it’s a light, yes a light, and like yours it is growing!”

  Friend watched at another light filled the room, he wanted to flee, to hide but there was nowhere to go so he crept down behind the man in the chair and waited as the light grew bigger and bigger, then the light vanished.

  “Hello?” said the Old Man.

  Slowly Friend lifted his nervous head from behind the command chair and saw what had caused him to fear, it was a man much like himself but with a long white beard and hair, his thin body was covered in a white robe and around his waist was a cord made of some golden material, his face was worn and aged by time and his eyes were the eyes that had seen too much. And like himself he could see through him as if he was a mist of the water.

  The old man looked at him and smiled, “Friend?” he asked.

  The naked man rose up hesitantly, “Old Man?” he said.

  This made the ancient man smile, “yes, yes, that is my name” and saying this he moved forward and held out his wrinkled hand, “I am Friend as you say and I am very glad to meet you”.

  But as the naked man reached forward his hand pass right through the hand of the old man.

  “What is this?” he asked pulling back his offering, “you’re a ghost!”

  “I am not the apparition here, you are” the Old Man replied looking at his hand and touching it to his face, “I feel, I touch, I know, yet you say I am a phantom?”.

  “You must be” the naked man said also touching his face, “I know I’m not a ghost so it means that you are”.

  The Old Man began to look about the chamber and focused on the ancient creature in the command chair, he moved towards it slowly and didn’t notice that his feet never touched the grate below, and then he looked into the vacant eyes of the dead man. “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!” then the old man looked up at his friend, “he’s dead alright”.

  “I don’t get it” Friend said, “a short time ago I was in a dark place all by myself and now I’m in a prison with a dead man and a ghost!”

  “well at least you’re not alone” the old man chuckled, “now let see what we can see”, carefully the timeworn ghost moved around the small chamber examining everything he could see but only what he could see for when he tried to touch something his thin fingers passed through it like a vapor and he felt nothing.

  “Marlies ghost” he chucked, then he would tilt his head this way then the other and make little sounds under his breath, he would sometimes shake his head as if he disapproved of some machine he was looking over and at other times he would nod in approval, round and round he went like some ancient timekeeper checking to make sure his clocks were working properly.

  “The game is afoot Watson” he would say or “batteries not included” all of this meant nothing to the naked man who waited quietly and amused himself by passing his hand through the dead man in the chair. At last the old man centered his attention on a series of small mechanisms that seem to be projecting streams of energy around the chamber. Friend watched him for some time like a man waiting for a pot to boil then the old man spoke.

  “Hologram” he said proudly.

  “What did you say?”

  “Hologram, we are hologram projections, we are not real”.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” the naked man asked.

  “A hologram is a technique which enables a three-dimensional image to be made, it involves the use of hi
gh intensity lasers, when you connect them with a sufficient amount of power and programing they can appear real but in reality they are only fragments”.

  But hearing what the old man said the naked man only laughed, “Now wait just a darn minute, you say that I’m not real, I’m some kind of moving picture?”

  “We both are”.

  The laughter in the chamber grew louder, “boy, you’re really something” Friend said slapping his knee hard, “you want me to believe that you and I are just some kind of movie and this place is a theater where people come to watch us?” the naked man began to move around the chamber with his hands lifted high, “hurry, hurry, hurry, come one, come all and see the ghost man in all his glory, hurry, hurry it only costs a dime, yes only a dime, one tenth of a dollar, hurry, hurry, the show is about to start!” then the naked man sat down on a broken bit of machinery and continued to laugh and laugh, then when he grew tired of laughing he stopped and looked at the old man and the tears of laughter in his eyes turned to tears of sorrow, “I’m not real?”

  The Old Man moved to his companion and was about to put his hand on his shoulder to comfort him then he stopped knowing that his touch would not be felt, “I’m sorry” he said in a whisper, “but someone once said that movies are your best entertainment”.

  Outside the sun rose even higher, almost overhead now and the fallen giant was covered in tangled vines and sharp leaves that fluttered in the rising wind. High in the sky great flocks