Find her in this world
I've been careful not to include any spoilers, but if you're really strict about your reading, I'd skip the first part of this entry.
I've been reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series. For those who are unfamiliar, the books chronicle the journey of Roland Deschaine, the last gunslinger (a sort of knight, but think Old West), as he searches for the Dark Tower.
The Tower universe is somewhat like the Wheel of Time universe, in which time is a wheel and all events will eventually re-occur. In WOT, our today is both the past and the future of the today in the WOT books. Tower is slightly more complicated: our today may be the past or future of Roland's today, but the two worlds also seem to occur concurrently--or even in opposite directions in time. There may be many closely-linked worlds or just one that stretches far through time and folds back on itself frequently. Our world is fairly normal, but Roland's appears to have become distorted in both time and shape by its proximity to the Dark Tower.
The Dark Tower is itself (as far as I know so far) neither good nor evil. It is described as the linchpin that holds the universe together, and is at the center of all things. The antagonists, it seems, want to destroy everything by bringing down the Dark Tower. The protagonists, naturally, are inclined to save it, as their own worlds are quickly unraveling (time becomes strange, doors open between the worlds, and things are changing--for the worse--quickly). The Tower takes many forms; directly reachable from Roland's world, it may have doors in our world as well, cunningly disguised as restaurants or even people with obvious names (usually involving "tower").
Roland hails from a land called Gilead, which is at the center of a vaguely post-American confederation called "The Affiliation." He is a gunslinger, a sort of knight-errant responsible for both keeping the peace and diplomacy. I have no doubt that the gun kata from Equilibrium are inspired by Roland's training, which is a sort of cowboy ninjitsu. Gunslingers are identifiable by the sandalwood Colt-.45s they carry, as well as an extremely refined manner and a versatile education. They are somewhat like the guardians in Plato's Republic.
Unfortunately, the Affiliation is overrun and destroyed at some point. (I don't yet know the details of how, as I've only on the fourth book.) Roland, witness if not party to this destruction, has made it his sole purpose in life--as the last gunslinger--to chase after the architects of the fall of Gilead, who may now be gaining power over the Dark Tower. The world around him has "moved on," meaning that time and space have stretched out; even though it's only been twenty or so years since Gilead fell, it's a centuries-old legend to most people Roland meets.
Roland himself is a complicated character. He can be as cold and relentless as iron in pursuit of his goals, but he is clearly not only human but good. I would compare him to Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly, though I think ultimately Roland has lost much more; Mal still has his sense of humor, and Roland has only hope and grief.
I empathize with Roland. Most likely this is because I feel sometimes like a failed hero. However, also in common between Roland and me is the loss of a love, at a young age and under similar circumstances (or so I gather from foreshadowing).
Last night I dreamt of the Dark Tower. Most likely this dream will only hold meaning for those who have read the books, but I will share it anyway. It was one of the most vivid and memorable dreams I've ever had.
I lived in a world that was not like this world--or maybe a world that had "moved on" beyond our own world. We could still go to school during the day, but at night we had to take shelter in dry, dark caves. Much of our free time was occupied by pursuit of water, a rare and valuable commodity. Previously magic had played no role in our lives, but now it was slowly supplanting technology. Nevertheless, no one took any notice of this change--another sign that the world was moving on.
I was walking dead. I knew this, somehow: the Dark Tower was my future and my destiny; my time was limited. If I faced my destiny and died, there was a chance that the world would survive.
The journey to the Dark Tower was not long. I think I had somehow gained the ability to teleport in the moving-on of things, so in but an instant I stood before the great edifice. It was not dark as I had expected, but light, though vaguely gothic. It resembled a combination of the Seven Sisters of Moscow and the UT tower.
The Dark Tower had been disguised as a hotel. In keeping with this, its agents were dressed as security guards, door keepers, and bell hops. I knew somehow that many of them would serve the Crimson King, and I must avoid those low men at any cost.
I settled on the old valet standing near me. He was old, but not quite elderly; he would have been eligible for Social Security by a decade or two at least, I thought, though since the world had moved on looks could be deceiving. In the employ of the Dark Tower, he would have little use for time in any case. From several feet away, he appeared impressively dressed in a red velvet suit and hat, with black cuffs, collar, and lining. Gold buttons and cord were deeply tarnished, I realized upon closer examination, and his clothes were on the edge of threadbare. Yes, this was the man for me to talk to, I decided, but there was no turning back now, for I had been seen by the low men nearby. They could not come near this man if he was who I thought, but once I left him, I'd be dead--and not in a way that would save anybody.
I think I said something stupidly clever, such as, "I have a reservation in the Dark Tower," or perhaps, "So I hear the Dark Tower is hiring, eh?"
His mouth twitched angrily. "You don't know what you're messing around with, boy. You best be gettin' out of here."
"No," I said firmly. "This is where I belong." I told him what I knew, and his expression shifted from annoyed to grim. I had evidence, I think I said, and he demanded to see it. I grasped his forearm, and *flash*, we were in the caves.
This part of the dream has mostly escaped from my memory. I don't recall what the evidence was, or what happened next, except that the bell hop had left and told me to finish my business before returning to the Tower. "You won't get another chance," he pointed out. His grim facade was now tinged with pity. "You know what has to be done," he said. "I will help you get there, but the decision has to be yours, so come back when you are ready."
I could not reveal to anyone what was to happen to me. The extent to which I was required to stay in character even necessitated the posting of some obscene comment in Wilson's livejournal, I recall; no one would ever want such a comment to stand after he or she was in the grave. The posting of this comment was designed to make watchers believe that I had no intention of meeting my destiny. There were other events as well, goodbyes that were not really goodbyes. I remember little of this time.
*Flash*
I was at the very top of the tower. There were other benevolent agents around as well, still dressed as hotel personnel. Half of me was running into the dark depths of the Tower to complete the mission, to sacrifice myself to save the universe. The other half of me was here in the penthouse.
In gratitude for my willingness to do this thing, they had separated me; although one half of me would still have to choose to do what was necessary and then experience death alone, the other half could take part in this illusion of a painless ending in the presence of those who--if not specifically caring for me--at least appreciated what I was doing. Thoughts of family and friends were pulling at my mind, and I had many questions for the old bell hop. "Will they understand?" I wondered. "Will they know why? Will you tell them?" I no longer recall his answers.
There was a pounding at the door. The low men had found us, and would soon find my other half as well. The time was drawing near, and the bell hop laid me down, face-down, in what looked like a chiropractor's table. "Will it hurt?" I asked.
"No. You'll only feel a slight tapping at the back of your head," he said comfortingly. I wondered if this would be like at the doctors', where they always said it wouldn't hurt and then it did anyway. I hoped it would be like the flu shot I had a few weeks ago, which they had said would hurt and didn't.
I knew that somewhere down below my other half was doing what had to be done. The bell hop raised some sort of shiny mechanical metal device to the back of my head. Click, I felt the same.
Click again, and then the world started going dark; the colors inverted and the room swam. Suddenly I was floating outside of my body, just over my navel. My nose looks so small from here.
Click the third, and I was laying now face-up on a couch in the same room in the Tower. "I'm still alive?"
"Somewhat," the bell hop said. "Half of you is passed on. But there are other worlds than yours, and we have given half of you into this new world."
It wasn't exactly out of gratefulness that they had found me a new life, I don't think; no, they might have needed me again. Still, I was thankful.
In this new world I was back in something like high school. It was the closest they could get me to how things had been before my old world had moved on; but this world felt so completely different from my old world.
I will explain as best I can, though this is where the fact of the dream begins to overwhelm the sense of the story. I think the damage to the Dark Tower, already done, had taken its toll on this world. However, this toll was minimal: the buildings had been affected instead of the people. The high school I attended had walls that were some combination of dirt and old paper. Students who had something to hide need only peel away some of this paper and stash their belongings. I myself had something to hide: I had been granted a key to the Tower itself, as well as a lock box containing a few memories from my old world. My hiding place was disguised, though, and any looker would perceive only junk.
What I most remember about this other world was that there had never been a Star Wars. Aside from the oddness of the buildings, I had been warned to be careful of this fact. Mentioning the film would give away who I had been, after all, and there might still be watchers out there.
There were other differences as well, mostly precipitated by the lack of Lucasfilms. Many people were the same, but there were new and unfamiliar individuals in this world as well, whom I was expected to know. Others were gone; perhaps they never existed here, or existed in some different capacity, place, or time. These things the bell hop told me as he showed me around.
In time, he told me, my memories of the other world would fade slightly. Already I was remembering things that had happened to this version of me. Always I would have these two sets of memories.
A thought occurred to me as the bell hop prepared to leave: "Maxine! Is she alive in this world?" If I had so quietly gone to confront the Dark Tower, perhaps she too had done so; and now she too could be in this world. Even if not, perhaps there was a Maxine native to this world.
The bell hop's smile was not backed by any actual sentiment. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. You will have to find out, or find her, on your own." And then he was gone, and I woke.
It took me a good thirty minutes to get back to sleep after that. I went through the whole sequence of events several dozen times in my mind so I wouldn't forget it, yet still I feel like so many details are missing. There was so much to this dream that I almost expected to walk into it on my way to class today.
I've been reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series. For those who are unfamiliar, the books chronicle the journey of Roland Deschaine, the last gunslinger (a sort of knight, but think Old West), as he searches for the Dark Tower.
The Tower universe is somewhat like the Wheel of Time universe, in which time is a wheel and all events will eventually re-occur. In WOT, our today is both the past and the future of the today in the WOT books. Tower is slightly more complicated: our today may be the past or future of Roland's today, but the two worlds also seem to occur concurrently--or even in opposite directions in time. There may be many closely-linked worlds or just one that stretches far through time and folds back on itself frequently. Our world is fairly normal, but Roland's appears to have become distorted in both time and shape by its proximity to the Dark Tower.
The Dark Tower is itself (as far as I know so far) neither good nor evil. It is described as the linchpin that holds the universe together, and is at the center of all things. The antagonists, it seems, want to destroy everything by bringing down the Dark Tower. The protagonists, naturally, are inclined to save it, as their own worlds are quickly unraveling (time becomes strange, doors open between the worlds, and things are changing--for the worse--quickly). The Tower takes many forms; directly reachable from Roland's world, it may have doors in our world as well, cunningly disguised as restaurants or even people with obvious names (usually involving "tower").
Roland hails from a land called Gilead, which is at the center of a vaguely post-American confederation called "The Affiliation." He is a gunslinger, a sort of knight-errant responsible for both keeping the peace and diplomacy. I have no doubt that the gun kata from Equilibrium are inspired by Roland's training, which is a sort of cowboy ninjitsu. Gunslingers are identifiable by the sandalwood Colt-.45s they carry, as well as an extremely refined manner and a versatile education. They are somewhat like the guardians in Plato's Republic.
Unfortunately, the Affiliation is overrun and destroyed at some point. (I don't yet know the details of how, as I've only on the fourth book.) Roland, witness if not party to this destruction, has made it his sole purpose in life--as the last gunslinger--to chase after the architects of the fall of Gilead, who may now be gaining power over the Dark Tower. The world around him has "moved on," meaning that time and space have stretched out; even though it's only been twenty or so years since Gilead fell, it's a centuries-old legend to most people Roland meets.
Roland himself is a complicated character. He can be as cold and relentless as iron in pursuit of his goals, but he is clearly not only human but good. I would compare him to Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly, though I think ultimately Roland has lost much more; Mal still has his sense of humor, and Roland has only hope and grief.
I empathize with Roland. Most likely this is because I feel sometimes like a failed hero. However, also in common between Roland and me is the loss of a love, at a young age and under similar circumstances (or so I gather from foreshadowing).
Last night I dreamt of the Dark Tower. Most likely this dream will only hold meaning for those who have read the books, but I will share it anyway. It was one of the most vivid and memorable dreams I've ever had.
I lived in a world that was not like this world--or maybe a world that had "moved on" beyond our own world. We could still go to school during the day, but at night we had to take shelter in dry, dark caves. Much of our free time was occupied by pursuit of water, a rare and valuable commodity. Previously magic had played no role in our lives, but now it was slowly supplanting technology. Nevertheless, no one took any notice of this change--another sign that the world was moving on.
I was walking dead. I knew this, somehow: the Dark Tower was my future and my destiny; my time was limited. If I faced my destiny and died, there was a chance that the world would survive.
The journey to the Dark Tower was not long. I think I had somehow gained the ability to teleport in the moving-on of things, so in but an instant I stood before the great edifice. It was not dark as I had expected, but light, though vaguely gothic. It resembled a combination of the Seven Sisters of Moscow and the UT tower.
The Dark Tower had been disguised as a hotel. In keeping with this, its agents were dressed as security guards, door keepers, and bell hops. I knew somehow that many of them would serve the Crimson King, and I must avoid those low men at any cost.
I settled on the old valet standing near me. He was old, but not quite elderly; he would have been eligible for Social Security by a decade or two at least, I thought, though since the world had moved on looks could be deceiving. In the employ of the Dark Tower, he would have little use for time in any case. From several feet away, he appeared impressively dressed in a red velvet suit and hat, with black cuffs, collar, and lining. Gold buttons and cord were deeply tarnished, I realized upon closer examination, and his clothes were on the edge of threadbare. Yes, this was the man for me to talk to, I decided, but there was no turning back now, for I had been seen by the low men nearby. They could not come near this man if he was who I thought, but once I left him, I'd be dead--and not in a way that would save anybody.
I think I said something stupidly clever, such as, "I have a reservation in the Dark Tower," or perhaps, "So I hear the Dark Tower is hiring, eh?"
His mouth twitched angrily. "You don't know what you're messing around with, boy. You best be gettin' out of here."
"No," I said firmly. "This is where I belong." I told him what I knew, and his expression shifted from annoyed to grim. I had evidence, I think I said, and he demanded to see it. I grasped his forearm, and *flash*, we were in the caves.
This part of the dream has mostly escaped from my memory. I don't recall what the evidence was, or what happened next, except that the bell hop had left and told me to finish my business before returning to the Tower. "You won't get another chance," he pointed out. His grim facade was now tinged with pity. "You know what has to be done," he said. "I will help you get there, but the decision has to be yours, so come back when you are ready."
I could not reveal to anyone what was to happen to me. The extent to which I was required to stay in character even necessitated the posting of some obscene comment in Wilson's livejournal, I recall; no one would ever want such a comment to stand after he or she was in the grave. The posting of this comment was designed to make watchers believe that I had no intention of meeting my destiny. There were other events as well, goodbyes that were not really goodbyes. I remember little of this time.
*Flash*
I was at the very top of the tower. There were other benevolent agents around as well, still dressed as hotel personnel. Half of me was running into the dark depths of the Tower to complete the mission, to sacrifice myself to save the universe. The other half of me was here in the penthouse.
In gratitude for my willingness to do this thing, they had separated me; although one half of me would still have to choose to do what was necessary and then experience death alone, the other half could take part in this illusion of a painless ending in the presence of those who--if not specifically caring for me--at least appreciated what I was doing. Thoughts of family and friends were pulling at my mind, and I had many questions for the old bell hop. "Will they understand?" I wondered. "Will they know why? Will you tell them?" I no longer recall his answers.
There was a pounding at the door. The low men had found us, and would soon find my other half as well. The time was drawing near, and the bell hop laid me down, face-down, in what looked like a chiropractor's table. "Will it hurt?" I asked.
"No. You'll only feel a slight tapping at the back of your head," he said comfortingly. I wondered if this would be like at the doctors', where they always said it wouldn't hurt and then it did anyway. I hoped it would be like the flu shot I had a few weeks ago, which they had said would hurt and didn't.
I knew that somewhere down below my other half was doing what had to be done. The bell hop raised some sort of shiny mechanical metal device to the back of my head. Click, I felt the same.
Click again, and then the world started going dark; the colors inverted and the room swam. Suddenly I was floating outside of my body, just over my navel. My nose looks so small from here.
Click the third, and I was laying now face-up on a couch in the same room in the Tower. "I'm still alive?"
"Somewhat," the bell hop said. "Half of you is passed on. But there are other worlds than yours, and we have given half of you into this new world."
It wasn't exactly out of gratefulness that they had found me a new life, I don't think; no, they might have needed me again. Still, I was thankful.
In this new world I was back in something like high school. It was the closest they could get me to how things had been before my old world had moved on; but this world felt so completely different from my old world.
I will explain as best I can, though this is where the fact of the dream begins to overwhelm the sense of the story. I think the damage to the Dark Tower, already done, had taken its toll on this world. However, this toll was minimal: the buildings had been affected instead of the people. The high school I attended had walls that were some combination of dirt and old paper. Students who had something to hide need only peel away some of this paper and stash their belongings. I myself had something to hide: I had been granted a key to the Tower itself, as well as a lock box containing a few memories from my old world. My hiding place was disguised, though, and any looker would perceive only junk.
What I most remember about this other world was that there had never been a Star Wars. Aside from the oddness of the buildings, I had been warned to be careful of this fact. Mentioning the film would give away who I had been, after all, and there might still be watchers out there.
There were other differences as well, mostly precipitated by the lack of Lucasfilms. Many people were the same, but there were new and unfamiliar individuals in this world as well, whom I was expected to know. Others were gone; perhaps they never existed here, or existed in some different capacity, place, or time. These things the bell hop told me as he showed me around.
In time, he told me, my memories of the other world would fade slightly. Already I was remembering things that had happened to this version of me. Always I would have these two sets of memories.
A thought occurred to me as the bell hop prepared to leave: "Maxine! Is she alive in this world?" If I had so quietly gone to confront the Dark Tower, perhaps she too had done so; and now she too could be in this world. Even if not, perhaps there was a Maxine native to this world.
The bell hop's smile was not backed by any actual sentiment. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. You will have to find out, or find her, on your own." And then he was gone, and I woke.
It took me a good thirty minutes to get back to sleep after that. I went through the whole sequence of events several dozen times in my mind so I wouldn't forget it, yet still I feel like so many details are missing. There was so much to this dream that I almost expected to walk into it on my way to class today.