Eighth Truth [Dream]
[If Salvador Dali, M.C. Escher, and H.P. Lovecraft had a lovechild who, besides apparently being born of three men, was Japanese, that lovechild would be the Medicine Seller's dreamscape.]
[The sky, a dizzying swirl of clouds and colors that skies shouldn't normally be, is underfoot. There's a sea to one side, running up and down, and mountains ringed with smoke to the other, Mt. Fuji conspicuous among them. Overhead, upside down, there's a city--huge, chaotic, brimming with life and madness, an endless stream of mannequin-like people moving in and out of buildings that are old and new, Japanese and Western-style, all different and yet, at their heart, not so different after all.]
[In the middle of the dream is a small Shinto shrine, somehow supported in the sky--little more than a torii gate, hand-washing basin, a small structure for the shrine itself. A few large, moss-covered stones float in the general vicinity.]
[There are creatures everywhere.]
[They float in the sky, swim on the sea, peer from behind mountains, follow humans around the city. As numerous as humans, as numerous as gods. Some look like strange humans, smaller or larger or with peculiar markings, different-colored hair or skin; some look like animals, but with more-than-human cunning in their eyes. Some are ghostly, with long, unbound black hair and kimono long enough to cover their feet. Some appear cobbled together roughly out of other creatures--a long-nosed, red-skinned humanoid with wings, a beast with a monkey's face, a tiger's legs, and a snake for a tail, a young maiko with a fox's tail peeking out from beneath her long kimono. Some are enormous, some are tiny. Some are cute, some are grotesque, but all are bizarre, clearly not belonging to the world of humans.]
[Ayakashi.]
[In the middle of this all, the Medicine Seller sits upside-down, in seiza position, on one of the stones near the shrine, holding a pipe with curling wisps of purple smoke. Yep, nothing really remarkable here.]
[The sky, a dizzying swirl of clouds and colors that skies shouldn't normally be, is underfoot. There's a sea to one side, running up and down, and mountains ringed with smoke to the other, Mt. Fuji conspicuous among them. Overhead, upside down, there's a city--huge, chaotic, brimming with life and madness, an endless stream of mannequin-like people moving in and out of buildings that are old and new, Japanese and Western-style, all different and yet, at their heart, not so different after all.]
[In the middle of the dream is a small Shinto shrine, somehow supported in the sky--little more than a torii gate, hand-washing basin, a small structure for the shrine itself. A few large, moss-covered stones float in the general vicinity.]
[There are creatures everywhere.]
[They float in the sky, swim on the sea, peer from behind mountains, follow humans around the city. As numerous as humans, as numerous as gods. Some look like strange humans, smaller or larger or with peculiar markings, different-colored hair or skin; some look like animals, but with more-than-human cunning in their eyes. Some are ghostly, with long, unbound black hair and kimono long enough to cover their feet. Some appear cobbled together roughly out of other creatures--a long-nosed, red-skinned humanoid with wings, a beast with a monkey's face, a tiger's legs, and a snake for a tail, a young maiko with a fox's tail peeking out from beneath her long kimono. Some are enormous, some are tiny. Some are cute, some are grotesque, but all are bizarre, clearly not belonging to the world of humans.]
[Ayakashi.]
[In the middle of this all, the Medicine Seller sits upside-down, in seiza position, on one of the stones near the shrine, holding a pipe with curling wisps of purple smoke. Yep, nothing really remarkable here.]