- CHAPTER 11: Dreams - © 2.15.2007

The light was so bright it blinded him for three seconds.  Shawn kept blinking his eyes to protect them from any permanent damage.  Even after closing them, all he could see were white sparks and clouds around his cornea flashing and hissing like broken Christmas lights.  Then sounds began to fill his ears and he couldn’t believe this was really happening.  He opened his eyes to see a blurring array of people wearing brightly colored, loose wardrobes all around him, moving to and fro in a marketplace near the dock of what looked like a large construction project.  It was the clearest of all days Shawn could remember.  The dry, salty air seemed so alive with flavor he could taste the smell of baking breads and roasting meats, as if they were right in front of him.  The sight of workers hauling logs with ropes and oxen was impressive, but the language that filled the air was also strange, as if it were the only thing he was really not expecting.  The people in the scenery were not speaking Greek or Roman as his mind first gathered, but a strange mix of what sounded Egyptian or possibly Coptic in origin.

He drifted his eyes to the left, then right, and saw a sight so spectacular, that time and all that comes with it, seemed to stand still.  Approximately a mile along the distant shoreline, he could see a giant mound of stones and rocks, surrounded by an equally impressive array of worker teams in a militaristic formation toiling about with organized, back-breaking labor.  Occasionally large shouts of joy and applause could be heard from this construction site that clamored with noise, and Shawn realized what he thought might be Coptic were really ancient Egyptian dialects spoken at the time of Ramses II.  The construction he was witnessing in front of his eyes was the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.   But how he could be seeing this so clearly was a mystery to him, since this was the year 2009 as far as he could remember.

Then the scenery changed, fading into and out of a bright, white light.  The sounds blurred into a pleasant beat with sounds of harps and horns floating above the thump of rawhide drums.  What kind of a place is this? Shawn wondered.  It was a foggy day, somewhere near the ocean, but which ocean could this be?  Then he heard a scream and a battle cry, followed by more screams and shouting.  The music inside the palace courtyard was immediately drowned out by the roar of soldiers racing forward with horns and weapons, some nautilus shaped, others made of metal.  Roman battle ships were approaching in the distance, and the island was now awash with a feverish distress signal.  Even the birds began to fly East, inland to avoid this foreboding disruption to the island’s natural ecosystem.

As the ships got closer and closer to shore, Shawn could see the dreaded Roman insignia on their sails, and the sound of drums in the key of D Minor repeating an ominously electrifying beat.  The beat synchronized with the trireme of rowers pushing closer and closer to the shore.  Cacophony filled the air inside the courtyard as soldiers clad in wooden armor ran inside to secure the royal chambers from the impending foreign intrusion.  Looking at the symbols on the soldiers’ shields made Shawn realize this must be somewhere within the Greek Empire, date still unknown.

“Can I just go anywhere I want?” Shawn asked in English.  The drums were getting louder but the tempo was slowing down.  Looking out from the atrium and onto the shoreline, he could see twelve large battle ships were anchoring on the Southern port with commotion and fanfare from the local Thessolonians.  Fires could already be seen on shore and on one of the boats, while an unending stream of arrows flew into the phalanx of soldiers srambling to organize by the pier's gate to the city.

Then the scenery began to change into what looked like a private library, a study he could remember seeing somewhere in a museum, or perhaps at the university.

Continued...