The Knot

It is off kilter, misaligned, out of proportion, in the crazy way that dreams are. I follow the shimmering light from a metal dragonfly, mechanical buzzbuzzbuzz emitting light echoes like acid trailers. Beckoning me somewhere. Insistent.

Rounding a jagged corner I cross a threshold, all sound stops. Room fills with penetrating silence, heavy, like danger morphing into death into oblivion. Dreamdoor closes behind me, and

I.

Am.

Trapped.

Grey light seeps like heavy water from above, illuminating a stone altar. On the altar, a box, covered in rope. Bound in the Gordian way, holding something down, keeping something from me, something vital.

The knot writhes like a living thing. It's a projection designed to make me afraid, like harpy whispers just before sleep to poison the dreams. Pushing through the fear, I work the knot, looking for the rope's end to start the process of freedom.

The angry mass of fiber holds onto its secrets. I look and see nothing. Closing my eyes, I let my fingers do the work, searching, feeling without the illusion of sight, relying only on vision. The rope is multitextured, fiber into sinew into cord into leather and back again. A tug and a strand loosens here, tightens there. A mystical binding concocted of Mobius' strip.

There is a blade at the base of the altar. I could cut the thing, release that which is hidden. It occurs to me the cutting means I lose the meaning and growth from the untying. There is a price to be paid for the unraveling. The gift of freedom has its cost.

So I close my eyes and set back to work. Fingers fray, blisters rise and burst and heal, leaving callouses in their wake. Time rolls crazily in the dreamspace, until I hear the eight chime, deep and resonant, pouring through the room. Monk's call to awakening.

I bless the day before me, the year, the moment, looking forward to another chance to untie the knot, undo the damage, unravel the secrets it holds.