“Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, and the amazement of the Gods.” – Plato.




Q: What loses its head every morning and gets it back every night?
A: A pillow



1

Do you remember what Sigmund Freud used to think about dreams? Think about it, because I’m sure that you remember. You’re the one who told me about it, all those years ago. You started keeping a dream journal and everything, remember? You kept having all those dreams about swimming pools and you wanted to figure out what it meant…
Well, what Sigmund Freud used to say was that if one simply looked at the “manifest content” of a dream, you know, if you simply take a dream for what it is, it can be nothing short of a riddle, remember? Why am I at the grocery store with a bunch of gnomes searching for something called flower milk? Why do I keep falling from the top of a very high building, but just as I am about to hit the ground, I wake up every time?
How could we ever hope to understand these things? How do we solve the riddle? Well, Freud thought that you must also examine the “latent content” of your dreams. That is to say, in order to solve the riddle you have to look for the meaning behind all that stuff. He felt most of what we dream about is symbolic- the gnomes, the milk, the falling- it all means something that you can not understand in a superficial context.
So, in essence, Freud said that dreams are riddles that can only be solved when we examine them in two very different worlds.
All this talk about two worlds makes me think of something else you told me once, about that guy Plato and his theory of forms. Do you remember that? You said in the theory of forms there are essentially two worlds. The first is the apparent world, which is always changing, kind of like the manifest content of our dreams. The second is the unchanging and unseen world of forms, or what we might call symbols, which may cause that which is apparent in the first place- just like the latent content of our dreams.
Freud had something to say about Plato, as well. He said that Plato asserted that good men might dream about doing bad things, and that was okay because a good man will just get those urges out in his dreams instead of acting them out in real life. I guess. I mean, I suppose if we studied the dreams of criminals and megalomaniacs we might be able to determine if this is true. But, I don’t think anyone has found that to be a worthwhile study- at least, not yet.
But, you’ve really made me think, you know...about these two worlds…





















2

In Maya, there was day and there was night. But, there was no spinning. There was no spinning because there was no axis. There was no moon and there were no stars, but there was a sun. It shined brightly in the distance every day, moving closer once in the morning and once in the evening, glaring in the peoples’ faces. It did not rise and it did not set. Day just was. Night just was. The change was instant.
There was water. But, there was no rain. There were people, but no animals. There were trees, but no fruit. There were no vegetables either, for that matter. There was nothing alive to speak of except for the people themselves. There were no shopping malls- no stores of any kind. But, there were homes, at least a few of them.
The sky above was never blue with fluffy white clouds. It never carried along a gentle breeze that tickled your hair. The atmosphere appeared more like the fun end of a kaleidoscope. It was a constantly shifting parade of shapes and colors. It roared from time to time, but not quite the way thunder would. It was more like a very loud humming, than a roar, but it was still frightening to the people when it happened.
Sometimes it was warm. Sometimes it was cold. There were never any discernible seasons. But, you already knew that- because you knew there is no spinning, no axis. In fact, you already know everything. But, we’ll get into that later.
No one has ever been born in Maya and no one was yet to die. But, the people were truly all alive, and all from nature- in a way. They were real human beings, not robots or aliens or anything. They had no real concept of time. Perhaps they had been around for a week, maybe a year. But regardless of the actual length of their lives, to them it seemed like an eternity.
There were men and there were women. There was sex. Occasionally.
There was hunger and pain, but rarely.
There was God. There was a prophet. And therefore, there was also a pervasive religion. But, there was only one. There was only one because everyone in Maya accepted it as truth and no one ever had a reason to question it. They had only ever known one God. In fact, they saw him every day.
However, there were two men who did not realize how much they knew- just like you listening to this story. They did not understand that they already knew everything. However, one of them had caught the terrible notion that truth was not always what it seemed.
Once a man catches the disease of doubt, it is very difficult to get better. So, these two men did something terrible with that terrible notion, afflicted by the terrible disease of doubt. They dared to question truth itself. In doing so, these two men changed God and changed truth.















3

“Cheers!”
Pete clumsily lifted his bottle of beer and thrust it upwards across the table. The bottle was met with a cheerful clank from anther bottle and one small glass.
“Cheers, Pete. We did it.”
A man with a thick black mustache and even thicker spectacles smiled and sipped up some tan liquid out of a tiny straw as a jolly red maraschino cherry sloshed around amongst the brown water like a ship in rough seas.
A woman, fat and white and still adorned in a white lab coat, grinned with sublime joy.
“How could we not do it?” She asked. “I mean, come on…We’re fucking AMAZING.”
The men laughed.
“How many of those have you had, Mary?”
Then they took even larger gulps of their own drinks.
“Seriously, do I have to be drunk to say what we’re all thinking? We are fucking amazing.”
“We are…” the bespectacled, mustached man agreed. He really thought so, too. “We are, aren’t we? And, we have Pete to thank for it!”
“Okay, listen you two; I’ve got a good one…” Mary piped up. “People love to get good ones, but the bad ones do come. You’re guaranteed to get some, so take them and run. What are they? Ideas!” She then proceeded to giggle uncontrollably at herself. “Here’s to Pete and his great ideas!”
Pete, who had been trying hard to maintain his humility despite having accomplished something miraculous, and being blind stinking drunk, finally consented to the other two.
“Okay, okay.” He smiled. “I guess we are pretty amazing.”

***

A world away, someone else was having the same exact sentiment. He was thinking the very same thing about himself and his colleagues.
We’re fucking amazing.





4

“You know Erasmus, we are pretty amazing.”
“I don’t know…I mean we get to do something amazing, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t get carried away about yourself.”
“Oh no,” Lantos corrected his partner, “it’s us. We are the amazing ones. I mean, think about it, there must be a reason why fate chose us to greet Bartholomew when he came to Maya, and to be his guides ever since. I mean, we’re gonna go down in history, for Bart’s sake!”
Erasmus just nodded at this.
“But, you know…” It was his turn to correct Lantos. “If you keep talking like that, you’ll no longer be able to greet Bartholomew. Bartholomew teaches us to live in the moment, to live for today. You’re not supposed to talk about going down in history. To suggest that you’re going to be history is to suggest that Bartholomew will stop coming, that he will be history, and if Bartholomew stops coming, what then? And, you took his name in vain.”
Lantos slapped Erasmus on the back with a heartiness that practically knocked the man off his feet.
“That’s why I’ve got you, old buddy! You help me to stay in line, don’tchya?”
Erasmus grimaced and fixed his gaze upwards, awaiting the descent of The Great Bartholomew.
These two men- Lantos and Erasmus, had somehow, despite every possibility against it, been fated to become partners in an elaborate scientific and social experiment that they knew, simply, as life.
They were as different as men could be because, well, it makes for a more dynamic story and all… But, you already knew that, didn’t you?
To start, Lantos was a short man. He was stout and hairy, with hands that were definitely oversized for his dumpy little arms. It’s very possible that his hands had been deliberately created too large, and it’s also possible that it had been a simple mistake. Whatever the reason, few people actually called Lantos by his name, but referred to him instead as “Hands”. Not a creative bunch, eh? Well, sometimes the simplest of statements has the most impact.
Nevertheless, short, hairy Lantos, with his grotesquely large hands was a legitimately happy guy. And why shouldn’t he be? He was chosen, along with Erasmus, to greet The Great Bartholomew upon his return to the world every morning.
Erasmus, on the other hand, was naturally tall and thin. He was also completely serious all of the time. He rarely smiled, and his brow was perpetually furrowed atop his large beak-like nose. His appearance was that of a man who was always worried about something; always stressed and pensive. Frequently, those who encountered him assumed that he alone must know that the end was near. Well, he didn’t know that. But, he did fear it. While Lantos seemed to delight in his role welcoming Bartholomew back to the world, informing him of who he is and where he was, Erasmus felt the whole dammed thing pushing down on him like giant slab of wood he carried around on his back.
What if Bartholomew didn’t come back one morning? What would they do then? What would happen to life as they knew it? Every second of every day in the land of Maya revolved around the return and reeducation of The Great Bartholomew. What if Erasmus chose not to give the right answers to all of his questions? What if, when he saw Bartholomew floating down from the sky, he decided that when his God finally landed he would tell him his name was Jack? And when Bartholomew questioned their location, he would tell him, you’re in a dream, so you tell me where you are. What would happen then? Would that end the world? Could he bring about the destruction of all Maya with one wrong word? What would happen then; if he could not contain himself, if his lips moved and words other than the ones he’d said a thousand times before came railroading out? So, well, he frowned most of the time. Really, he was just concentrating very hard on not destroying everything.
So, you see, it’s not that he was terribly unkind or annoyed by his partner (well, maybe he was a little annoyed by Lantos) that made him so serious. It’s not that he was particularly pious that made him adhere to the rules of their religion so fervently. He was just afraid. He was positively terrified of his own mind.
Lantos, on the contrary, was not afraid of anything. His life was simple. His belly was always full. He never longed for anything. And what’s more, he got to walk and talk with the prophet, with God, every day.
Erasmus glanced over vacantly, and his portly partner greeted this blank expression with a smile as outsized as his left thumb. He lifted one of those monstrous maws in the air and waved it daintily at Erasmus. Any other man would have chuckled at the sight of those enormous fingers bobbing up and down, and that ogre of a man gesturing like a three year old girl. Erasmus could not be distracted. He could never stop concentrating.
A decent sized crowd stood back about fifty feet. They, too, wished to witness the arrival of their prophet. But, they dared not come too close. It had been decided that Erasmus and Lantos would be the official greeters of Bartholomew and all others would stay back after the incident of Bartholomew’s first arrival.

***

You see, the people of Maya were quite used to their daily necessities arriving from above. There were no natural resources in Maya. As I mentioned earlier, the grass was soft, but it never grew. The trees provided shade, but no fruit. Even the water in the lakes fell in one giant drop that splashed down into the reservoirs every morning. Giant chunks of bread and cheese would come thundering down once every morning and then once again in the evening. A group of the strongest citizens would haul the load into center of town where it would be divided amongst them all for their twice daily meal.
So, on the day of Bartholomew’s first arrival a large group of people had been gathered in the field, awaiting their rations. However, what arrived in lieu of their breakfast was a man. Of course, he was rushed by the mob of people who were awed to see him arrive when they were only expecting some mild cheddar. He, of course, promptly flipped out. As the crowd approached he lashed out wildly at anyone who came near him. He screamed like a frightened child and swung his arms madly.
Eventually, the large hands of Lantos and the cool mind of Erasmus were able to physically and emotionally subdue him. Lantos’s strong hands withstood the scratches of the scared man. He was able to gently hold him down until the man stopped flailing about.
“It is alright, sir,” Erasmus whispered. “It is alright. We are not bad man. No one will harm you. Welcome. Come and have bread with us.”
Those were the words that soothed the crazed stranger.
“Bread?” He asked through his tears.
“Yes,” Erasmus answered. “Come with us and let us feed you.”
They brought him into town where he sat at the head of the meal table. He asked a never ending series of questions about his location and also about existence in general. He didn’t know very much about anything at all. All he could tell them was that he knew he was called Bartholomew. A voice had told him. The voice of God…

***

Presently, Erasmus and Lantos could feel the heat of the sun beating upon them with an increasingly concentrated amount of energy. They knew immediately that when they looked up at the sky, every molecule of air would be glowing with an intensity that only occurred for a brief minute. The world would burn dazzlingly for one pithy minute. It would shine with profound radiance for that very special minute right before Bartholomew the Great descended from the heavens.