The rocky palisades soared skyward. The base was a scene of verdant greenery. The crests were capped with pinnacles of ice. A cumbersome footpath, barely trodden upon this century, led down through a rugged gorge, overgrown with thick grass, purple caps from thistles and a single crocus sprouting from the centre of a stump. Dried ancient footprints marked the way down, plunging to the deep valley. At the end of the path, this forgotten goat’s highway, was a golden structure. Its richness, such as to impress this simple man. This creation, man-made and gaudy, was a shrine, of sorts, or a throne, for an atheist king. Upon the walls of this obtuse temple were nervous faint scribblings, perhaps from scriptures or an intricate philosophy scratched out in alien hieroglyphics. An ancient man sat upon the golden throne, looking as though he was afflicted with ten centuries of rigour mortice. The stench. Dressed in shrouds and robes of medicine, embalmed in rags, from his feet to the bottom of his transparent eyes. Great tufts of orange hair sprouted from his head. His eyes rolled round and round, filled with ominous, deathly horror. They searched the depths and corners of his public tomb, searching, it seems, for some danger lurking there. Perhaps some perilous demon awaited silently in one of the pockets of the building, perchance to draw this living corpse into hell, casting off the bonds that imprisoned him in mortality, away from the heaven he longed for in a dream. There was no afterlife for him, just eternal waiting between here and there.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity

 – Khalil Gibran