We all know what it feels like. The endless depths of the night where in waking, the world just distorts; somehow more twisted and malevolent. The suggestion in the back of our mind that tells us we’re in danger, despite our lying meekly in our beds. I call this the after-nightmare state. These feelings fade to insignificance upon the break of morning and we think back, unable to comprehend how we ever really felt that way. After all, we are rational beings are we not?
For a resident of elsewhere I know rather more than you may think of your world, but that is a tale for another day. Right now, all that matters is that I should tell you that in those moments, during the after-nightmare state as I put it, your mind is touching worlds beyond. Sure enough my elsewhere, world of Oz, is one of these worlds. I’m not speaking of your ‘Australia’ but some of you may have heard of it anyway. If I’m honest, mine is a world that isn’t what it once was. We’ve had some bad times, as you would expect of any world, but a few golden ages too. For one reason or another we’ve had visitors from your world and they have had a profound effect here. Oz, you see, is a world that lacks completeness. Perhaps this is how it is supposed to be here or perhaps there is a great creator or God out there who was distracted on our given day of creation and there was the odd undotted i or uncrossed t. It may sound a rather mad notion but Oz needs people to come from other worlds to hold itself together. For whatever reason, when we receive such a visitor it’s like our world reshapes slightly to accommodate; almost out of politeness. Maybe it’s born of the innate curiosity that comes with a traveller new to a place. In their mind they ask a thousand questions about their surroundings. Perhaps Oz merely offers the answers as not to confuse unnecessarily, as we can be quite a confusing place at the best of times. Maybe it’s something else entirely and I suspect none of us will ever really know. But then, who needs all of the answers all of the time?
We had a visitor quite some time ago and that seemed to go quite well. He was quite a happy little camper really; a bit screwed up but then, who isn’t? Had quite a bit of potential, I felt, and had an interest in poultry of all things. Well, he left our world in pretty good shape and things were good. For a while. You see, between visitors our world tends to fall apart and fragment. As said, without our visitors we lack completeness and, when they leave, slowly we descend back into chaos and entropy. Things twist and thrash and coil back upon themselves. The people of Oz begin to forget and their minds lose focus and drift. Reality itself, such as it is, starts to become rather insubstantial. Now, some of the inhabitants of Oz are stronger than others. and ,unfortunately, they tend to be the nastier sorts. The kind of folk who might just be able to pull themselves back from beyond the veil of death, when nobody is around with the presence of mind to realise they should be there. We haven’t had a visitor in quite some time and the world has gotten pretty twisted around; those nasty types I mentioned have really got their claws in. This really isn’t a place our former visitors would remember. We are quite something else now and not in anything that could be charitably described as ‘a good way’. Somewhere along the line we even lost the name of our world. I think there was some accident with a mirror or something and now we are called zO. At least that’s what most of the people here call it. I told you they weren’t too sharp these days.
We need a saviour, and soon. Our few right-minded souls have, for a while now, been aware of someone in your world drifting ever so close to us. Closer and yet closer, in those moments between sleeping and waking. We’ve had to be patient as these things take time. Waiting for that perfect moment where they may need to escape from their life in your so called ‘real world’. Waiting for the point where they need us as much as we need them.
She came to us a few hours ago so I imagine something finally pushed her over the edge, though I know not what. I haven’t met her yet but the time is coming soon. I can feel her though. Her mind touches all of us from the moment of her arrival. Some of us can do more than feel; we can see into her mind, at least part of the way. And what do we see of our saviour? Well...
Oh dear. This isn’t good at all.
What can I say? We don’t choose our saviours and I’m not sure many would have chosen this one. I think there’s a good heart in there somewhere but she’s not in a good place at all. This one isn’t a young child as our previous visitors have been, the hole she has dug in her life cannot be filled so easily. If we must help her to help ourselves then our struggle is one that faces up-hill or worse.
I will have to have faith. I’ll be waiting for her right here, in the graveyard. I know she’s coming, I can feel it. zO needs her, I’m just not sure she can help.