God is a Salamander

God is a salamander that I found under a wet log. I picked up the god-salamander and held it close up to my face for inspection; in that moment, man and salamander locking eyes, there was an event, a happening, some kind of transfer, an upload or a download, of what I do not know.

That night, a dream - a garden, impossibly beautiful, filled with plants that do not, and could not, exist. I wandered about the garden in a hazy delight, drinking in the sights and smells, until I found myself on a path lined by hedges that extended upwards beyond my field of view. I reached a fork in the path; boring of the hedges and wishing to return to the garden, I turned to head back. Upon turning around, I found myself at a four-way intersection - it was then I realized the true horror of my circumstance.

(Please recite out loud in trochaic octameter)
Labyrinth, dreadful labyrinth
Woe, woe unto me!
The fool is lost in the maze
Oh where could he be!
What is born must die
Now what do you see!
(thank you)

An eternity in the labyrinth – desperation melting into emptiness - no thought, no desire, no mind - I merge with the labyrinth – it is and I am and we are – a hooded figure behind a stone altar – the hood is slowly pulled back to reveal a void, terrible and beautiful and endless - the void consumes all, including itself. 

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I woke up and walked down to the kitchen. My mother was sitting at the table, staring into a cup of coffee.  

Mother: “I…I had a strange dream last night”

Ezekiel: “Oh yea? So did I.”

Mother: “Yesterday, you…you touched my arm and I…I felt something. I don’t know how to describe it…like a tear in the fabric of reality… like a glitch or a stutter…I know that doesn’t really make sense. When I woke up, I knew that it was what caused the dream. “

Ezekiel: “What happened in the dream?”

Mother: “In the dream, I was in a garden…”

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The next night we both dreamed it again – garden, labyrinth, void. After the third night, I knew that the dream would not end. After a week, it was apparent that the dream spreads like a disease, the slightest touch from a dreamer to a non-dreamer initiates the transfer. After four months, there was widespread public recognition of the dream phenomenon. By six months, it had spread to every country in the world. There were reports of exploding salamander populations – no one knew what to make of this.

By nine months, the world is engulfed in divine madness.

By one year, the world is become labyrinth.

Some claim to see the void beneath the hood as I do, some claim to see a face – Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, lost loved ones, people they don’t recognize, themselves. Some say it is the same person every night, some say it changes.

For me, it is void, only void.