I’d been commanded by someone to appear at the warehouse, and then at the apartment I found myself invited by letter to the Seatemple Inn. Could I do both? Were they connected or in opposition? Which was the “good side”?

“Am I on the good side?” I wondered. My research had been ordered, then tracked – even dreams were tracked. So it could be that all my research into the cabinets and their contents was going toward an end none of us had bargained for. I waited that evening for a final clue, some sign to direct me to the left and the Seatemple Inn, or right and to the warehouse. Who’s who and what’s what? I can’t begin to surmise.

And in my reverie before bed, music gently playing as I gazed at my candleflame, an idea began to form into words. Guiding words, I imagined. I thought, “Both are good. Both are right.”

So I went to the warehouse for 9am, planning to leave that afternoon for the Seatemple Inn. I’d booked the water taxi just before heading over to the warehouse.

The guy who’d been helpful to me in the past was waiting for me at the door.
“It’s locked,” he said, “Someone must have intercepted my message.” He indicated a side door. “Come this way.”

We went in a flat metal door, industrial pale green. He used a key.

“This is my office entrance,” he explained as we walked down the corridor. All doors were closed, the lighting in the hall was minimal, and I was aware of the surveillance cameras all along the way. Red light dots beneath half-globes of tinted glass.

“Don’t worry about those,” he said. “They’re mostly dummies, deterrents.”

Once in his office, we opened a second door that took us to the crowded main floor display area.

“You’re the one who texted me, right?”I ventured.

“Yes, we have some information for you and your team.”

My mind spun at the thought, trying to become clear and accept what was being offered. “I’ve been through this before,” I recalled, “Why is this different, now?”

He went swiftly toward a cabinet on the left of the main display, opened its drawer and slipped a small envelope into his jacket pocket as he closed the drawer. Then he opened a glass door to remove a small object. But I couldn’t see what it was. That went into his pocket, too. It seemed we were done. He gestured with his head for me to follow him to the main corridor, and we went out the side door, into his car. There he wrapped the object in a kerchief before handing it to me with the envelope.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Did you come by bus or cab? i don’t see your car. Let me drive you now.”

I figured I was already in it, I had to trust him, and then I felt confused… holding the object…I couldn’t think clearly or easily, and soon found myself fighting sleep but unable to resist.

“Where are you driving me?” I thought I said, but only mumbled incoherently.
He turned the radio on very loud, and as I leaned my head back, I began to dream.

Colours and forms, ancient geometries, melting architecture. Brilliant blue by the sea, white shining low buildings all facing the ocean. Each one has beside it a small dark cave. I somehow knew that the caves interconnect throughout the mountainside, and evocative music comes out of each cave mouth, like some sort of giant ocharina.

Here I walked on the hilly paths between the dwellings. Blue doors. Open glassless windows with blue shutters and wide blue windowsills. No one else there. Not a soul in the town or anywhere. No wind or birdsong. A few skinny cats – or did I imagine that? I heard sounds from the cave mouths, sundazzled whitewashed cubes with blue doors, a hilly pathway barely wide enough for a loaded donkey to pass, and in all the world I am alone, watching the dancing lights of the sun sparkling the sea.

A gaping loneliness overtakes me. Each door has an eye painted above it, a single dark brown eye gazing to the sea. I saw one eye flicker slightly, then stare again. The sounds from the caves became more melodic with overtones deep and high, playing one upon the other in a sea of sounds: self-melodies, self-orchestration. Above each cave opening was a mark in the rock, a glyph of a flute-player.

“Pan?” I wondered. “No,” I replied to myself. “The one from whom he came.”

And I looked closely -this player was a woman, a goddess figure of some sort. But I didn’t recognize her.

One cave opening had a skin stretched taut across it. It was held by sinew straps fixed to the wall of the opening. I tapped it with my fingertips and it vibrated like a drum.

In that instant the hills were filled with men and women all holding frame drums as if they were moons, all singing full-throated Balkan style, while accompanying themselves on the drums. Call and response. On and on in a language unknown to me, yet somehow I understood the song’s yearning in my heart. Those cave sounds were orchestration for these power songs of beauty and destiny. On an inner level I understood something profound about being human, with limited time on earth. Night fell without fanfare or sunset. The singers faded along with their songs, and stars filled the sky in unfamiliar constellations.

“I have to get back,” I thought anxiously, and opened my eyes. I was still in the car, barrelling down the highway. The driver, intent on the road, didn’t seem to notice that I’d woken up. It was around noon now, and I’d only been dreaming for less than an hour. My heavy eyes closed once more. Drifting and dreaming, I couldn’t know that he was driving me directly to the Seatemple Inn. I woke when we arrived.