This is an excerpt from longer piece, which is a novel-in-progress.

Dreams are an upside-down, a bebop jazz arrangement, a variation on a melody, sometimes absurd, sometimes wisdom's fruit.

But in that moment, that limbo in-between, we a torn, dual citizens, double agents, not wholly either here nor there.

As I read the words of William Wordsworth, I remembered my dream. Without the words there before me, I might have not recalled.

There was a dream.

For another, it might have been nothing, of little consequence or value. But to me, it was the zenith from which I could see afar.

On a battlefield I stood. Around me chaos, but a chaos that was scripted. Wild, random, rapid. Death at every turn. Terror with no escape. But as I turned to the rhythm of the dance, I was in sync, nothing to fear. A sword like this, a shield thus. Now turn. Now jump. When you are one with the confusion, there is no chaos. There is choreography. There is a conductor holding a baton.

I shouted my revenge: “Be gone! Perish! Taste your defeat!”

But in my mind, I counted, “Two, three, four. And two, three four.” I kept in step, dodging swords, weaving between the dangers.

And then, at a level still deeper, I spoke to myself in a hushed and calming tone. “This is a dream. You are dreaming. You may feel the pain, but there is none. You are dreaming. Enjoy.”

And with that, the battle slowed. Arms were severed. Blood still flew. Thrust and slice. Swords crossed and crashed. Slowly. Slower. Then stop.

“Another game of statues,” I thought. “Soldiers frozen. Horses stopped. Chariots stilled.”

But the sound continued. A crashing, crunching, loud and vile commotion. Distant, a conch sounded. A blare, long and clear, clean and triumphant.

A man spoke. His voice could be heard only as the sound of the conch diminished and then there was no other sound but his words. To me they spoke.

“Behold the battle,” he said. “Behold.”

I looked around. Like a frieze surrounding or tapestry full, I saw terror on the face of every soldiers. I saw brothers fighting brothers, allies and enemies, both. I saw humanity dance its own destruction.

“Your tears are for those beyond tears,” he said.

“Are your words those of true wisdom?” he asked.

I did not answer. I only looked into his too familiar face.

“Do the wise grieve for those who live? They do not grieve for those who die.”

“I do recognize this man,” I thought, “this man who speaks to me alone in the midst of this great battle.”

“Who?” I said aloud.

“You have never been born,” he said

“Who?” I asked again.

“The Spirit,” he said. “The Spirit wanders from childhood through the fields of youth, through adulthood and old age. And so beyond. To a new body, a new life, again and again.”

He paused as if waiting for me to speak. I said nothing.

“So you see,” he said, “you were never born and you shall never die. Of this,” he said, “the wise sage has no doubt.”

Was I a wise sage? Did I have doubts?

“Enjoyment, pain, heat and cold,” he waved his arm to take in the entire battlefield, “they come and go. Rise above them all. You are a strong soul, worthy of Eternity.”

I looked deeply into his eyes. And then I closed my own. I tried to understand. Still, and especially now with my eyes so tight, I knew it all to be a dream. An illusion of my own design, I said.

I heard his voice, now closer, a whisper in my ear. “Take off your cloak. Put on another. As simple as that, the Spirit moves from old body to new. Awake,” he said. “Awaken.”

To the sound of the conch, I opened my eyes. “It was a dream,” I told myself, looking around the room, my own home, my study. “A dream. But not of my own making.”

I found my finger upon the book, my place marked, among the poet’s words.