The Dreamer awoke from his sleep and found that his alarm clock had failed to sound. No wonder: the hands on the clock pointed to 3:00 AM. He knew it was well past time to get up, but he’d missed the alarm because the hands on the clock had stood still at 3:00. They had not moved for hours, probably. And likewise, darkness had not lifted, though he knew it should have. He was supposed to have been at work at 7:00 AM… or was it 7:30? He couldn’t remember. What was important was that it was definitely after 1:00 in the afternoon. Yet the Sun had not risen! On this day the Earth had stopped turning, and time stood still.
Dreamer looked up, beyond the ceiling, and could see the stars. This did not astonish him. It seemed natural that he could see the twinkling stars overhead, despite the common ceiling in his bedroom.
The earth had stood still. But not the Moon. This was how he had proven to himself the true time of day. The clock on his nightstand lied; the stars seemed to have lied and the Sun remained behind the earth, beating mercilessly upon Africa and Europe. The temperatures on that half of the earth must have been rising to some unbearable degree, and he felt for the sad people, enduring their heat and their day without end. He knew where the moon should be at 3:00 AM, and that was not where it was. It wasn’t in its 1:00 PM position either, but that was, of course, because the Earth was no longer turning. His internal, instinctual clock told him 1:09 or 1:12, he wasn’t sure which. And the Moon verified his instinct, so he knew that it was all true.
Dreamer imagined all his co-workers in the factory, working through the dark of this strange day, under the starlight, working away despite the gloom and the fear of this unknown phenomenon. And all the while they were wondering where he was, and why he had not come to work. They were all there out of duty, and they wondered if the Dreamer had not shown up because, maybe, he had died. He never failed to be at work, on time, rain or shine, in sickness and in health… perhaps Dreamer had died on this day that the Earth went on strike and refused to work without higher pay, and Benefits.
So Dreamer arose from his bed, and left the house through the front door, still in his bright red flannel pajamas. The Moon, more than half full as it waned, stood about a foot above his neighbor’s house across the street. All the streetlights were out. Most of the neighbors still slept, believing the illusion that day had not yet come. Maybe they would all sleep for as long as it took until the earth started turning again, and the Sun finally rose. That could take some time. They could starve in their sleep, and rot in their beds. If any ever awoke, supposing the Sun finally did rise, they would all curse their clocks for being so wrong.
Fortunately for itself, the Dreamer’s clock had stopped at 3:00 AM so that it could not be blamed wrongfully. Dreamer’s clock, it seemed, had decided that if it was to be blamed for any sin or crime or imperfection due to the earth’s bad behavior, it should at least have had the pleasure of committing that crime. And so it stopped dead at 3:00 AM, the moment it was aware that the earth had stood still, and fallen asleep where it stood.
“Why aren’t you asleep like the rest?” said a voice from nearly behind him, startling the man. And then he saw in the darkness another man, angelic he seemed, but dressed all in black. His attire was mournful, funerary, and the Dreamer knew that the angelic figure in the dark was indeed in mourning for the Earth.
Around his black waist was tied a black sash. Everything was black.
“I am Aleph,” said the man. “Some people call me Alpha. I have many names, but they all mean the same thing. I was there at the Beginning. I’m always there when someone wakens in the night, knowing that it should be Day.”
Dreamer was more startled, hearing Aleph speak now, than when he’d first heard the voice unexpectedly. Aleph’s voice had so many tones… it was so multi-hued that the Dreamer was aware of the tones that his ears could not detect. The voice was warm and melodic like a well-tuned guitar, hand-crafted by angels.
Aleph raised his right hand and beckoned Dreamer to follow him. “If you are going to be awake, you might as well see the earth in her sleep. You might learn a little. Stand back with me and see it from a distance.”
The Dreamer followed the angel, who led him back to the front door of his own house. But when he opened the door, his living room was gone; and in its place there was a cosmic scene with a planet and its moon, and a very dark sun in the distance. The orbs hung silently in space, with at least a billion stars dusting the black vacuum all around them. The planet didn’t look like Earth to him, although it had a similar hue.
They passed through the archway. Dreamer’s front door had become a giant arched gateway of brilliant gold, as the two men passed under it and stepped into space. There were beautifully crafted designs in the gateway, but the Dreamer refused to look directly at them, as he was entirely transfixed upon his impossible journey through space, towards the strange blue planet in the distance.
As they walked in the vacuum, Dreamer looked back and saw his house again from the front. It made no sense to have entered through the front door, looked back and seen the front door again from the outside. But there it was, as the house hung suspended in space like a tiny moon. But from this vantage point the well-kept building was dilapidated, as if it had been abandoned for many years. The paint had peeled until there was not much of it left; everything was crooked and leaning. Through the open front door, he could not see the living room, but the street in front of the house, and the darkened houses of his neighbors across the way.
Dreamer remembered nothing more about the journey to the alien blue planet. Suddenly they were there, and it was night. The moon was slightly more than a half-moon again, but this time he knew it was waxing. Oddly, this moon was such a deep crimson that there was a strange light emanating from it that he could not see. It was light of an extremely low frequency, beyond infrared. His eyes refused to admit to the existence of this light, for it was not part of the visible spectrum. But the Dreamer knew that the invisible light was there, speaking to his senses, emanating from the deep red moon, telling him secrets that he could not hear, and could not comprehend.
Aleph led Dreamer along a hard-packed dirt street. Dim yellow light flickered in windows. There were oil lamps and candles inside the buildings, and torches along some outer stone walls. But it seemed that no one used electricity.
“Would you like to see my library?” suggested the angel.
Dreamer was starting to understand that Aleph was his brother, older by a couple years. It made little sense, yet he knew that this angelic man had been born in some other place, in another world, to the same mother and father that were his, in his own world.
His brother led Dreamer to an old block of stone condominiums, sandwiched together. The stones that comprised the outer walls and steps were dark from oxidation, and looked as black as sulfur in the dark night.
They walked up a flight of black steps, and Aleph led his brother into the building. It was very old inside. There was a feeling of Eastern Europe, or 1920’s America. The aroma of old books filled the air. They rounded a corner from the hall and entered the room which was Aleph’s library. But all the shelves were empty except one. It had a short row of only seven books, all of different colors. They were arranged in a rainbow pattern; from the left, black, yellow, green, blue, purple, red and white. Orange was missing. These books sat in the middle of the shelf, and seemed to stand upright on their own, without bookends.
Aleph pointed to the empty space on the shelf to the left of the books. “See, these are some of my favorite, right here,” he said.
Dreamer misunderstood and touched the green book. “No,” said his brother, “I mean these books.” He pointed again to the empty space.
“There’s nothing there,” said the man, confused.
“What do you mean?” said the angel. “Sure there is. Right here.” He pulled an imaginary book from the shelf and pretended to open it. When he did, the black book at the end leaned slightly to the left.
“There’s nothing there,” protested the Dreamer, now feeling somewhat annoyed.
“I’ll read from it,” said the angel in black. Then he began moving his lips silently, as if reading aloud, but without sound. Dreamer looked on with a puzzled face. “You can’t hear me?” asked the angel. “I’ll read louder.” As the man pretended to read louder, Dreamer could see his throat moving and his face straining, as if he was really screaming with all his might, but there was no sound. His ears felt a strange vibration, as if a fly was flapping its wings silently against his eardrums. Then it felt almost as if someone was pulling on his ears, trying vainly to pull them off… but he heard no actual sound.
Aleph hung his head in apparent disappointment. He seemed to close the invisible book, then put it back on the shelf. When he did so, the black book straightened up again.
Maybe you can see these books over here?” he inquired tentatively as he pretended again to pull an invisible book from the empty shelf just to the right of the real books. He opened it up again and read silently like before.
But the Dreamer was becoming irritated by now. “There’s nothing there,” blurted the man in his red pajamas. “What do you think I am, some kind of an idiot?!”
“Well…” the angel seemed slightly wounded. He wasn’t trying to irritate his brother, he was just trying to show him his neat library, and maybe impart a little uncommon knowledge to him meanwhile. He really didn’t want to annoy him. Meekly, Aleph suggested, “…Maybe I can translate a little.” And with that, he voiced a long, uncomfortable stream of nonsensical sounds.
The Dreamer just stared at him with slightly parted lips and an unintentional scowl.
Aleph broke off. “I guess you can’t understand any of it, can you.” He was defeated. A little hurt, but still determined to find a way to make his brother happy with the library. “Ummm…” he said quietly, gesturing slightly towards the “real” books. “…those are for your people. That’s why you can see ‘em, I guess.”
With a sigh of agitation, Dreamer yanked the white book off the shelf and opened it. He thumbed through the pages quickly. “The pages are all blank!”
The angel stood upright suddenly. His spirit was back, and he was no longer feeling the hurt of rejection. “No they’re not,” he said absolutely. “That book is in the future. You can’t read it yet.”
The Dreamer felt ashamed of his hostility. Suddenly he thought he understood what his older brother meant. “Ah… you mean it hasn’t been written yet.”
“Oh, no. It’s been written. It was written before time began. It can’t be read until its days have come. And then a Warrior of Colors, one who is worthy to dress in pure white linen upon his death, will write over these invisible letters with ink that can be seen by men. He will reveal what was written ages ago, but could not be read by the Sons of Adam.” He wasn’t sure if Dreamer believed him or not. “You’ll see,” he affirmed patiently. Then he took the first book, the black book, from the shelf. “Here, this one is for your time. You can borrow it if you want. Just bring it back to me when you’re done reading it.” He smiled casually.
The Dreamer gratefully took the black book. When he did, his brother Aleph announced, “There’s someone who has requested to see you. An old man. He’s dying. Will you let me take you to him?”
“Sure,” he said. Dreamer wasn’t sure why some old man on an alien Earth would want to see him, since he knew they’d never met. But why not play along.
“First you need to get dressed,” said the angel Aleph. “Take that off,” he said, referring to Dreamer’s red pajamas. Then he left the room and Dreamer obeyed, realizing that maybe his sleeping attire was not appropriate for visiting old strangers.
Shortly Aleph returned with a black sash, identical to his own. He tied it around Dreamer’s waist, then said, “Let’s go.”
“Like this?!” the man protested with a sense of aggravated embarrassment. He had nothing on but the black sash.
“Yeah. Come on. You’re clothed with the sash.” He was serious, completely unaware of his brother’s feeling of shame and embarrassment. “That’s much more appropriate than the red cloth.”
With exaggerated reluctance, Dreamer followed the angel out the door.
Down the street they went, and for the first time Dreamer realized that he had been barefoot the whole time. But the cool packed earth felt good against his feet. He was self-conscious about his nudity, and glad the streets were so dark, and that no one but he and his brother was out so late.
At length they came to a monstrous old house, packed tightly between smaller houses. Like Aleph’s condo, the stones of this once-majestic home were also black with age. Everything in this city was black, it seemed. Only the hazy red moon, streaked with its invisible colors, suggested that any other color than black was possible in that odd Earth-world.
But upon entering the great house, Dreamer found some color inside, just like in Aleph’s home. Still, the color was mainly that of very old mahogany and various other woods. The walls were paneled with it, and the ceiling. The floor was hardwood… everything was very old.
The Dreamer could see that at the end of the hall there was a huge living room. And the lowest tiers of a dusty old crystal chandelier could be seen. But before they reached the living room, Aleph abruptly opened a reddish door to the left, and led him in. They walked through a small, untidy kitchen, and through another door at the far end. And there they found the old man, lying in his sick bed. He was very weak.
The aged warrior resembled Aleph to an astonishing degree. Dreamer surmised that maybe the resemblance was exaggerated by the fact that the old man was also wearing the same black clothes as Aleph, and the black sash. Even upon his deathbed he had not removed the garments or the sash. And possibly the resemblance was also due to the fact that the two men were of the same angelic race. Descended from the same primary element.
The old man slowly moved his head until he could see his guests. He squinted at Dreamer, who was suddenly more aware than ever of his nakedness. Dreamer folded his hands casually over his manhood, feeling a cold draft. “He’s not ready,” said the old man in a raspy whisper.
“No, he’s not,” agreed the younger angel. “He just woke up. He still has questions for which the answers are beyond human comprehension.”
The old man nodded slightly. “In time.” His whispery croak sounded painful, almost. “He’ll do.”
Dreamer felt like a naked three-year-old, at whom all the adults were smirking and laughing, for reasons beyond his tiny mind. Yet he knew the notion was false, and that his brothers were not laughing. At the moment he realized that, he felt some unspoken knowledge. A surreal knowledge that the old man was also his brother, older still, yet somehow, in some way, he was Aleph himself in a different phase of life. Nothing could explain this idea, yet somehow it seemed true. Both of them were separate, but the same. Linked by some form of alien physics, beyond his limited intellect.
The old man quietly introduced himself: “My name is _______.” The name he spoke was simple, not long, not complicated, but impossible for Dreamer to fully comprehend. Therefore he immediately forgot the name. A human voice could not have spoken that name, neither could a human hand have written it, nor a human mind grasped it. But the small fragment of meaning that the Dreamer was able to decipher was that of Hydrogen. And so Dreamer had to conclude that the elder Aleph was named Hydrogen, although such an understanding was over-simplified.
“I have seen you,” said the old man. “And you have seen me with your own eyes. Lay your hand on mine.”
Dreamer laid his hand on his older brother’s left hand as it lay in paralyzed atrophy. Then Aleph-Hydrogen sighed, and said, “Now I can live.” And having said those words, he died.
A strange thing happened. The moment the old man died, a light shone through his barred bedroom window. Outside, the moon had suddenly become bright, so that the midnight streets were bathed in golden sunlight, reflected only from the Moon.
When Aleph and the Dreamer stood at the front door of Hydrogen’s great House, the Moon was no longer deep infrared and crimson, but it was brighter than any half-moon Dreamer had ever seen.
“Why did he want to see me?” inquired Dreamer of Aleph.
“So that he could be satisfied that his life was not spent in vain. So that he could be born, and Live.”
Dreamer didn’t understand. “He died.”
“Oh no,” countered his brother. He was born. Do you see the glory of this old house?” He pointed towards the dusty chandeliers and the old wooden walls. It was dark and gloomy, dusty, old. But surely it had once been a respected house of grandeur. “He has been reborn to a glorious state, far beyond this. A palace, and wealth that dreams cannot conceive. Want to see?”
“Show me,” Dreamer shrugged.
And so the two men left the ancient house of their brother Hydrogen, and walked along the street to their left, but only a short way.
On the right there stood a rickety old cabin, black even under the bright moonlight. The boards of that cottage were unpainted and cracked. There was no insulation, and one could easily peer through the giant gaps in the crooked walls. There was a flickering light inside.
Aleph nodded towards the dirty glass window. “See,” he said, but not like he was asking a question.
Dreamer looked carefully through the window. And by the dancing light of an old oil lantern, he saw a woman in bed. She had tears of joy, and her husband, bent over her, was laughing. An old woman produced from between the young woman’s thighs a newborn baby. Baby Aleph-Hydrogen cried in his newborn glory. The new parents cuddled him and kissed him.
Dreamer was touched, nearly to tears, but couldn’t help but protest, “This is the poorest family I’ve ever seen in my life.” A wilted wildflower drooped from a dry handmade clay vase on a rough wooden bedside table. The dehydrated flower seemed to be the young couple’s only possession. Aside from their new baby. How could they afford to feed him? Dreamer wondered.
“Dreamer,” said Aleph calmly. “You don’t understand. Their poverty is his wealth. He will be taught the virtues of goodness and honesty, not those false-virtues of materialism. He will become an honorable man. His honor, and his decency will be his glory. In a silent way, without any ostentatious veneer, he will change the world. See the yellow glow… that golden light emanating from the baby.” Dreamer saw it. “That is a flame that will spread, generation after generation, until it has become a fire that will consume the darkness of this world.” He sighed. “You don’t understand. Your Earth stops turning every night, just like it did tonight. You haven’t noticed because you’ve been asleep in your world of waking. The night has been long. It is endless. The Earth needs you awake.”
The Dreamer thought about his menial marriage to his blue-collar job. What good he could do for a sleeping Earth that had ceased from turning, he did not know.
The two of them stood by the window for a moment, looking solemnly at the ground; mourning the Earth’s demise.
Dreamer spoke up in frustration. “Could you please tell me something simple. Something I can understand?” The brothers started walking back along the street, in the direction from whence they’d come. “Everything you say, Aleph, is cryptic. I really don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. What do you want me to do?”
And then the angel said something absolutely simple. Brilliant. So brilliant that a severely retarded person could have understood it. A professional school-teacher could not have taught with such memorable simplicity. The world seemed to turn again, at dizzying speed. “Love.” It was no mere word. It was a command for action. Within that simple brilliant word there was infinite meaning: do for others what you wish they’d do for you; don’t do to others what you wouldn’t like them to do to you; love your Creator and all of His creation; respect everything that the Creator-Artist has made; go out of your way to do good even to people who wish you harm… break free from your shell of self, and become vulnerable to others, for their benefit; never gossip; never lash out in anger without thinking; defend the innocent and those who cannot defend themselves; don’t steal; don’t destroy a loving marriage through adultery; love your children and raise them so that they feel your love; on balance, discipline them so that they will learn to discipline themselves- lest they grow up to spend their lives in prison, or in bondage to chemicals and the demands of the flesh, for lack of self-discipline… That one Word was nearly infinite in meaning. Its colors stretched out beyond infrared to the left, and beyond ultraviolet to the right. The Dreamer was still thinking about it, and could not break free from that beautiful truth, Love, when Aleph spoke again to him.
“I’m glad you visited. I think it has been profitable,” he said in his warm, multi-hued voice. “Now… go to sleep, Dreamer.”
And with those words, the Dreamer awoke. He found that it was a normal day. The Earth was still turning, it seemed upon the surface. The alarm clock was just about to sound: almost 7:30 AM. He would have to be at work by 9:00 AM, as always. The Sun was already shining.
He turned on his side and faced the alarm clock, just as it began to sound. There in front of the clock, on his night stand, lay a black book and a black sash.
