Katulu, Narrative #1

Katulu:

Space Dreaming

...The Full Moon...

High above earth, out in space, was a gently rotating star-ship bathed in moonlight. Down a hallway of tiled floors, behind a door, slept the child-being Katulu. He was a being of turquoise skin with large almost turtle-like eyes that were now closed. He slept in his orphanage room in a bed under a blanket of nano-fabric. A small brown snake with scaled skin in orange diomands nestled against his body – a gift from the Lizard Man. The moonlight cast long shadows from two vertical windows at the end of the dark room, bathing the foot of his bed it a pale yellow half-light. The silhouette of his curtains hung like prayer flags. Katulu tossed and turned troubled by the re-occurring dream of snakes. He dreampt he was disembodied, floating in a velvety void of space:

In the depths of space, all is black, Katulu thought as he floated in sea of blackness, a disembodied void of space. He could not remember who he was. He dreampt that he was in the womb again... dreampt that he was the blackness itself. Something inside the blackness crackled with energy... a scintillating velvety electricity that was alive within the blackness. He dreampt that we was a serpent that swam in this ocean of blackness... He was in a cave and the only light that shone in was the full moon... He swam as a serpent in the watery cave towards the full moon in the distance. The moonlight was like an aperture shining through a hole in the fabric of the inky void.

Who am I? he asked himself – asked the blackness. He felt like he was connected to the primal mother of creation. It felt like a home beyond time and space. And yet, he was troubled... looking...searching for something... someone. He traveled through the reaches of time and space looking for someone he had known long ago. ...Looking for his sister that had shared the womb with him – his twin. But she was lost... playing hide and seek with him. I am so tired, he thought as he swam towards the moon aperture. I want to go home.

He tossed and turned in bed. It was true, Katulu was an orphan, born in space and knew not who his parents might have been. The Lizard man, the wise being with green scaled skin had taken him as a foster child aboard the star-ship orphanage. Katulu could feel the presence of the old wise lizard-man stood motionless outside the door. Sometimes the Lizard man spoke telepathically to Katulu. The Lizard man’s silent words echoed from the other room in Katulu’s mind. Space is like a womb. Space is like a black womb of creation. It was the Lizard Man’s words. Katulu continued to dream.

In the dream he thought to himself. Life is but a dream and I am in the womb of creation... this velvet void womb....I am fearful of being born but be born I must. He dreampt the re-occurring dream, and tears welled up under his eyelids. It had been so long ago, the memory of this girl. It haunted him for he had never truly known her and he wanted to know her now; but now she was only a memory. He felt like he had left a part of himself behind in that time and place and he wanted to go back. I want to go home, he repeated to himself.

He stirred from his covers partially awake, yet still half asleep. I am thirsty! He thought as he stepped out of bed looked almost naked wearing his green nano-fabric body suite. Not bothering to put on his night slippers that were by the doorway we walked down the hallway to get a drink of water from the water fountain. As he looked down at his feet he saw the floor tiles made a repeating pattern in the dim light as he walked. They made him feel dizzy and cross-eyed as he looked at them. As he passed a dark shadowed room with open doors he looked in and saw the Lizard Man sitting in the still darkness. He saw in the room with the Lizard Man a piercing white snake of light that swam in an ocean of blackness, like a comet with a tail, yet turning this way and that way. He dreampt that the old lizard was there and that the white snake danced around him – through him – touching the blackness with a rainbow of color that it left in its wake. Perhaps this is part of a dream. He crept back to his bed, down the hallway with tiled floors, his footsteps echoing softly against the skin of his feet.

The starship gently turned in the sky. Slipped a just a notch closer to earth. The full moon hung above a silent yellow reminder of how huge space was.

Back in bed he continued to dream. In his dreams he traveled down to the sleeping earth. He went for a walk on an empty shadowed path beneath the silent moon. He stopped to rest in an abandoned hut. As he lay there in the empty dwelling he looked out the window and saw a star in the night sky. Was it his own starship that he dreampt he saw or was it just a star? He watched and waited to see if it would move. It didn’t move. He looked down at himself, his own body and suddenly the dream changed. He was in a room with a lion a tiger and a snake. He was watching them as if through someone else’s eyes. He felt a tug at his heart and for a moment a feeling of warmth came over him like a warm wind that blew through his mind. He was at peace with these majestic animals, they where so pretty. He felt soothed by their presence the yearning in his heart came to stillness. In his bed with eyes closed, a silent smile formed on Katulu’s lips. Within the blue shadows of his dreams he saw a yellow aura emanated and, Katulu recognized a young girl with eyes of a cat sitting between the two felines. Memories flickered in his mind. He knew her. He recognized her warm energy – a warm yellow aura like a dandelion flower. Ahh, its her, he though and for a moment he saw through her eyes. I have shared the womb with you before. He tried to speak to her from beyond the dream, Can you hear me! can you see me! I know you are there! I know your there in front of me! But the dream was beginning to fade. Then Katulu saw the snake starting to move. He saw through the snakes eyes – he was the snake! It glided toward her and its tongue was slithering in and out, and it bit the girl. Then as if this was all a movie the world faded and Katulu came back into himself, stunned. He thought, wow that just bit her!?!?, he was surprised, but within the dream there was no feeling of pain and no sense of wrongness.

The dream faded completely and Katulu woke up back in the starship. He lay in bed wondering what it meant. The yellow aura was gone. He was alone again with only the cold blue shadows. “I am an orphan!” he said aloud. He thought of the snake biting the young girl and wondering looking out between the two vertical windows that where at the foot of this bed. I want it to be day now, he thought.

You have traveled off-ship in your dreams, and now you are back, The Lizard Man echoed is his mind.

I want the sun to shine, Katulu said as he thought of he yellow dandelion.

The voice at the door said quietly, you are not ready for the sunlight just yet the hours of night are still in the counting.

I know, said Katulu, still heavy from the somber dream that haunted him, These are strange times and my heart grown lonely in this darkness of space that I sleep in.

In the rays of the sun some beings long for the darkness, was all that the voice at the door responded. Katulu knew it was the kind old Lizard and yet sometimes he was unsure. As the star-ship gently rotated the moonlight shined muted through the slitted windows and the multicolored fabric curtains.

Will I dream more if I fall back asleep, Katulu wondered to the old Lizard.

Yes, was simply what the lizard responded.

The two vertical windows of moonlight made a number eleven at the foot of his bed. The curtains, his miniature prayer flags, hung against the windows gently swaying as if by some draft of air in the room. As Katulu drifted back to sleep a kite-shaped face hovered like a leaf flickering there momentarily with curious eyes watching.

The full moon harbored new beginnings, perhaps.

The star-ship shifted closer to the sparkling moonlit waters of Ocean Dreaming’s shores far far far below. Perhaps is was time.