To get to the Arena, we have to walk through a small part of the forest. The pathway is lit by torches and the trees are draped with fabrics that lightly glow blue in the darkness. Coming from the trees we walk into a large meadow and the first thing we see is the massive, colorfully lit Arena towering into the night sky. We instantly slow down and look up. The Arena is an incredibly impressive structure. The stones light up in turquoise and white. Over the walls crawl light snakes, and hundreds of colorful flags wave at us from the top of the building. Bewildered, Psyrah and I stare at each other. We don’t have much time to linger because masses of people push themselves toward the arched entrance as enchanted worker bees on their way to their queen.
Psyrah and I are on our way to the Flambeau River State Forest. The traffic is horrific; it looks as if the entire state of Minnesota is driving out. The normal 3.5-hour journey turns into 5 hours and I am glad we left early.
From the parking lot we already see lights glowing in the distance. We leave our phones in the car since the Didelians have strict rules about electronic devices. They have a way of detecting them and people are advised not to even wear a digital watch.
Chapter 9
Flambeau River State Forest Wisconsin
October 24th, 2014
The Show: Part I
The tunnel has led us into the gigantic center circle of the Arena. It’s dark and there are no lights to designated seats or to give us an indication of where we are. We meet more Didelians with blue glowing canes. This time I see both men and women. They are all wearing dark green capes with large hoods that make it hard to see their faces. The man helping us is tall and his face remains mostly in the shadow of his hood. I lean far enough forward to peak below and see a silver diadem that snakes over his forehead. He has piercing light green eyes and dark eyebrows. A scarf that he has in front of his mouth makes it hard to tell if he is smiling or not. He catches me staring and his eyes squint slightly. Then they widen and he steps back a little. Did I startle him? I must be imagining things in this strange mindset. The man steps forward again and regains his posture. Without even looking at the tickets, he points to the left but says no word. The moment his finger extends, a pathway lights up. A thin gold line starts at our feet, turns left, circles around the performance area and climbs up some stairs toward a gallery of seats. There, the line ends at two chairs that stand in a spotlight. Psyrah looks down at our feet and starts walking along the golden line.
“Odd,” she stammers softly while she walks to the left.
“Thank you,” I say to the man and he nods.
I remember morfar telling me about The Guardian of the Stage, the old woman who stands next to the stage in every single show. If she was old when morfar and mother went to see the show, she should be much older now. But she doesn’t seem to have aged much in all those years. She stands straight and firm and looks powerful. She appears to be in good health. She is immaculately dressed in the most beautiful gown and she peacefully overlooks the performance stage. And she has done this ever since the shows started. In fact, she has never been absent since the very first show. Nobody knows why she stands next to the stage. She doesn’t perform and she doesn’t make any announcements, but she’s always visibly there. Unraveling Didelis claims that the woman who is named Deeri, is far over a hundred years old. You wouldn’t say…
Suddenly, a younger man approaches the woman. His hair falls slightly over his eyes, and it is half long in the back. His eyes are light and his eyebrows are dark. He wears a beautiful long robe, a large silver necklace with a brilliant stone pendant and soft leather boots that make him float over the ground. His shoulders are extremely broad and he looks tall while standing next to the old lady. On his forehead he wears a crown.
Once we reach the tunnel, we see ten beautiful, tall women with long, light-blue silk dresses, who welcome the visitors. They all look identical; their hair is braided around their heads and blue shiny lipstick glosses on their lips. Their skin shimmers like porcelain and this gives them an interstellar look. They all carry a cane with a brightly lit sphere of glass on the top that pulses in the darkness. With incredible swiftness, they wave the stick over the tickets people hold in front of them. Once the light scans the paper, it flashes violet.
When it is our turn, the woman who is attending us smiles broadly. She has flawless straight white teeth and her blue eyes twinkle and radiate happiness. The stick flashes, and the woman nods. I look at my ticket and it seems nothing happened, but when I trace the paper with my finger, I notice that a stamp was added in the middle. This ticket is marked.
We pass through the arched doorway and enter the obscure tunnel behind it. Large candles are hanging from the walls and flicker wildly which makes the shadows of the visitors dance. For a moment it feels as if we are entering an old castle in medieval times. People around us speak with extremely excited voices. In the tunnel it smells of fresh forest on a warm and rainy summer’s day. The line slows down, and for a moment we are stuck in a human traffic jam surrounded by walls.
“Not much different from downtown Minneapolis,” I joke at Psyrah, who I can barely see in the flickering of the candlelight. When we push deeper into the tunnel, the line of candles ends. It is now impossible to see the entrance or an exit. Everything is pitch black and I wrap my arms around my body. Suddenly, a short, blue light flash hits our eyes. I blink a few times, while the flash continues behind my closed eyes, and look at Psyrah.
“What was that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they took a picture of our surprised faces which they will sell after the show. Like they do in Disney Land.”
“Perhaps…” The murmuring of the people around us becomes louder and I can feel their anxiety mix with my own.
“Perhaps we should hold on to each other,” I whisper. Psyrah laughs and she grabs my hand. I’ve always been the one who’s more easily scared. “It is a bit scary,” she admits.
The forest perfumes intensify. Suddenly, all sounds in the tunnel mute. The whispers of the people around us, the sounds of our feet on the floor. As if someone turned the master volume dial to zero. I can’t even hear my own breathing. “This is what it must feel like to be blind and deaf at the same time,” I say, but all I hear is the voice in my head. In panic, I pull Psyrah closer and she throws her arm around me. Here we stand, in utter darkness like two scared little girls, waiting for what’s to come.
My anxiety intensifies, and right when I’m about to freak out, a warm and good feeling rolls over me like a thick blanket of bliss. The desire to run vanishes. Psyrah loosens her grip, which means she feels it too. Relaxing music washes through the tunnel and I let go of Psyrah. I feel entirely peaceful as if I’m floating in a worry-free existence. I feel no hunger or thirst, I just feel completely content. It’s a radical change compared to how I felt just a minute before. A faint light appears at the end of the tunnel and the scent of forest gradually disappears. The exit. We’ll soon need to step out of this vacuum of warmth, delight, and nothingness. The candles return and our shadows dance on the walls once again. Slowly, the voices around me return to their normal volumes and I hear great excitement everywhere. I look at Psyrah and I see she’s smiling. The stress-free feeling of my body is still there. I look at my own dancing silhouette on the wall and suddenly it waves at me while my arms are hanging beside my body. Bewildered, I step back. Did I just imagine this? I nudge Psyrah on her side and make her look at the wall. I point at our dancing shadows but now nothing special happens; my shadow doesn’t wave again. I stare at the candles to see if they are part of the trick and that’s when I realize they are floating in front of the wall... They don’t have support anywhere. They are… floating! Totally perplexed, I poke Psyrah again, now harder.
“Ouch!” Annoyed, she looks at me and tries to decipher my expression, but I nod my head in the direction of the candles. In the faint glow of the light, I see her eyes widening. I move toward the wall and stick my hand between the stones and a candle. Nothing is there! I hear bystanders gasp. I look at Psyrah again and smile.
“This is going to be a great evening.”
The candles aren’t the only things that changed. The colors around me seem brighter, the sounds are more intense, and people are smiling and laughing enthusiastically. It feels as if our reality shifted into a dream where joy is the only thing that counts. In my mind there is no tomorrow, no yesterday. Nothing matters but this great feeling and the wonder that I’m in right now.
As we move closer, we see that the entrance looks like a tunnel that ends in darkness. Two massive statues sit above the arch and guard the doorway. One statue is a sphinx with a beautiful female face. She is looking down at us as if she is checking whether we are worthy of entering the Arena. Next to the sphinx, a proud bull with massive eagle wings faces the heavens.
The trees behind the Arena are waving in the wind as if they are dancing to the soft melodies coming from the building. In the sky above, vague colored lights dance in the sky and they move to the same rhythm as the trees. It is not uncommon to see northern lights in this region and yet, it is enchanting to see them appear right above the Arena
We follow the path around the inner circle of the Arena.
“Naran, do you think different paths light up for different visitors? I think we only see ours.”
I look around and see people climbing upstairs between seats, but I don’t see any lines or spotlights.
“I guess so.”
Once on the other side of the Arena, we climb twenty-two rows up until we reach our seats. They are fairly broad and made of a cushy red velvet fabric and look extremely comfortable. We throw ourselves down and the moment we land in our chairs, our pathways and the spotlight disappear. A leg support comes out of the chairs and they recline substantially. Music floats up from below and the seat vibrates lightly with the bass. A beverage is waiting for us in a cup holder on the outer side of our armrests.
While sitting comfortably in our reclined chairs, the scenery slowly starts to change. From above the center of the Arena, small twinkling lights lower into the space and cover the entire Arena. Everywhere we look, small lights shimmer. I look up and stare through the open roof and see how the twinkling lights have blended with the stars in the night sky and the northern lights above us. This is what being in space must feel like… while sitting in a comfortable recliner seat.
“Holy Moly!” Psyrah shouts enthusiastically.
“Yes…” I whisper. I don’t think I will find words today to describe how I feel.
I look down into the Arena. Our seats are fairly well positioned. From where we are sitting, we can probably see the faces of the performers.
On the far side of the inner circle-stage, I see the performers’ gate. It is covered with a golden glow and right next to it stands an old lady, robed in a beautiful light blue dress. A silver crown is woven through her silver white hair. She holds a long, ivory staff with an illuminated violet sphere.
“It’s Kai!” Psyrah shouts enthusiastically.
“I think that’s the man who just dealt with our seats!” I answer.
“Really?” You mean Kai touched my ticket?” Psyrah caresses her ticket as if it is much more valuable now.
The man whispers something in the old lady’s ear. They both look into the Arena and scan the audience scrupulously from left to right. When they look in our direction, I can see their eyes. Deeri’s eyes are incredibly intense, it is almost as if… they are flaming. I haven’t heard grandfather or Unraveling Didelis mention this. Maybe it’s a reflection of the lights. Deeri whispers something to Kai, he nods and then disappears again through the performers’ gate.
“It was Kai who touched our tickets... I can’t believe it,” Psyrah hymns.
The old lady stays where she is and scans the audience again. When staring in our direction she slows down her movements. Her staff changes color from violet to bright white. I poke Psyrah to see if she notices, but she is too occupied with figuring out the headrest of the chair. Before I can point it out, the woman stares blankly into the Arena again.
Suddenly, the thousands of tiny shimmering lights fade, and it becomes pitch black in the Arena. The murmuring of the people around us softens.
They know it’s show time.