fourth year jeremy person

Somewhere deep down, you’ll find the entrance to that place, through the odd-angled passage of memory that stretches between dreams.

A neighborhood rests in the bend of a giant creek. Stone slabs buried in the mud hold up the wooden homes squatting on the channel banks.

Your fingers mingle with clusters of spiky leaves as you wade through the tall shoots of grass. The gleam of a setting sun spreads across every puddle and recedes between the dense riverbeds as you approach the squat wooden homes.

Through the windows you can see people dancing for one another, each their own playful show of laughter and intrigue covering something worn and weary. Save your energy. Out here, you don’t really know anyone until you meet their shadows.

Nighttime doesn’t fall just yet, daytime lingering before dusk. You trek through puddles that dot the greater marsh; they gleam with old sunlight, illuminating your path through the reeds.

Just look at that sunset. Where else could you find a better horizon?

The farther you walk, the higher the grass grows, and by the time it’s up to your knees you find yourself at the top of a staircase neatly nestled in the muck.

Smooth wooden steps and a firm railing leading down into silent darkness. If you squint, you can see a faint glow cast across the bottom steps. Your path continues downward.

The first floor is something familiar, comfortable. A child’s bedroom with a nightlight.

The steps continue down to the second floor, a place you haven’t seen in years.

The third floor is something personal, an argument with someone you love.

The stairs fade by the fourth floor, a meeting with a forgotten friend.

Here is where most people start looking for the real entrance. Its form varies from person to person, like a door or a window. You’ll recognize it, whatever it is. It feels different from everything else in the dream. It brings the full awareness of being awake, your memories and thoughts all in one place, your senses alive with information about this unreal space.

With this awareness comes your ephemeral guide, an observer participant with the goal to accompany you, no matter how deep down you go. The form they take will change throughout the trip, and what they say or do will be confusing, but know they are on your side no matter where you go or what you discover.

The people you knew up there and the people you meet down here are different expressions of one uncertainty. You will find that here, light casts dense shadows, and when people dance, they have nothing to hide. It’s as real as a far horizon.

With your entrance discovered, you must step foot on the path once again. As you leave one dream behind and enter something deeper, the darkness of the passage wraps around you like a thick blanket on a freezing night.

Your guide walks with you as the path continues forward.

Beneath the Marshlands