Hello folks, writers and all creatives! That's the English translation of a short story of mine!
At The Traces Of Almagest. Writer: Menelaos Gkikas
Jordan (16 years old) at a school of New York had genuine talent in math, he would solve some equations leaving his professors speechless! His professors would believe he will do a bright scientific career. His parents on the other side would try to pass on to him the thought of having multi-faceted briefing so to avoid fanatism, but he wouldn’t listen to them, up until he was forced. Feeling jealous by the attributes of language he started to manifest his interest in writing, poetry, the arts. Of evil, though! With a maturity that would surpass by far his age, he started to understand, that if he wouldn’t literally neglect philological lessons, he would have learnt to express himself earlier and he would have avoided the … adventures of his adolescence. His basic weakness was metaphorical word, personalization in other words that in another world, maybe, he could do miracles with it.
“For otherwise your beliefs are being judged”, Sara had told him once, his childhood classmate, once she eventually started to realize the extensions of word.
He was iconoclastic in other words. He would love to attack, in other words, the cherished beliefs or institutions that would concern his environment, for this is what scientific recognition would mean to him and… who knows? Maybe in another world he might prove that he was right. Up until the world would turn upside down and would gift to him and his own people a very priceless self-awareness…
Jordan had enrolled in a dance school and he was having ballet lessons starting to flush, to sweat and to lose his saliva in front of the descriptions of his teacher. He had just manifested his dream of becoming an artist!
“Jordan is a rising star” she had told him once and in fact in an electrified atmosphere. He would try to counteract the naivety that would characterize genuine science as eventually he might study musical programming, hence his love on technology and maybe one day he would manage to hunt his dream.
“Informatics”, once Sarah was joking at him remembering his failures. He would like to read The Chronicles of Narnia, the notorious universe of Lewis Carroll but also essays that would made it clear that eventually music includes all the possibilities that characterize a musical universe that is being birthed by it, in fact its cosmogony. In his mind though, art, science, philosophy but also religion had become one and that initially was visible in his word.
“Language is what drives people to where they’re at” Sarah had told him once by wanting to justify his lack of experience in the way of expression hence his complicated fantasy with which he would personalize everything, without getting an answer yet.
One day Sarah, by reading a script in the internet with the title “At the edge of magical realism” she would start to describe her own personal delirium of thoughts that maybe fantasy universes exist, that maybe they could unfold a fantasy empire in which nothing is what it seems and nothing lasts forever… At least for those that wouldn’t believe and wouldn’t love enough these thoughts. But not Jordan…!
He would oscillate in between words, hermeneutics and melody. Harmony, balance, calmness but also varied steps, times, meters and theories had started little by little to forge his mind up until his choreographies would become airy and Jordan accepted in one of Hollywood auditions.
“Let’s go kids, we’re flying” Sarah had exclaimed then, surprised with the announcement of outcomes.
Jordan though would frantically try to find answers as far as the universe of words is concerned!
“Polysemy, Sarah, is being found only in dictionaries… But we, when we interpret, select or decide, it’s supposed we know where we’re getting into. We know the pain it demands, the toil, the sacrifices and still we select it by saying it maybe worth the try.”
And somewhat angry now that progressively his words were being confirmed, he come out with at her:
“You had told me once my beliefs are being judged! Do you want to listen to me?”
Sarah had goggled her eyes expecting what it would follow.
“Indiana Jones by the use of allegory had managed to discover the location of the Holy Grail. The cosmogony of the theoreticians of fantastic today convinced me that musical universes are a fact! And maybe I know where to address to discover them.”
“Talking seriously?” continued Sarah reluctantly.
"Of course!" Jordan continued.
“Little before midnight, below the Statue of Liberty, this summer, towards the upper side of its pyramidal basis, little after August fifteenth one night where the visitors at the point will be almost non-existent, it is being said that maybe a hole will be created, a window towards the musical universe we want.”
“And where did you learn all that?”
“I didn’t learn them exactly. But as Indiana Jones I believe in the power of allegory! By reading the
“Mathematical Syntax” of Alexandrian Claudius Ptolemy combined with an essay around the cosmogony of music, I assumed that the universe of Almagest is being created primarily by people with free will, of those that like Ptolemy believe they can re-write the stars.”
“So? What does this have to do with the hole and parallel worlds?”
“The essay describes in between epic fantasy and maybe some anecdotal facts that once every ten thousand years, when the will and man’s battle for freedom become extremely powerful, under some symbol of freedom there will be created something like a bridge in a parallel universe, with which the dreams of many people will become a reality!”
Sarah would look Jordan incredulous, by not being able to utter a proper word. But for the first time in his life, Jordan had acquired an inexplicable courage and… if he would want to reach the gardens of heaven, he had to prove himself right!
“Before you do all that, you have to learn to confirm your way of thinking. Do you know how?”
Jordan re-remembered the thoughts of theoreticians of fantastic on narrative economy, the words of his parents on multi-dimensional perception and he would try to understand if he would feel safe enough but also with self-confidence for such ventures.
“The bold one wins” he told Sarah and they immediately started to plan their visit at the Statue of Liberty. It was the summer before the official preparation for university starts. He would also imagine of himself to enter the university after palms and branches. But first he had to complete a mission.
The weeks passed by and the day for the grand experiment was here. After their summer vacations, an August night found Jordan and Sarah below the Statue of Liberty. They had to confirm his way of thinking. As Jordan started to rummage the space, soon he was caught at an anomalous point. It was about the hole towards the musical universe of Almagest…! When Jordan tried to open the hole with his hands, reluctantly he stooped a little towards the inside to understand what was happening.
And what did he see? A spiteful enemy that would listen to the name Salazar! What metaphorical word? The world of Salazar would still communicate like the men of the caves! With pictures, hieroglyphics and sometimes inarticulate screams when things would reach an impasse. The world of Salazar could not understand the real war. Designing and as usual self-interested he was only interested about his affairs, his career and the paradox relationship he had with money.
“Pocket money” Jordan exclaimed when he firstly imagined what he could do to him.
But Salazar had power if and only if he could influence that much.
Jordan and Sarah weaponized with courage, self-confidence and initially a blind trust they would show towards their self, decided to travel to the musical universe of Almagest and they immediately accomplished their goal! As they would pass through the hole, suddenly space and pictures blurred and the only thing they could see was black-and-white shadows. But when they passed into the musical universe instead of being landed directly to Salazar, they initially entered into a magical landscape with mythical creatures, talking beasts, sweet and imaginative music and so they started to explore it.
“What formidable things you discovered again” Sara responded by nudging him with a friendly smile on his shoulders.
In the musical universe Jordan and Sarah will be found into exotic forests, mythical creatures, imposing natural landscapes, entanglement of technology with magic, flying beasts but also Avatars, an oracle surrounded by surrealistic symbols but also habitable regions, astronomic observatories, dance ballrooms, camps but also into the magical elements of nature!
“You have an initial confirmation of your way of thinking!” Sarah told him reluctantly with awe.
But Jordan, a match on its own, would know better thanks to his Achille’s heel, that the forces and the leadership elements of the universe of Almagest don’t jape! To win Salazar and rehabilitate first of all the stories inside them, they had to know that such a universe has not been created by atoms but by many tiny stories. And safety, welfare but also the manifested goodness of the people of their place, could only be assured by the rehabilitation of the balance in words and that should begin from an inside-out relationship and not vice versa.
“Every time people would try to move forward in science, they would imagine atrocities as far as what exists afterwards is concerned” Sarah began. “The Earth is flat, Earth is the center of the system, if you fall down from Earth there are demons and they will eat you… and much else.”
“If only you could see what they say now” Jordan initially joked as with a lustful look he would see a musical universe unfold with a relative eroticism in front of him!
“Do you think this could be the start of your artistic integration?” asked Sarah with a relative conceit.
“Do you think you will be advertised in Hollywood Walk of Fame?”
These though, maybe, would concern a different story and certainly not the forthcoming war. Salazar with a dose of audacity as well as barbarity would already torture everyone!
At the universe of Almagest and specifically in the ballroom of dancing manifestations that now the two heroes were found, Jordan had been surrendered at the viewing of the ballets that now would entertain the audience and would righteously give the characterization musical universe. A dancer that connects his soul and his body with music, was called in reality to interpret and externalize emotions and he could accomplish that if he would dispose some divine being, if he had God inside of him in other words. With the correlation of the choreography with himself Jordan himself had to change as also he would understand indirectly by that the rivalry and envy of Salazar…
This Divinity, the cleanness, the harmony and the calmness that their artistic expression would emit had created monsters as far as the powers of evil were concerned… And for this to happen, the world of Almagest would manifest itself its dark points. Their cosmogony, their creative explosion but also their aristocratic temperament that would be manifested with varied ways did not make them familiar and understood the origin of divine creation. Fascinated by the fairytale wrap of their world they would manifest black-or-white thought. Either only a fairytale or hostility.
For this reason, the epic balance in between the powers of good and evil would allow Salazar to threaten, to bewitch and to extinguish the weaker. The world of Almagest had superior power, defense and equipment in relation with the real weapons of humans of Earth. The weapons of people in the musical universe were their memory and their natural power that would be manifested with spells, magic wands but also clouds of energy that would foreshadow evolutions!
And while Jordan and Sarah would experience magic and the epic majesty of the wizarding world in which they had been found, simultaneously they had not accepted completely the battle they had to give to defeat evil… People would betray and refute Salazar and Salazar would revenge disobedience and betrayal, he would fight those that would override his rules…
Jordan and Sarah had reached the oracle discussing with a mythical creature which would say to them that initiations should be taken.
“Salazar is being protected by 4 magical medallions” said Marion, one of the mythical creatures of Almagest that was specialized in strategy at the oracle. “4 magical medallions which concern 4 fairies and at which Salazar has stored part of his soul to win immortality. 4 horcruxes that must be destroyed by making fairies to fall into humans.”
“I could help you in this mission. I think I have an idea of what it’s all about” responded Jordan impulsively.
“We may hear you then” Marion continued.
“You have to lean on your power and your weakness simultaneously. Your universe is leaned on the activation of varied allegories perplexing the metaphor with literalism.”
“So?”
“In Almagest even energies and identities of people are being shifted, but not that difficultly as in Earth.”
“In our world” Sarah continued, “people don’t change that easily…!”
“The balance pressures. People need catharsis” Marion responded. “When the four brightest stars in heaven are aligned, which our astronomers use as genetic compass, we have to define our guardian angel who will lead of the rehabilitation. And if he is Earthy we may have the laws by our side.”
“The laws?” Jordan continued.
“In the world of Almagest the universe law conflicts and goes together with the rules, whether these are our own or of Salazar. And we need an Earthy one that can align magic with your world at Earth” answered Marion completing.
“Select me! I can do it!” Jordan responded with a blind trust towards himself.
If they would subtract myth and the narrative wrap the differences between metaphorical word in Almagest and in Earth were huge. At this exact element Salazar was based as well. At people that they could be the same but also irrelevant between them, changing each time the spacetime context. Hence Marion explained to them that at the universe emotion is what tunes matter but also the final judge that would influence balances, life, death but also welfare in Almagest.
Jordan and Sarah started to get to know better the mythical creatures, talking beasts, guardian angels of this fantasy universe, to visit camps into the forests and the glades but also participate at the hostilities with the world of Salazar climbed onto flying beasts. The days were passing by and the two heroes were approaching their dream more as far as the initial purpose of the journey in Almagest is concerned, they were understanding better the language of the mythical creatures but also their culture, up until the time comes of baptizing Jordan.
“As your name martyres” Marion began, “you are the chosen one that will be baptized our guardian angel and will lead all the rest of the guradians against the war with Salazar.”
They were found in the oracle and Jordan approached Marion more. Automatically Marion wore at him a handicraft metallic wreath on the head, characteristic of his new identity. The crowd that was watching started to hail and Jordan hugged Sarah by her shoulders.
But the universe in Almagest had memory and mostly Marion would call Jordan as their honored member to confront ‘his ghosts’ at Earth…!
Complexes of the past, bad choices of third ones that would once concern him but also the fact that mostly noone of us can function above his own choices, had dominated his own cloud of energy that would result from his handshake with Marion. Jordan was attending himself to study quantum mechanics, design algorithms, fight with his friends on the ideas they would publish and through this redemptive journey into his consciousness, the cloud of energy would foreshadow at him the risks he would confront depending on his alter ego each time, if he would continue to think and function like before…!
Thus, as soon as the cloud disappeared and the handshake was completed, Jordan mostly changed but also realized continued the discussion of his thoughts with Marion and Sarah about the necessity of the divine being.
“Even in adulthood, time and timing continue to possess some magic, that’s very different than our adulthood” started Sarah. “This eternity, elixirs and the one and only dimension, source for everything that is named singularity are points that will make Salazar battle you, Jordan.”
“And I have to discover the antibodies of defense, haven’t I?” continued Jordan with a gaming tone in his voice.
“To prevail at the universe with the epic balance you have to manifest and unfold your real self” said Marion with a determination. “And if you hedge, doggle or find half-measures, Salazar will hit you where you hurt.”
Jordan started to discuss to them that if they could win, he wanted to try to create a bridge between Almagest and planet Earth. A huge stairway to Heaven every stair of which would express the ideas, the virtues but also the complex web of balance with which the war would have been won. Time though would pressure them and so far Salazar would act undisturbed…
So the heroes and the mythical beings departed from the oracle and mostly climbed on flying beasts were put themselves as well in the battle with the world of Salazar but also the location of the 4 medallions the destruction of which would make fairies fall from the world of fairytales and magic…!
Scientists in Almagest that didn’t believe much in fairytales, habitants of the civilization of various attributes, artists, engineers, blacksmiths, woodcutters but also varied elves, were attending some less and some more, silent and worrying, the Armageddon of the Heavens that would evolve between the powers of good and evil! There were those that would lead the war but also the rest of the population that with its stay on the ground but also the memory of their universe, would create opposing forces at the boiling clouds that would define evolution.
“Our world hasn’t yet learned to love, it has learned to exchange energies” shouted Jordan climbed onto the flying beast and suddenly his eye caught the fairy at the ground that was wearing the first horcrux…
With the help of the magic wands, the magical threats but also the clouds, they could cause great harm at the hostile powers, such as to destroy a medallion. Jordan accomplished that and Salazar, remoted himself at some glade, felt the first hit in his soul.
As Jordan and Sarah departed from the fields of tension by lowering themselves towards the habitable regions, Jordan had been determined to find immediately the second horcrux, something that by discussing the fact with Sarah, they decided to search close to the sacred temple of Almagest where fairies would use many times for distraction. You see, they had to camouflage their anarcho-autonomous mind!
Two hits were for Salazar enough so to make him shake and lead into war new forces of his world including himself. The hits though were opportunistic and forces would withdraw if they would accept pressures at the right points…!
As battles were given in theaters of war, at specific times and geographical regions of the universe of Almagest, the heroes had the chance to come back to civilization, observe its beauty and its magic, eat and study the way towards rehabilitation, thus much of the world of words but also the musical universe it would express. The cosmogony, the music but also the philosophical buzzards were indistinguishable part of their life and their daily routine.
In between rest, food but also the philosophical contemplation, Jordan had managed to discover the third horcrux on the neck of a fairy that would move on secretly next to the crowd, being careful not to be discovered. As soon as Jordan located her, he approached her and destroyed the horcrux. Mostly the look of Salazar started to become emaciated by danger.
The world of ideas was bothering the mind of Jordan and Sarah. They had to understand it at its actual dimensions… Marion had initially made the assumption that maybe, even the weapons of the world of Almagest may not be capable to defeat Salazar, that maybe Jordan, Sarah but also the chosen creatures that were leading the battle had to research deeper to defeat him. Guardian angels, mythical characters but also many fantastic beasts had been gathered at the oracle to organize their strategy! Marion had decided to discuss with Jordan something, the real nature of which was not known even to many of the inhabitants of their own place.
“I do not want to scare you or look pessimistic, but I believe that you have to listen to me before it’s too late” began Marion reluctantly.
At the oracle there were hung up wires, something like magical chords that could really touch their inner world and make miracles of course. Marion would approach these and suddenly, new liquid forms were bouncing off of themselves. These were the objects with which they would take decisions. All the creatures had surrounded them as if they were trying to discover the Judgement of Solomon, of evil though, at least as far as Solomon was concerned.
“What exactly do you want to say to me?” continued Jordan.
“To give you to understand better the world of ideas, of your own ideas that led us where we are!” Sarah responded.
“What did I do again?!”
“The set of our ideas, of our creation and of the creative way of expression, exists somewhere in the universe into some space…”
“Maybe I understand where you’re getting it into” answered Sarah and took the floor.
“According to developmental biologists and embryologists, this space is some king of field of unknown nature so far which can’t be explained yet with the traditional natural and chemical laws. A lot of scientists after all had complained, why should we need infinite knowledge and wisdom to understand what happens into the whatever piece of spacetime?”
“It’s about the notorious and occasionally terrifying morphogenetic fields…” Marion continued without being able to hide a sardonic smile with her revelation…
“This theory supports that in the universe exist and function some fields of unknown nature, that constitute invisible pre-designs-models for the forms that are being incarnated into the material world. These fields were named ‘morphogenetic fields’ and are being considered responsible for the determination of forms into developing organisms in analogy with the function of an architectural design for the building of an edifice. Thus, any form would pre-exist at a conceivable level before it’s being created. From this level, someone may conceive and express the pattern of the form-figure in our own visible-material reality” Sarah continued making mostly conceivable to everyone the entire bitter glass that Salazar would drink…
“What and whom does Salazar fight?” was the next question of Jordan maybe now not that much of a riddle for most people…
“Salazar is only bread and circuses… He substitutes knowledge with myth and invests on war and competition at the moment where he lacks knowledge or even training if you want it to understand the orthodox pulse of his world” continued Marion by making a guardian angel stand up with a complaining style inside the crowd…
“How long?!” made the angel and a tear slowly flew on his cheek.
Suddenly Jordan acquired a diabolic eye, insisting, being set out to make Salazar dust in the wind.
“I will beat him! It will be a heavy defeat for all of them” Jordan shouted with self-confidence and all the creatures as well as the inhabitants of Almagest hailed and rose their wands into the air by giving the promise of excel and domination… A trembling star was falling down the top at which their magic spells had reached…
While Sarah grabbed him arm in arm by leaving the oracle and being prepared for battle, she considered feasible to give him to understand that maybe it was not his own, or better it was not only his own the mistake when it comes to his choices that would affect the world of ideas hence the morphogenetic field of Almagest.
“You know very well that in our world big economic systems have failed, even giants in our age have been shaken very badly. Aggressiveness is a sad reality of our times. Attacks though, at institutions, the environment, friends, love partners, family, church, the judicial system, sometimes, occasionally, can function as a predictive mechanism, more only when there exists this safety net that tells you what you must not do to have a long life… Do you think that the things none of us can predict and control, they are controlled by Salazar?”
“Do you think we can make it?” Jordan wondered reluctantly and with awe.
“See the marks, Jordan… Look very well deep inside them and see your most dark moments being these you have to focus at to see the light of day” Sarah said and she gave him a sweet kiss.
At the people of Almagest there was turmoil. The preparations for the final battle of humanity were a fact. Salazar had gathered all the diabolic spirits in his own, mystical space that in parallel with the Holy Scripture, was named in Jewish Armageddon.
The first hits were crucial and Jordan would try to understand how to discover the fairy, the last survivor that was wearing the magical medallion.
While the war in Heavens was evolving, suddenly his eye stuck on a shy village girl with a flowery wreath on the head and many necklaces on the chest that maybe these were hiding something. Jordan perceived that maybe she was unarmed and probably incapable to react on any attack. He didn’t know if she was wearing the medallion, but he had to find it out. He thought that maybe he could approach her with a friendly and love breeze. As he moved away from the points of war, he got down the forest next to a glade.
Suddenly a golden medallion shined on the fairy’s chest while she was walking in the space.
“It will be our last embrace Salazar, with you and your immortality, it doesn’t belong to you though” Jordan thought inside of him by approaching the village girl-fairy and hitting her with a magic spell.
After he destroyed the medallion instantaneously he gave Salazar the final strike as far as his mythical and supernatural powers were concerned. Now Salazar was a common human, not immortal and with limited power as to the magical power he would possess. He would continue to combat with a face scarred by the strikes as if he was burnt by the sun. He had finally one and only one life. For this exact reason he retired from the war in the Heavens of Almagest and retreated next to their empty oracle to prevent in the end Jordan, to put the emerald at the stone entrance. He would possess though his magic wand.
The powers of good and evil and more specifically in the combat were in balance. Even though the world of Almagest had accomplished a lot, it hadn’t accomplished to give the deadly and final wound at the opposite forces as these were manifesting strong resistance.
The only way for the balance so that the good would prevail from the evil by defeating it, was not just the emerald but together with it the energy the chords had to emit at the oracle. This energy would be spread at the entire city but also the universe of Almagest, throwing out of its sphere of influence the evil forces. The forces of Salazar would no longer influence people which finally would be tested only on the powers of good and evil based on their religious faith. The warriors now had to throw away Salazar from the region of the oracle.
Things evolved rapidly! Five guardian angels that had prevailed of the partial battles and the war unified their magic by throwing Salazar out of the oracle before he gets killed. Jordan, with a flying avatar reached the oracle together with Marion and Sarah. He knew that only with the input of the emerald inside the stone entrance Salazar would finally die and the energy from the chords would give him the answers that he longed for so much since the very first day. By getting out the emerald from his wreath he closed his eyes and he put it in the entrance. Salazar opened his hands wide and within less that 2 seconds he was in flames. The heroes of the war that would still give battles, were staring the leader of the evil to burn. Within a few seconds the hostile forces retreated. Next to the exit of the oracle there was created the silver stairway to Heaven, a bridge with planet Earth.
Jordan and Marion raised their fists high as an indication of satisfaction and pride! The evil had been defeated…
“What did Almagest teach you, Jordan?” asked Marion with the calmness that the distance would give her from the events.
“I learned that the antidote towards a badly meant ego is only learning, this is what turns black into white!”
“Salazar would believe he is the master of scale” continued Sarah. “He was led to hell thanks to a bad perception literally. He saw the world upside down due to his poisonous way of thinking.”
“And how many more in planet Earth act like Salazar…” Jordan responded.
“How are you going to handle the bridge? In your world, I mean” Marion asked Jordan.
"Initially it’s not necessary to be learnt by a lot of people. Progressively though people will be able to travel in a musical universe and learn from its exemplifications!" said Jordan to Marion and Sarah with obvious self-confidence. “It will be the cause that will make me acquire another kind of super-weaponry in my world, a super-weaponry that begins from the world of words and the product of which that is knowledge!”
“Like a morphogenetic field!” said Sarah smiling.
“Exactly” As much dark this may initially seem” responded Jordan completing his words.
The musical universe taught the two heroes that knowledge makes war. That there are no limits in ideas and it and that the man can achieve everything if and only if he discovers the right form of their actualization. The exemplification of Salazar but also of the musical universe would remain carved into their minds and hearts for many years to come.
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