Mori's Rose

Art by Alexander Elrod - 2023

- I -

I understand that this story will be considered unbelievable. I think my reputation as an author of tall tales and fantastical epics will only hinder my efforts to convince the world that what I have seen was real.

Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction.

I have the reputation of a “bad writer”. Critics call my work an “acid reflux of words” or an “overprivileged abomination of prose”. My writing is too “unimaginative”, “off course”, or “a reminder of why writing is considered an artform: only a true artist can refine the craft. This is not refinement”.

So why believe I would be able to make up these claims? Could someone so “unimaginative” weave such a tale? I’ve got you there, haven’t I?

All of this is to say that this journal will serve as a record for myself more than it could ever serve as my next piece of fiction. My memory is jumbled, so I must align my thoughts in any way I can. If I ever find my way back, I hope these thoughts can be researched, studied, and analyzed.

So no matter your interpretation, I think it’s best to start at the beginning.

I don’t know how I got here (the word “here”, in this circumstance is used for the lack of a better term. I will begin thinking of a better epithet). For all I know, I slipped. I fell. I took a tumble.

The last thing I can recall is sitting in front of my desk, the breeze blowing through the open window as I stared at my sandy green typewriter. And I had a cup of tea. I always have a cup of tea. Next thing I remember, I spiraled through the great emptiness of the universe.

My reality and perceptions collapsed in on themselves. I saw what must be stars, unfathomable celestial bodies, and trails of extraplanetary gasses all pushing the threshold of reality. Expanding, expanding, expanding…

It never ended. The infinite spiral stretched onwards and I was at its mercy. I was a shirt cycling in the wash, drowning in deluges of detergent-spiked water.

Then, I was in a garden. The smell of sweet fruits and flowers enamored my senses. Beds of blooming flowers surrounded me in eruptions of vibrant, natural beauty.

As I looked for the source of singing birds, I realized the garden was indoors. A tiled mosaic ceiling depicting fractured, spiraling tiles of maroon and sapphire blue, stretched above me. The room was as large as an airplane hangar and just as tall. Archways lead to a beyond. Something more than the garden.

Pillars of the same maroon bricks divided the flora by color. The blues on one end. The reds on another. The greens, yellows, and everything else stretching out in between. In the center was a singular bed of deep violet flowers. They all shifted to a sourceless breeze, a haunting dance within the eerie emptiness of the room.

This is where I write now. I am in my own Garden of Eden.

The analogy is not meant to describe the room’s beauty. No, it’s meant to invoke the feeling of forbiddenness the garden exudes. I don’t belong here. I’m an anomaly. I’m a blemish in an otherwise flourishing garden of perfection.

I’ve been taken out of the wash, folded, and placed into a wardrobe--and quite the wardrobe it was.

- II -

To understand “here”, I need to be curious. Experiment. Explore. Maybe it will entertain.

I’ll have to move past asking questions of where I was and intend on discovering how and why “here” existed. One must always think beyond the shadows in the cave and begin to see the realities beyond.

I came to the conclusion that I’ve found myself stuck in some sort of limbo, an inbetween. I was writing before I slipped. Perhaps I was stuck in between an idea’s conception and the crippling self doubt which was always soon to follow. I’d been tucked into a pocket of imagination--my own dazzling, infinite daydream.

Despite my use of dream-adjacent language, I can safely call this limbo a reality. It is far too vivid. The fact that I’m able to write tells me that I am far too in control of my own thoughts and motor-functions for this to be a dream.

So, for my first experiment within the limbo, I have decided to pluck a flower.

I take Eden’s forbidden crop.

The garden beckons no God fearing man. Fear only exists on exit. For knowledge spawns fear, and from Eden knowledge begins.

- III -

Petals of the bloom. The notes of nature’s melodies. A sweet chorus makes a garden.

I approached the violet roses within the center of the garden and broke one at the stem. I put it to my nose. I was sweet. The sweetest flower I think I’ve ever smelled.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

Looking at its petals, I noticed the way they spiraled around themselves. Spirals.

That’s my first clue in this limbo. There are spirals on the ceiling, spirals within these flowers, and I had spiraled through the ever-expanding universe to get here. This place must have an affinity for the shape.

I’m traveling on a spiral of my own, I suppose. My curiosity is never ending, yet I’m determined to find its center. Is there a center?

I’ll explore. I’ll see what I find. There are doorways, archways from this garden. The rose will travel with me. I’ll see what I can find.

- V -

Hecate’s crossroads. Crossed torches tucked in sconces. Their flames don’t flicker. They wait. I squint. Then they dance. Taunt.

Taunt.

I was not prepared for the maze of hallways beyond my Garden of Eden. For a while, I thought they might be endless. I lost hope that there might not be something beyond the garden room where I had appeared. The spiral had no center.

But, I found something new. Another crossroad, but something far more promising.

I believe it’s a train station.

The bench I’m sitting on is on a platform. Tracks, far too clean to resemble any from the world I came from, stretch below me and through archways to my left and right. Everything, yet again, is covered in tiles.

And more spirals.

They’re taunting me now, mocking my delayed arrival to this new room. This new station. They watch me wait for a train they know will never come.

Before I began to write this passage, I took out my rose. It’s started to wilt. I don’t know how much time it took me to find this station, but I can tell by the rose that it did take some time.

Yet, I myself don’t feel fatigue, hunger, thirst--I don’t seem to be experiencing time myself. As I write this line, I shiver. It doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever experienced, yet, it’s the only way I can seem to describe this sensation.

However, I can stare into the spiraling petals of the rose, and I’m reassured that time is working its proper course. The rose is my anchor, my compass, Ariadne’s string as I navigate this labyrinth.

Souls in life take strides. Their feet on the ground. Bare feet touching soil and green.

Souls in death float. Aimless. Lost purpose. Up or down? Left or right? They drift. The breeze carries them. As the cords of control loosen, chaos is free to steer the ship. Down the river they go. Forever wading through waters.

Forever wading waters. Waking waters. Forever waking. Never waking. Waking. Wake.

Awake.

I’m not awake.

- VIII -

The aimless trek continues.

The train station I’ve written about in my previous entry appears to be one of many. Most of them are the same: empty, too clean, and devoid of any life or tether to time. I continue to cling to the violet rose, watching it wilt and shed its petals with an obsessed fixation. I fear if my grip loosens on its stem, I might slip and spiral just as I’ve done before. The rose remains my anchor.

This entry comes just after I’ve found something incredibly fascinating. Something different than the winding hallways, antechambers, and stations I have come across thus far. I’d found a room at the end of a particularly long hallway.

This limbo rewarded me, it seemed, with this wondrous change in scenery.

The room is in the shape of a square, wood paneled walls and floors giving it a cozy atmosphere. A fireplace dominates one side of the room, basking light and warmth across the several shelves lining the wood paneled walls. On these shelves sit various books and art pieces, some of which seem familiar to things I’ve seen; others feel yanked from another world, their scribbles and styles unlike any earthly works I’ve come across. In the center of the room sits a strong, sturdy desk. Its wood had a natural sheen. Its leather-backed chair looked well-worn with age. On top of it sits a cup of sweet-smelling, steaming tea. 

It feels like it would be a room in a cabin, tucked away solitarily in a forest.

But when I first entered the room, I quickly realized I was being watched.

Two hazel eyes tucked into a shadowy flash of fur watched as I explored my new surroundings. The cat moved towards me immediately, rubbing against my leg and purring with content.

I wondered if it had met someone else before. And how did it get here itself?

Nevertheless, the cat’s presence calmed my nerves. My mind no longer felt scattered. I’d navigated the tangle of hallways and crossroads and finally reached a safe haven--an oasis within a mindscaped desert.

The only thing here which unnerves me is the small doorway tucked between a few of the shelves. I’m afraid to open it, to shatter the safety I’ve found for myself, to unleash whatever might be beyond it.

Alas, I’ll rest for now.

I look at my rose. Most of its petals are lost. I find a pitcher of water on one of the shelves. I gingerly place the rose in the water. Already, the flower’s condition seems to improve. Its violet color retakes the browning.

I’ll be staying here until I can figure out a way to escape this limbo. Perhaps the texts and artwork might provide me with clues. The cat can keep me company. I can properly think in this space. The fire, the sweet tea… it feels like I’m a step closer towards home.

Rest.

- XIII -

The door.

It taunts me now.

I have found my oasis, yet the door still tempts. I feel the wood paneled walls trapping me within. I itch with curiosity. Perhaps whatever is beyond the door is something even more comforting. A greener pasture.

Oh, but the grass is always greener.

It would be so easy! Just a peak! Just a glimpse into whatever could be beyond that brass doorknob. Just one twist and whatever is beyond it is mine to behold.

The cat enjoys my company at least. It seems content. It doesn’t care about the door. In fact, I might be scared of it. That’s a sign. I should follow that sign. Don’t open it. Don’t.

The violet rose still blooms brighter than ever. It’s thriving in this oasis. My compass points north.

The door is south.

The door shall remain shut.

- XXI -

I’ve opened the door.

I gave into all the greed, the temptation, I silenced my conscience in favor of my curiosity.

And it killed the cat.

Within the small alcove the door revealed was a man. Old. Shriveled. Paranoid.

He grabbed the cat and strangled it. The quarrel knocked over the pitcher and my violet rose now sits within a puddle, its colors refracting off of the broken glass.

And the man scares me. He’s telling me things, telling me he knows a way out of this place.

He’s confirmed my suspicions about how time works. I cannot experience time in the limbo. I was clever enough to figure that out on my own.

But the rose could, yet now it lays forgotten on the floor of the oasis.

He warned me the oasis was intoxicating. He called it the library. It held a collection of knowledge and research from one of the previous wanderers of the labyrinth. He had found it as well, curating some of its artifacts and adding to it whenever he could. He assumes other wanderers had added to it as well.

But he warned me we would have to leave, so we left.

I asked why the cat must die. He said it’s because it follows.

And that’s when I figured something out just before he explained it to me himself.

Time doesn’t work for me, but within the limbo, I am the bringer of time. When I stepped into the garden, the flowers were allowed to sway. When I stepped into the library, the cat was able to exist. My perception of time is what allowed for time to flow. Time started again for them. They all waited for me.

So that meant the man waited for me as well.

The man told me he was the old wanderer of the limbo. It seems to take in one person at a time. But this man, he said he had to test his theories, his theories about how time worked in the limbo. He put himself to sleep, concocting a sedative out of flowers and plants found in the various gardens. And then he slept. He slept and he waited for the next wanderer to come across him in the limbo. Because within sleep, he could no longer perceive. He could only dream. And the limbo shut down without his perception of time, without his perception of change.

Then I perceived it. I opened his door and I had perceived his changing.

But with two consciousnesses perceiving time and no rose to guide me--to keep me anchored to something consistent in the spiraling time soup--I find myself slipping.

Panic crawling up the throat. A spider trapped in the windpipe. Eight legs clawing at the vocal cords, pulling them apart to escape.

It lays eggs, spreading its friends throughout my insides. I shiver as they spin their webs and tighten their threads around my heart. I feel trapped. So very trapped.

Trapped. Trapped. Trapped.

Tr

A

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.

     .

- XXXIV -

His blood on my hands. He won’t stop bleeding. I killed the man. He was useless to me.

And now I am a god.

I take life, I bring life.

I killed but I allowed for others to exist, I allowed them to change.

I’m the god of this limbo. The deity it needs.

Only what I perceive is what exists here. It unfolds as I command it, constructing something new with every corridor I explore.

I bring about the very change it craves. I know it craves it.

It’s all connected through me. I will time and life around me yet I am devoid of life and time itself, of experience. I experience no change to call my own existence life. It is simply existence.

I’m the unmoving mover.

The cat followed. The steam of the tea swayed towards me. The flowers--

The flowers.

My rose. I’d lost my anchor.

I’d slipped. I see it now. I’ve slipped.

The sticky blood will not wash off of me. It won’t go away. He’s stained me.

And he may have been my way out.

I thought the man was the source of my panic, his paranoia creating a concoction that had poisoned me. But now my mind has been poisoned on my own accord. Or perhaps the limbo had poisoned it for me.

It’s trapped me and now I have no way out.

- LV -

The universe is a spiral.

It’s never ending, forever changing.

And perhaps there is a god. Or likely a capital “G” singular God. An unmoving mover. And perhaps this God’s own perception of time itself is what allows for time to flow. Perhaps these are the rules. Rules written away in some library hidden within some limbo.

After having the spiral of time thrust upon my shoulders I do not envy this God. I do not wish to have the weight of time thrust upon me like Atlas holding up the sky. No person should hold this responsibility.

So God is not a person.

No. People make mistakes. People are flawed. People kill.

But God kills.

Time kills. God is time. God is change. Change kills.

Time is a spiral.

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him”.

Where does this end? Where is the center?

From the shell of a snail to the petals of a rose, the spiral persists.

We cannot escape time.

We cannot escape change.

It’s infinite. Endless. Unfathomable.

And yet I had fathomed it. For a short time I had escaped change, escaped time. But in order for the correction to take place, I had to change. I became the unmoving mover.

And I killed.

Change kills. Time kills. God kills.

Is this how He feels?

Do His shoulders ache more from carrying the spiral or the guilt?

I suppose we could ask Atlas which shoulder aches more. I don’t suppose there’s a difference. It’s all pain.

Change is pain. Time is pain.

Where is my rose?

The rose was change--it was pain--but I still craved it. Roses have thorns, yet they still smell sweet. Its change was familiar to me. As each petal shed I could count my own seconds, minutes, hours.

The spiral continues. It never ends.

But won’t humankind end? And with them gone, is there any time to perceive?

Won't God get lonely?

I’m lonely.

Here in this limbo.

The limbo.

Maybe I am God.

Or maybe I am Mori Green, still craving the smell of the spiraling rose.

Sweet. Spiral.

There is no center.

Trapped.

With no exit to perceive.