Fairy Tales 🧚 The Milky Way

The Mothership

Everything Prester had done was because he’d been completely misunderstood. And the things he’d done only made it worse. For example, he’d changed his name from Jasper Anderson to Prester John because he wanted to convince his flock that there was a magical kingdom right here on Earth. His flock stared at him blankly when he explained that Prester John was a direct descendent of the Three Wise Men and that he was also the King of India and the Emperor of Ethiopia. To make his point more clearly, he put a gigantic map behind him in the apse, showing them exactly where to find Prester John’s lost kingdom.

His congregation stared at the map for a minute and then looked back down at their cell phones. He repeated to himself, There are none so blind as those who will not see.

In his weekly sermon, he implored them to trust him, to let him be their choir so that he could take them with him into a magical world of swaying incense, sexless angels, and hidden shrines to our Lord and Saviour. To the background music of “Spanish Caravan,” he quoted John Keats:

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swingèd censor teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Despite his best efforts, Prester was unable to convince his flock, and this failure weighed heavily on his thin shoulders. Even his friend Ezra, who he loved more deeply, more secretly than anything else, thought he’d gone off his rocker. Ezra got increasingly uncomfortable when Prester pressed him in his kitchen and followed him into his bedroom, begging for his understanding. But Ezra was sick of religious fanatics, and took a plane back to New York.

Prester tried one last time to tell his flock about Prester John’s ancient kingdom. He read to them the famous letter that Prester John wrote to the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, describing the magic spring that “changes its flavour hour by hour, night and day. The spring is scarcely three days' journey from Paradise, out of which Adam was driven. If anyone has tasted thrice of the fountain, from that day he will feel no fatigue, but will, as long as he lives, be as a man of thirty years. Here are found the small stones called Nudiosi which, if borne about the body, prevent the sight from waxing feeble and restore it where it is lost. The more the stone is looked at, the keener becomes the sight.”

🤴

Over the years Prester grew tired and his sight waxed feeble, to the point where he could no longer see his own church, where he had tried in vain to tell his flock about the beauties of that faraway world.

Sitting in his wheelchair in the hospice, he could no longer smell the scent of cedar that wafted from the highlands of Ethiopia, nor smell the incense of the Eucharist drifting to Heaven, from swingèd censor teeming deep in the jungles of Bengal. The more he looked at this world, the less he saw, till one day he saw nothing at all.

🤴

Then, all of a sudden, he was himself again, walking along a pedestrian bridge made of translucent metal sticks. Beneath him was a river of stars. The bridge led upward, into the portal of a flying ship.

Entering the foyer, he saw the angelic faces of all sorts of beings. He couldn’t see a human face anywhere. This disturbed him a little, but didn’t startle him all that much. He had always feared that humans were incapable of belief. 

All around him he saw the finest shapes and the prettiest colours. The textures were beyond this world. He couldn’t wait to ask them about the clothes they wore, the glittering mist that hovered around their fine fingers, the evanescent earrings that tinkled in the electric fields that circled their ethereal eyes. Along the wall in block letters of gold were the words The H.M.S. Luxorium. Beneath this, in delicate gold filigree, were the words, Come Sail Away With Me, Lads.

Prester started to wonder how he might talk to these fine fellows. He couldn’t just walk up to them and say “Hi, I’m a preacher from Earth.” What could “a preacher from Earth” possibly mean to them? What could “a preacher” mean? He wasn’t even sure they’d made a detailed study of The Gospels. The Jews were, after all, a poorly-dressed tribe in a small desert on planet Earth. He also wondered if they needed to hear about Heaven on Earth when they were already living in a Heaven in the Sky. So he just stood there, his eyes dazzled, his brain filled with juices and fire that he had never felt before. It seemed as if the foyer was pumped with intoxicants that only lusty Greek gods or Hindu deities knew about.

A slim figure in a three-piece outfit (that shimmered and changed its colours constantly) walked up to him and bowed. “My name is Aziz, and my primary function on this vessel is to orient new arrivals. Would you like to step into my office and we can go over the details?” Aziz spoke perfect English, with an upper class British accent, the kind that Prester John had yearned to hear among the dry nasal accents of his home town.

They entered a small room on the side of the foyer. Aziz gave Prester John time to take in his surroundings. Aziz then asked, “I’m not sure how much you know about where you are, or how you got here. I can help you with all these details. By this evening you should be comfortably set up in your room.”

Prester swallowed, as if to indicate that he had no idea about anything. “I assume that I’m here because the Lord sent me to his great Worship House in the Sky.”

“The Lord? Lord Byron?”

“The God who created all time and space. He must surely have chosen me and sent me here — and saved me from the bingo parlour and the horrid afternoons with coffee spoons and skirts that trail along the floor.”

“Well, Prester, I’m not sure about that, but I can say that indeed you have been chosen. Because of the delicacy of your sentiments. We calculate that only .0003% of Earth’s population has anything close to the aesthetic requirements that would allow you on this ship. We take in a great diversity of life forms. Our only requirement is that you have a deep and inextinguishable fascination for, and sensitivity to, the beauties of the material universe.”

“The material universe? Isn’t that what I’ve left behind? Aren’t we going into the clouds, to hear the choir of the angels?”

Aziz was taken aback. “Oh, I see. Let me check my files and make sure that you’re on the right ship.” Aziz took several minutes to do a careful search of the data banks. He looked a bit puzzled, then seemed to realize something, then looked up confidently to the small-town preacher from Planet Earth. “No, there’s no mistake. Unless, perhaps, I could suggest that you aren’t quite clear about the nature of the universe.”

🤴

The door to Prester’s room opened without a sound and brought with it a faint odour of cedar, mixed with the incense that Prester used to celebrate the Eucharist. How could they possibly have known that this was his favourite scent?

Aziz made a graceful gesture, and Prester entered the room. He was slightly disappointed at the narrowness of his quarters, but then again he imagined that on a spaceship the rooms were always small. He thought of Ishmael and Billy Budd. He thought to himself, Well, it could be cozy this way.

“It’s beautiful,” he said to Aziz, pointing to the fine cedar casement that ran along the left wall. The cedar was carved with images of elephants and magical birds, and stretched five metres along the length of the room. Looking within the casement, Prester saw a sort of three-dimensional landscape, with sunsets and lakes partially hidden among the trees and hills. There was a palace in one of the lakes. In the distance were enormous mountain peaks, tinged with mauve.

Aziz nodded, and said, “But please, come into the room.”

Prester saw at the end of the room was a curtain, and he began to understand that he was standing in the vestibule. Along the top of the curtain, in colourful silk thread, were the words, Passage to India.

Aziz drew the curtain. Prester could see several halls leading to other rooms, but the main room was about 2,000 square feet. He saw sky-blue walls with fluffy pink clouds above. He saw silk screens, teak tables, statues of nymphs and satyrs, and a small stream that meandered toward a gurgling fountain. There was an incense-bearing tree in the middle of the room, with a statue of two people making love in a bed which was caressed by exposed roots. The trunk of the tree reached up into the sky, which had no ceiling. The leaves of the tree sparkled, and merged with the stars.

There was also a kitchen, with a large teak-topped island. The cupboards were cedar. Again, he noted the cedar smell, which he loved more than any other smell — that is, other than the incense of the Eucharist. He looked over at what appeared to be a large window and saw an altar with a Christ-like image behind it. He thought, They really did their homework.

Still in disbelief, he asked his guide, “But is this really my apartment? It’s so large!”

Aziz was a little taken aback by the observation, and noted, “Well, if you look outside, you’ll see that real estate is easily acquired.” Aziz smiled at his own wry humour, but Prester was all of a sudden terrified. He was beginning to realize that all of this was completely unknown to him. How could there be no ceiling? Even the loftiest cathedrals had ceilings.

Aziz could tell that something was wrong, so he said, “Why don’t we sit down and continue our conversation. I’m sure I can put your mind at ease.”

🤴

Aziz was a patient man, but after 20 minutes of trying to disentangle Prester from what appeared to be an impossible philosophy, he stopped trying to explain things. He decided to take another approach. “Perhaps we should stop thinking, and maybe I can reassure you in some other way.” He put his hand on Prester’s knee, and asked, “Is this all right?”

Prester froze. “We’re not allowed to do that.”

“Oh, here it doesn’t matter. The sooner you understand you can do whatever you want, the better. No one here would hurt a fly. If they were capable of violence, they wouldn’t be here. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Prester stood up. He walked to the altar to ask the Higher Power what to do.

He was so absorbed in his dilemma as he walked to the altar, especially when he saw that the Christ-like image was in fact a portrait of Percy Shelley, that he didn’t realize Aziz was walking right behind him.

Aziz put his hand on Prester’s shoulder, with his index finger sliding slightly up his neck. Prester’s body relaxed and he let out a long sigh.

🧚

Next: 🎲 Spectra & Sentience

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