Individuality -- Fiction; Love stories; Men -- Psychology -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones
rolled from under our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks
below, farther and farther down, and the mountains rang with each
stroke, and long after the strokes had died. But we went on, for
we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach us
here.
Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees,
high on a sheer peak before us. We thought that it was a fire and
{+we+} stopped. But the flame [-was-] {+as+} unmoving, yet blinding as liquid
metal. So we climbed toward it through the rocks. And there,
before us, on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind
it, stood a house such as we had never seen, and the white fire
came from the sun on the glass of its windows.
The house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor.
There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows
went on straight around [-the-] corners, though how this [-kept the-] house {+kept+}
standing we could not guess. The walls were hard and smooth, of
that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our tunnel.
We both knew it without words: this house was left from
the Unmentionable Times. The trees had protected it from time
and weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather.
We turned to the Golden One and we asked:
"Are you afraid?"
But they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we threw
it open, and we stepped together into the house of the
Unmentionable Times.
We shall need the days and the years ahead, to look, to [-learn,-] {+learn+} and
to understand the things of this house. Today, we could only look
and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the heavy
curtains from the windows and we saw that the rooms were small,
and we thought that not more than twelve men could have lived
here. We thought it strange that [-men-] {+man+} had been permitted to build
a house for only twelve.
Never had we seen rooms so full of light. The sunrays danced upon
colors, colors, {+and+} more colors [-that-] {+than+} we thought possible, we who
had seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones and the
grey. There were great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was
not glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and
all the things behind us, as on the face of a lake. There were
strange things which we had never seen and the use of which we do
not know. And there were globes of glass everywhere, in each
room, the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had
seen in our tunnel.
We found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its
threshold. For it was a small room and there were only two beds
in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we knew that
only two had lived here, and this passes understanding. What kind
of world did they have, the men of the Unmentionable Times?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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