This is something I'm working on to go along with a bigger project altogether. I really want some comments, some criticism, so don't be afraid to be honest. This is just the first three chapters, it doesn't complete Act I but I think it's a logical place to leave off this teaser. Please tell me what you think.


The Anthem of Celephais


Act I.


1. Introduction/The First Dream


At first, there was only fog, and the sound of waves. The man looked around, but he was blind, and the world was black. He took a step forward, but stumbled and stopped. Confusion began to set in as he wondered where he was. This was not his home, not his world.

Presently, a soft tune reached his ears, there was music in the air. In the blank darkness, the tune served in the way a soft static will soothe a babe. He became tired of seeing nothing with his eyes open, and so he closed his eyes. The sound of the waves hitting the shore mingled with the soft music in the air, creating a peaceful atmosphere that calmed the man down.

A thought entered his head; If he was hearing waves crashing against the shore, than surely there must be a shore to see them crash against. Again he opened his eyes.

Sure enough, in the distance to his right, there was a sandy beach, with clear blue water crashing against it, and the sky around it- well, there was no sky. It was only the same blank, foggy darkness as before.

But no! Surely if there were to be a beach here, it must need a clear blue sky above it to keep it company. And so, the sky appeared.

The man, suddenly aware of his power, began to envision the perfect world, and it became real. Lush greenery sprang forth, and it covered the land beyond the beaches. There were trees of all kinds, and flowers of every genus. Mountains became visible on the horizon, their peaks reaching into the heavens. A city sprang up between the mountains and the beach, and He named the city Celephais, for it was the city of his dreams. It was a city of splendor, and all of its glory could not be known by a single man alone, for its complexities and wonders, some of them, were beyond the human ability of comprehension.

Waterfalls fell from the sky itself, but would only do so from particular clouds on particular days. There came, at first, to be strange fish that would climb the waterfalls, but when they reached the top, they would sprout wings and turn into birds! More species of birds and fish came to be, and they grew into even stranger species of animals altogether.

The man looked upon everything that he had created, and he saw that it pleased him. The process had not taken long, and the music never stopped as he worked. Finally, tired from his work, he turned towards the town to attempt to find a place to rest, but he was stopped short by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She stunned him, her beauty was remarkable. There were no words for her affect on him, she simply couldn’t have been real. He held his gaze over her for a very long time. Patiently, the woman stood there, watching him. At once a strange sensation began to creep over him. He had just created this world, but somehow… it was very familiar.

“Who are you?,” The man asked in wonder.

“My name is Sally,” She replied, and her voice sounded distant, as though over the phone.

The man simply nodded, bewildered. Distant though it sounded, her voice was like the sound of birds singing in the trees amidst the forest. It was like wine for his ears.

Sally spoke again. “It’s 1659.”

The man shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Look- it doesn’t matter, I need to know… Why is this place so familiar to me? Have I been here before?”

Sally smiled sweetly at the man, but did not answer his question.

For the longest time the man could not speak, he stared at Sally with amazement, and at the wonder behind her, to Celephais. “This must be heaven,” thought the man, “but I cannot remember dying.” All the while, Sally kept her mysterious smile, staring directly at him. The scene was too perfect, but it had a haziness about it that kept the man with an unsettled feeling, it was almost creepy. Now, for the longest time they did not speak, but the man did not blink away from Sally, afraid that if he looked away, she might disappear.

His bemused staring would have gone on forever, but all too abruptly, there came a sharp ringing noise and his entire world changed.

2. Wake Up/Things I’ve Never Done.

At once, he knew two things. There was a very loud noise very close to his ears, and someone was yelling his name. He had been dragged right out of Heaven, straight into Hell.

“Wake up! Wake up, you worthless-,” The voice wailed “I don’t know why the hell you do this. You sleep in, you won’t go make money! You aren’t doing a damn good thing in your life.”

The man cursed and rose from his sheets to face the direction the voice came from, and he found its owner. “Would you stop yelling at me? Christ. My head is ringing.”

The owner of the accusing voice gave him a cross look. “Your head?” there was a scoff. “I have had a headache ever since you came into my life.”

“You know something!” The man shot out, now angry at the offensive person in front of him.”I can’t stand this fucking routine, every day you get onto me about not making money, being worthless- I can’t go through the motions every day with you like this.”

“Oh really?” another scoff. “Well, you’ve messed up then, because you’ve been doing this for years now, haven’t you? You are wasting your life away.”

“Who the hell are you to say I’m wasting my life?” The man was yelling now, himself.

“Oh, wake up! There’s so much to do with each day, and you just spend your life passing time. You might just waste it away! You don’t know how to play the game!”

The man rolled his eyes. “Here you go with that playing the Game thing. You know something, I don’t get you. You act like you make all the rules; I do a lot around here.”

“You are a liar.”

“Look here,” The Man took a step toward his accuser, with his fist raised. “just because I don’t make enough cash in your eyes doesn’t mean you get to chastise me.” He dropped his fist, and walked toward the kitchen. His intention had been a meal, but the accusing voice continued at his ears like fingernails to chalkboard. He stopped paying attention, and opened the refrigerator door, but still could not focus his mind or eyes on seeking for something to eat. His startling awakening had suddenly left him dull and dry. He felt entirely blackened, like an overdone roast. The fire of The Accuser’s voice was burning him horribly, yet there was nothing he could do. This was the path his life had been on since his youth, a never ending cycle. From one step to another, one downfall to the next, on, and on, and on…

The man turned on his accuser with an angry glare. “So, what? Do you think you know all the answers? Do you think you’ve got a point to make? Serenity, save my dignity! It’s all I have left! All you do is castrate me, and what do you think I can learn from this? I’m going to leave, before you drive me crazy!”

Rather than a retort, the accuser simply held an icy stare towards the man. The accuser had stopped talking entirely, yet, the man could not stop himself.

“You keep going on and on and on! Every day! About the things I’ve never done! On and on and on!” The man was in the accusers face now, waving his finger and shouting. He started to walk toward the door, still with the intention of leaving, but whipped himself around, unable to keep himself from continuing his rage. “You have blackened me with your words, but not without awakening me! I reject you! I reject your God, I reject your life, I reject reality as a whole! There is nothing here for me!

Last night, I had a dream.” The man said, his voice quieting slightly. “About a beautiful city, it was perfectly built for me alone! There was a woman there, and her beauty was something like the night sky, far too complex to imagine in its whole. That is the world in which I belong! But never will I even have sanity around you!”

The accuser scoffed, but stayed silent, perhaps amazed at the man’s outburst. Whatever the reason, the man did not stop to contemplate it, and he quickly pushed past his accuser, and stormed out of the front door.

He began walking down the street, and there were no clear blue skies in his world today. It seemed everything above him was gloomy, and the world around him fuzzy due to his fuming anger. He couldn’t understand, where did anyone ever get the right to turn accuser to him for anything? It wasn’t as though he owed anyone anything…

He seemed to walk for ages, and as he did he began to think about his life. As the man reflected, he found sorrow was riddled through his days, and that there was a pattern of boredom in his life. He was quite dissatisfied with the world around him, and in his anger, his thoughts began to turn to fantasies.

He began to imagine the perfect world, in his eyes, and as he did his mind naturally drew back to Celephais. He had only a taste of what that world was like before he’d been jerked back into boring, lame, daft, annoying reality. It felt like a slap to his face.

But then he sighed, for there was no point in being angry at the prospects of something false. Still in his mind, he could just picture it… The perfect world….

The man turned around. He had walked too far, and he had nowhere to go. The man did not care for people, and no one truly knew him, so he had only to head back home. At any rate, he was sure the Accuser would not be there by the time he got back.

His steps began to drag as he made his way back to his house, and he felt as though in a trance. Images from his dream kept flashing before his minds eye. First the beach, and then the clear, amazing sky. The city, as it formed, and then finally… Sally.

And that was it, something in his mind clicked, and the man became very sad. He simply couldn’t just be content to sit and be bored in reality, could he? But how could he ever place a stock such as hope on a thing such as a dream. For dreams are fleeting, a mere image of a never known memory between this world and the next. Still, sad though he was, He knew this. He was the only one who could ever know the beauty of sally, or that wonderful city, and that alone brought him some small comfort.


3. Sleep (Parts I-III known as, Staring at My Ceiling, Sleep, and The Lullaby, respectively.)

When he arrived back at his own front porch the man was greeted by the wind, a sign of stormy weather, and the sounds of wind chimes hung from the ceiling. He walked into the house, and smiled at its emptiness. Alone time was something the man could revel in. He went into his respective room and threw himself backwards onto his bed. He stared up at his ceiling, in contemplation, his brow furrowed in thought.

Why would something so beautiful ever appear to him in a dream? It could only be fate, taunting him in a cruel way. He tried to think about healthier things, but he found himself unable. His mind drifted to the Accuser. Oddly enough, the episode earlier seemed oddly distant from him. The walk had tired him out, and for now he could forget about that, but never truly forgive….

His mind went back to the thought of Sally. What if she could be here with him? The man turned his head and looked at his wall. She was an impossible anomaly that only happened once, and yet he couldn’t get his mind off of her. He turned his head back to his ceiling.

And there he was, staring at his ceiling, regretting that a woman, who was never real, would never get to live.

The man closed his eyes, and into his mind came the memory of the sound of the waves from the beach of Celephais. He remembered how they soothed him, how very peaceful they were, and how they made him feel absolutely calm…

There came a point, between when the man closed his eyes, and between when he actually fell asleep, where he made a subconscious decision. He asked himself questions of eternity. He asked questions of his own soul, though perhaps not the right ones.

In the darkness of his subconscious the man spoke to himself thusly: “Am I not brave? If the night time is hiding secrets, do I not want to discover them?”

And he answered himself “I would bend every dimension until it breaks to know!”

And then he asked himself, “Do I not want to toss my inhibitions to the wind? And be as bold as the daylight itself, shining for all to see?”

To which he replied, “I would do all of this, if only to raise the stakes of living! But I know not how. I want many things, I want to –meet- that beautiful girl! I want to let her touch my world, and get wrapped up in hers! I want more time to pretend, to live as a child would! I need more time to…

Sleep.”

And there was then another moment in which the man questioned himself, as he pressed toward the verge of returning to his world of indolence. In the mist in which his stream of consciousness swam, the man spoke to himself,

“And now, that I can feel that other world, just beyond this paper thin reality, I can see a place beyond death. Oh, how can such things even be so? This could never be real, something can not come from nothing! It freaks me out!” cried the man.

“Welcome to the club” came a hallow reply from within himself.

“I have my doubts about this.” Said what was there of the Mans reason.

“But I am not happy enough.” Spoke his temptation.

“No, that’s not true, I’ve got things figured out..” His resolve was beginning to weaken.

“You lie to yourself.” Spoke his anger, stronger than his sense of reason or temptation altogether. “You are merely running from your problems. You want more time to sleep? Then have it, for you are a coward at heart!”

And for this the man had no reply. He became silent, and entirely so. At rest, on his bed, he was free of his problems. He would not give up, but he could not rest easy. It was far too easy for him to find worth in things that weren’t real.

He tossed and he turned, in a sudden fit, that ended as quickly as it had begun, but left its mark upon him. His soul was shaken, but it had accepted the adventure it anticipated to come. As darkness engulfed his entire being, he felt the presence of a large eye upon him. He knew not if he even had substance, but he felt watched. Presently, a lullaby, as though from a toy music box began to play in the air around him. Its sound brought upon him the weight of problems of long ago, the regret of the past that comes with age and the further amounting of regrettable choices as life goes on. He could not place where it came from, and so, he searched for its source. There was something hypnotic about the presence of the music, which mystified the man to no end, and in his adamant searching for its source, he found it to be coming from a hole of white light in the ethereal darkness all around him.

At first, the man was scared to venture into the light, for he was afraid that it would destroy him. But he could not resist the call of the music coming from the hole, and slowly he came to it, and crossed its threshold.

The music came to a stop, there was a loud banging, as though the stopping of a heart, and everything went black.