26. SNOW
I like magic! One early morning I was dreaming. That is I believed I was dreaming. I heard some early morning birds chirping so I am not sure. When I turned around in bed there was a small box there. A real box. It seemed to be empty. Nothing rattled inside. I opened the box and discovered some crumpled papers. Something was written on the papers, and I started reading chapter 26.
Snow. Snow is falling. Snow has fallen. Snow will fall. All snow crystals are unique. They look similar. However, all of them are different from each other. At least that is what science tells.
Why care about science? The person that was me (?) was lying on the frozen ground, and saw the sixpointed snow star crystals coming slowly down. It felt like a dream, and probably was a dream. Must have been, for suddenly I (?) was covered by a thin gossamer of snow.ds were trqiling eaxch other
The snow disappeared. The air was full of butterflies, millions, and more. Their colours were like reflexes in snow crystals. Swirling in asynchronous patterns around what looked like Stalin’s dagger.
Oh, no. The image was not clear, and the pages were crumpled. However, the dagger it was. Around was the tapestry of everything. On all the pages. The words were trailing each other in all directions, and (I ?) had to put my index finger down to start somewhere.
This was what popped up, Chapters 15 and 16
I like magic! Early next morning I was dreaming. That is I believed I was dreaming. As on the previous days, some early morning birds were chirping so I am not sure. When I turned around in bed, the small box was there once again. Nothing rattled inside. I opened the box. There were some sheets of paper. I wanted to read chapter 15.
15. STALIN’S DAGGER AND CAFÉ CENTRAL
Inside Café Central in Herrengasse cigar smoke was drifting over the tables. Jill and John stood in the doorway. The time traveller appeared behind them.
- Sshh! the time traveller said. – We are not allowed to be here. We have been here before, so you should know about this. Just look around, but say nothing. Do you recognize some of the customers?
- Isn’t it Sigmund Freud sitting there sipping to a cup of coffee, Jill whispered.
- He is one of the regulars, together with Victor Adler. There is a story from Café Central that Adler objected to Count Berchtold, the foreign minister of Austria-Hungary that war would provoke revolution in Russia. - Who will lead this revolution, Berchtold asked. - Perhaps Mr. Bronstein sitting over there, Adler answered.
- What time is this, John said.
- We are in January 1913. Take care.
- That shabby person in the corner sitting together with the pockmarked man. I could swear it was a younger version of Adolf Hitler, Jill asked.
The cigar smoke grew thicker, and very soon, Café Central was only a shimmering mirage enveloped in the fabric of time.
A radiant sun made the colours of flowers, leaves, and nature more vivid than the three of them had ever seen.
- Where are we? What time is it, Jill wondered.
- Café Central and its guests, and the millennia after are long gone.
- What happened?
- You remember the café was full of smoke? I managed to get my hands on Stalin’s dagger and made it very blunt. Disasters followed, but not as bad as expected. In the aftermath of the Second World War, fear started to rule the minds of people, and it never stopped. Contagious viral and bacterial diseases were uses by fearmongering factions. The bubonic plague around 1350 could happen once again. As for weather anomalies, which were normal before, science explained that a devastating climate change was approaching. None of this was true. The average temperature on earth was a tad warmer, leading to more rain and snow. Due to more snow, glaciers were growing. Thousands of years later the land and sea at high latitudes were as white and cold as during past ice ages. More than hundred thousand years later, we are here. The air is clear and fragrant. In the night, thousands of stars are visible in the sky.
- What about Stalin’s dagger, Jill and John wanted to know.
- It disappeared, and has never since been found. The glaciers pushed forward and annihilated or made uninhabitable many of the urban areas in the northern and far southern hemisphere. More land was covered by ice than during the ice age preceding the last one.
- What was the fate of all the millions who had to move because of the big freeze?
- Nobody knows for sure. Physics made leaps forward at the time the glaciers started growing. Scientists said that the future for humanity was in space, but the problem was how to travel through the enormous distances. Eventually antimatter was controlled and used as propellant in space vehicles. This made it possible to travel with the speed of light. For many hundred years, there was an exodus in all directions. Where those expeditions are now, is unknown. There has been no contact. However, that was what science expected due to the enormous distances in space.
- I am sure everybody did not leave, but where are they?
John looked at the time traveller.
- No, quite a few millions stayed behind. Somehow, they cooperated and formed the nation of Middle Earth. They are still here after the glaciers melted back. First plants, insects and animals followed the ice. Then people. The main goal of Middle Earth is to learn from the errors of past times.
A cold wind from the north brought grey mist, which covered everything.
- We have been sleeping, Jill exclaimed. – Did you have the same dream as me about Middle Earth?
John nodded and splashed some water from a nearby stream in his face.
End of chapter 15. To be continued in chapter 16.
I like magic! Early next morning I was dreaming. That is I believed I was dreaming. As on the previous days, some early morning birds were chirping so I am not sure. When I turned around in bed, the small box was there once again. Nothing rattled inside. I opened the box. There were some sheets of paper. I wanted to read chapter 16.
16. STALIN’S DAGGER REBORN IN CHINA 2084
China. A tingling of metal bells in the early morning. Green rice paddies. Shreds of morning mist drifting and evaporating in the rising sun. The time traveller was standing upright in water to his knees like an egret waiting for fish to come close.
- What are you doing, John had to ask.
- I am waiting.
- Waiting for what?
- Just waiting. Waiting for calamities to occur, maybe. Of all things someone in China started producing copies of Stalin’s dagger without knowing of its curse. This time the curse came in disguise of a tiny virus, which spread like wildfire. As everybody should know, wisdom is like diamonds hidden from the eye. In 2084 wisdom was scarce, and people were many. Plagues had ravished humanity before, but they were long forgotten.
- What are you talking about?
- About the forgotten viral tsunami that hit areas in China in beginning of 2020. Communist China locked up millions of Chinese to fight a surging virus, and then thought they won the war. Later the second wave hit more devastating than the first one. This time all over the world. Instead of acting sensibly, the world panicked. Instead of upscaling medical equipment to help victims of the virus, countries shut down hoping that sealing borders and people from each other would help. It did to a certain degree, but mostly only prolonged the lockdowns.
- How could the world forget something like this, Jill uttered.
- What happened in the years around 2020 was that leaders in power found out how much pressure they could use to fight the virus. In China the communist party started to monitor everything it was possible to monitor. Other countries followed China step by step. This happened especially in countries which had a history of being ruled by dictators, as Germany with Adolf Hitler, Italy with Benito Mussolini, Spain with Francisco Franco, and Russia with Josef Stalin just to mention a few.
- How did people react to this?
- In many countries dissent was crushed, but only on the surface. Disrespect of authorities started to grow like cancer, and wielding of the sword of power did not work very well. In fact, abuse of power took away the foundation of what should be the building blocks of nations. In China the production of mini replicas of Stalin’s dagger, and the worldwide distribution in the years before 2084, was the beginning of the demise of authority. First and foremost, this was the case in China. However, the real serious issue was the appearance of a new virus caused directly by the miniature daggers. The properties of Stalin’s dagger had changed to the worse, and the virus led to disastrous numbers of fatalities. As the last pandemic of this size was in 2020 and the following year, was almost forgotten, the world was not ready. United Nations had dwindled into an international club of talkative politicians, and had no power. Imbecile presidents in the USA from the so-called Grand Old Party had led the once powerful nation almost to oblivion helped by many lost wars around the world. The slogan “America First” had turned into “America Last”.
- The new virus upended the world, and the USA was hit harder than any nation except China.
- Is there any reason why we are standing here in a Chinese rice paddy in the early morning, John and Jill asked.
A huge red sun was in the east. Birds were chattering in the bamboo groves around. The green was as green as green can be. Metal bells were tingling set to move by a light morning breeze.
- The reason, the time traveller pondered, scratching his head. – Ask the wind. Ask the birds. Ask the farmer who is coming there.
Then he disappeared without a trace in the rays of the rising sun.
End of chapter 16.
2084! Where to go from there, in the kaleidoscope of events? Digital repiclas or copies of Stalin’s dagger multiplied an appeared everywhere.
End of chapter 26. To be continued in chapter 27.
