The Doors (or Dancing with Runes)

The humanoids of the dry and desert planet Mortopia formed a primitive culture based on a constant quest for food and water. However, after the discovery that a life-sustaining lichen that grew on the shady side of desert rocks could be cultivated and packaged in various forms, the Mortopians evolved into a medium-status culture with some economic complexity and a small but wealthy intelligentsia. They divided their history into pre-lichen and post-lichen eras. Mortopian society stayed pretty much at the same level, with very little excitement, until the coming of the age of the Doors.

The Doors were discovered by a lad herding a flock of g'malim, a camel-like mammal about the size of a terrestrial goat. Stumbling over an outcropping of rocks, he came into a flat sandy valley with barren hills on both sides. And there they stood: two doors upright in the sand, unweathered and reflecting the rays of the large orange sun of that world. They would become the object of puzzlement and intense study for coming generations, and also the subject of much debate, division, and argument, especially among Mortopian scholars, whose opinions attracted a following among the lower classes.

The Doors were double, like French doors, meeting in the middle, with golden handles on each door. No attempt to open them or pull them apart or uproot them succeeded. They stood approximately 20 feet high and 20 feet across, each door being 10 feet wide. Whether they had been placed there, or emerged from the sand, or had been there all along in an inhospitable lost valley, no one knew. What material they were made of was unknown. The handles were on the side of the Doors facing east. The backside of the Doors had no handles, suggesting that they could only be opened from the east side. There was a plain horizontal panel midway across both doors, front and back, forming four equal sections on each side, or a total of eight sections. And each section was covered with symbols and runes.

Over time, the Doors became the domain of scholars, who erected scaffolding and ladders in order to study the raised lettering on the eight sections. The west side (or back) was found to be covered with pre-lichen runes, while the east side (or front) contained a more recent script. Translation revealed a collection of myths relating to the desert gods, interwoven with stories of a land of bright sun and green grass. There were also basic rules about living and relationships, and stories about ancient heroes and commoners who had adventures in the bright-sun world.

Scholars began to find within the sub-units of the eight major sections certain discrepancies and nuances that made them different from other sections. Schools of thought began to form around the major sections and their sub-units. Certain scholars became experts within these schools, and gathered disciples or apprentices who worked with them at the site or helped them in translation and the defense of whatever world-view the master scholar espoused. Arguments would often arise at the site of the Doors, sometimes to the point of violence, and at times among the greater population which was divided over which master to follow. This difficulty subsided when the masters and apprentices of the schools stayed on their own scaffolding and pretty much ignored all the others. The population followed suite. This uneasy peace persisted until the morning of the fateful Grand Opening.

On that particular mid-summer morning, as the sun rose to throw orange rays across the huts and scaffolding of the resident scholars, there was a loud crack, and the Doors slowly began to open, stopping a few inches apart, and leaving a gap just big enough for a man to walk through. Early risers jumped from their perches about the Doors and fled to a safe distance to watch. Others emerged from their huts to see what all the excitement was about. Bright, silver sunlight flowed from the opening, and those who were brave enough to hazard a peek saw a rich green lawn sloping down to a tree-lined river, with hills in the distance, and beyond, the hint of mountains in the mist. Some scholars fled behind the Doors, and discovered that the gap from that side only revealed the desert of their homeland. The new world could only be seen from the east side.

The whole experience was disconcerting. Some tried to push the Doors closed, to no avail. Some of the younger apprentices, who still had a sense of adventure, wandered into the bright land and did not return. Most of the resident scholars simply tried to ignore the opening and continue their work. Of course, news of this development spread, and in a few weeks pilgrims were making journeys to the Doors to see this phenomenon. Soon a small town grew up around the site, offering food and lodging to visitors, and selling souvenir replicas of the partly opened Doors and postcards showing the silver light shining across the desert floor. Occasionally a pilgrim would approach the gap and disappear into the light within—usually after being begged by family members to reconsider. The most alarming incidents occurred when one of the older scholars would lay down his notebook and stylus, climb down the scaffolding, and walk directly into the gap with a strange smile on his face.

After a few months, some of those who had gone through the doors began to reappear. But their answers to curious questions were enigmatic, and they were always in a hurry to return. Their only reason for reappearing, apparently, was to call those around the Doors to come back with them into the gap.

One was a ruddy youth with deep blue eyes, red hair, and a scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He had been apprenticed to a master scholar who was an expert in the fourth sub-quadrant of the third sub-unit of the second section on the front side. He was approached by his master, and the following conversation took place:

“Where have you been, my boy, and what have you been doing in there?”

“I have been enjoying the light, master, and dancing with the runes.”

“You mean there is knowledge of the runes in there? You mean that you have been learning the runes and obeying them?”

“No sir. I said I have been dancing with them.”

“Too much unnatural sunlight has touched your mind, my son. You know you can’t dance with an idea or a commandment.”

“O, they’re not ideas, sir. They’re people--people who are the creaturely expressions of what the runes teach. Without them the runes are merely floating concepts. The Doors only portray word pictures of them. They come out of the woods at night and dance with us. They are teaching us, I think, to become runes ourselves.”

“The light has caused your imagination to run wild, my boy. But tell me, if you dance with runes, what do they tell you of their differences? Which rune is the true one?”

“They are all true, master. I told you they dance—a great intricate dance—and I told you they are people. How can one person be truer than another?”

‘No, son. You’ve missed the point of my question. Which one of the interpretations of the runes is the right one?”

The boy hesitated, working this question in his mind. Finally he replied, “I’m having trouble answering, master. The category ‘right’ does not apply in the sun-bright land. No one is right, no one is wrong. There is only the dance.”

The master could not compute this response, so he tried a different approach. “So…what do you do there, I mean, with your time?”

“I told you, master, we dance. Every night. The dance is so complicated that we novices move about in the outer ring until we learn the steps that will take us closer to the center. The runes are in the middle, and their differences form a unity. But we do other things. We sing. And we tell stories—wonderful stories, personal stories, stories of defeat and victory. No one thinks anyone else’s story is unimportant. The runes also tell us their stories. And we laugh a lot.”

“You keep talking about people,” said the master. “But surely there are ideas in that world. Surely you must have scholars—great thinkers who are capable of abstraction—who interpret the runes.”

“Yes, master. But only the very old enter the abstract world. In the sun-bright land abstract thought is a privilege to be earned. Occasionally a gray-beard will disappear into the woods alone, and come back days later, exchange knowing glances with others of his age, and walk away shaking his head and laughing to himself. Once I got up the nerve to ask an elder about this practice. ‘Oh my wee one,’ he chuckled, ‘One must be deep in love and joy, and know his place in the dance, before he can think the Thoughts. Abstraction is the reward of a life lived, not the basis of it. That is why it is a forbidden fruit to those too young to have learned courage.’”

At this, there was the short burst of a child’s laughter from inside the Doors. The youth looked around uncomfortably, and said, “I must really be going, master. The dance begins at twilight. But look, come with me. There are greater than I that can answer your questions.”

A look of joy, quicker than the bat of an insect wing, passed over the master’s face, but then he said, “Perhaps later, my boy. You know how important it is that I finish the research on my next dissertation. It is important that my disciples understand the intricacies of the Quest for the True Rune.”

“But the True Rune is a person!” Seeing his master already ascending his scaffold to his accustomed place, the boy walked slowly back to the gap and disappeared into the light. The conversation was over.

After that, things continued pretty much business as usual. People sporadically passed through the gap in the Doors in both directions. The scholars who worked on the front quadrants were often distracted by the light, and tried several means to cover it up. Boards hung from the scaffolding seldom worked. Finally, one of them hit upon a contraption made of wooden frames and a thick fabric curtain that could be rolled in front of the gap. It blocked the light, but allowed passage by folding the curtain aside. The only distraction after that was the unpredictable laughter from behind the curtain. Some scholars dealt with this by stuffing pieces of cloth in their ears while they worked. The ruddy youth did not reappear. The master finished his dissertation and began a new one entitled “The Quest for the Historical Rune.” It made quite a splash in scholarly circles until a rebuttal was written by a master on the west side of the doors who proved definitively that all runes were merely a projection of the Mortopian psyche.