A dream of prophecy

In a vacuum of time is where the story of the change took place. A parallel universe that would have otherwise continued parallel until Mark disrupted the balance of all existence and the two worlds became momentarily perpendicular and crossed paths with irreversible consequences, never to meet again, straying further from their point of contact and subsequently, reality. 

In reality, Mark was not the man’s name but it was as good as any other he believed. The morning of the falling star was said to hold mystic properties and, not open, but alter our timelines. Myths of the local native folk of the world whose people go by no name but share in their language and practices, like the kelts or the gypsies, these people drag their feet across the lands, calling home to the place where they rest their eyes. Under the eternal skies, they need not a place to call home. 

The nuns of the chappel had a written script of Mark's fortune and gave it to the walkers. These walkers of the lands, men and women of profound knowledge and prophecy, found Mark as they passed a village in one of the many desert lands of the Andes and walked through the chappel which could not care for any more children, which were given up for adoption as the falling star held uncertain omens. The local chappel begged the wanderers to take this young boy who was initially given another name by his biological parents but was quickly forgotten as he was orphaned at the chappel. The stories of Mark’s birth were of immaculate origin. The wanderers took him under their guard and named him after the priest who relinquished ownership of the boy, Father Marcus. The priest warned the walkers of the boy's fate and made them promise to guide him accordingly. Though in his later years, Mark refused to accept that he was tied to fate.

Mark was a blue-eyed child, whose features were never before seen by the wanderers and whose blond hair resembled the swaying of golden wheat fields subject to the forces of the wind. Though as the years went on, the child’s eyes turned brown and his hair darkened to a hazel colour. His upbringing, up until the age of fourteen, was of copious studying as the wanderers would read the books of each new land they traversed, in search for a divine message. After the age of fourteen, Mark decided to venture back to his original birthplace to try and find his parents. Although he did not hold high expectations of their love and approval, he solely wanted to meet them and trade stories. He figured that he was put up for adoption out of fear of the unknown falling star and he was to reassure them that nothing bad had happened. 

Mark, against the counselling of his fellow wanderers, began his journey to the place of his origin. When he decided to return he was walking the chilly south of the continent and had a vision of his parents whilst he meditated on a cristal clear lake whose attraction was deceivingly cold. Over the following months, the cold winds which rendered his ears and nose solid with hypothermia and made it impossible to scrunch his fingers eventually turned to dry desert winds which cut through the slits of his squinted eyes. The sun which he accompanied, would leave him in a state of delusion from the intense heat. The desert would consume him, a lost soul he would become.

Upon his journey, he encountered a lone rock which appeared to be a mirage at first but proved to be quite real as he approached it. It provided enough shade for Mark to rest under and before the midday sun hit, he nestled himself underneath it and slept. Upon his awakening, he was shocked and confused to find that the midday sun was above him and that the shade was no more. He believed to have slept through the harshest hours of the sun and as he arose in confusion and nausea he loses track of his direction, as the rock was so perfectly symmetrical, it was impossible to find a feature to identify the direction. He rose so quickly that he couldn’t see where he had been sleeping as the rapidly moving sands washed away any prints of his resting body. He was at a complete loss. His eyes shifted desperately as he tried to remember the direction of the blowing sands, but it seemed that the winds were in a state of constant change and to deduce his intended direction from the direction in which the sand flowed was redundant. 

He decided, after a moment of deep thought, to venture into a random direction in hope of finding his path once more, and once the sun would begin to move he would adjust his direction accordingly. The problem was that time began to be unquantifiable as the sun persisted in its midday state and seemed to only grow hotter and hotter. Mark convinced himself briefly that this was just an effect of the sun’s exposure and that it should be taken with a grain of sand but eventually, he realised that the planes which surrounded him were all identical and symmetrical. The only reference he had as to know whether he was even moving or not was the rock that soon faded into the horizon. 

Time soon blended into one eternal moment whereas previously he could distinguish time by the passing of moments. Now it all seems to blend into one giant pot. As the distance between he and the rock became greater he tried to remember its place by dragging his feet deep into the sands as to create a trail but as he looked back it was quickly rubbed away. There was no absolute anymore and his mind began to wonder different things simultaneously. Contradicting thoughts which all were held, in his mind, to the same merit and could all be both true and false. 

Mark came to the conclusion that the rock only appeared because he was dying of heatstroke, and that time had stopped because he had thought it to be, his loss of hope had manifested. It all made perfect sense as he began to test his theories. He was in dire need of some water and he imagined a cool, semi-underground house made of large stones which had, inside large jugs of ice water and a woven basket of fresh fruits. Every detail was up to his imagining down to the imperfections on each piece of fruit. The water would be in mason jugs, down on a wide shelf, which would stretch from wall to wall. He was deciding where was best to place the small table for the basket of fruit and even thought of the type of wood to use for the legs of the chairs. There would be large silk curtains, which would bare a heavyweight as to stop the wind bringing in the sand through the main door but something troubled him dearly. 

Every detail was up to his imagining except for one immovable nightstand which occupied the centre of the room, which was the only room in the house he could not change. He tried immensely to alter the room which began to haunt his mind but yielded to see what was in this room. The nightstand had in its drawer, a book with golden borders and in its centre an oval mirror. Upon lifting the book to his reflection, he saw the effect of the sands and harsh climates he had traversed on his withered face. The book was the heaviest thing he had ever lifted and seemed to lighten with the turning of each page. The book, as he began to read, spoke of a little boy whose origins were written in an almost illegible alphabet, that Mark recognised from his childhood studies. The name of the protagonist of this story was written in an ancient middle easter script and read of a boy who awoke in the body of another after a lifetime of recurring dreams. As a boy born in the middle eastern lands, he dreamt of a western boy with blond hair and blue eyes who lost his way, after having a vision of a falling star he decided to follow the trails of its dream and awoke in the body of another child. The book was beyond comprehension for Mark, even after years of extensive literature study. The book eventually was as light as sand and the last few pages began to whither as Mark realised the meaning. His eyes begin to burn from the sand which was blowing in his face with the crumbling of his stone house. He closes the book and catches his reflection on the cover. His eyes were once again blue and his hair golden. In his eyes, he saw the future of a man sent by God and awoke in a stable under a falling star.