Finish the Story week 39!

Here's my entry for this week's #finishthestory contest, brought to us, once again, by the lovely people of @bananafish!

This week's prompt was about something I really enjoy, and with which I like to experiment sometimes. It was hard for me to comprise my final to a 500 (and a little more!) piece, as I just wanted to go on and on with this story.

However, hope you enjoy! : )

by @f3nix

From the Little Ararat’s peak, Vartan "tiger's eye" observed his hometown, Yerevan. In the ample pocket of his tunic, well sheltered from the harsh wind, his squat fingers played with two graceful jade discs, while his steed, foaming with fatigue, seemed suddenly reinvigorated at the sight of home after months of traveling. If it had not been an animal, it would seem that he was moved. In Vartan's eyes, the only veil was that of travel fatigue.

Armenian merchant of precious stones, merchant son of merchants, he did not care how dangerous the journey was, nor how many moons had rotated above the long caravan: his mind was a precision balance that incessantly weighed and estimated without respite Indian emeralds, Burmese rubies, Pakistani aquamarines. This was Vartan's life since the cradle: he made a profit, and he did it surprisingly well.

A brisk early March night, something unexpected happened to him: he had a dream. Being an unusual experience for him, he awoke to throw in a far corner of the room the brocaded bedspread, upset and wet with sweat despite dawn’s breeze. In his family no one used to dream, there was no space for these frivolities. If he reflected well, maybe a couple of times he had dreamed of carving a gem or making a good deal, but he never came across those surreal dreams like a sand mirage in the ocean. After that episode, dreams began to visit him more and more frequently, as the unstoppable progression of pot-bellied drops in an August downpour. Frankly, it was a very unfortunate situation for Vartan, who was soon forced to invent every kind of wild night escapade to justify the increasingly evident dark circles under his eyes.

Then one day, while he was dreaming, the unthinkable happened: he suddenly perceived that he was in the dream. That first experience of dreamlike lucidity did not last long, nothing but an imperceptible beating of wings of awareness before the rules of the dream came back to swallow him and to dictate the story, relegating him to a mere spectator. Night after night, he began to acknowledge the laws that governed that world and how to bend them to his creative power. Thin and rarefied realms could become dense with colors, shapes, and perfumes. The Escheresque geometries of dancing fractals disobeyed space and time. Gradually, Vartan learned to attribute a new meaning and content to the term comprehension. For every new dream he was immersed in, the breath of those universes and his soul were united in one single essence longer and longer. In those dreams, Vartan traveled in the folds of reality, learned the language of angels and played dodges with them in the heart of perennial storms of unknown planets.

Soon, what was happening in Vartan's soul could not remain hidden to the eyes of the family, his friends, and the entire city of Yerevan.

Vartan spent more and more time dreaming, his eyes closed or opened, as he had discovered how to dwell in the kingdom of the eternal with his active mind. But for his family, active was the last word with which he could be defined. He soon lost interest in the financial value of precious stones and the art of trading, so he stopped contributing to his family’s funds.They reacted to this with indignation, then hostility, despair, and finally resignation.

As Vartan grew more silent and distant, his family tried unsuccessfully to bring him closer to the realm they inhabited. His father discovered one day that sapphires and rubies were still of interest to Vartan when, having exhausted his attemps to talk to his son, he brought a red stone as big as the eye of an adult bream and as clear and polished that it could be used as a prism, and placed in his son hand. Vartan looked at the stone and his pupils dilated with excitement as he wandered the depths of the crystal arrangements at levels of size and complexity that the human race would not discover for almost another half century. His father, mistaking his reaction for a sign that he was getting back to his old self, called the family, only to contemplate a silent Vartan who after looking at the ruby for a while, gave it back to his father with nothing but a smile, before closing his eyes to slumber once more.

Vartan did not contribute to his family’s table, but neither did he take from it. His only sustenance seemed to be tea from leaves that only Vartan could find. The first time he disappear to find these herbs, his family were greatly afraid of his abssence, although somewhat relieved. But he was back the next day, and now an empty cup with a curious smell rested along him in his room.

Then Vartan’s best friend was brought, as a last resource. The two were left alone and the friend talked about old and recent times, about himself, that he didn’t want an arranged marriage, and how he had to accommodate and provide for too many people… Vartan’s eyes remained closed, but his ears wiggled from time to time indicating he was listening, so his friend kept speaking until the moon was high in the sky and Vartan’s family asked him to leave. But when he was saying his goodbyes, Vartan opened his eyes and looked into his friend’s for a while. Entranced, he stayed another only looking through Vartan’s eyes, which have lost by now any sight of presence. He was eerily not there, but at the same time his aura filled the room, from his small movements to his breathing, to his unchanging facial expression… His company became that of a star, a tree or a mountain.

The next day, his friend left the city to find his true calling, detached from his old so-called responsibilities, and calmer and more confident than anyone had ever seen him. From then on, everybody wanted to talk to Vartan, that mysterious man who was said to be a herald from worlds beyond, and that could see through the souls of men and women with just a long, lazy-eyed gaze.