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StarMountainKid's Story Blog

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The Dome - Chapter Nine


StarMountainKid

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After a few hesitant steps, we relaxed a little, and sank into the crowd naturally, like falling into an ocean. We just wandered around with the crowd for a while, aimlessly, more and more easily, like in a school of fish. I seen fish in a lake once when I was a kid by the shore. They were darting this way and that all together, but this was like a dance, like we were all dancing together, but separate. I was some nervous, though, ‘cause they was all strangers, and I felt a stranger among them.

I looked for Henry. He was a little way off, all mixed up with the Dome people, too, the Paratakes Dirth called them. Henry had this glazed look on his face. He seemed to be enjoying himself, though, just wandering about like me. It was an odd feeling. I never been this close to this many people before. Back in the village you were always kind of alone by yourself. There wasn’t no big crowds except at the dump or when ration day came. This was different. It wasn’t picking garbage or shuffling in line, feet kicking up dust that was everywhere. These were all clean in a clean place, and smiling and happy.

And we didn’t jostle each other, as close as we were. We all just sort of cooperated and moved around each other gentle-like. Pretty soon I noticed they were some of them talking among themselves. I hadn’t noticed this before. They all had these soft voices, too. I stood trying to listen for a while. First, I couldn’t make out what they were saying; it was just like some soft music to me. I guess I was still sort of stunned by it all.

Then I started trying to listen what they were saying as they all revolved around me. “Oh, what a pretty Holoscene that was last evening,” one was saying. “Yes, I especially liked the boy in the green shift. He was darling.” “Oh, I just loved him. Did you see how he took the girl and was so gentle with her? I liked that part.” “I kind of liked it later when his eyes caught that other girl, you know, the one in the blue gown. Now that was something to watch. It got me all…you know.” Then I heard giggles.

I looked, and it was two girls talking. For the first time I really looked at them. They were beautiful, both of them. I never saw girls that beautiful, not in the village, for sure. All the girls in the village were all warn-out-looking. They didn’t look much different from everyone else. Shabby and tired and listless.

Well, after a while the whole crowd began moving in one direction. I don’t know what started it, but I followed among them. I caught Henry out of the corner of my eye, he was moving with the crowd, too, still a little stiff-like. I figured Henry would take a little longer to get used to all this. He was always set in his ways. His old, wrinkled face didn’t fit in with the rest. Everybody around looked young and fresh. I supposed I didn’t look much like them, either, but they didn’t seem to take notice.

So we all moved in some direction over the great floor of the Dome, everybody’s colorful clothes swirling. Pretty soon up ahead I noticed some bright lights. Then I started to hear music. It was sweet and nice. I never paid much attention to music before, mostly because there wasn’t any in the village, except for beating on stuff and yelling around some campfire.

Anyway, we got closer to the bright lights. They were spread all around above, all colors shining and spinning, and pretty soon everybody all around started dancing to the music and the swaying lights. Everyone was suddenly twirling and twisting and weaving among each other and smiling and laughing. The laughter seemed to me part of the music, like the sounds and the dance were all one.

I started to move a little, clumsily, embarrassed, then I stopped. I just couldn’t do it like the others. I felt foolish and I guess I blushed to myself. I looked through the crowd to find Henry. He was a little ways off among the crowd, but standing still. His old eyes were wide open, looking around startled, as if in a dream.

After it seemed a long time the music sort of faded away, and the crowd started moving again. The dance was over and now something else had begun and I was pushed along with the crowd again. I wondered where we were all going this time. One other thing I noticed was, everyone smelled so good. This was not like in the village, I’ll tell you. They were all pretty looking, too, like I said. They all seemed young, almost like children. I couldn’t see anyone old or even middle-aged. I wondered where they kept the old ones, and a little fright came to me.

Pretty soon we all came to this sort of blue front of a building built into the side of the Dome, a tall, wide blue double door in front of it. The door opened by itself, slow, and everyone crowded in. I kept an eye on Henry as usual because I didn’t want to loose him. We went into this big room that was all dim inside. Everybody lined themselves around the walls of the room, so I stood against the wall, too. The room was all foggy-like inside. I couldn’t make out what it was. Then the fog in the middle of the big room turned blue, or was lit by blue light. Then the colors changed and then the fog kind of evaporated slow, and little by little a real pretty landscape appeared out of the fog all around for as far as you could see. It was a real big room, I’ll tell you that. There were trees all around, and grass and bushes and flowers spread everywhere and little green hills rose gently. It was a great garden spread before me, vast and beautiful, calm-like and peaceful. It was nature in bloom. I could feel a little warm breeze on my cheek, and a blue, blue sky was above it all, and a bright sun high up in the clear sky shining down on us, warm and yellow.

I stood gaping. I had never seen anything like this, not in my life. My world was shabby and dirty, all brown and withered and a dull grey sky. This was like a beautiful dream of my childhood. A dream of something I had never seen in wakefulness. The crowd passed by me and entered this paradise as I stood still and wooden-like at its edge. I watched them flow into it, settle into it, relax into it easy, like they were a part of it, like it was nothing to them, like it was just another ordinary thing to them.

I stood there just outside of it. I was afraid to step one step onto the grass of this paradise of a garden that began just before my feet. It was too unreal for me, or maybe it was too clean for someone like me to enter. I still felt the sweaty dirt of my old body, the shabby clothes hanging loose on my skinny bones, my scraggly face. I felt I didn’t want to soil that place, it was too beautiful, too pure, too perfect. I was still too used to my old self; like all this was something I was unfit to enter.

As I stood there hesitating I looked around for Henry again. He was already inside, a loony smile on his face, awkward, alone, moving stiff like in a dream he’d never dreamed so he didn’t know what to do in it, or what was expected of him to do. I felt that way, too. Who would I have to be to fit in with all these dome people? Dirth said we was ready for this, but I didn’t feel I was ready. I felt I was something separate from all this, something that didn’t fit at all and never would learn how to fit.

I wondered what else there would be inside the Dome and how I would react to it. I was curious to find everything out, but I knew I’d never become one of these Paratakes, or whatever they were. I wasn’t born to this. You’re what you’re born into, and anything else is just pretending. I didn’t want to pretend, I wanted to be me I guess for the first time. No matter how hard I’d try, I didn’t think I’d ever really leave the village. I suddenly felt sad and lonely. Here was this paradise I’d so longed for, risked my life to enter, and now that I was really here I was a stranger to it, and it was a stranger to me, maybe for always.

I remembered Dirth saying I’d enjoy all this, that I’d forget my old life and enjoy it and it’d be a celebration for me after my hard life before. I think he was wrong. And I think maybe he knew he was wrong. I wondered just what Dirth was trying to do with Henry and me. I wondered what he had in mind for us. I think he knew something about me that even I didn’t know myself, but was finding out for myself. Henry and me thought we had plans of our own, but Dirth said he had his own plans for us. Plans we didn’t expect.

I stepped one foot onto the grass of that great lovely garden and then the other and stood there. The pretty green grass felt soft and inviting underfoot in a way that was no comfort to my mind.

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