The Final Ark - Page 3
Dreamt and Written By Ray Hall

In an instant, not only our table, but also the whole room is filled with laughter.

"I am not sure, but it's a medical fact that males have a higher content of BS than females do," Helen answers back.

Once again the room is filled with giggles and laughter.

After a short while, it feels like it is time to move on. We walk until we find another hallway and follow it until it ends at  (you'll never guess) another door. As we approach it, it opens and we all step into the room. The door closes. It feels like we are in an elevator as there is a dropping feeling.

"Going down," I say and down we go.

It seems to take a good while before we stop again. When the door finally opens, there is another passageway like I have never seen before. Where before all the walls were colorless, these walls are bright colors - yellows, greens, and all shades of reds - all at the same time.

The walkway lights up as we walk down it, then go dark again after we pass that area. We come to a group of rooms laid out like the resting rooms, but as my room door opens and I step in, there is a huge difference. This room is far from being empty. There is a small sofa and an easy chair; the walls have a mix of bright and soft colors on them; the floor looks like silk, but feels like foam. On one side of my room there is a small table for dining on. On the other side is a large desk and a big soft chair filling the corner. The room is shaped like a rectangle. At the end of the room is a very small hall with a door on each side. One door leads to a bathroom with a weird looking shower. The other door leads to a bedroom with large closets filled with apparel all my size. The bed is queen sized and covered with bedding and pillows. There are built-in lights in all the walls and floors in every room.

I notice a bad smell when I leave the bedroom and strip to climb into the shower. There are no knobs or showerheads. Once I close the door, water hits me from all directions. All three walls, the door, and even the floor and ceiling spray me with warm soapy water. After a few seconds, the water shuts off and I feel like I'm put into a wind tunnel. There are handrails on the shower wall and I grab them and hold on for dear life. When the air blast stops, I leave the shower very quickly. The pile of soiled clothes I'd left on the floor of the bathroom are gone.

As I turn to look for the doorway, the wall in front of me turns into a mirror and a shelf comes from out of the wall below the mirror. On the shelf is a hairbrush, razor, and a toothbrush. They all look like they have come from Star Trek, but I could tell that's what they were. When I am finished, I go to the bedroom, open the large closet and thumb through the clothes rack. Most of the clothes are jump suits - even the two-piece outfits - the shirt and pants attached at the waist. The outfit feels like silk and is light as a feather.

After getting dressed, I walk around my room and check out everything. I sit at my desk and on top of the desk, in the center, is a small metal box. I open it and find a small medallion shaped like a hexagon with a Scorpion symbol in the center of it. As I stand up, I notice there is a hexagon shaped area on my left hand sleeve next to my wrist. I take the medallion and place it over the hex shaped patch on my sleeve and it sticks. I mean, it sticks really hard.

I leave my room and join the others once again in the passageway. Some of the group have changed their clothing as I had while others had not.

"I guess we keep following the yellow brick road," someone says, and so, we did.

This group of people, none of which I had ever met, are from a wide range of backgrounds. We are six men and six women. Teacher, nurse, computer sales, auto repair - a mix of both blue and white collar workers. How did I fit into this group I ask myself. I've spent a quarter of my life working on a farm, another quarter working in a factory and the rest trying to figure out where I fit in.

I notice a lack of noise behind me and turn to find that half of the group are gone.

"What happened?" I ask.

"Where did they go?" Mark asks.

"I think they went back to change their clothes," answers a young, stocky black woman.

"You're Patty, right? A lawyer from the West Coast?"

"Three in a row... not bad. I wish some of the judges I stand in front of were that sharp," Patty snaps back.

We keep walking on.

"How far are we going?" Mark asks.

"I think we are almost there wherever 'there' is," Helen replies.

"I have a feeling you're right about that guess, or at least I think you are," I say softly, hoping no one really hears me.

In a few seconds, the passage ends at a pair of sliding doors. They look like they are made of frosted glass I can see through, but not quite. We wait for the rest of the team members to join up with us at the double doors.

As more of the team join us, the more we want to see what is on the other side of this barrier. In a short time, we all stand together and are ready for what we hope will be the last unknown doorway to enter.

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Every time I have this dream, it starts at the moment I fall asleep and lasts until I awaken in the morning. I know that a person can have over a dozen dreams per night, and most of them, only last a few seconds. But this one is different as I said in the beginning. I can feel the weird material of the outfits against my skin, smell the cooked meat, hear the bubbles coming from the ice-cold soda after it has been opened, and even taste the soapy water from the shower in my futuristic bathroom. I have had these types of dreams since I was a small boy. My Mom would tell me that she would have a dream in color once in a while, but I only dream in color. I can't remember a single dream I've had in black and white, but I was afraid to tell her because I thought there was something wrong with me.

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So, there we are, all of us standing at the glass doors waiting to see what is on the other side of them.

"Who wants to be first?" Patty asks.

Before the echo of her question has faded away, the doors fly open and the lights come on.

The room is shaped like a curved triangle. We are at the bottom flat end of the triangle and the top, or tip, is sixty or seventy feet ahead of us. There are three rows of tall padded chairs and a workstation in front of each chair. The first row has only one chair and workstation. The second row has two chairs and two workstations. The third row has three chairs and workstations.

Along the walls are glass panels that are black or smoky in color. At the very front tip of the room, is a panel about ten feet square made of that Jell-o stuff. Each of the workstations are different. Some have computer screens - others just have row after row of touch buttons indented into a table top. Still, others have four or five mini-screens placed into a larger upright screen. One workstation has a 3D cube shaped image that is a couple of inches above the top of the work surface. The cube is about fourteen inches square and filled with rows of tiny 3D cubes.

As we walk around the room and try to take it all in, I feel totally overwhelmed. I look around at the others faces and see the wonder, fear and doubt in their eyes as well.

"Hey, Ray, you know what this place is?" Mark shouts.

"Yeah, I think I do, but I hope I am wrong," I reply.

"Well, you going to keep it to yourselves?" Patty barks.

"It's a control room, isn't it?" Mark asks.

"Give that man a cigar," I answer.

I think the others will be shocked, but they aren't. I walk up to the second row of workstations and sit in one of the chairs. As soon as my rear end hits the seat, the chair moves forward until I'm almost touching the edge of the table, then it stops. As soon as my hands touch the top of the workstation, my whole station lights up like a Christmas tree, and on the left side of the console, a small cover slides back and exposes a clear hexagon shaped indentation which is the same size as the Scorpion medallion on my sleeve. I grab the sides of my medallion and it slides into my hand with no effort. I look at the crystal insert on the panel and start to place my medallion into the insert.

"Wait one second there, buckaroo. If you want to try this out, let's do it together," Helen says. "Mark, take the front chair. Patty, you and Scott (the computer salesman) take the second row. Ray has the fourth spot. I'll take the fifth spot, and Ryan (a policeman from Green Bay), you take the sixth chair.

Like me, as soon as they sit, their chairs move forward and their panels come on.

"Okay, on the count of three, insert your medallions," Mark says with a hint of fear in his voice.

"Wait! Hold it! How about the rest of us?" one of the others yelled.

"Well, I don't see any seat belts so sit on the floor, but hang on to your asses," Scott replies.

"Hey, we don't know what's going to happen here. We might just be turning on the air conditioning unit," I say.

"Well, let's find out," Mark says with a lot more courage in his voice.