Leaf 1 – Kaosiung Taiwan

Ferodo was discussing the architecture of Michaelango with his friend Alynn.  They were actually in Kaosiung Taiwan for a conference on manufacturing.

At the end of the day it was now dark and raining out side, Alynn had wanted to go for a walk, but they caught the subway itself.  They had got off the train at R10, and while still in the subway had came accross the most beautiful stained glass dome.  It was massive and filled the whole station with light.  Alynn wandered off for a bit, and Ferodo was just thinking about the time.  Stained glass, all very well, but he was getting hungry.  He got distracted by one of the panels of blue with things that looked a bit like panels.

Ferodo tried to touch the glass overhead, he looked more and more carefully, and thought he could see the reflection of Alynn in the glass.  He really wasn’t sure why he had started thinking about Michaelangelo.  TS Elliot perhaps, the poet, that was probably it. “In the room the women come and go. Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its …

He suddenly relaxed, but felt a rush of energy and then all of a sudden, he was inside the glass, all colors of the rainbow, but like a yellow fog of Ferodo, all mixed up in the glass but moving through it, like the eastern current of “Finding Nemo” he thought… hey dudes.. I got to get off !.  As he travelled through it was like he could get off at many stops, there were fast moving tributaries of glass of different colours.  It was hot and his misty body was feeling more like a thought than a reality.

As he travelled, he saw his watch going backward, the digits counting backward at reasonable speed, like about 1 hour per second. and the glass, originally bathed in the light of the subway became dark, and then gradually brighter and brighter, like the sun was just shining through the colored walls of it all.

The character of the glass changed from being like a long transporting tube, to a more flat space with Roman Numerals scattered around like a dial of some kind. He could see more and more through it and sped toward a large yellow disk in the centre of the dial.

He crashed through the glass disk and his misty self suddenly recoalesced into a different place. He was on the floor of a large vestibule where a tour group were.  Mostly women.  He looked up and could make out a large dome, with a disk of stained glass at the top.  It was he felt sure the disk he had just crashed through, but was complete and whole, with a collection of maybe planetary bodies on it’s outer rim.

Well for a start Alynn was not there.  He looked around, calling out.  The noise of the evening railway station was gone, replaced by chattering tourists in the classroom. The people were speaking Italian, and a choir was singing what sounded like hymns to a large organ sound filling the space. Alynn wandered in asking, “would you like to go to a small cafe, not far from here” she said.  “It’s on the via Nazionale, just down the road.”

Leaf 2 – Roma Italy and the fixed Teleporter

Ferodo looked up at the skylight above, all round like a portal, and felt the cold hard floor he was sitting on, with women all around, stopped in their reverie of the amazing paintings and colors all over the walls, who quickly rushed to his help.  Alynn, kind of got pushed back out of the way, and the others helped Ferodo to his feet, speaking Italian, and all concerned.

Alynn pushed through the crowd inside and grabbed Ferodo.  She said “Look you’ll be fine !, same thing happened to me just before you.  Let’s go.” She dragged Ferodo outside, in the sunshine, none of this looked familiar to him, he certainly was not in Taiwan, where he was a few minutes ago.  The bright sun shone down and it appeared to be late morning.  He looked back at the door he had just come through and looked up at what appeared to be a fairly modern facade in an ancient building.

Alynn stopped, “look she said, we’re in Roma, lovely Rome, and we just arrived on the Michaelangelo Teleporter, it’s been there a few years, since the skylight was put in.  The same artist for the Kaohsiung subway light dome, and this Roman church skylight, I think that is the connection, was involved.  Michaelangelo designed the church, but originally it was the Diocletian baths.  Now it is the bassilica, St Mary, Angels and Martyrs.  Come on, lets go”.

This was all happening pretty fast, but then life was like that.  A door opened, a portal opened, what was the difference. Only about 6000 miles.  But it looked like time and date were the same, it was Monday morning instead of Monday evening. Now he was in sunny Rome instead of darkening Kaohsiung.

The new question, should he come, or go.  He had come, but he didn’t choose to come, did he ? Could he go back ?