Chapter 9 again - in which Dr Fenwick sees a goblin

I’m having recurring dreams night after night. Blocking off Faery has provided me with a respite from the madness of hearing bugs talking in my mind, but seems to be merely shifting the weirdness to another part of my sub-consciousness – hence the dreams.

You know, I can handle recurring dreams. They’re not killing me or anything like that, but I’m afraid that they’re sucking me deeper into Faery whether I like it or not. For a start they’re giving me information, and the more I see and know about Faery, the harder it is to simply dismiss it outright as an unwelcome intrusion or an aberration. Take these dreams, for example... you’ll probably laugh when you hear what they’re about. At first I couldn’t see any link with Faery whatsoever – it just seemed like some kind of bizarre hyper-realistic history lesson – and when I say “hyper-realistic” I’m referring to the fact that they’re more lifelike than anything I’ve ever dreamt before. So lifelike, in fact, that I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m dreaming – which ought to wake me up, but just draws attention to the fact that my hand is er... I’ll tell you later.

So to end your suspense, there’s a beach and a figure that looks like someone important. He’s got a bunch of followers with him – this is what I get at the purely visual level but if there’s anything extra I need to know I can zoom in, and access names, dates, it’s all there.

“So it’s just like using google maps, you could say?”

That’s Dr Fenwick – here’s a hotshot psychoanalyst who’s agreed to help me deal with this personal crisis I’m going through.

Yeah – a bit like that, though to be honest, anything you see on the internet doesn’t come close to it.

“What do you mean?”

This is so much more real – there’s absolute clarity, and the information – you don’t have to read it as such – it’s just there, the moment you reach for it.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah – it turns out this is King Canute. I mean, can you believe it? Why would I have any interest whatsoever in King Canute? I’ve never been a fan of history, still less medieval history. I don’t even remember studying him at school, though I’m sure we did in passing, many years ago. So here I am, night after night, back on the same beach, like I’m supposed to get it or something.

“Get it? What do you mean?”

Like I’m supposed to figure something out. Do you remember that movie, I think it was Tom Hanks, Groundhog day – he keeps waking on the same day and eventually he knows every tiny detail – what everyone in that small town are doing at any moment on that particular day. I’m beginning to feel the same way about King Cnut, as he calls himself, and that God forsaken beach.”

“Er... why God forsaken?”

Well, apart from the bit that everyone knows – the chair before the incoming tide, the imperious command, the wet feet, egg on the royal face and all that... after a few weeks of this I got a bit more adventurous... I started experimenting, moving around, viewing the action from different positions, until one day... er...

Dr Fenwick waits calmly, patiently a minute or more, until curiosity seems to get the better of him:

“Yes, what happened?”

I find myself wanting to piece it all together, to solve the jigsaw puzzle, so to speak. I have this irresistible feeling that I can – that if I draw all the strands together – if I use my full vision – that I’ll get it. And that’s when I notice a part of my mind that’s been quietly blocking anything that might contradict the official version – you know – the rational way of seeing and thinking.

“Interesting. How exactly do you notice it?”

Well, for a start I can see that something doesn’t quite add up. Remember, by now I know the story inside out – Cnut, each of his courtiers, the soldiers and hangers on – their clothes, their belongings, even what they’re thinking. But there are some minor inconsistencies which at first didn’t bother me in the slightest, but now are yelling at me like a big Neon sign.

“For example?”

Their eyes – they seem to be trying to avoid seeing something that scares them. They’re looking at the King, but instead of being amused or mildly shocked by the silliness of what’s going on – they have half-concealed expressions of horror, a grimace – and I can’t for the life of me see what’s causing it – even when I get into their minds – because they’re blocking it too well – because it’s irrational, even though it’s palpably real.

“So what do you do? How do you break the truth embargo?”

I... I’ve told you about Faery already. You seemed to handle it alright. Well, even though I’m doing everything I can to keep it out of my life, it seems like I’ve already been changed from within... I mean, it would have been the end of the world for me to start looking the other way – to start seeing things from this different perspective... but after a couple of weeks on the beach with Cnut every night – it seemed completely natural to try using Faery to unlock the riddle.

“You mean you contacted Gill or Roger – the, er... beetles?”

No, there’s no need for that, even if I knew how. I just remembered how I’d been seeing things when I was with Gill – how I’d shifted ever so slightly into another perspective which was in some way connected with the beetle mark that Roger had opened up on my forehead. So I did the same thing on the beach. I had to make an effort to do so. There was some internal resistance. It was almost like I was opening it for the first time.”

My mind seems to wander off for a moment, before Dr Fenwick brings me back with a slight cough and an enquiring look – “Is everything alright?” he asks.

Oh, sorry Dr Fenwick – I was just re-experiencing it one more time. Yes – it was bizarre. It was as if Roger had never actually opened the portal – that I had to do it for myself – which is what I did. And then I remembered him explaining at the time that I had a bigger part to play in opening it than I realised, and I suppose that’s what he meant. That at different times and places we both opened the portal – or perhaps – that he only appeared to do so in 3D reality because I was able to do so myself, at a later date, if that makes sense.

“Yes, I think it does. But do go on.”

So, once I’ve opened up the beetle mark, as I call it, I’m able to see everything on the beach in stereo, or in 3D, or, how do I explain it – the dream had always been 3D in the sense that I was able to move around and it felt completely real, but now there’s another dimension at play, and what had been glimmer or shadows suddenly pops out into view – like a pop-up window to continue using the internet as analogy. Finally I get to see what’s been freaking everyone out, and the weird thing is that I’d been seeing it all along, I simply hadn’t been aware.

“How do you mean? Surely if you’d been “seeing it” you’d have been aware – isn’t that the definition of seeing?”

I don’t know for sure – I can only tell you how it felt. I’m looking at Cnut, or King Cnut as I should call him, and I’m almost rubbing my eyes in disbelief because there’s this small, dark, scary looking figure that’s dancing around before him, waving and pointing at the courtiers, signalling them, terrifying them, even though they desperately trying to avoid the fact that they’re able to see it.

“I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying...”

I’m not surprised Dr Fenwick, it’s rather confusing when you think about it rationally as we are.

“Yes, well don’t worry too much about being rational right now – we’ll sort that out later. Let’s just try to get all the salient information out and then we’ll piece it together rationally if we can.”

Ok. So, this creature – it’s a goblin.

“A goblin?!” Dr Fenwick tries not to sound surprised but doesn’t quite conceal the fact.

“Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s the only way I can describe it, and more than that, I’m able to verify everything in dream by pointing at it and lo and behold – the information pops out that it’s a goblin – whatever that is. So, there you have it... King Cnut addressing his court piously declaring that only God is King, and only God can protect us from the elements, while at the same moment there’s this evil looking goblin dancing around in front of the King, putting the fear of God, excuse the pun, into Canute’s audience, not surprisingly. Seeing it clearly I realised I’d always been seeing it, but hadn’t been able to process half of what I was seeing. Bizarre.

“So what’s your conclusion Josh? Have you solved the mystery?”

Ah – well now that I’m able to use the beetle mark, I’m able to get the whole picture, so to speak, and it starts making sense. It seems that the events on the beach that day were happening on two levels – the normal reality level – where the King pulls an absurd stunt to demonstrate that he’s only human and that we should look to God for our deliverance, and Faery, the other level, in which he’s doing something to the assembled throng.

“Yes, but doing what? Was the information forthcoming?”

Dr Fenwick, you seem to have a particular interest in this subject. Is there anything you’re not telling me?

For a moment Dr Fenwick looks put out – like he’s revealed too much – and then something gives – he seems to have chosen the path of glasnost – as Mikhail Gorbachev would put it – or “openness”.

“I do have a certain professional interest in what your describing Josh... I haven’t said anything till now because I didn’t want to influence or prejudice your account in any way, but if I said that you’re not the first person to come in and tell me about this particular scene, you might realise that it seems to hold a deeper significance for all of us.”

Yes, Dr Fenwick. That’s exactly what I perceived. You see the more I examined things, and weighed all the inconsistencies, the minutiae – what those present were admitting to themselves and what they were not – I realised that the whole thing was a set up, and they were all in some way complicit.

“Ah ha...”

They may not have realised it consciously, but they were at a tipping point in history, in which things could go either way. His ambitious courtiers chose the path of fear because that seemed to be the path that would give them greater power and influence in the long term, and when I say long term I mean from then until now.

“What? I don’t follow what you’re saying.”

I mean, that when they chose to go along with Cnut’s beach show, they were effectively being presented with a choice – that they, the elite, could be powerful and lord it over the people from that day until this, if they were willing to accept fear.

“What kind of fear?”

The only kind of fear that really works – fear of the unknown.

“So how did it work? How did they accept fear of the unknown?”

They were all signatories to a kind of contract – that they would agree not to see what they could see, not to know what they could know – by blocking out Faery for once and for all. If they agreed to that, as almost all of them did, they would have power and wealth, but they’d always have a nagging doubt because in their hearts they knew and would continue to know from generation to generation that they were blocking something out, something that would sooner or later come back and bite them in the rear.

“So it was a Faustian deal – they sold their souls you’re saying.”

No, not as much as that. Our souls, you see, are never really for sale because they don’t belong to us – we cannot sell what we don’t own.

“Then who do they belong to if not us?”

Dr Fenwick – you’re putting the cart before the horse, as we all tend to do in this back-to-front version of reality. WE belong to our souls, not the other way round. We can sell ourselves – that much is true, but our souls are never lost, and nor, perchance are we – not completely – not when you see this all from the perspective of Faery.

“Which is?”

Isn’t it obvious? From Faery’s perspective this is all just a strange, sometimes terrible, but nevertheless weird and wonderful game. It’s story. Story in the making. Story that is never fundamentally good or evil – because to be fundamentally good or evil it would have to be real.

“And what? You’re saying it isn’t?”

Oh dear, it does sound confusing at times, but I assure you – now that I can see it from Faery’s perspective it’s starting to make more sense. When the characters on the beach agreed to go along with King Cnut’s new story line – that was the beginning of a whole new age – the modern age we call it. That’s what we’ve been living in. That’s where we still are – or we were – until Roger and Gill started interfering with me and various others along the way. So now, you see, those who agreed to wilful blindness and the shortsightedness of material gain – they’re no less responsible for what’s now happening than Roger and Gill, as we’re all actors together in one morphogenic drama.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

No. What I meant to say is that – hey ho the wind and the rain... We take everything so very seriously. We try to put together rational explanations, but in the end, things only truly start making sense if you’re willing to face and see the logical inconsistencies inherent in 3D reality, because this is only half the picture. Once the rest is pasted in it starts making perfect sense, but to do so, to paste it in, we have to face our deepest fear – we have to face the goblin standing before King Canute, and the fear the courtiers had of losing face, or falling from favour, of getting left behind, of being all alone before the relentless power of nature’s incoming tide. And so, at the time they chose power and a storyline that was skewed heavily towards “what matters” rather than “what is” – but in doing so they made themselves weak. All except Roger, that is.

“Roger? Your Roger?”

Well he’s hardly mine – but yes, he was there – just a boy in fact – cook’s boy. He was the only one who didn’t ignore the evil goblin’s piercing gaze, and for that he was rewarded with special powers – the gnomiki saw he was their man and he’s been serving them ever since.

“So how old is he?”

Dr Fenwick, once we accept Faery, things like age don’t really matter. There’s... how can I put it? Maybe that’s all I should say – there is – a constant vast, interwoven field or stream of “there is” – and we’re a part of it. It’s only divided up into neat square sections when you remove Faery from the equation. Then you only get one small frame at a time. So, have I answered your question Dr Fenwick? Are you content?

I stare with surprise as Dr Fenwick seems to be struggling, struggling with something bigger than he can quite grasp. I feel the beetle mark on my forehead tingling so I activate it without a second thought...

But of course – Dr Fenwick was there too – how foolish of me.

Dr Fenwick, now a court physician is desperately trying to avert his gaze from the diabolical goblin, and his mind is doing everything it possibly can to deny the fact that there is anything there at all. “P-42” he murmurs to himself in a trancelike state – and the terrible weight of seeing too much vanishes. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

“P-42” I ask... whatever’s that?

Dr Fenwick looks bemused. “I’m sorry? Did you say something?”

Oh no, nothing at all...