David Policar 1992
You arise, and you know at once that this is a dream; more, you know it to be a true dream. Around you all is fog and glitter, beneath you your body sleeps still. Above you there is a light, a faint pulsing star that brightens as you regard it, and grows as you approach it, until it is no star, but a great glowing tunnel that surrounds you, showing flashes of rainbow as it speeds past you, until at last it surrounds you no more, and you are in a space emptier than any you've ever known, empty of all save a slab of crystal, glittering with a light all its own.
Behind the crystal altar stands a figure robed in white - at first, he appears an old man, but great branches of antlers bear down his brow, and his eyes are fire, and you know he is no man, and older than age. He speaks, and his voice is a shout, a whisper, a question, a plea:
"Who do you serve?"
The question frightens you, for you do not know its answer - nor do you know how to answer, for you have forgotten who and what you are. His is a great power, a commanding presence - do you call him master? Is his question the test of a recalcitrant servant? You do not know, and yet your tongue moves, and you hear your own voice answer.
"I serve Man."
When you look again at the horned man, he is gone; in his place is a lady unlike any you have ever seen. Beautiful, yes, with the beauty of a storm or a raging waterfall - her eyes are ice, her hair the wind, her skin the blue of clear lakes and cloudless skies. She parts her robe, and you feel the lightning of her skin, and fire rages within you but you do not burn. She speaks, as well, and her voice is laughter and mockery and love:
"Have you served well?"
"Not half so well," your voice answers, "as Man deserves. Not half so well I serve I might." There is no shame in your voice, no apology -- merely truth.
"You are yet young," smiles the Sea, "and untutored."
"Will you teach me?", you ask the child who lounges, naked and hairless, where the Sea stood, and he laughs and laughs and laughs, standing first on one leg, then on his hands, then rolling on his back.
And you know that he is not the one to teach you while you live, and that the choice is yours.
You turn your back on the gleeful child, and the crystal altar shining with the light of stars, and return to yourself, to the dream of life. And though in that dream you will have forgotten yourself and your choice, you know the choice has been made, and made well.