It was all a dream. A strange, delusional dream. At least, I think
it was a dream.
We were on the Calero Deathmarch of 2005. The large group had
split up into two smaller groups, one lagging behind as the other
forged ahead with a single-mindedness of purpose. I decided to try
to place myself between both groups in an effort to keep both in
sight, and perhaps in communication with each other. I wasn’t
particularly successful at the latter but had pretty good luck with
the former, not that it really mattered.
As I slogged up the long climb on the back hills, I was
astonished to come upon a man sitting next to the trail, in a small
clearing between some bushes. He looked like some sort of
Bangladeshi guru, in colorful flowing robes and with a long beard.
His eyes had a crazy sparkle to them, and he wore a perpetual grin
on his face that also seemed a bit demented, although it was also
benign and friendly. His smile only got larger as his gaze settled
on me.
"Hi there," I said. I had hoped to be just a little more witty,
but my oxygen-starved brain was not interested in cooperating at
that particular moment.
"I am here to guide you to that which you seek," the strange
mystic said, "Your mind is focused on your goal, this.... Geocache.
But I am here to help you see that the road we are on is in fact
the true goal."
"Huh?" was all I could stammer as I stopped on the trail next to
him. "Yousaywhatnow?"
He grinned at me. "You bear the mark, I can see it clearly. All
is nearby, and perhaps closer than you realize. And all that which
you seek is along the road you travel."
"You must seek out and view the original knowledge. Once you
see," he continued, "Then it is all just a matter of setting." He
gestured to the trees and flowers that surrounded us as I looked on
in a daze. "You need the sum of this experience to come to an
answer. Your knowledge will then multiply. Only by this
understanding will you realize what it is you seek."
I felt dumbstruck, or perhaps simply dumb. "I have no idea what
you’re talking about. In fact I’m fairly confident that you’re just
a delusion my brain is inflicting on me as revenge for this hike.
Although this *is* California...."
"Your subconscious knows more than you realize," he continued,
without hesitation. "Seek out the shapes from the road you travel,
from east to west: the disk, the rod, the spike, and the square."
He held aloft some strange cards with the symbols. Some sort of
tarot perhaps? He flung the cards aloft, and they sprinkled down as
flower petals. Now I knew I was hallucinating.
"Mark my words. Settings. Sums. Multiply your knowledge. The
road you travel. Shapes. You know all you need to know. You only
need complete the picture. In the end, the answer will come in a
form that is familiar to you." Again, there was his benevolent
smile.
Suddenly I awoke. I was lying on the trail with some of the
others looking down at me.
"Are you OK dude?" Kealia asked. He looked concerned.
Jimbob2 shook his head. "You gave us quite a scare there."
"What happened?" I said as I struggled to sit up.
Marky grinned. "You were twitching and mumbling there on the
ground when we found you. It was cool."
Fizzy was holding a small notebook, tapping it with a pen. "Do
you have any idea what these numbers are that you shouted out just
before you woke up? I wrote them down, of course, and I was
thinking they might make a good puzzle. We could call it "Nazgul’s
Brain Has Gone Bye-Bye" or something."
"Numbers? What numbers? Puzzles with numbers make my head hurt.
Although, it must be said, not anymore than it hurts right now" I
muttered, wincing.
"Well, you must know something about them," Fizzy scowled. "You
sounded quite specific." He read from his notebook:
209553672316
686196101695
As is often the case, I had no idea what he was talking
about.
Do you?