Festival!

Day 23
Weight: 218 lbs.
Food Intake:

• Brunch:
  • orange juice
  • whole grain pancake with pecans, walnuts and honey syrup
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 strips of bacon
• Dinner:
  
  • various fruit juices
  • steamed beans and carrots
  • roasted potatoes
  • carved flank steak
  • fish cooked with almonds
  • mixed greens salad
  • various cheeses, crackers and meatballs
  • chocolate pie

Today was a great gathering of villages from all over these lands. The sun rose over the lake and the air was cool, clean and crisp. The leaves on the trees were changing to glorious autumn color and falling.There was no breakfast because all of the land's best cooks were setting up their cooking pits, fires, and ovens for use all day. For masons like me there was nothing to do but wander around the island and enjoy the beauty of it.

At mid-morning we had a brunch consisting of pancakes, eggs and bacon. For the rest of the afternoon, I watched as the villagers interacted with each other...old friends, new friends. I rested most of the day content and one with the nature and peoples around me.

By sunset, a great feast was prepared. There were bonfires and dancing. Everyone ate and drank. Several of the leaders gave speeches and many just went up to a platform and talked a bit telling stories about things that had happened to them since the last gathering. Some of the natives sang beautiful songs. It was a grand evening.

After the feast, the villagers began making their way down to the shore of the lake. It was late and very dark. The waxing moon had set. There were no fires on the beach-like shore of the lake. At the shore of the lake, everyone started lying down in the sand. I followed in turn and laid down. Everyone was looking up into the sky at the stars. Soon it began...one, two, then a pair. There was a meteor shower...beautiful streaks of color across the sky. We lay there for hours watching this heavenly display.

Then I noticed something odd. I was looking at the big dipper, but something was wrong. It didn't look right. The handle of the dipper was bent back toward the stem at a very sharp angle. Then all at once it hit me. I remembered reading something a long time ago about how due to the movement of the sun through the galaxy and our solar system's perspective of constellations, images like the big dipper would change shape over time. The top of the handle would eventually bend back into the stem. If this was correct, then what I was seeing in the sky told me that thousands of years had passed. I was not on some remote island...I was not somewhere far in the past...I was someplace far, far into the future.

Suddenly there was a bright light in the sky between Mars and Betelguese. It grew brighter and brighter until it lit up the whole sky in blinding white light. Someone grabbed my shoulder and shook me. I opened my eyes and saw my wife in bed beside me attempting to wake me up. She asked if I was okay. I looked around me and realized that I had dreamed everything since the time I found myself floating in the raft. I told her that I felt a little thinner, healthier, and well-rested...and also that I felt like getting up and cooking breakfast for us. "How about some polenta with fresh fruit?"