Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula
Explanation: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula on the lower left is associated with the bright star Rigel, to its right, in the constellation Orion. More formally known as IC 2118, the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from Rigel. Fine dust in the nebula reflects the light. Pictured above, the blue color of the Witch Head Nebula and of the dust surrounding Rigel is caused not only by Rigel's blue color but because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. The same physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in Earth's atmosphere are molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. Rigel, the Witch Head Nebula, and gas and dust that surrounds them lie about 800 light-years away.
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Thales found himself listening groggily to the sky in what appeared to be his late morning bed. I am in a studied deep sleep stupor, he fancied. Yet I was up earlier with aromas and tastes of fruit, bread and cheese. The stone circle at Avenue’s end. The River pleads, “No more, no more.” Silent lightning shoots across my brow. This is as an omen too late received. A cornerstone of questions to break into pieces and fly.
“Good morning, again,” responded Kassi. “I fear we will have lost the battle by noon.”
“How are you here?” he questioned foggily.
“We four are,” commented Marios from behind. “We await the joint meeting with Aeneas and Sophia.”
“Salamon, you too? I did not see you.”
“You did not look, Thales,” he commented wearily from his sitting place on the dirt floor. “A move has been made, Thales, but we do not know what it is.”
“By the Supervisor?”
“We do not know,” replied Kassi. “Aeneas, does not know. He had a dream.”
“A dream? We all have dreams,” countered Thales. I had one myself just moments ago – about the stone circle.”
“Aeneas mentioned the stone circle in his own dream,” whispered Salamon to Marios who then pointed towards Thales and said, “I saw Aeneas first. He mentioned the stone circle, that was the first thing he mentioned, the old tree within the stone circle.”
“It may have meaning,” suggested Kassi. “A goddess?”
Sophia will know,” uttered Marios reasonably. “No more speculation.”
The four were taken to heart and their imaginations fed in the dread of future tense until the door opened and Sophia entered alone.
Sophia with lush over-the-shoulders auburn hair appears almost as striking as a full-bodied Greek goddess who no one wishes to cross. ‘This is a way,’ she thinks as she walked into the room to greet the other four. ‘Our spirit-world is about to change whether we five are the instigators or not. We must participate as we are built for such a use. We can help the Living rise, and that alone will be worth our fall.’ With the word fall her words fell into an abyss where a new thought just as sudden rose.
Sophia declared, “We must find a way to reach out and build a bridge to the Living.” She could sense the endless questioning in their eyes. She said, “The events here and now are not controlled by steering a rudder but rather by hoisting the sail or dropping it down at opportune moments. This Rebellion has already begun and Necessity has her first and second move.”
The End of Chapter One
of the fourth book in the Merlyn’s Mind series
The Rebellion
© 2009 Richard H. Orndorff
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