A group of tourists in a dream was visiting a small germanic town for its abundance of curiosity shops. To seek oneself in a place elsewhere was a mere pandemic practice in our time of displacement. In their case even, the banality of buying memorial tokens transformed, if not very obviously, into a processional discovery of the self. In other words, the thing sought wasn't a memento but a totem of self-voyage of every member individually. To put one's whole self-conception in a commodified embodiment is a work for the whim though. One tourist, who was an ardent surveyor of her own self, revealed that she was looking for Monalisa — for whichever semiotic means she couldn't comprehend herself. But for the case a word does often stimulate the believers' performance of approaching things, she didn't mind that absurd, impulsive suggestion. There could be something to unravel between that archetype and herself. The young tourist went into a shop owned by an old asian pair, brimful of curiosities from the far east stapling carelessly on top of another. The good lady but sent her away for the daybreak before she managed to find a thing. Perhaps on that very instant she managed to cultivate a poetic thinking which conceived Monalisa as something experiential instead of materialized, she was convinced that its finding might be somewhere other than any of those shop.
From then on she was no longer a tourist but traveler, even if the latter is not particularly less naive than the former, as her ritual of self-finding turned into a disoriented odyssey to investigate the mystified womanhood. Now this traveler took a bike and wandered about the town, encountering a friend from the past to whom she explained,
"It's convenient that we mostly find our antique soul in the plentiful options of capitalism, or when being spontaneous with second-hand curiosities. But I used to call God with a word and my quest shouldn't feel different. My travel will be confused between the cardinal points but since this is a dream, I won't get lost."The friend, whose curiosity was only bewildered, followed her. She even celebrated the traveler's quest and spread the spiritual endeavour to passersby that, as the fascination quickly went contagious, more and more people were joining. There was a discrepancy of verve, a gap of interaction and consent between the traveler and her numerous followers. She didn't wish to sell her insight for any prestige so it was easy to keep going further and ignore everything behind her. But indeed guilt was accumulating from this very act of ignorance and she was only holding it down. A woman was seen by the side of the road among people who flocked about her as if in great attachment, and everyone behind the traveler greeted her eagerly. She had a beauty that is humble and in no need of any justification. Her figure was tall and lean, dark skinned and without hair. She was graceful in her moves, honest in how she gazed and strongly magnetic that it haunted the nape of the traveler's thoughts.
The road soon came into a slope and the slope ended in a hilltop. Three walls were standing firm side by side making an open construction where a tall window was resting in the middle. Venturing towards it, the traveler found a ghastly sight of an event whose dimensional relationship to the space she found herself previously in was rather illogical. It was never clear how it became a castle under her feet, the hilltop was at once an interior of a tower which was as though cloud-high. The ground from which it was erecting was too far below to be caught the glimpse of. An identical tower could be seen across it, a knight appeared by its window. He was exploding in delight as if drunk, getting amused while holding a blindfolded woman into the open air. The misery of the weeping woman in his grasp wasn't enough to stop him from sending her into a great fall downwards, into an instant death, and he only light-heartedly came back by the window with another victim. He teased with her for a while, then, instead of letting her fall, he hung her on one of the strings stretching between the tower and a balcony not so faraway. Several other victims had been hanging blindfolded on the strings and, similar to the previous two, were clothed in ecclesiastical robes and headdresses, women and men altogether. The mixture of expressions woven on their faces was the most disturbing, because you couldn't tell from the covered eyes whether they were enduring fear and the exposure of naked sun with the defence of dignity and composure or they were none other than tortured. Perhaps both were the same thing at all. Then there were also both merry voices and disappointed shouts coming from that balcony, spectators of the inhumane show who were the castle elites. The whole thing was in fact a mere entertainment where these elites would gamble whether each person in the clothing of priesthood shown to them was valid or a disguise. The laypeople who were always in disguise would be thrown away, the ecclesiastic hung in the sun to be humiliated. It was called the Christ-Hanging.
Terrified, the traveler left the window but she couldn't find the hilltop she was at before. She went into a room nearby to find another window. Across it was another set of strings stretched and two nuns were hanging down. They strangely had no blindfolds, the boldness of their misery was thus unveiled to the viewer. The traveler recognised one of them from another time in her past, she had always been particularly observant of the person's eyes in that case. Her big eyes that promptly bulged the moment the traveler moved her lips to pronounce her name. Stopping her before a name could be called, she went on,
"Never mention our names! If the knight hears I would be sent into the death fall! And not only us who are being hung for sun-ful hours, be careful not to mention the existence of that woman within the castle, for like all of us who are being hung for humiliation and revenge, a harm would follow her fate!"
"Who is she?"
"She was our wise Empress, her personhood is a charm. But her nobility was seen ill and disadvantaging for the political sake of the greedy elites. She should continue living peacefully among humble people who love her."
The traveler left the room perplexed. The crowd who was previously following her due reverence was seen untroubled by the savagery running on the other side and even inattentive towards her presence. At that sudden turn of moment she only recognized a sense of security rather than any minute heartbreak. A sense of liberation that, though to her displeased guilt-conscious nature, required detachment and the selfish fight for such. Eventually she would understand perhaps about the danger of sought things.
From then on she was no longer a tourist but traveler, even if the latter is not particularly less naive than the former, as her ritual of self-finding turned into a disoriented odyssey to investigate the mystified womanhood. Now this traveler took a bike and wandered about the town, encountering a friend from the past to whom she explained,
"It's convenient that we mostly find our antique soul in the plentiful options of capitalism, or when being spontaneous with second-hand curiosities. But I used to call God with a word and my quest shouldn't feel different. My travel will be confused between the cardinal points but since this is a dream, I won't get lost."The friend, whose curiosity was only bewildered, followed her. She even celebrated the traveler's quest and spread the spiritual endeavour to passersby that, as the fascination quickly went contagious, more and more people were joining. There was a discrepancy of verve, a gap of interaction and consent between the traveler and her numerous followers. She didn't wish to sell her insight for any prestige so it was easy to keep going further and ignore everything behind her. But indeed guilt was accumulating from this very act of ignorance and she was only holding it down. A woman was seen by the side of the road among people who flocked about her as if in great attachment, and everyone behind the traveler greeted her eagerly. She had a beauty that is humble and in no need of any justification. Her figure was tall and lean, dark skinned and without hair. She was graceful in her moves, honest in how she gazed and strongly magnetic that it haunted the nape of the traveler's thoughts.
The road soon came into a slope and the slope ended in a hilltop. Three walls were standing firm side by side making an open construction where a tall window was resting in the middle. Venturing towards it, the traveler found a ghastly sight of an event whose dimensional relationship to the space she found herself previously in was rather illogical. It was never clear how it became a castle under her feet, the hilltop was at once an interior of a tower which was as though cloud-high. The ground from which it was erecting was too far below to be caught the glimpse of. An identical tower could be seen across it, a knight appeared by its window. He was exploding in delight as if drunk, getting amused while holding a blindfolded woman into the open air. The misery of the weeping woman in his grasp wasn't enough to stop him from sending her into a great fall downwards, into an instant death, and he only light-heartedly came back by the window with another victim. He teased with her for a while, then, instead of letting her fall, he hung her on one of the strings stretching between the tower and a balcony not so faraway. Several other victims had been hanging blindfolded on the strings and, similar to the previous two, were clothed in ecclesiastical robes and headdresses, women and men altogether. The mixture of expressions woven on their faces was the most disturbing, because you couldn't tell from the covered eyes whether they were enduring fear and the exposure of naked sun with the defence of dignity and composure or they were none other than tortured. Perhaps both were the same thing at all. Then there were also both merry voices and disappointed shouts coming from that balcony, spectators of the inhumane show who were the castle elites. The whole thing was in fact a mere entertainment where these elites would gamble whether each person in the clothing of priesthood shown to them was valid or a disguise. The laypeople who were always in disguise would be thrown away, the ecclesiastic hung in the sun to be humiliated. It was called the Christ-Hanging.
Terrified, the traveler left the window but she couldn't find the hilltop she was at before. She went into a room nearby to find another window. Across it was another set of strings stretched and two nuns were hanging down. They strangely had no blindfolds, the boldness of their misery was thus unveiled to the viewer. The traveler recognised one of them from another time in her past, she had always been particularly observant of the person's eyes in that case. Her big eyes that promptly bulged the moment the traveler moved her lips to pronounce her name. Stopping her before a name could be called, she went on,
"Never mention our names! If the knight hears I would be sent into the death fall! And not only us who are being hung for sun-ful hours, be careful not to mention the existence of that woman within the castle, for like all of us who are being hung for humiliation and revenge, a harm would follow her fate!"
"Who is she?"
"She was our wise Empress, her personhood is a charm. But her nobility was seen ill and disadvantaging for the political sake of the greedy elites. She should continue living peacefully among humble people who love her."
The traveler left the room perplexed. The crowd who was previously following her due reverence was seen untroubled by the savagery running on the other side and even inattentive towards her presence. At that sudden turn of moment she only recognized a sense of security rather than any minute heartbreak. A sense of liberation that, though to her displeased guilt-conscious nature, required detachment and the selfish fight for such. Eventually she would understand perhaps about the danger of sought things.
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