A Journey to Far Meta-Four

By Dan Lambert

It was late one balmy August night when I went to Mars.
I was in that final moment of lingering wakefulness, when a soft, fatherly voice invaded my warm, restful thoughts.
“Come with me to Mars!”
“Who are you?” I asked in my sleep-voice. “I’m tired. Why should I go with you to Mars?”
“Because I will guide you there,” said the Voice. “Never mind who I am right now. I promise you that you will be safe. I know the way. You won’t be Driving Blind!”
I knew then that I was dreaming. With nothing to lose, and plenty of grist for my writing mill to gain, I agreed to follow my mysterious Guide. After all, it isn’t every day that someone offers to take me on a journey to Mars.
My Guide took my hand, and we immediately levitated and flew out my bedroom window, Peter Pan-style.
As we rose upward through Earth’s cloud-enshrouded atmosphere, I turned and got my first good look at my Guide in the silver moonlight.
He looked strangely familiar; elderly but somehow eternally young, with a boyish grin emblazoned upon his ruddy face. The stars reflected in a silvery Kaleidoscope upon his glossy black, horn-rimmed eyeglasses. His shock of silver-white hair seemed to contain all the mysteries of One Timeless Spring I remembered from my childhood, many years ago.
My Guide saw that I was looking over at him, and met my gaze with an elfin grin. “Take a look back at the Earth, Dan! I think you will be surprised at how far back it is. We have truly embarked upon a Journey to Far Metaphor!”
So I gazed back, and saw a cloud-wrapped, blue ball quickly disappearing into the ether behind us. I looked back at my Guide. “I realize this is a dream,” I explained, “but I have to ask you: why do you look so familiar? Have I met you before? And how do you know my name?”
The white-haired man grinned again, and I found his smile so infectious that I smiled back at him. His smile lifted my spirits, like the greatest Medicine for Melancholy ever invented by man. “You will remember my name in due time, my boy,” he replied. “But for now, let us concentrate on the task at hand, shall we? Take a look up ahead! The Earth behind us is a mere Graveyard for Lunatics. Behold, Mars!”
I looked up ahead of us, and, sure enough, there it was: a red ball of light that seemed to throb with its own internal energy source. The planet appeared to emit its own rhythm – a Sound of Thunder all its own -- but I told myself that was impossible: sound does not exist in space!
My Guide apparently read my mind. He spoke again, in that soft, melodious voice of his: “This is merely a dream, remember? Or so you have convinced yourself. So be it! Remember, Dan: anything is possible in a dream, even sound in space!”
My Guide and I seemed to speed up as we broke through the wafer-thin atmosphere of Mars. The air began to heat up as well. I wiped my sweaty brow with my right hand, while gripping my Guide’s hand tightly with my left.
“Do you feel this heat?” my Guide asked excitedly.
I had to scream my answer to be heard over the sound of rushing wind. “Yes! It’s getting hotter by the second! I feel like it’s Fahrenheit 451!”
My Guide laughed heartily at this. “But it’s all worth it, my boy! Mars is Heaven down there on the Martian plain!”
When we finally touched down, I surveyed the Martian horizon from our landing spot of glorious, reddish-orange sand.
I pointed at a gleaming, silvery structure crouching on the horizon. “What’s that?”
My Guide squinted. “That, my friend, is the grandest spaceport on Mars: Meta-Four!” He pulled a tattered map from his back pocket, and scratched his head. “We were supposed to touch down there, actually. I’m really not sure how we ended up way out here in the boondocks! I’m usually quite good at these technical things, honestly. I Sing the Body Electric!”
“How are we going to get there?” I asked, already afraid to hear his answer.
“We’re going to do what any industrious space traveler does: we’re going to walk!” Just as I had feared. He looked down at my fuzzy, brown bedroom slippers, and his own white sneakers. “We have the appropriate footwear, so let’s hoof it! From the Dust Returned, my boy! Let’s get going! The last one there’s a rotten egg!”
So, we hiked off toward the horizon, my Guide leading the way like an excited boy scout. I was beginning to feel like the droid C-3PO from the movie Star Wars, slowly rusting to death under the desert planet’s twin suns.
As we trudged through the Martian dust, my brown slippers began to take on a reddish-orange hue. My Guide would stop occasionally to point out the local flora and fauna. I had no idea such fascinating trees grew on the surface of Mars. My science teachers had told me about the supposed canals, but not about what my Guide called the Halloween Tree! He explained that each October, golden fruit would sprout from the branches of this extraordinarily-large tree.
“As a matter of fact,” my resourceful traveling companion said, “I think I may have some of that fruit left over from last Halloween!” He rummaged through his many pockets.
“Aha! Eureka!” He finally produced a golden-hued, spherical object roughly the size of a grapefruit. He sectioned it with a Swiss Army knife, and we squatted there under the setting Martian sun, eating the juicy flesh of this most unusual Martian fruit.
I finished my portion Quicker Than the Eye could see. “That was delicious!” I exclaimed.
“Why do you think the Martians call these melons the Golden Apples of the Sun? Why do you think they call this desert the October Country? My friend, this tree is a veritable tourist attraction! Remind me to bring you back here some Halloween! People of all ages – Martians and Terrans alike – line up for miles every year to taste this delectable fruit!”
He smiled and licked his fingers. “I wish we could have One More for the Road, but we need to get to Meta-Four before the sun disappears completely!” He stood up.
“What happens when the sun goes down?” I inquired.
“Well, for one thing, this blasted heat doesn’t let up! Meta-Four is equipped with full air-conditioning! Once we get there, it’s Farewell Summer for us!”
He leaned close to my ear. “For another thing, this desert isn’t safe for Terrans – or most Martians – after sundown. That’s when the really dangerous Martians, the subterranean (or should I say sub-MARTIAN) ones, come up out of their holes. They hunt humans every night, until Long After Midnight. The Martian Chronicles are full of the horror stories: the Sub-Martians love to eat surface-dwelling Martians as well as humans. You’ll be walking along with your Best Girl, and suddenly all the Sub-Martians get the same idea at once: Let’s All Kill Constance! They start popping up out of the red soil like a giant Whack-A-Mole game gone crazy. After that sun goes down, my boy, you’ll hear nothing escape my lips but these words: Something Wicked This Way Comes!”
My Guide didn’t need to convince me any further. Death is a Lonely Business, and I wanted nothing to do with it. We double-timed it to the gates of the Meta-Four Spaceport.
Meta-Four rose out of the red Martian landscape like a beautiful, chrome-plated castle. As we approached the gates, we saw a boy of around nine sitting cross-legged in the red sand, reading a comic book called “R is for Rocket.” Another comic book lay open and well-read on his lap. It was called “S is for Space.”
My Guide’s eyes lit up at the sight of the boy. “How are you, Guy? Long time, no see!”
The boy grinned up at my Guide, flashing us a shining, metallic mouthful of orthodontia. “I’m fine, Mr. B! A new shipment of comics came in on last month’s shuttle! How are you?”
“Just fine, my boy!” my Guide replied. “This is my new friend Dan. He just came in from Earth!”
It was Guy’s turn to light up. “Earth? Really? Wow!”
My Guide turned to me. “Guy hasn’t been back to Terra since his fifth birthday. Isn’t that right, Guy?” The boy nodded enthusiastically.
My Guide looked up at the tall gates. “Shall we enter?”
The interior of the Meta-Four Spaceport’s central terminal was a glittering cornucopia of cutting-edge technology. Along every wall of the hexagonal structure lay bank after bank of high-tech machinery. My Guide tried to explain the function of each machine, but I understood only a fraction of what he said.
There was one really big, noisy contraption, the purpose of which was to construct toy robot bumblebees for the amusement of the Spaceport’s younger visitors. It was called the Toynbee Convector. There was a whole bank of machines designed to cheer up depressed colonists when they felt homesick for Terra Firma. They were called the Machineries of Joy.
My Guide went to a computer monitor, and read the words scrolling across the screen. He emitted a yelp of delight, and turned to me. He grabbed my shoulders. “The Dark Carnival is here tonight! Let’s take a look!”
The Dark Carnival was a traveling, living museum of oddities from all corners of the Universe. The Carnival traveled from spaceport to spaceport, entertaining and educating weary space travelers for a small fee. We stopped and talked with two of the exhibits, a husband-and-wife team calling themselves the Illustrated Man and the Illustrated Woman. Their tattoos told a story in pictures called “The Homecoming.” Once you finished reading the Man’s tattoos, you had to read the Woman’s tattoos to learn the rest of the story.
“Aren’t those two the Cat’s Pajamas?” my Guide asked me, as we walked away.
I was speechless, so I simply nodded my head in an expression of affirmation and awe.
The last Carnival exhibit we visited was a display of the exotic sea life oceanographers had pulled from the oceans of Earth and the canals of Mars. The exhibit was called “Green Shadows, White Whale.”
My Guide laughed. “That word, ‘Green,’ reminds me of the days I spent in Ireland, back on Earth. Do you know the similarity between the Irish legal system and the Martian legal system?”
I shook my head “no.”
“Both the Irish and the Martians have laws against being Drunk and in Charge of a Bicycle!” he exclaimed. “Therefore, it’s our good fortune that we are not returning to Earth in the morning on a bicycle! After all, I love a wee shot of Dandelion Wine before breakfast!”
“Must we return to Earth so soon?” I asked.
He grinned, and put an arm around my shoulder. “Unfortunately, yes. The magic that got us here only works for twelve hours at a time, every twenty-three Earth years or so! If we were to miss the proverbial boat in the morning, we would both be marooned on Mars for another quarter of an Earth century! I wish I could visit Mars every day, every night, and every Yestermorrow, but I can’t! Nobody can! My previous visit to Mars was When Elephants Last in the Doorway Bloomed, and let me tell you, my boy, in case you don’t already know: that was a bloody long time ago!”
So, in spite of my protests, my Guide returned me to Earth, and to the comfort of my own bedroom, early the next morning.
As he began to leave my room, I called after him. “Wait! At least tell me your name!”
His eyes glittered as he stared into mine. “If I tell you my name, will you trust me when I also tell you our journey was real? Will you trust your own heart, which tells you that dreams can and will become reality?”
I eagerly nodded my head “yes.”
“My name is easy to remember, my boy. It can be found between DOE and ME. You know me already, but you have fooled yourself into thinking you are too old to remember. My name is Ray.”
It all made sense at that moment. Ray had been taking me on Journeys to Far Metaphor (and Meta-Four) for as long as I could read.
He smiled at me before closing the door behind him.

Dedicated to Ray Bradbury.

Thank you to Carol Sperling for the concept.