i transport myself two millenia back in time and thousands of miles in an arbitrary space direction.
i enter a dwelling of sorts, and it blurs between wood and stone, thatched and open-air. the scene flickers like three-dimensional images on glass, and sometimes the dwelling is in the middle of a smallish town, sometimes it feels more on the outskirts.
like continually-molded gel humanoid figures gather at the edge of my vision. i say the edge, because only one thing occupies my attention. like a flattened vortex seen head-on my sight is focused inexorably on something that stands out from the rest in virtue of being real. more real, even, than my thoughts as i look–they, too, are only shifting flits of particles in comparison.
as i gaze in wonder and self-abandonment at the beauty crystallized before me, looking the more far away for its size, i unbiddenly echo the amazement of boromir as the weight of the ring grew full upon his mind. or, perhaps his utterance is really the inverse shadow of mine–his a reaction to an unspeakable horror and mine to unbounded joy.
strange that the fate of the world should rest on so small a thing.
