| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: spreading a whorl of tiny, spiky, brownish leaves, that lengthened
rapidly, lengthened visibly even as we watched. The movement was slower
than any animal's, swifter than any plant's I have ever seen before. How
can I suggest it to you - the way that growth went on? The leaf tips grew
so that they moved onward even while we looked at them. The brown
seed-case shrivelled and was absorbed with an equal rapidity. Have you
ever on a cold day taken a thermometer into your warm hand and watched the
little thread of mercury creep up the tube? These moon plants grew like
that.
In a few minutes, as it seemed, the buds of the more forward of these
plants had lengthened into a stem and were even putting forth a second
The First Men In The Moon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: followed it to profounder depths. Floors flashed by me as I raced,
but I did not pause to explore them. In my whirling brain there
had begun to beat a certain rhythm which set my right hand twitching
in unison. I wanted to unlock something, and felt that I knew
all the intricate twists and pressures needed to do it. It would
be like a modern safe with a combination lock.
Dream or not,
I had once known and still knew. How any dream - or scrap of unconsciously
absorbed legend - could have taught me a detail so minute, so
intricate, and so complex, I did not attempt to explain to myself.
I was beyond all coherent thought. For was not this whole experience
Shadow out of Time |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by
knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he
knew--he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when
they had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new
and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and
through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life
worth living.
All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to
peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches,
and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night
sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the
Riders of the Purple Sage |
