Choosing the Stone: A 21st Century Fable

By DW Hohlbein

She claims she is Themis, the mythological titaness of justice and first oracle of Delphi. The five guests staying at Hyperborea have to decide if they believe her.

The guests heard about Hyperborea from friends: Write to Clea saying you want to visit. If you get an invitation, go. It's an amazing place. Re

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Hohlbein
• Release date: Jun 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578920757

DW Hohlbein

DW Hohlbein is retired from work as a short-order cook, road crew foreman, small business owner, teacher and editor, among about 40 other stints at something or other. He lives in the Pacific Northwest. This is his first novel.

Book preview

Part I. Prologue

On them that worship the Ruthless Will,

On them that dream, doth His judgment wait.

Dreams of the proud man, making great and greater ever

Things which are not of God.

In wide and devious coverts, hunter-wise,

He coucheth Time’s unhasting stride,

Following, following, him whose eyes

Look not to Heaven. For all is vain,

The pulse of the heart, the plot of the brain,

That striveth beyond the laws that live.

And is thy Faith so much to give,

Is it so hard a thing to see,

That the Spirit of God, whate’er it be,

The Law that abides and changes not, ages long,

The Eternal and Nature-born—these things be strong?

Euripides

Episode 0

Clotho stops spinning. Something is disturbing the tapestry. The warp is rippling. Lachesis puts down her measuring tape and Atropos lets go of her shears. They can see the undulations roiling the warp, like the rippling waves of a bay or a field of wind-ruffled grass. Some powerful force is moving. The sisters wonder if the disturbance has to do with Ge’s distress, her suffering due to human lawlessness.

The sisters have noticed that they are weaving more and more souls into the tapestry who do not follow the Law either out of ignorance or willful pride or both, out of a mistaken belief that they are not subject to the Law and answer only to themselves. Entranced as they are by the Creation’s ceaseless generation of changing forms, they die without knowing they are time’s prisoners, completely unaware of the eternal. When Atropos cuts their thread, these confused souls, chained to matter and memory, are immediately dragged down to earth, into darkness, before they have even a momentary glimpse of reality. Their spirit sinks back into the material of Creation to join the churn of becoming, and they must again wander as shades waiting to be reborn. Lachesis is having difficulty determining where and when they might transmigrate in order to give them a chance to gain the knowledge and understanding of the Law that would allow them to die properly, with hope.

The rippling of the tapestry ceases, and their work recommences, as it must. They are time itself--spinning, measuring, cutting, spinning, measuring, cutting--and their work does not cease until another great exhalation, when all movement stops, when everything is at rest again for another long night.

Episode 1

They are exploring the kitchen dimly lit by solar-powered lamps, talking about what to make for dinner. As promised, there is plenty of food available. Plutarch notices an Instant Pot and ventures, Chili?

–Sure, sounds good.

–Who knows how to use this thing?

–It’s just a pressure cooker, see? Just have to make sure the lid is fastened right.

Several hours ago Clea had met them where the road to Hyperborea meets the mountain highway, taking the five of them 20 miles or so in a faded Subaru to the lodge. As instructed, they had all made their way to the designated intersection landmarked by a long-abandoned Sinclair gas station. It was still possible to see the outlines of a dinosaur on the rusting sign now propped up by a tree. From there, Clea took them the rest of the way on a one-lane asphalt road that soon became a very narrow, root-ruptured dirt road twisting through a pine forest.

No one in the car had the energy to carry on a conversation. For all of them, it had been a long day. Her passengers had just enough energy to find out where everyone lived, where they had started from in the morning, and how they got to the meeting place. Then only tired smiles all around. They were all second-guessing themselves about accepting their invitations now that they were in a car with the not unfriendly but not talkative Clea on their way to Hyperborea, not having any idea what they had signed up for beyond what the people who had invited them had told them, which was nothing but vague generalities about what a great experience it would be and how they should go. The price was right, though—pay what you can or pay nothing—and for two weeks at what sounded like a beautiful place, complete with hot springs. None of them could afford an actual two-week vacation anywhere, so why not? Clea, as they would discover would be her way, offered little information during the drive except to tell them as they pulled out of the abandoned gas station parking lot that it would be another hour or so before they arrived.

They parked just as the sun was dropping out. The lodge, sided with cedar boards and roofed with green metal, had two stories and a wide covered porch that wrapped around in a U. Stepping out of the car, the first thing they smelled was sulfur. Once inside, as expected, Clea asked for their phones, and in exchange she gave each of them a note with the name he or she would use while staying there. The instructions they had received after arranging their visit urged them to accept their names in good faith and humor, and while there in Hyperborea, to adopt them. The instructions had also asked them not to bring laptops, books, cards or games—just clothes, a flashlight, a toothbrush, and a blank journal and pen in case they wanted to write something.

After collecting their phones, she took the five guests to their rooms on the second floor of the lodge and left them to settle. Each room was small and more or less the same, the only differences being the type of bedside table lamp and the fabric and designs of the throw rugs. Every room had the same wicker chair at the same small empty table, the same pinewood dresser, and the same twin bed with the same bedding and two pillows. All had one screened window with a view of trees and either the river or the gardens. One person might describe the rooms as spartan, another might say they were cozy.

Pinto or black beans? Plutarch feels responsible to get dinner going since chili was his idea. There’s both. The rest of the cohort rummage around for knives to chop veggies.

–What about Clea? Does she eat with us?

–Who knows?

–Will we ever see her or our phones again? What are they going to do? Steal our identities?

What did the letter say about mealtimes? Hypatia doesn’t remember any directions in the letter about eating with the ‘staff.’ Let’s make enough in case she comes back hungry.

There is a notebook with simple recipes on the maple counter lining two walls of the roomy kitchen/pantry. After an energetic group effort motivated by sudden hunger and aided by the One Pot, they are seated at a round oak table in the middle of the room eating chili. No one is talking. There are only the sloppy sounds of food being devoured. Light flickers from several candles bunched in the middle of the table. Earlier nervous comradery during meal prep is now the shyness of eating with strangers. They have traveled far without a meal. They are famished, and they are anxious.

Plutarch breaks the silence. So what’s with the names, anyway?

Hypatia looks around the table. You Googled ‘Hyperborea’ before agreeing to come here, right? Everyone had. The Greek names make sense. Hyperborea is a mythical land of the ancient Greeks. No one named Brad or Susan ever went to Hyperborea. I think it’s part of the experience of being here.

I like my name, Corinna says, it’s exotic.

Me, too. The four syllables roll off the tongue.

Mine has four syllables too, at least I think so, but how is it pronounced? Anyone want to give it a try? Everyone tries to say Hyperides, resulting in four different ways of saying it.

How about we just call you ‘Hyp’, offers Corinna.

Fatigue has infiltrated their bodies and minds after the adrenaline rush of getting food on the table. Everyone suddenly realizes there’s no more energy left for talking, or anything else, and head up to their rooms. Some had traveled farther than others, but all had traveled for at least a day to get there and while traveling everyone had burned up a lot of emotional energy worrying about what they were getting themselves into. That anxiety had only intensified since getting picked up by the not-glib Clea, who, after taking their phones, giving them their names, and showing them their rooms, had disappeared.

***

Hyperborea is not a tourist destination or a lodging advertised online. Browse for it and you won’t find anything except references to a mythical land in the far north beyond the boundaries of the known world, the home of the immortal Hyperboreans. Apollo reportedly spent the winter there, vacating the cold slope of Mt. Parnassus where in clement seasons he presided as the resident god at Delphi.

When he left for the winter, Dionysus took over the Delphic operation. Apollo’s oracles also took the winter off while he was away, giving Dionysus free rein to instigate his orgiastic revels in the forest fueled by wine, revels which culminated in besotted Maenads tearing live animals apart—or so it’s said. These rites were unbecoming of an Olympian, but since he was more an honorary than a rightful member of the pantheon, why should he care? And he didn’t. And neither did his frenzied followers. While the immortals of Mt. Olympus may have stuck their perfect noses up at his antics, the mortals of earth really, really loved him.

But nothing resembling debauchery went on in Hyperborea. There the sun always shines and as Pindar describes:

Never the Muse is absent from their ways:

lyres clash and flutes cry

and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.

Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed

in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live.

There is a rumor that degenerate Atlanteans once made plans to invade Hyperborea, though they ultimately thought better of it. The Hyperboreans after all were 10 feet tall, in excellent physical condition, and under the protection of Apollo. Atlantean skullduggery seems unlikely, considering that according to Plato the Atlanteans…

…despised everything but virtue, not caring for their present state of life, and thinking lightly on the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtuous friendship with one another, and that by excessive zeal for them, and honor of them, the good of them is lost, and friendship perishes with them. By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, all that which we have described waxed and increased in them…

Whatever waxes always wanes, including the moral perfection of an ancient race of humanity from the Golden Age, so maybe the rumor is true:

…but when this divine portion began to fade away in them and became diluted too often and with too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper-hand, then they, being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly. To him who had an eye to see, they began to appear base, and had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and power.

Everyone knows what happened to the Atlanteans. Zeus lost patience with their godlike pretentions and impious hypocrisy, their inexcusable hubris, so he manufactured a day and night of torrential rain that sank the continent of Atlantis to the bottom of the sea.

No one knows, though, what happened to the fabled race of polar giants, the immortal Hyperboreans. There are fanciful theories, but no witnesses or respected conjectures from famous ancient philosophers. The only evidence people can point to is intriguing stone and ice formations in the Arctic that with the proper amount of imagination, enhanced by suggestion—Do you see it now? Look! There’s a tower, and it’s surrounded by a wall!—might resemble the ruins of an ancient civilization. The theory is that Hyperborea was flash frozen somehow and with the polar cap now melting, evidence of the Hyperboreans is literally popping up out of the ice.

There is also the tale of the Electric Wars, waged by aliens, a war that included the Hyperboreans who were also aliens sent here to seed the earth. They were the ancient race responsible for all of the mysterious monoliths found all over the planet. They were big enough and strong enough to move the massive stones, and they had the help of advanced alien technology. The so-called Electric Wars wiped the Hyperboreans out, but not before some of them were saved by being reincarnated as the titans and gods of Greek mythology.

***

The five guests just arrived at present-day Hyperborea would enjoy these fantastic stories if they heard them. They are people still curious about the world and its mysteries; they are still interested in the unknown. They are interested in knowing in general, which is not a widespread interest in their time. People of their time are not so much interested in knowing as they are in being distracted, and the electronic technology designed to distract them dominates their attention to such an extent that they usually have no awareness of their surroundings, their senses being fully engaged in whatever is filling the screen held in front of their face and whatever sound is being transmitted through tiny amplifiers implanted in their ears.

Perception is captured and funneled into a small rectangular space filled with pixels. They may be sitting on a park bench next to a sweet-smelling jasmine under an old oak tree, there may be early spring robins hopping around them foraging for worms, there might be a sudden break in the clouds that lets a shaft of sunlight through for just a moment, but they would have no experience of any of these delightful events, and no memories of them. What they will remember is what they saw and heard from the data stream, and this is what they will talk about with people, and when they go to bed this is what they’ll be thinking about, and this will be the last thing they see before closing their eyes.

The guests are also often distracted by these devices, it’s unavoidable, but their consciousness has not been completely captured. They are still interested in learning about the world and themselves. Getting invited to a place named after a mythical paradise seemed to them an alluring break from the routine and the stress of everyday life. In ancient times they might well have been the first to sign up for the expedition beyond the Riphean Mountains to the home of Boreas, the North Wind. Their trip taken in mid-21st century is hardly an adventure in comparison.

They are also people who would never turn down an opportunity for a cheap vacation, no matter how sketchy it sounds, so they had contacted Clea about making reservations and received her charming handwritten letters of confirmation and instructions written on fine linen paper in an elegant cursive. They were to stay for two weeks, and on this first night, after their first meal together, they lay in their twin beds under hand-sewn quilts on a not-yet-chilly early September night looking at the stars and a waxing crescent moon through the screens covering their bedroom windows wondering the same thing: now what?

Episode 2

–What do you think of this group?

–I don’t know, Trip, haven’t had much of a chance to talk with them yet. They’re nervous of course.

Clea and Triptolemos are soaking in the main pool near the lodge, greeting Eos as they do every morning. Sunlight is just starting to slant through the forest canopy. The main pool is the largest of three cement pools, all of them inlaid with a random assortment of tiles like those you can buy as souvenirs in curio shops. The pools are filled by sulfurous, steaming water falling from an elevated corroded pipe, the water spilling over downslope of the main pool to the lower two pools, each one smaller—and cooler––than the one above it. The hot mineral water eventually overflows the lowest pool making its way in spidery rivulets to the river.

–Their names are interesting, for sure, especially ‘Plutarch.’ He was my boss, you know, back in the day, an Apollonian priest at Delphi when I presided there as the Pythia, so he was officially my superior—or my pimp—depending on whether or not you were a recent convert to Christianity. If you were a Greek or Roman Christian, then Plutarch was doing the devil’s work, using me and my spectacle to rip off pagan suckers who still believed in oracles, not to mention luring them to eternal damnation. Supposedly he actually respected my intellect, and we were friends despite my being a woman. Thought I was smart and capable. I do wonder about his getting that name. He’s the first ‘Plutarch’ we’ve had for a visit.

–I get a vibe from this group.

–Me, too, though I’m not sure it’s anything but having someone here named after my former boss. But no coincidences, right?

–First impression is these guys aren’t going to be down with secrets.

***

In the hand-written letter the guests had received from Clea confirming reservation dates and providing instructions for their visit, they’d been asked to gather the first morning in the gazebo in the center of the main herb and flower garden. Clea and Triptolemos, having left the pool and now fully dressed, are making their way down the path to the garden, where the five guests, in various degrees of sleep-deprived daze, are waiting on a stone bench that circles around the perimeter of the gazebo. No one is talking. They assume Clea will fill them in on why they were invited, what to expect, what they’re supposed to do while they’re here, and after that, take questions. There’s nothing to talk about until that happens.

Morning, everyone, Clea says brightly, smiling. Hope you got some sleep. It’s hard the first night.

Murmured mornings. They’re unsure of their footing, afraid of violating an unknown protocol. There was nothing in the instructions they’d been given about what this meeting was for and what was expected of them, and they are still in the following instructions mode.

Anyone having phone anxiety yet? Everyone chuckles except Hyperides, who’s not in the mood for obligatory pleasantries before the orientation spiel.

"I’ve got to get phones out of sight and out of mind for your time here to be meaningful, which is what you want, right? A meaningful time? No one wants their time wasted. Of course ‘meaningful’ is so vague as to be meaningless, and whatever meaning each of you gathers from your time here will no doubt be completely different, or maybe not, who knows? But I assume you want your time here to be meaningful since you all made considerable effort to get here, and you came despite the unusual conditions outlined in the letter I sent, conditions that put off a lot of people, and understandably so. Most of the people who are invited decline, you know, but not you. So Triptolemos…

–Trip....

…and I are going to do everything we can to help you get the most from your two weeks, which means no phones, which, in time, hopefully, you will understand."

OK, Trip says, smoothly taking the floor from Clea. I’m the gardener and maintenance guy here and Clea is like the MC. Guests are welcome to help me fix things, so don’t hesitate to offer your assistance! And I always need help in the gardens; don’t be shy about pitching in.

Smiling, he continues his pitch. Working in the gardens is a meaningful…ha!...way to spend your time here, despite what you might imagine paradise to be like, which is what Hyperborea is supposed to be, right? And who works in paradise? Who works in the land of golden apple trees and swans where people live forever? Doesn’t everybody just lounge around eating grapes? This place is not that kind of paradise. For one thing––no grapes. There is always work that needs doing, believe me. We don’t have grapes but we do have a lot of old apple trees, and there’s pear and almond and plum and peach trees. No swans, though.

He stops talking, not having anything left to say, but then keeps going. Anyway, where, exactly, does it say work is not something done in paradise? Sitting around for eternity drinking sweet nectar and playing the flute doesn’t seem that wonderful to me…

Rescuing him, Clea interrupts Trip’s redundant ramble: Like Trip said, you all must have looked up Hyperborea before agreeing to come here and discovered it’s the name of a mythical paradise that existed in some prehistoric era. You may even be thinking that being here must have something to do with getting away from it all, since to reach this place in the distant past you had to head north and not stop until you travelled beyond the edge of the world. You had to keep going through the misty sea until you found paradise. That was getting away from it all for sure. Well, believe it or not, you made it!

Silence. The guests are glancing at each other with worried expressions. This was not going the way they had mapped out in their minds. Clea was talking a lot but not communicating anything. She was talking in circles not telling them what they were hoping to hear, such as this is the reason you were invited; this is what you’ll be doing while you’re here and why; this is what we hope you will gain from your experience; this is what to do in case of emergencies; these are the rules and regulations while you’re here, etc., etc. They had questions. None were being answered.

–You did your Googling before agreeing to come, right?

Mumbled Yesses and uh huhs.

–Getting away from it all is the general idea, with an emphasis on the word all, and so phones have to go away, and laptops are not allowed, because face it, there’s no getting away from all of it as long as your phones or laptops––all your screens––are available, up there in your room or down in the public areas or wherever––though there’s no connection here anyway––no matter how far north or south, east or west you go, and since the earth is not flat despite what some people, even now, continue to insist...

Fucking idiots, Hyperides mutters, sotto voce.

...there’s really nowhere to go on this earth except around and around, and there’s no way to stop whatever you’re thinking, doing, or saying and actually relax completely, getting away from it all, if you have a phone or a laptop available. There’s no way to resist those insidious devices designed to keep you on edge 24/7, because you’re all addicted. Everyone in One America is addicted, which is great for business, but not so great for anything meaningful.

Clea looks around. Anyone here believe the earth is flat or that it was created 6,000 years ago and we humans lived in harmony with dinosaurs?

They all laugh nervously, while wondering if they’re supposed to laugh.

–Good. Didn’t think so. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves and our place here which, with all the hush-hush, I imagine you have figured out already. We don’t know how the OAP Dominionists might react to our hidden paradise, and we definitely don’t want to find out. Anyway, about the phones, you know you would not be able to resist…

Hypatia interrupts: So, Clea, is that what we’re doing here? Dealing with our addiction to the data stream?

...not a bad thing to deal with, but please, friends, I understand. Of course you are anxious to know why you were invited and what you’re doing here, but the thing is I can’t say why each of you is here. That’s for you to discover––or not. And it really doesn’t matter if you do, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t.

–So what does matter?

Clea stops to think for a moment. Well, Plutarch, I guess I would say that everything matters. Everyone matters. Every thought and every word matters. Every movement matters. Every breath. What doesn’t matter is why it matters, because who really knows why?

Clea stops talking. Her spiel floats in the middle of the gazebo like a cartoon bubble. The guests are alert now, hoping they won’t miss Clea letting drop something––anything––useful, something specific. Some clarifying bit of information. They above all else want direction, but Clea is not providing any, and Trip is not helping. He seems content to sit there with them, his face friendly but implacable. The sun breaks out above the trees, and the air gets warmer. The frogs stop croaking, and flying insects start waking up.

After a minute or so, Clea continues. OK, I know you all have expectations and fantasies about what’s going to happen now that you’re here, but can I ask you to let those go? Expectations and fantasies are like the chicken and the egg: fantasies lead to expectations; expectations lead to fantasies; one leads to the other in an endless loop of delusion. There’s never a clear path from expectations and fantasies to reality. They muck up your chances to have direct experience.

Their minds are now furiously mulling and coming up with nothing. What is she talking about and why?

I’m being too vague, I know…answer this: why are you here right now in this gazebo, in this garden, listening to my mumbo jumbo? She doesn’t expect anyone to say anything, and no one does, because she knows the question makes no sense to them.

–You’re thinking too hard. It’s simple. Someone invited you. You decided you wanted to come. That’s why you’re here. You were called and you answered. You came even though you knew you would be asked to go by some weird name and stay somewhere extremely remote for two weeks without your phone or your laptop, bringing nothing but some clothes. So you want to know why you came? How would I know? Only you can tell me that. So I’ll wait for you to tell me when you have figured it out.