#clockworkplains — Public Fediverse posts

In Somnia

A Journey Through the Land of Night and Morning

Here is a more narrative version, following the journey through the

In Somnia

A Journey Thr

I entered Somnia through the Border of Yesterday.

I did not know when I crossed it. There was no gate, no guard, no stone marker beside the road. One moment I was lying awake in my room, staring into the darkness, and the next I was walking beneath a sky crowded with stars.

Behind me stood the day that had ended, though it had not released me. Its conversations, mistakes, hopes, and unfinished tasks clung to my clothing like burrs. Ahead, somewhere beyond the hills, lay morning. I could see a faint golden light on the horizon, but it seemed impossibly far away.

A weathered sign leaned beside the road.

SOMNIA
The Land Between Night and Morning, Sleep and Wakefulness.

I had heard of this country, though I had never seen it drawn on any ordinary map. Travelers entered it when the body longed for rest but the mind refused to surrender. Some wandered there only briefly. Others became lost among its winding roads and strange provinces.

I carried no provisions except my hopes for the coming day.

They were heavier than I had expected.

I wanted the day to go well. I wanted to be joyful, caring, gracious, and generous. I wanted to say the right things, notice the people who needed noticing, and allow God to work through me. Every hope had seemed beautiful when I gathered it, but now they crowded upon my shoulders like sacks of stones.

The road curved downward into the Province of Restless Hopes.

The province was filled with unfinished towers.

Everywhere I looked, builders worked by lantern light. They raised arches toward destinations that did not yet exist. They constructed stages for events that had not begun and rehearsed speeches for audiences that had not arrived. Bells rang from every direction, calling people to prepare for possibilities.

A merchant hurried toward me carrying a tray of tiny glass futures.

“Would you like to see how tomorrow may go?” he asked.

Inside each glass sphere was a different version of the coming day. In one, everything unfolded beautifully. In another, I stumbled over my words. In a third, someone misunderstood me. In a fourth, I was too exhausted to be kind.

I leaned closer.

The spheres multiplied.

Soon the merchant’s table stretched farther than I could see, covered with hundreds of possible tomorrows. I tried to examine each one, believing that if I studied them carefully enough I might prevent disappointment.

But the more futures I considered, the less prepared I felt.

At last, I fled the province and followed a narrow road into the Thorn Fields of Worry.

The thorns grew higher than my shoulders. Each branch bent toward me and whispered.

You will be exhausted tomorrow.

You will disappoint someone.

You speak of peace, but look at the chaos within you.

What if you are not as gracious as you wish to be?

What if the day is ruined before it begins?

The thorns caught my clothing. When I tried to pull free, they tightened.

I began answering them.

“I know,” I said.

“Yes, perhaps.”

“I should be better.”

“I should be calmer.”

“I should already be asleep.”

With every answer, the thorns grew stronger.

Soon I was kneeling in the field, unable to move, while the stars stared down like silent witnesses. I felt as though all Somnia had become a courtroom and I was both the accused and the judge.

Then I heard water.

A river flowed not far from the field, silver beneath the moon. I tore myself loose from the thorns and stumbled toward it.

Its name was written upon a stone bridge:

THE RIVER OF MERCY

I knelt at the bank and washed the scratches from my hands. The water was cold, but gentle. It carried no accusation.

An old ferryman waited beneath the bridge.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To morning,” I told him.

“Most travelers say that.”

“I need to get there quickly. I must sleep before the day begins.”

The ferryman looked toward the distant golden horizon.

“The harder you chase morning in Somnia,” he said, “the farther away it often becomes.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Travel honestly.”

He invited me into his boat.

We drifted along the River of Mercy without speaking. As we passed beneath overhanging trees, I saw words reflected in the water.

I am wired, but I am not wicked.

I am unsettled, but I am not lost.

The peace I offer others is also meant for me.

I reached toward the reflections, but the water scattered them into ripples.

“Were those words meant for me?” I asked.

“Mercy is always meant for the one who believes it belongs only to others,” the ferryman replied.

He left me near the Mirror Lakes of Self-Doubt.

Two lakes lay side by side beneath pale trees. Their surfaces were perfectly still. When I looked into the first, I did not see my face. I saw the person I wished to be: peaceful, composed, generous, patient, filled with joy.

When I looked into the second lake, I saw myself as I feared I was: anxious, restless, self-absorbed, exhausted, broadcasting peace while carrying disorder within.

I turned from one lake to the other, unable to decide which reflection was true.

A woman sat between them, mending a torn cloak.

“Which lake should I believe?” I asked.

“Neither tells the whole truth,” she replied.

“But one shows who I should be, and the other shows who I am.”

“No,” she said. “One shows your longing. The other shows your fear.”

“Then where is my true reflection?”

She pointed toward the river behind me.

“Moving water reflects differently than still water. You are not a finished image.”

I remained beside the lakes for a long while. I had always thought grace would show me a better reflection. Instead, it asked me to stop confusing any single reflection with the whole of who I was.

From the lakes, a narrow road wound toward the Forest of Spinning Thoughts.

The trees there grew in circles. Their branches curled back upon themselves, and every path eventually returned to where it began. Owls watched from the shadows as I walked.

I thought about tomorrow.

Then I thought about being tired tomorrow.

Then I thought about how worrying about being tired would make me more tired.

Then I worried that I was wasting the little time remaining for sleep.

Then I thought about the fact that I was thinking too much.

Around and around I went.

At the center of the forest, I discovered an enormous wheel turning between the trees. Hundreds of thoughts were tied to it like ribbons. Each time the wheel revolved, the same thoughts returned.

A small child stood beside the wheel.

“Who keeps it turning?” I asked.

“You do,” the child said.

I placed my hands against the wheel and tried to stop it. It crushed my palms and continued turning.

“You cannot stop it by fighting it,” the child said.

“What else can I do?”

“Step away from it.”

That seemed too simple.

Nevertheless, I stepped back.

The wheel continued to turn, but I no longer turned with it.

For the first time, I understood that a thought could pass before me without becoming a command, a prophecy, or a verdict.

The child led me to the edge of the forest, where a pale road crossed the hills.

A sign named it:

THE PATH OF SUSPENSION OF JUDGMENT

The path was guarded by a robed figure carrying neither weapon nor scales. Behind the figure stood a closed courthouse with no lights in its windows.

“State the charges,” the guardian said.

I began listing them.

“I am not peaceful enough.”

The guardian nodded.

“I am too anxious.”

Another nod.

“I tell others about grace, but I am hard on myself.”

The guardian waited.

“I may be exhausted tomorrow.”

“Is that a crime?” the guardian asked.

“No.”

“Is anxiety a moral failure?”

“No.”

“Is weariness proof of hypocrisy?”

I looked toward the ground.

“No.”

“Then why have you brought yourself here for sentencing?”

I had no answer.

The guardian opened a ledger, dipped a quill into ink, and wrote across the page:

NO VERDICT SHALL BE RENDERED IN THE LIGHTLESS HOUR.

The courthouse doors disappeared.

“Walk on,” the guardian said. “You may reconsider your life after sunrise, food, and rest. Not before.”

Beyond the path lay the Clockwork Plains.

Thousands of clocks grew from the earth. Some were as small as flowers. Others towered above villages. Every clock displayed a different time, yet all of them ticked together.

The sound filled the air.

Tick: You have fewer hours left to sleep.

Tick: Tomorrow is coming.

Tick: You should be asleep by now.

Tick: Count how much rest remains.

I covered my ears, but the clocks seemed to tick inside my bones.

At the center of the plains stood a great clock tower. Its keeper leaned from a window.

“Tell me the time,” I called.

“The time for what?”

“For sleep.”

He shrugged.

“There is no such hour here.”

“But surely you know how much of the night remains.”

“I know many travelers have been harmed by that knowledge.”

He descended and placed a cloth over the clock I carried in my pocket.

“In Somnia,” he said, “the clock does not measure rest. It measures fear of not resting.”

He instructed me to leave the covered clock at the foot of the tower.

I did so reluctantly.

Without it, I did not know whether I had hours or minutes before dawn. Yet the sky did not collapse. Morning continued approaching at its own pace.

Past the plains, the road climbed toward Starwatch Ridge.

The air grew colder. At the summit stood an observatory with an open roof. An astronomer looked through a brass instrument at the night sky.

“Are the stars watching me?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “You are watching yourself through them.”

She invited me to look.

Through the instrument I saw not stars but my hopes, scattered across the darkness: the people I wanted to encourage, the peace I hoped to embody, the generosity I wanted to offer, the goodness I hoped the day might contain.

“They are beautiful,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“They are also exhausting.”

“Only because you are trying to hold them all in place.”

She adjusted the instrument.

The stars continued shining without my assistance.

“Hopes do not need to be abandoned,” she said. “But they may be entrusted.”

“To whom?”

She pointed toward the center of the map, where a faint light pulsed beyond the hills.

“The road will show you.”

I descended from Starwatch Ridge into the Valley of Grace.

Nothing dramatic happened there.

No angel appeared. No sudden sleep fell upon me. No voice promised that tomorrow would be easy.

The valley was simply quiet.

People moved slowly through vineyards and gardens. No one hurried. No one appeared to be proving anything. Some worked. Some rested beneath trees. Some sat beside those who were weeping.

A gardener offered me bread.

“I have nothing to give in return,” I said.

“Then receive it,” she replied.

I ate.

It was more difficult than I expected.

I knew how to offer grace as an idea. I knew how to speak of compassion, mercy, and peace. But receiving them without earning them felt almost unbearable.

“I want to be joyful, caring, gracious, and generous,” I told the gardener.

“A worthy longing.”

“I want God to work in spite of me.”

She smiled.

“Why only in spite of you?”

“Because I am full of chaos.”

“God has worked with stranger materials.”

“What must I do?”

“Stop treating yourself as an obstruction God must overcome.”

She handed me a small seed.

“What is it?”

“Grace.”

“It looks ordinary.”

“It often does.”

I planted it beside the road.

Nothing immediately grew.

From the valley, I followed the river until night deepened again. At last I saw a warm light beside the water.

It came from the Quiet Inn.

A lantern hung above the door, and beneath it was written:

REST FOR THE WEARY TRAVELER

The innkeeper welcomed me without asking how far I had come or whether I had traveled well.

“I cannot promise I will sleep,” I said.

“You are not required to.”

“What kind of inn does not require sleeping?”

“One that offers rest.”

Inside stood a long table. I placed my hopes upon it one by one: joy, kindness, grace, generosity, peace, a good day, the wish not to disappoint anyone, the desire to be useful to God.

The innkeeper placed each hope into a wooden bowl.

“Will they be safe here?”

“Safer than upon your shoulders.”

“Will I receive them again?”

“If morning requires them.”

“And if tomorrow goes badly?”

“Then you will meet it imperfectly, as all travelers do.”

I lay down near the fire.

Sleep did not come at once.

But for the first time, I stopped pursuing it.

I listened to the river. I felt the weight of the blankets. I allowed the night to be night without demanding that it become morning.

Somewhere between one breath and the next, I heard bells.

Not the frantic bells of the Province of Restless Hopes, nor the ticking alarms of the Clockwork Plains. These bells were low and gentle.

I rose and discovered a final road leading from the inn toward the center of Somnia.

It brought me to a walled sanctuary.

Above its gate were the words:

THE HEART OF GOD
A Sanctuary of Rest and Perfect Love

I hesitated outside.

“I am not ready,” I said.

The gate opened anyway.

Within the sanctuary, there were no clocks, mirrors, courtrooms, or merchants of possible futures. The hopes I had left at the inn were already there, floating like lamps upon a pool.

A presence met me—not as accusation, demand, or solution, but as welcome.

I began to explain myself.

I spoke of the chaos within me.

I spoke of how I proclaimed peace but could not always feel it.

I spoke of my fear that exhaustion would make me less kind.

I spoke of my longing to be gracious.

I spoke until I had no defense left.

Then, in the silence, I understood:

I had not arrived at the Heart of God because I had successfully crossed Somnia.

The Heart of God had accompanied me through every place.

It had been the water in the River of Mercy.

It had been the woman beside the Mirror Lakes.

It had been the child who taught me to step away from the wheel.

It had closed the midnight courtroom.

It had covered the clock.

It had held the stars without my help.

It had offered bread in the Valley of Grace.

It had kept the lamp burning at the Quiet Inn.

God had not waited for me at the end of the journey.

God had traveled through the chaos with me.

Beyond the sanctuary walls, the horizon began to brighten. The Threshold of Morning stood open.

I did not know whether I had slept for hours, minutes, or not at all. I did not know how tired I would be or how the day would unfold.

But the future no longer appeared to be a kingdom I had to conquer.

It was only a road.

Before leaving Somnia, I looked back at the country through which I had traveled: the thorn fields, spinning forest, mirror lakes, clockwork plains, river, valley, and inn.

None of them had vanished.

Perhaps I would visit them again.

But now I knew there were paths between them. I knew there was mercy in the landscape. I knew judgment could be suspended. I knew hopes could be entrusted. I knew that rest might begin before sleep arrived.

At the Threshold of Morning, I found a final inscription carved into the gate:

Do not judge your life by the lightless hour.
Walk gently.
Dream wisely.
Love deeply.
You are still held.

Then I crossed into the day.This version could also serve as the opening chapter of a longer In Somnia allegory, with each region becoming its own chapter.