I call my world Caledonia: not because that is what we call it, but because I'm going through a Scotland phrase and Caledonia is slightly less obvious. I ruined that, didn't I?
This land is dissimilar from yours in many ways you likely take for granted, yet similar in infinitely more ways. It is a world of four dimensions; yours of three. However, we have only one dimension exactly like yours. That is our single purely spatial dimension. The others are values of sorts- in your world, they are only human ideas. In ours, they are the air we breathe, the surface across which we walk, the dimensions we move in.
The three unfamiliar dimensions are revenge, evil, and goodness: the concepts on which folktales are based. It might be more fitting to call this unfamiliar word Faerie, but no because SCOTLAND.
When exploring Yourniverse (which is what I shall call your world), it soon becomes apparent that its people have visited Caledonia, or at least have dreamt of it. Ever since the intelligent human made its debut, it has insisted upon the inherent truth of these concepts that form my world. If you can imagine, these ideas are a thousand times stronger in our world. They are our realities.
Our first, common dimension is that of lines and points. It is the backbone that supports both our worlds. For us, it is the framework which this world of morality depends. We assign a variable to it as x.
The second dimension after our shared one is evil. Perhaps that is too strong a word- the idea has evolved in your world to mean a totally malicious force. Evil is all that is flat but expansive. It is like your second dimension, yet it is not neutral. Evil is simply everything good is not, and runs parallel to the third of our dimensions.
The next dimension is the quality of goodness. This one is also like a spatial dimension, but we live in it. How can I explain? As a swimmer might wallow in a pool of water, so our third dimension equivalent is drenched in virtue. It is in fact pure virtue so tightly bound together, such a power that it forms a third dimension. All throughout goodness runs its complete opposite, evil, on a simpler level. In this way, they balance each other, though neither is necessarily wrong as in your world.
Finally, there is revenge. Here we reach our final dimension, and it is very difficult to explain. So far, all of the dimensions have meant something to you. I have encouraged you to equate each successive dimension with one of your own. They are not the same, but it is easier to pretend they are. This final dimension is revenge. How odd, you might think, that such a relatively weak idea creates my all encompassing final dimension. It is not. If Yourniversians once visited my world, as I believe they did, how many dimensions would they visit? Only three, as there are three in their world and only three their body and mind were made for. And what would they take from that experience? A weak sense of evil that eventually fell into disfavor, a slightly stronger sense of good, and finally, a warped sliver of revenge perceived only through three dimensions. Imagine dropping a paper star vertically into a two dimensional world. They would only see a cut of the three dimensional object. In a reversal of this idea, Yourniversians would only experience a bizarre shadow of the truth that is the majority of Caledonia. According to a Youniversian dictionary, your revenge is this:
revenge |riˈvenj|
noun
the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.
This is not my dimensional revenge, but it is the closest thing to it. Perhaps there are better words for it; no matter. I find that revenge best suits the spirit of the thing. To best explain it, revenge is the result of good and evil interacting; it often compels people to action. The effect is good and evil, and something totally beyond that, something new: a fourth dimension. It is beautiful, if you can imagine. It curls beyond good and up inside itself. To speak to you of it is like to speak to a foreigner with a very poor understanding of my language. I want to share my language's freedom, its facets- but I cannot. And because of this, I cannot revel in them as I speak to you. How frustrating for me, how pitiful for you.
But how does this work? How do we know? This hardly seems mathematical; this is philosophical, you argue. Indeed. Here, they are one and the same.
To explain, I shall use fairy tales. Many of yours come from Caledonia. Throughout "The Juniper Tree," I will show where my world deviates from your own.
A merchant and his wife were happily married, but they had no children. One day, she wished beneath the juniper tree outside their house that she would have a child white as snow, red as blood. Eight months later, she summoned her husband and begs him that if she should die, to bury her beneath the juniper tree. He agrees, and she is calmed. One month later, she gave birth to a boy white as snow, red as blood. She was so happy when she saw him that she died.
The merchant eventually remarried and had a baby daughter. The second wife wished her daughter could have all the inheritance, so she plotted to kill her stepson.
She told her stepson to reach into a chest to grab some apples. When he did, she slammed the lid over his neck so his head falls off, then tied his head back on. She told her daughter Marisa to wake him. His head flies off as she shakes him so Marisa thinks she did it. The woman tells her daughter not to tell anyone about it, that she'll fix it. Then she makes the boy into stew and feeds it to his father. Marisa picks out her half brother's bones tearfully and buries them in silk beneath the juniper tree.
From the juniper tree a golden bird rises up and goes to the town. He sings his story for a goldsmith, a shoemaker, and twenty mill workers. From each he receives gifts. The bird drops a gold chain on his fathers head, gives Marisa lovely red shoes, and then, finally, drops a millstone on his stepmother, crushing her to death.
When Marisa and her father come out, they see the boy, standing in the middle of the stone, smiling.
He takes both of their hands and they go inside and eat.
I hope you will have taken a better understanding of Caledonia as seen through one of your people's eyes. I tried to show it to you through fairy tales, which you are familiar with. Have you ever wondered where they all came from? Different fairy tales, from all different cultures- yet many share the same plot.
Caledonians once interfered in Yourniverse for amusement. Yourniverse is set in a little corner of Caledonia, (this is very odd, we all agree. Have you ever stumbled across a Flatland?) and it is not very difficult to enter it. In a manner of speaking. We are not really seen, only parts of us. In this way we introduced magic to your world. We would puts souls in golden birds and kill people we perceive as criminals. Just a touch here and there, and everything could change, and no one would see us. Fairy tales were born out of our exploits. People we especially loved messing with would be accused of witchcraft. Life was good- for us.
For many centuries the practice had been falling out of favor with the younger Caledonians. It was considered uncaledonian, inhumane. Perhaps it was. One day, a Magic Yourniverse party was arranged. Can you guess what happened? It was recorded in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yes, we are remembered in your world as fairies. Gods, in the golden days. These are not the "golden days." Straight after that incident, the youth of that time started a motion- they called it Cruelty YClept Magic. Y being Yourniverse, C being Caledonia, and yclept being by the name of. They thought it was rather clever at the time. In any case, the movement was passed. From then on, miracles only happened in your world when a criminal snuck their grimy hands into Yourniverse.
So goes my world- the world of Caledonia. You have visited it here, but how much? You could barely see our culture, and only a snippet of history. Such are dimensional barriers. Now, my time has been brought to an end:
So fare thee well.
1 Here we have the first appearance of "magic." While it is perfectly normal in Caledonia, how strange it must seem to a Yourniversian. You see the good, the evil, and the after effects of their interactions, but not the interaction itself. No, that is purely revenge's dimension. Since time immemorial, your people have chalked it up to magic.
2 This is the end result of the first occurrence of "magic." The initial good was the mother's yearning; the "evil" was the absence of children. End results perceived by Yourniversians were the white as snow, red as blood child as well as the mother's death. However, which is the comparative positive, which is started in the dimension of good? The child who killed his mother or the extinguishing of the life of the mother? In this case, the mother's death was the evil repercussion, and the child's birth the good. It is important to remember that all "magic" has dual repercussions, each perceptible in the evil and good dimensions. here are more results, but because they are only seen in revenge, you would barely understand. You should also know that since my peers and I can only really see through the dimension of revenge, most of our conclusions are purely theoretical- we cannot see third dimensional happenings as clearly as you can. Think of when you look at two dimensional objects which ought to have no height. Of course, because it is in your world it has been given height, even if it is microscopic. You cannot truly see two dimensional objects because your universe down to your very eyes are too complicated. So it is for us in revenge.
3 This may seem like another magical event in the making. The woman wishes her daughter could have all the inheritance- positive- so she plots to kill her stepson- negative. Contrary to third dimensional thinking, however, it is not. Those in revenge can see that since the means of the "miracle" (the boy dying) can be more or less seen in our third dimension, it is not magic.
4 Here is the beginning of a miracle. The evil is the woman killing her stepson. The good is dual- the father eating his son. You might think this qualifies as evil; this is not the case. The opposite of the evil act (killing) is giving life, and eating gives life. Marisa's burying of her brother's bones is part of the magic, but also necessary to the starting of the magic. In this way, it is unique, and gives the third dimensional viewer perhaps one of the best coherent glimpses of magic. Unfortunately, it is yanked away before one can start to understand.
5 You might think that, because you can see the means of the miracle, it is not true magic. This is false. A third dimensional eye sees a golden bird rise from the air- sees it deliver gifts- sees it drop a mill stone on his step mother's head. However, that was not the means. It is only what you can see of it, and what an odd sight it is! Nevertheless, it is merely a sliver of the happenings of one dimension seen through another.
6 Here is where I must stress that it is important not to confuse your beliefs with fact. The good in this ending is the boy's coming back to life. What is opposite of that? The stepmother dying. Though you might have rooted for her death, it is still a negative repercussion firmly rooted in evil.