Room 255

Armor? Swords? What a jest!
I shall go into a hare,
Wits an’ quips, & spells galore
I shall go in Devil’s name
Till I meet one room againe

Room 254

Let us leave her now
in her medievalistic fantasy.
She’ll need to find a sword; armour maybe;
a steed with a name fit for the mission.
Let us leave her there,
exploring, for she’ll have time to wake up
or to find herserlf in a red room dream
(or yellow: who foresees now such futures?)
Let us leave her roam:
a few rooms, some of which may have their say,
punctuate this not so ordinary fief
& some wait for the Key from remote times.

Room 253

Aaand… She opens!
A door now small,
like those humble ones
in social housing
projects; yet, she opens.

Outside, worlds.
And a room,
like a curse:
a shack of stone,
up on the left,
which she ignores,
almost singin’:
remember, remember,
this is now, and now, and now…

Rooms 244-252

So easily you descend, pass, climb all those rooms,
full of mystical truths (or their plausible representations),
sure everytime in opening, Key-strong, each door,
that’s not even really worth registering, that tale of columns,
arches, statues, strange dwellers (all servile), pavements
& ceilings: what matters now is that, self-guided as in the best
of dreams, only nine rooms after (not counting halls,
corridors, various oubliettes and possibly interesting niches,
what matters is that after that (needless?) mad rush
you are now there, in front of the main door, huge as you’d imagine.]
Will the key work? It does. It turns. What waits for you
outside? You now feel the smell of fresh air hitting your very soul.
As full of power and chutzpah as you became,
now a tough chill runs down your spine. The “outside”, for real? For what? Why?]
Fields, swains, seas, cities of foolish modernity?
Beasts & adventures? Knights blocking bridges (may I offer a lance, sir?)]
trolls lurking under ’em? And where’ll the next rooms be?
Just huts or taverns, mistresses’ abodes? It does not sound too real.
Should you just turn the key? Or take more time, explore
the many rooms, the marbles, candles and fireplaces just passed by?]

Room 243

Now, thence, he had the Powers: no doubt about it,
yet even too many doubts on their possible uses.
The room, meanwhile, was clearly a temple of choice,
the most secret chamber (chess floor, gold effiges & all)
of a ziggurat hidden in a pyramid
inside a dravida, inside a nagara, inside
a paradisino, and imagine the rest:
a flabbergasting matrioska of power buildings,
and in that core, not one door unopenable:
so much choice, it was almost boring, he dared to murmur.
But he had the Powers, powers whose name & shape
no living person knew: those which pulled the Immortal Rose;
so he knew it could only be another step
of the Long Journey. A quète promising trees of hanged knights:
first of all, then, he had to get himself outside.
Back to simple thoughts? Suddenly, not one, not two, not three, but four ear-shattering thunderclaps.]

Room 242

And if it’s not now time to go to bed,
please, really, somebody tell me when it is 💀

Room 241

He wroerwiy tghus roomn slleppingm or hald sallweppwijnfm, in teerereiubol conbditions of the hczouse]
(hebce of fg room, one well sdvcould aergeuem, eh!)
and in tghe end ge decided to…. you bwbikìbnow what he decd? to shovwwe the waerm key uìibn hgis arse]