When James was young, his school teacher told him of a Greek legend-- of a King, in the afterlife, condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity. That night, the King dreamt of the afterlife. And the next night, the King dreamt of infinity.
Although, at the time, he did not know this.
On the first night, his dream was as such:
There was a great procession of white hooded figures in a dark secluded forest, and in the centre there lay a great fire. And although the heat was intense and overpowering, neither he standing as the observer nor the others engaged in a trance of a hypnotic dance seemed to be affected it. With not a single sweat broken, though all stayed wary of the intensity of the campfire and none, not even the Dreamer, dared to approach the fire. Every movement of the dancers were skirting around the edges of the fire, as if tracing out its radius of influence. Whether in veneration or fear-- He did not know. The luminosity radiating from that bright, great light seemed condensed and contained in its very core, Such that only those who dared gaze directly at the light would be blinded. The huddled crowd had started channeling great sound and fury, and a hypnotic percussive beat began rising. It started ever so slowly, but began ramping up in intensity. Soon, it was all around Him and all he could hear-- And it sounded like heavy rain, or a loud waterfall, or wind-- yes wind, wind as if it was blowing past and all around James, threatening to whip him away; or perhaps, as a reminder, that he was falling from a great height as if he had scaled up to the stars and now was falling back onto earth, burning up in the atmosphereThe wind and the water swallowed him whole, and spat him back out into the realm of reality. James awoke in a frightful state.
He quickly came to his senses as the winds died around him.