Hushed Monks

What's weirdest about this dream is how realistic it is. All the others, hell, all the dreams I've ever had had been dreams, crazy, barely coherent, impossible dreams. But this one, it could, somewhere in the immensity of the world, be true.

I was a monk in a monastery somewhere. Somewhere high in some mountains somewhere in traditional monk fashion. Everything was just. So. Quiet. When one of the other monks 'spoke' it was just their mouths moving, no sound coming out. But I still knew what they were saying. Well, the monk did. The monk I was 'inhabiting'.

A medallion was hanging from around my neck. Set within was possibly a jewel, of a deep, dark black beyond any jewel I had ever seen. I wandered about the monastery, along freezing cold ramparts that oversaw the range of rocky mountains. But there was no wind, no footsteps, nothing to interrupt the perfect silence.

I wandered down the many halls. Before entering a large room, several pillars running down, two lines of them parallel. The room was dark, brown in colour with an altar of flickering candles at the end. In the middle of the alter was a box. That was the box the medallion had been kept in. I don't remember witnessing anything that would support that, but I my dream-self knew.

Several other monks were there. They knelt along the length of the room, with half a dozen gathered by the altar. I passed between them, clearly the centre of the ceremony or whatever it was. I knelt before the altar, head bowed, my hood pulled over my head. I gazed at one of the other monks, all but his mouth obscured by his hood. He mouthed to me, his lips moving silently, yet I knew the words he spoke, as if I had heard/seen them many times before.

"The quiet claims us all."

Then I woke up.