The Lobby is enormous, hushed and dim. The floor is black and white parquet, in a pattern of neat, orderly, alternating boxes. I walk across it softly, looking at the gleam of light reflecting in the squares. Huge screens line the walls in a 360 degree view of many galaxies. I don’t know what most of them are, but I do recognize Andromeda slightly to my right, spinning slowly in sparkling purple and pink splendor.
There’s a large hotel-style desk far to the left against the wall. A humanoid alien is manning it, talking with someone. He sort of looks like a six foot tall frog wearing a nice uniform. The atmosphere in the lobby is calm and peaceful. I like it a lot. The dim lighting makes the kaleidoscope of galaxies stand out even more. I tilt my head back to look at the ceiling and see there isn’t one. A nebulous fog hangs where it would be, obscuring the view. Tiny lights flicker deep within it, blinking on and off in tranquility. They remind me of little white Christmas tree lights. Straight ahead is a long row of elevators with shiny steel doors. They all go to different places: timelines, planets, parallel realities. I approach them and decide I want to go to the 8th dimension. I’ve been there before. It’s nice.
