The year was 1677. It was the cusp of the Age of Enlightenment. All of educated Europe was abuzz with word of Newton’s invention of the reflecting telescope and the advancement of physics, astronomy and calculus. A whole new world of science and information was opening up and for the few who stood at its threshold it was an exhilarating moment to live in.

Dr. William Conifer was a pioneering professor of mathematics at Cambridge University and witnessed the coming of science and reason to England and the imperial powers. Away from his lectures on geometry in nature and theoretical physics, he became obsessed with Newton’s discovery of how sunlight was actually made up of all the colors in the rainbow.

Being the descendent of a rather superstitious set of old world Celtic parents who believed in pagan animism, he was well aware of the mystical implications of a realm beyond sight that was perhaps both spiritual and material. He had long buried such outdated beliefs with the death of his parents, but something deep within him still longed to discover a world where reason wasn’t subject to the scientific method.

Could there be a place where magic still existed, unseen and unknown to modern man? He thought perhaps the skeptical lens of modern disbelief obscured such a possible place. Although it was probably unlikely, if not impossible, he wondered if science could lead him to uncover the mystery behind the myths. He bound himself to a search for the realm of the fairy, leprechaun, and dragon, of ancient folk belief, hidden somewhere at the end of the rainbow.

It was in the splitting of the light that Dr. Conifer realized how he could possibly find a way to the golden end of the spectrum and locate the very end of the elusive rainbow that always moved away, just out of sight, or disappeared the closer he came to reaching it. So he designed and constructed a glass prism larger than had ever been made. He would have to find the perfect light in just the right place to conduct his experiment. His hope was to cast a rainbow so large for long enough that he could hold it in place and step through it and perhaps find the world hidden behind it.

Meanwhile, waiting and observing the atmosphere for perfect lighting was its own reward. For Dr. Conifer realized in his pensive musings on the nature of light that darkness was much more commonplace in the universe and his studies and experiments might reveal where light comes from when it’s born and eventually where it goes. The death of light, like the gradual dimming of a dying star, fascinated the doctor.

As he walked the grounds of Cambridge and the hills around his home, he waited patiently before dusk when a storm would pass and looked for the orange marmalade colored sky after the rain. Those were the right conditions. That’s what he called “a rainbow sky.” If he faced east as the sun set behind him in the west, he could see the rainbow form against the backdrop of the sky, scattering like pink cotton spun over mango ambrosia. These were the times and places that he marked as ideal for his project. He would have to predict where to place the giant prism and when to find the rainbow’s true end… but now he had an idea of how he would come to create it…

For weeks, he and his student assistants laid their plans. They placed the oversized prism on a wide wooden platform on wheels and kept it covered in a burlap tarp. It was summer and afternoon thunderstorms rolled across the valley each day. Dr. Conifer decided it was time to try. As soon as the rain passed and the marmalade sky appeared the doctor and his helpers rolled the prism across the hillside from his manor, unveiled it and pointed it at the setting sun. Just then natural atmospheric rainbow appeared across the sky, bending from horizon to horizon, as if to portend what was soon to occur.

Dr. Conifer had placed a smaller conical prism inside the giant pyramidal prism longwise. As the sun‘s light entered the prism it was filtered into the cylinder of the cone, beaming a light into the white painted wall behind the professor and his students. There it reflected the full spectrum of the rainbow: bright ruby red, citruline orange, topaz yellow, emerald green, turquoise blue, tanzanite indigo, and amethyst purple. The cast of colors separated into spheres of their own. Each of the colors of the rainbow appeared like a kaleidoscope circling, spiraling around a central white spectral light, like one imagines angels in heaven to be like. The entire scene sparkled and gleamed like nothing the professor or his assistants had ever seen. They stood in awe of the beauty they beheld.

Dr. Conifer stepped forward into the path of the now separated rainbow of dancing lights and their pure white hub. The sun was setting in the distance quickly. He knew this was his only chance to step into the world beyond the rainbow.

“So long fellows. I will see you on the other side.”

With that, he walked into the ray of ruby red light and was bathed in its light. He disappeared from the estate in a flash. The professor didn’t know it, but his assistants watched as the clouds cleared and the shafts of spectral light vanished. The sun set with a final burst of bright light. The smaller conical prism shattered. Wherever Dr. Conifer went, he would be there until there was a new way to come back.

The good doctor opened his eyes in the ruby red world he stepped into. It’s low wavelength light made everything dim and darkly outlined but soon shapes appeared before him. A stalactite. A cave with drawings on its walls. A lava tube with a river of marble running down its base. And in the distance, several shaggy figures. They were human, but most primitive. Had the doctors experiment with crossing into the spectral light taken him to a new place? Or had he somehow glided back in time? Or forward to some hazy future hellscape? He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He was confused and that dizziness turned quickly into fear. He wasn’t afraid to be alone. He was afraid what world he would now have to share.