He was sitting
in his armchair reading a book. It was early evening. Curtains
billowing gently. Everything was still and quiet. A bright sickle
moon shone through the french windows.
He looked up. He could see himself in the mirror across the room.
Surprisingly old, and feeling tired. He could see the lines on
his face, the thin hair. He felt a slight but fundamental jolt,
as if he were riding on a slowly moving train which had stopped.
He had been reading a book, and had turned to a page with a stain
across it. The stain reminded him of the texture of an old wall,
like the walls of alleyways in Rome or Venice or the East End
of London. He put his hand upon it and the pages crumbled away,
leaving a hole which he could see through.
He was looking into a vast shifting ocean. He had never before
felt such stillness. It was as though the ocean was flowing through
him, removing all divisions between himself and the room, the
book, the moon, the garden. He was simultaneously watching himself
from several different points of view. Every angle seemed subtly
altered, widened. Faint voices came from every direction, like
the calling of birds.
The voices seemed to be an intrinsic part of the composition
of the ocean, their echoes and eddies and complex reverberations
opening out perspective after perspective, all slowly changing
and merging and reforming. He focussed on several of the voices,
one after the other, and found that individually they were undistinguished,
vague whispers, nothing of them stayed in his memory. But experienced
as a mass, the voices formed a huge ocean of code which spoke
immediately and directly to him, more intimately than language
ever could. |
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His hand fell
through the crumbling book. Fragments of it spun in slow motion
away into the distances around him. Fascinated, he felt himself
drawn through the page into the vast shifting sea. There was
a slow swirl of blue-gold pierced by dappled sunlight. Then he
was swimming effortlessly though it, whirling in delight. Of
course he could breathe the water. It was a warm, supportive
medium. He felt the boundaries of his body dissolve until he
ceased to differentiate between himself and the huge blue ocean.
Any sense of time and distance was lost in the endless glimmering
depths.
After a while he noticed that his skin was becoming itchy. When
he scratched he felt great relief and gratification, yet the
itching would then intensify, causing him to scratch even more.
He saw that the skin was beginning to come away in a ragged translucent
film, yet he was still unable to stop. The almost sexual intensity
of these escalating sensations soon compelled him to scratch
all over his body in a frenzy until the entire surface of his
skin, even his scalp, became loosened. Then, with one swift tearing
movement, he swam free of it, turning to watch the pale film
as it slowly twisted, drifting down into the blue depths beneath
him.
He swam on with a tremendous feeling of lightness and relief. |
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Eventually he
came to a solid cliff face which seemed to form the base of an
island or some larger landmass. Near the surface there was a
channel cut into the rock. He swam into it. Translucent green
leaves waved in the slow currents, sunlight glinting between
them as they reached the surface.
He swam along the channel until it became too shallow, then he
stood up dripping and naked, emerging into the air again, blowing
the water out of his lungs in a fine spray. He looked down at
his reflection in the water... Young again... nineteen again...
When he was able to comprehend his surroundings, he saw that
he was standing in a water rill in an overgrown garden. Around
him were ancient ruined statues and fountains. Dominating all
this was a rambling city which seemed to have grown out of the
rock and overgrowth of the surrounding hillside. It looked as
though the city had evolved by growing from the ruins of its
vast cathedral. |
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The structures
were composed of the architectural styles of many periods, repaired
and rebuilt using the materials and statuary from previous eras,
until city, cathedral and hillsides had become one endlessly
evolving structure. There were paths and catwalks and scaffoldings
all around and between the walls and towers, some derelict and
overgrown and some more recent. At the base of the hill was evidence
of the great quarries, some also overgrown, which must have yielded
the stone for construction.
From these quarries led roads and steep footpaths to caves, corridors
and doorways. Above, dotted in the parts of the cliff face that
were not overgrown, could be seen windows and balconies carved
into the rock. Above these there were ruined and eroded temples.
Ramps and stairways connected to various other levels of ponds
and gardens, stretching as far as he could see along the hillsides.
The whole structure was so weathered and eroded that it was difficult
to see which parts of it had been constructed and which had been
carved from the living rock. |
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Just ahead he
noticed a doorway in the cliff face almost obscured by hanging
foliage. He entered a small dim corridor carpeted by falling
leaves which led by some mossy wrought iron urinals with water
flowing over them into a fern garden slotted into the rock. He
could hear the water falling far below.
Eventually the corridor opened onto the nave of the main part
of the cathedral. The great domed roof above was broken and vines
hung down into its interior. Shafts of dusty sunlight were interrupted
by the flickering wings of birds which nested in the ruins.
He became aware of the same faint singing which he had felt in
the ocean. When he placed his hand upon the walls he could feel
a deep rumbling like the bass notes of a church organ.
He wandered through the vast structure, over walkways, ruined
balconies, subterranean canals, vaulted stone corridors, dormitories,
glimpsing huge stained glass windows pierced by tree branches,
courtyards overgrown by honeysuckle and falling roses, fireflies
flickering in the shadows.
He was conscious of walking forwards dissolving into the architecture,
the foliage, moving outwards like echoes, reforming across courtyards,
hillsides, over bridges. He did not know how many years, he was
so absorbed. |
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Glints of scenes
remained in his memory. Sepia lovers, frescoes crumbling from
the walls, of abandoned places, of worn tabernacles. Figures
fused with the overgrowth, the architecture. Couples overgrown
by vines and roses. Voices echoing slowly under the leaves, choirs
softly singing in the walls.
He was moving outwards. Lost, forgotten, dispersed, reassembled,
combined with the city, with sunlight, with others. An endless,
slow, imperceptible merging and transmuting, figures dissolving
into corridors of leaves and sunlight, naked lovers merging into
the ruined architecture, all dissolving and resolving in a slow
continuous miasma of choirs, oceans, fireflies, woodsmoke, foliage,
archways, statues, lily pools, stairways, balconies, roses, echoes.
An endless city merging and turning, a beautiful wilderness of
overgrowth, architecture and desire. |
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