Saturday, May 10, 2008

Into the Chasm

My white horse stares with me into the abyss. I can see layers of crushed civilizations mixed with the silt sediment. The color of decaying bricks, once the structures of great buildings, now, mere dust in the great cycle. Nearly pulverized, their color leaches into the surrounding rocks, creating bloodstains on the silky gray stone. That is only the first layer of inner earth. The others are right beneath, pushing and vying for archaeological admiration. It is a hole that grows wider the deeper I look, like an inverted triangle, I stand near the apex, drooling into the widening expanse of colored darkness. I strain my eyes, but there is no bottom. The end I seek is not there.
The source, the beginning? No, just more.
More.
This I sense with every power in me. My horse knows it too, for I feel him shivering, not with cold or fright, but something less obvious. It disturbs our cells. Frightens our skeletal system. What stands before us goes on forever. Deeper and deeper, deeper still it goes. We can begin the voyage through its time, our time. We stand on the ledge, fearful. But the way back, the path we walked to stand at this ledge…that path is blurry. It grows with vines, snakes litter the way. I don’t know where it was, what we were…once, long ago.
Were we ever there?
We are only here, at the beginning of everything.
We are here, looking into the mouth that birthed us. Into the remains of all that ever was. Waves of red translucent air blast my face, like the hot exhaust from a race car. Is this fear? My heart beats steadily, but something inside is in turmoil. What is this? Am I supposed to see this? Should I be here, looking down into this? There was never a beginning, I can see that now. Diamonds leap from my pocket, anxious to stay behind. They depart, hoping to catch a fast wind back to the land of the known. The cities of now, clogged with their dirty air and pearly hands. I look up, this is not the edge of the chasm, for I am merely wedged on the side of a layer, looking into the channel that runs through all our lifetimes.
I look up. There is another, feeling the same moment of red and heat.
Wait… there are sparks of blue. Moving from the center of the chasm in a circle. Counterclockwise, the flecks of blue take a steady course, swirling from the center point outwards…towards me, towards all sides of the Great Hole. They are firm in their flight, as soon as one moves slightly from the center, another takes its place. The lights, no bigger than a small coin, have filled the void, a constantly darting swirl of tiny shimmers. The ones that finally reach the walls of rock and matter instantly burst on contact, a tiny spark followed by a moment of calm, replaced only by another electrical burst as another piece of blue makes contact with the people of stone.

No comments: