Light and Dark

LIGHT AND DARK

By
Joe McSweeney

It was on a morose afternoon as I sat contemplating the shadows beneath the eaves that I first heard the voice beckoning. Rising from my place and looking wonderingly into the fading daylight no semblance of recognition dawned on me as to where the voice had come from. Who it was I had yet to put either name or face to. The fact that I heard it was strangeness enough. Folding up my chair and gathering up both papers and glass I set off inside.
The dimness of the house seemed appalling and a dread crept upon me that was as unquestionable as it was unidentifiable. Passing through all seven of my small home’s rooms revealed nothing. In each, however, I left the light on as it seemed to somewhat quell the feel of disquietude. At times it seemed as if a face were peering at me from the windows only to be chased away by the light. Flipping on the television to cast some sense of company into the quiet of the house I turned to the kitchen still with a sense of heavy foreboding.
In the kitchen all was as it should be, my first thought that all was where I had left it. Why this thought should occur to me being that I lived alone with no servants of any kind did not even emerge at that time. Settling to a dinner of beer and roast beef sandwich as I smeared the mayonnaise across the length of cheese as sharp chill ran up my spine as the distant sound of children laughing rang out.
Flipping on the outer light I emerged into the twilit evening that had descended upon my porch. Looking about I could see no sign of children’s play, no disturbance of bush or pine. A silent calm wherein the wind stood still on this summer night was all that awaited me. Lighting a cigarette I watched for a long time as one by one stars emerged in the rapidly deepening darkness pulling us into night.
At last I returned back indoors. Taking up the sandwich and my Sammy from the table I set myself before the television to wile away the interminable hours until sleep. Flipping through channels scenes of violence adorned the news reports as the hero in various sundry movies I scrolled past captured the heart of his lady fair or won back the love of his lady wife with the gruesome death of one or more villains. Settling on one of the less distinctive dramas, brushing the crumbs of dinner from my hands as the last swig of beer avalanched down my throat a drowsiness descended upon me that all but crushed out the squeal of chasing cars speeding across the screen.
Flashing colors whirled in pantomimed dance as sleep covered me. The pull of passions of long ago twisted up inside me though no pain of displeasure seemed to cross me. Memories and regrets were displayed before me as if I were an impartial observer to my own life. Fletchings drawn from the quiver of imagination, of unfulfilled hopes and desperate vanity pinned apart apparent impressions of scenes long past and the people who have left me behind.
In the squalor of repose I was awakened by the sounds of my own voice echoing sternly into a quiet room. The lights were out, the television off. Uttering a muffled curse, hauling myself up out of the easy chair that had been the helm of my brief visitation to the nocturnal realm I stumbled into the kitchen bumbling into walls as I went. The feeling of being watched had been intensified by the lack of illumination. Rummaging around in the cabinets I grabbed a flashlight and a book of matches.
Setting about falling upon the candles scattered about my dwelling dim illumination began to spark in the recesses of what seemed a cavernous darkness. There was that peculiar feel to the vacuous space that seemed to engulf me. It was only then with a scant sentiment that I noted at all that there was no sound of my own footfalls. A slight horrible idea was dawning upon my beleaguered brain.
Tremulously I entered the living room where but a scant few moment before I had sat watching television. Setting my fire to the last few candles I saw a reflection in the dormant television of someone sitting in my chair, someone who seemed at rest for the head tilted to one side and the arms no more than draped over the arms of the chair. Slowly turning about I stared at the sallow faced man in the soft light. The gaunt cheeks and thin frame of someone who seldom paused to eat, the eyes from their sunken perch stared aimlessly into space.
Beer pooled in the person’s lap spilling over in a slow cascade of drips onto the worn carpet. A small stoneware plate crushed the entrails of the poor sods final meal as the ants were already about claiming portions of the territory. There was no stirring of horror, no reconnoitering of a thousand foolish pretenses as with blind apathy I stared at the image of myself as I had been but moments before.
It felt lighter this moment after death and nothing like I feared. My mind swirled back to all those books I had read about seeing a white light, a feeling of peace and a guide to show me around. There was none of that. Only this feeling of lightness as if the burden of years had suddenly lifted. Which of course it had leaving only a decided lack of . . . lack of what?
Concern seemed so far away as I looked around at my grungy surroundings. Had I really lived amidst this for nearly seven years? Would any one find me? The red or rather reddish carpet badly needed a shampoo, the furniture a thorough dusting if not a major overhaul. I recalled picking up the barren television stand that someone was throwing away.
All simply academic speculation, simple memories of 45 years of wasted life. I walked out the door without even looking back. I had no clue what came next. A single light shining from the front door cast no shadow as I walked alone down the empty street.

A dim dreary, dreary morn found me wandering the quiet streets of the small town. As yet there were none who had awakened but still lost to their own dreams left the streets barren of life. There was only me passing by the shop windows looking in on cakes and mannequins dressed in gowns, bookcases filled with the latest sensations. Walking about that morning it became apparent all that I had missed by my cloistered life lonely and sad in its way. What triumphs I had were largely due to a lack of the incessant drama that seemed so much a part of everyday life.
Up ahead about the corner where Broad turned into Main a movement caught my eye. It seemed almost a figure in slow motion against the hazy atmosphere of the clouded day. With a slow sense of purpose I followed as the haze wrapped about me, swirled about the buildings and wound through the streets. From somewhere ahead a gray Mini came zipping around the corner head lamps flashing over me for a moment and casting in sharp contrast the emptiness of the early morning as it roared out of sight.
Rounding the corner I found myself on a street almost identical to the one that I had just left. No sign of the figure that had ducked around the bend. Shrugging I continued walking as window shutters opened to the new day. A door opened in front of me and an older bearded gentleman, balding and bellied, emerged with a bag of trash. Other voices called out to him and he shouted back but I could hear no more than sound.
Above the wordless noise I once could understand came another voice, a voice that beckoned. The door shut in front of me, left me staring after the older man. Words, words that seemed so familiar took shape on the air but remained tantalizingly out of reach of comprehension. I however knew without a doubt that the voice was familiar. There was a soothing quality to it now that wasn’t there when it had come last night. Feeling somewhat sheepish but not knowing what else to do I knocked on the door.
The anticipation stretched on as a timeless moment passed. I really couldn’t say that I held my breath while I waited seeing as I didn’t seem to breathe anymore but I’m sure if I had I would’ve. At last the door opened on a mad scene as people raced to and fro shouting at each other. A young, thin man sat in the corner sifting though a stack of paper making marks with his scalpel pen. As I pushed through the crowd of people seemingly acting at random throwing clothes about or calling out as they stood half naked or reading from their own stack of papers I came to a stairwell winding in spirals to a series of rooms.
Amongst the rooms above it seemed calmer. The air seemed less vibrant and the voice was more distant though still within hearing. A door opened behind me and a man emerged pulling up his drawers before a pair of lithe arms nearly dragged him back in. Tucking in his shirt and with quick strides he descended the spiral stairs. A thin young girl emerged from the room swathed in white blankets and long black hair watching him go. Turning around I was about to set off to the other rooms.
A rather large woman with disheveled piles of white hair and too much make up was wagging a finger at me. A chill deepened in the room as the shadows of the hall seemed to lengthen.
“What are you doing there standing all slack jawed and squeamish? Give me a hand!” The woman pointed and there on the floor in an ever spreading pool of her own blood lay the thin girl with the dark hair. Her skin looked ghastly pale, her small chest rising and falling discordantly with her ragged gasps. A haze gripped me, gripped the hall and swirled around. Children laughed somewhere beyond the haze, somewhere out of sight.
Taking a step backward the haze swirled in and the scene disappeared. I noticed that the voice had stopped at some point. A quick look around to get my bearings revealed that there was nothing, absolutely nothing around me save that haze a blurred barrier that squeezed in closer around me. Lost and confused what choice did I have but to walk on?
Eventually a stair emerged before me simply appearing out of my hazy surroundings. As I approached the stair the ground underfoot started to give way each step leading me further and further in a downward direction. Below me there slowly emerged stars and suns, planets and black holes swirling in a miasma of light and dark. Standing there on the stair staring out into the void of space beneath my feet a vague uneasiness pierced my apathy. Turning back to whence I had come I ran and ran and ran.
Infinite space revolved about me, raced by me and enveloped me. Suns shew forth bright light into the blackness until they began to fade away, the swirls of nebulas spun away into the unsettled dust of crushed planets. The stars receded away into the distance until they stood only at the very end of my vision. One by one they in turn burned away into the blackness.
As I floated there amongst the dead mass of ancient giants slowly drifting without course, as I floated there with no sense of up or down, forwards or back I observed dispassionately the death of countless worlds. Silent crashes splintering the aimless lackluster jewels of universal decay cast debris in long trains passing into the distance.
One giant flash of light in the far distance interrupted descending stillness. One unseen wave rippled amongst the giants tearing into their own battered flesh. A rain of debris ran skittering across the void battering further the diseased monoliths. All was dust leaving me in the still of their wake.
In the utter absence, in that cosmic oubliette I bore witness to the end of all things. A sinister design by an unknown hand and yet it appeared an easy way to go; to wipe the slate clean, to begin anew?

II

January the 4th I sat staring out my window watching the rain fall upon the garden or orchids and azaleas. The computer buzzed before me with half a dozen pages of unfinished script as I jotted aimlessly in the notebook perched on my lap. The phone, dormant as it had been the whole day, flashed that a message was waiting.
It had been a full 90 days since my brief voyage on that eve which seemed so long ago. Life became confusing during those intervening days between then and now. I am tempted to say hectic for they seemed to have passed in the twinkling of an eye. That could simply be for it is hard to imagine where I am now from where I was.
Sometimes it even feels as if I’m living a different life, a life that isn’t mine. My therapist told me it’s just that I don’t feel I deserve all that I have now. I disagree but she is entitled to her opinion. She never could understand the things I saw and experienced that night. A psychotic episode she called it, a mere hallucination. Last time I saw her she still thought me delusional, that I still had more issues to work out. How could she understand?
Beeep.
“Hey Jim its Neville. Orion wants you to meet with their director on Thursday. Get back to me and let me know if that day is good for you. By the by let me know how that new script is coming along. Cheers.”
I noticed Kate moving about in the garden and through the raindrops as Neville’s voice washed through the room.
“You have no more messages.” The machines mechanical voice bit as I pressed delete and fled the room pen and paper abandoned on the floor.
There is a chill in the air as I approach the opening door. The breathe of winter tingles along my skin and I cannot help but grin childishly as I remember those days past when I would’ve cringed. Katherine enters the foyer grocery bags in hand and an answering smile on her cherubic face. Hidden by the wrappings of her leather coat, bright scarf glistening with raindrops and woolen cap askew she has all the appearance of a small bright elf on Christmas morn.
“Anything left in the car?” The question comes naturally before she gets in the door. A warmth chases away the chill as I pass her with a kiss heading to the car. I know well enough that two bags are never enough when she goes shopping. The thought occurs to me how pristine and image we made in the doorway, how my mind snapped its secret photo to display in my mental gallery.
Taking a long, cool breath I take a moment to savor it before hustling down to the black and tan Buick sitting in our drive. Taking the remaining groceries from the trunk a strange, haunting melody enters my thoughts trailing tears. My smile drops away as my gaze travels to the mountains wreathed in plumes of clouds rising against the horizon. A stirring nags as if drawing me to those distant peaks.
Returning to the sunlit foyer I carry the vague urging within me. Times like this I can hear that voice I first heard in the early hush of autumn. However far I’ve come the road yet leads on to I know not where.
Kate is waiting seated on the bottom stair winter wrappings discarded save for the coat hanging open and slightly askew on her lithe frame. Taking another sip of her coffee she sets it aside rising as I set down the bags on the hall table. Another picture captured.
“Thanks for having the coffee ready.” Putting her arms around me that inner voice holds still, quiet and satisfied for the moment. “Made any headway on the script?”
“Little bit.” Taking the bags back up I head into the kitchen,
“The people from Orion want to meet with me Thursday. It looks good there.”
“Of course it looks good. I’ve got to grab a quick shower then I’m off again.” A smile, a brief kiss and she bounds off. “I’m meeting a client in an hour.”
Pouring myself another cup of coffee I turn back to my office buoyed by Kate’s brief presence. Turning the volume up the soft melodies of Enya wash over me as I relax into the light reverie of late afternoon. Sunlight glistens on last night’s snow in the garden.
Moonlight falls on the grim skeletons in the garden clawing up through the bleached earth. The stars shine way up high and in the distance like a titan silently awaiting the fall the mountain looms in the spectral gloom. The wind howls and rattles at the pane carrying the voices of a thousand yesterdays from ancient tombs – the remnants of early giants.
The radio has fallen into silence and in my mind I experience Kate asleep, wrapped in the skeins of a dream. It is nearly midnight as I turn from the window to place the final sentence for the night before I turn to my own dreams. The awaited whispering enters my thoughts now stronger than ever it has by the light of day. Shutting down the office I abandon the humble space for the night.
Following the whispering I step out of doors coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other. I can all but see a path of starlight leading down the quiet hill, through the empty streets and onto the forest’s winding trails. For a moment it is as if I stand before the great monolith. What sights it must have seen in all its years! The drama of human life from cradle to grave; a thousand, thousand pictures captured in its secret halls.
The cigarette burns away, the coffee is gone. Turning away I climb the stairs to the warmth of my bed, to Kate. A wild excitement I can feel building inside me as the voice continues to whisper. The voice I have come to know as my own disquietude. In the bathroom casting off my day robe for that of sleep I pause for a moment to stare at my own reflection.
Lines stand out in the corner of my eyes, hair falling back before the tides of time. A distant light I can see in my eyes as the feeling falls over me as I were standing inside the mirror looking out. Gently I press upon my nose and cause myself to sneeze violently.
The spell broken I head to bed lying down beside Kate’s silent form. I wonder what dreams stir in her wanderings, what visitation she is attending to? Closing my eyes I slip into those silent seas beside her as the waves close over me and the stars outside our window, one by one, go out.

III

Nicky stands there in the garden the oak trees overshadowing her diminutive form as she watches the children play. Their laughter echoes in the shadows of the tall trees as she watches them with a beatific smile spread upon her dusky face. She is in loose white robes that stir gently in the breeze, long dark hair tied back with a purple ribbon. A laugh like the tinkling of bells erupts from her throat as she beckons to me.
Stepping softly through the flowers springing from the soft earth, daffodils and forget-me-nots, I cross to her side. Plucking one of the forget-me-nots I place it in her hair. In the shadows cast by the on looking oaks it is cool after the summer’s heat. The children do not seem to take much mind of me. Those who do catch a glimpse wave as if I’m a familiar fixture in the garden.
The trees stir in the breeze and as I stand beside Nicky the leaves of autumn begin to rain their russets and golds upon us. She embraces me and in the softness of her nearness there is a sublime sense of purity. One arm around my waist she extends the other to point to the distant setting sun.
“Look.” Nicky’s breath feathers the cool skin of my cheek, her eyes reflecting the falling light. Following her finger to where the day is falling into slumber the mountains fill my vision with a white fire erupting at that edge of land and sky beneath and orange glow. The children are singing and laughing as the fires slowly dwindle into a purple haze of twilight.
“Hey mister, mister,” the golden haired little girl looks up at me with her small green eyes as the golden lab beside her sniffs at my shoe. Standing outside the diner in the early hours of morning I rub tiredly at my eyes, “I think you dropped this.”
Placing a small bag in my hand she smiles as I watch her run back to rejoin her mother at the car. Checking the forget-me-not pinned to the pocket of my black suit jacket I enter the diner. Stepping directly to the counter I take a seat at the stool placing the small red bag on the counter next to my morning paper.
Mirrors everywhere I cannot help but see the weariness etched in lines across my face or the gray streaking my thinning hair. The breakfast crowd seems subdued, muted but it suits my mood perfectly. Ordering my usual eggs with a side of bacon and toast with the largest cup of coffee they could give me I open the small bag the child had handed to me.
Dumping the contents into my hand a golden ring lays nestled amidst rose petals. Beside it sits a small acorn and a clear stone I recognize as quartz. Looking up I glance out the window towards the spot where the child had handed me this gift.
Across the way, cars whizzing by as the business traffic is beginning to take over the road stands a graveyard stretching across flatland to the mountains in the distance. To one side a small church house stands to the other a series of small, squat office buildings: thin arms of smoke curls up to the sky over the graveyard.
“No, no, no!” I scream in silence as the coffin lid slides shut with a schunk. There is no sense of time in this place as the gathered begin to sing in a morose cadence. A subtle confusion sets in as I try to block out what is happening. It can’t be, it can’t!
I watch the train of black suited men and women following, following to the curtained hearse and the bright sunshine. Bitterly I curse the light and pray for rain. Every step seems like a thousand echoing down the dark corridor that my thoughts have become.
The rain never comes though. The rain is only in my mind as I trudge through each day watching over and over behind the shade of my eyes the coffin lowering into the earth. Lowering into the dark and cool away from sight; the fall of dirt and stone echoes in my memory through the dark days and darker nights of work and sleep. The light of the television numbs the feelings, chase away thought that sleep may settle in.
In the distance hammers pound against metal as smoke curls up to the sky and heat rises. I rise with the smoke looking down to the fires that consume the sea. The whole world is burning below me but I cannot feel a thing. So wrapped in my own pain I spread my wings and let my shrill cry set sail across the ash filled sky to echo in the heavens.
Waves pound against the flames setting more smoke to rise into the deepening gloom of perpetual night. Rock and dust are cast into the sky as the earth bleeds the hot flames that flow to consume the land below. The ground rips in great crashing booms and the hot breath of the deep earth emerges to fill the ever deepening cacophonous chaos that broils in my wake.
Shooting like a falling star I emerge through clouds of dust into an open void shocked by the sudden cessation of all sound. My great wings carry me through the emptiness that continues on in perpetuity. The alpha and the omega met in a single glance that is neither dark nor light is all that surrounds me.
Of a sudden voices emerge as images of people in all stages of life rise and fall in an ocean of hypnagogic visions. Here the familiar voice catches hold of me, lures me on faster and faster as the ocean quickens its pace in time with mine. Faster and faster until all is a blur passing by me and still there is no end in sight. No end in sight!
* * *
Startled and breathless I wake in the darkened room. A light sheen of sweat coats me and I cast aside the covers. Slowly – what painful slowness! – my breathing slows to its normal pace. Rising to a seat at the edge of the bed I wipe the sweat from my face.
In the bathroom I set cool water running in the dark. The images look back at me from the blank mirror. I can hear the children laughing. Bathing my face in the cool water, patting myself down with a towel I push the voices and images aside.
The steady rise and fall of Kate’s breathing is what I concentrate on. Lying back down I put a hand to her soft cheek sweeping her hair back from her face. For a moment eyes flicker and her lips tickle my wrist. Then she is still again leaving me to lie staring into the shadows as night turns to day.

IV

Fire crackles against the chill of night as I sit my perch in the mountains. It was only this morning as I stood wonderingly in the silent garden of mid morning that I set this course. A note left for Kate fluttering in the breeze sweeping across the table let her know I would be back some time in the eve tomorrow. Sitting here however where the air is more pure my thoughts turn towards days of solitude surrounded by the winter chill of the wild.
Across the distance of space I can see from my vantage the small town in slumber. Subtle lights wash downward from the hill against which the town is nestled. The pool of lights at its base where the buzz of night life continues in nocturnal play is hidden behind a screen of dense forest. It gives an aura to the town that way, an aura of calm and simple life waiting to be roused again.
A sudden image of a giant serpent wound about the hill moonlight glittering from its scales grants the coiled darkness a tension that is almost tangible. With a smile I watch the serpent, look for its eyes while the hissing tongues of the fire sooth me into sleep. The rock is cold beneath my back, the snows blanket the ground about me but wrapped in blankets of reverie a warmth envelopes me.

The long plain stretches out before me. In the distance across the vast grasses beneath the bright sun the line of trees offers cool shade. There is a song on the wind, a melody that speaks of great age and a lingering sadness. It is a song that I once knew, a song once sung by those long gone. Time has not dimmed any of its potency. I feel it stirring inside me a distant longing for things left behind.
The voice is what catches me tugging at my immobility. A gentle rain falls against the sunlight as I cross the vacant plain to the shadows of the trees. As I approach the trees that stand like a border to some secret land beyond a young buck looks out at me. Its gaze meets mine as step by step I draw nearer to where it waits.
The young deer nuzzles me and then quickly takes flight into the dense tangle of forest beyond. The song thickens in the air of the forest and without thinking I set off in pursuit thrilled by the thought of the hunt. Bounding from stone to stone, ducking past trees the wind hastens about me as in the distance I can see the buck disappear about a bend in the all but indistinguishable path.
Up the hill I follow on as branches and brush tug at me in the forest gloom. In the distance I can hear the laughter of a running stream keeping pace with my footfalls. A smile breaks across my face as I catch the air on the other side of the hill and the echoes of my own delighted laughter ring out in chorus to the wind. Such elation fills me as I rush on through the lush growth that I do not even pause when there is no sight of my quarry before me.
I scent the air in my mad pace crashing deeper into the hidden forest where I alone race. Bird and chipmunk I smell, the insects moving in the ground and the air I hear whistling by. Streamers of light occasionally pierce the hiding place of these wild things casting in auras the natural terrain. The beating drum stirs in my heart as I rush on ever faster. A steady heat warms my limbs as they stretch to meet the pace I’ve set.
In the distance the crashing of a waterfall drowns out all other sounds the image of the not so distant pool comes unbidden to mind. At the watering hole my quarry waits and my flanks heave in anticipation. Blood pumping like quicksilver through my veins I take the final hill between me and my destiny.
At the top of the rise slowing my steps and peering down from the cover of the trees I see the clearing that had been growing in my mind. I scent the nearness of my prey.

Waking in the lightening dark of early morn the fire no more that embers amongst dirt and ash I rise from my blankets. The wind stirs slowly seeming to rise from its own lethargy. The dream song whispers softly amidst the tangle of my waking thoughts and I begin to feel again the bite of winter’s chill. A light fall of dust floats on the air.
In the predawn stillness surrounded by the hush of falling snow I set about packing up my small camp. As I am packing snow atop the failing embers a voice whispers – Jim. Drawing up short I look about for the source of the call that seems so near echoing in my ears. Nothing moves much as I expected.
Jim.
The voice seems familiar, a familiarity that ripples my flesh with goose pimples. In the quiet of the mountain’s calm I see no one. Walking to the edge I look down to the forest floor some distance below to the tree line climbing the base of the mountain. Nothing seems to move in the shadows beneath the bare branches.
Turning to the remainder of the camp, lifting to my shoulders the burdened pack for a moment two eyes seem to hover in the air several yards beyond where I stand. Taken aback I find myself curious but unable to move. Between the flakes shot with the gold presaging the coming light eyes the blueness of the sky at mid morning watch me with a kindness and compassion that is hard to describe save if you were there.
What seems like hours passes in moments as the eyes vanish behind the drifting flakes. The sun is rising from the lap of the forest and I find movement return easily enough as I begin again my cold climb. From somewhere to my right I hear a bird cry as I rise along the mountain pass.
As the hours crawl by the wind grows swifter, stronger as I attain the heights. A few more hours to the top and then home again. That nagging feeling, the voice inside my head that I credit with the early morning calls, tingles with a waiting and a readiness for what is to come. What it is, where this pass will draw me to I have no way to foresee save for the anticipation that builds on me as the top draws ever nearer.
As I crawl out onto a clear crop of stone the sun stand high slightly to my lift declaring the passage of noon. Just beyond lies the top but here I pause drawing out water skin and scant meal of cheese and hard bread. All through lunch I watch the sun watching me, hear the pounding fall of water from somewhere ahead falling to the forest from this great height. I think of Kate, wonder what she is doing to pass the day.
A strange chill falls as something passes before the sun. In a moment day falls into night. A great wind moves through the forest racing downward from the mountain. Sounds I had been all but unaware of cease to be save for that fall of water. For a moment I am cast blind the white noise of the waterfall clogging my ears. Indeed barely do I even feel the rock upon which I sit.
Opening my eyes night is still about me save for a pale white light like a ring in the sky. She stands before me in her loose white robes long hair held back by a purple ribbon to bare her smooth pallor.
Jim.
Her eyes look into mine for a moment, arrest me like a deer in headlights. She smiles and a calm flows over me. She takes the forget-me-not from her hair and tosses it to the wind. I watch the air catch it up and carry it away. Moving forward she bends to touch my cheek. What she said is lost to me as unconsciousness swept me up in an endless waterfall.

Returning from the dark the sun once again stands high overhead. In the distance I can still hear the waterfall along with a thousand other little sounds whispering of life. Uncertain as to what happened, reserving retrospection for later I move on along the pass. Tackling the mountain wall with a fever I scale quickly to the upper pass and follow on.
It is not long before I come upon the space where the stream flows from the mountain’s roof to cascade over the edge in a long descent to the stone far below where it pools to fall again. Filling my skin I look about me. Small tracks dot the dirt that collects along the stream’s bank. A blue jay watched me from a skeletal tree across from where I kneel. A squirrel rising onto its haunches as it notes me slips back into the shadow.
A presence touches the back of my mind as I rise to move on. Its purpose stays elusive but a prickling sensation sets my small hairs on end. Looking about all remains as it was as the blue jay takes wing sailing off to the north. In those northern skies black storm clouds are moving slowly towards me.
It was not long before the sun vanished again and the freezing rain begins to fall. It was a stroke of luck that not long after the first drops fell that I came upon a cave. There I sought shelter praying that the rain would not be long. Here I sat watching the lightning play across the heavens through the curtain of rain running down the rock and across the cave opening. A small fire kept me company as I skinned and cleaned a pair of squirrels setting them to roast.
A soft trickling came from the back of the cave somewhere. As I slowly ate the rain continuing unabated I listened to the steady dripping behind me in counterpoint to the crashing outside. The sense of presence and the feeling of being watched had me on edge and the wild fancies that played across my imagination burned my blood. The sound of my own heart seemed to echo in the cave. Remembrance of those dreams of destruction played out again and again.
Unable to take it anymore I left my pack and crept to the back of the cave. Clutching tightly my walking stick and checking the bowie knife strapped to the small of my back I cast furtive glances about as I moved further and further back. The dripping began to echo hollowly but still I could not find its source.
My foot struck something that set a rattling in the dark. Drawing my knife I probed carefully along the cavern floor. It had grown too dark to see but I managed to grab what I had struck. Moving back towards the cave opening by the wavering light of my campfire I marveled at the smoothness of what I had found. Once back in the light however my marvel turned to revulsion. In my hand was a small skull whose origin could only be human.
That presence was growing darker by the moment suffocating me. My first thought was to run, run as far and as fast as I could. Unfortunately being so high up in the mountains I could see myself slipping and falling to a bitter end. Not that death itself scared me but that such was not the end I would choose. To disappear until my body was found months or even years later.
Taking a brand from the fire I once more crept towards the back of the cave. I could almost feel hot breath on the back of my neck. My promise to return home this evening seemed a distant thing compared to the awful feeling that continued to crawl over my skin.
A stagnant pool stood in the rear of the cave. Rather I should say cavern for two paths led from the pool further into the mountain’s heart. The beat of my heart kept steady time with the dripping lime. A third sound however nearly stopped my breathing.
Was that movement I saw down the right hand passage? With torch held out before me as if to ward off whatever I saw I approached cautiously the offending passage. As I came nearer a fetid stench overwhelmed my sense of smell forcing me to pause as my repast nearly came up.
Tucking my face halfway into my shirt I approached the corridor and the sound came again, a skittering that seemed to shy away from the light. Bugs I revealed and caught in the light and smoke from my dwindling torch. Turning back to face the pool I jumped free of my skin.
On the opposite bank of the pool eyeing me with what seemed amusement sat an old woman. Pressed against the stone wall, torch running nearly to my hand I could only stare as she rose slowly to her feet and began to sing and sway.
Spiders crawled out from the shadows as her gentle swaying seemed to envelope her with an ecstasy. The song itself struck me for its melody I recognized from my dream even if the words were something beyond me. One by one the spiders dropped into the water as if by the command of the old woman.
In the center of the pool something seemed to be slowly rising. As the pace of the spiders quickened in time with the song the thing in the center of the pool rose quicker as will. Little by little as my brand dwindled down to a nub the light was sucked out of the room until at last I was forced to abandon the torch. It sputtered where it lay on the ground rolling towards the water’s edge.
An eerie sound echoed hollowly and the crackle of sulfur sparked blue white for a moment through the room. In that instant the abhorrent sight I forced to bear witness to was illuminated. Not even in my wildest nightmares could I envision again the inhuman creation twisted from the crawling multitudes of spiders both large and small.

V

It is only Katherine’s presence beside me that keeps at bay the haunting image of the old woman, keeps me from lying awake at night wondering if that thing is still out there looking for me. In my dreams Nicky stands beside me as we stare down the open mouth of the caves that lead into the mountain. She tells me that when I am stronger it will be time to return to the pool. For now I wear the ring, acorn and quartz in a bag about my neck. It feels safer that way if less sane.