The Map

(July 2005)

The Map

          People say I am mad, but they never saw what the nocturnal heavens held secret, and where they led me, an even more horrid evil lies. Futilely, I tried to tell them, but they never viewed my skewed tales with much regard. I knew, even then, that they would never believe me, for had I been one of them, I would have done the same thing they did to me.

          I can never look upon the stray skies of night again, for whenever I do, I am reminded of that fated day. Even then, daylight haunts my soul with as much vigor as does the night whenever I gaze into its lone hours. In the days that succeeded my stricken destiny, I have found myself lost within the gloomy room that I am locked within this very moment. It is not a particularly large cell, but it suffices, for it is shadowed and hidden from the celestial skies so I may never gaze upon them again.

          The memories plague my mind, and every evening when I receive my nightly meal, I recall with great vividness the days that preceded my flight from the site despite the three hundred and eighty scratches on a wall of my cell. Yes, it has been over a year since I followed it to its fiendish abyss.

          I had recently returned from an archaeological trip to Africa. While there, I had been recovering the remains of a tribe with my digging team in the region of Kenya, for we had encountered a stray cache of artifacts there. After months of careful excavation, we had uncovered a great number of the relics. Many of the recovered objects were of an archaically dejected and strange nature. Their semblance reflected cultures of a more refined and spiritual status than what were typically found in these areas. Their alien craftsmanship suggested more to the lines of an almost recent civilization in respect to history, perhaps only several centuries old. This was surprising to us because of the quality of the materials found. They were greatly degenerated by what appeared to be time, the elements, and their formerly imprisoned state.

          My job was to decipher the olden texts that were uncovered, a task at which I was quite proficient. But the books and other writings that were discovered contained a very rugged form of written language that consisted solely on a seemingly unsystematic use of dots. At first, I thought these were not the writings of an actual language, but perhaps simpler, instructions for a specific use. But as more of these documents were unveiled from the earth, the large quantity of them implied that they were more than instructions, that they were indeed the culture’s form of written language, and no one on the team was able to hint at what the dotted writings meant.

          There was one in particular that caught my attention. It was a piece that was etched upon a circular stone slab, roughly a foot in diameter. It was simply the character and quality of the text that enraptured me. There were more than this that were scribed in stone, but those were all broken or fragmented unlike this one. It was almost unblemished and perfectly cut, and in the very center of it was a singularly large dot. Still, I was unable to unravel its meanings.

          Upon my return from the expedition, I brought the tablet to my home to work on it while I was there, leaving the others behind where we typically stored our artifacts for future examination. My abode was situated in the region of the mountainous Sierras because I am often reminded of the beauty of nature and of the excitement of my profession as an archaeologist. To me, the world contained an innumerable amount of hidden secrets ready to become divulged for the necessity of the wonders of science.

          It was a cloudy night, and I was starting wistfully at its overcast, lofty recesses. I was outside and upon my lap was the stone. Nearby, sat a lit oil lantern, which glinted upon the sandy hues of the rock. With a resigned sigh, I turned from the firmament to face the enigma with a magnifying glass. After a week of analyzing the inscription at my household, I had gotten no further than I had before in Africa. Light rains began to fall with the brisk breeze that floated solemnly in the air, their dampness rejuvenating my frustration. When the shower came, I could not help but follow the skies again, rather than leave my ebbing attention on the stone slab. Ever since I was a child, the rains had always mesmerized me in their erratic and cool demeanor. I did not retreat back indoors. Instead, I allowed the waters to fall upon me, wetting my clothes with welcomed cold. I sat like that well beyond the life of my lantern, which had flickered out during the former hour.

          The rainfall died out, abandoning me in the frigid air. Despite the hour of the night, I was not ready to lapse into the quiet beckoning of sleep. Only the shivering of my body claimed its hold over me. Clouds began to depart, exposing the dark blue that ladened the planet. The full moon and stars also soared overhead when what was left of the masking clouds permitted.

          There was something about the sky. The pattern of the stars and moon seemed obscurely familiar, for the way that they were positioned surfaced a remote inkling within my mind. I then realized what it was. I centered my eyesight upon both the greater of the indentations and the globose moon, and I became fixed in awe. Lifting the stone to the sky confirmed my suspicion, for the arrangement of the impressed dots matched the constellation of the celestial body.

          Within the arrangement of the stars, I inherently saw the route they displayed in correlation to the slate that was now very clear to me. I knew then that it was some type of map that used the heavens as a basis for its destination. Urged by curiosity, I ran inside to retrieve the pack I would use for archaeology. It still contained supplies and a ready amount of food, for which I was grateful so I would be able to embark immediately, lest the star configuration change. I decided to keep the tablet in my house because I did not want to burden myself with its weight and because I had memorized its pattern over the last few days by my incessant studying.

          At first, when I commenced on the etheresque trail, the night perpetually compelled my vision within its infinite depths, hinting, alluding, to its unknown objective. The trail was lucid and crystalline to my searching eyes. Later, however, it released my gaze, and I was able to admire the scenery of the setting. Silent trees surrounded me, their pines bristling the night sky. The cool scents of twilight drew upon me, stimulating my muscles to attain my goal quicker.

          Morning came, and the path disappeared with its coming. I elected to eat a meal to sate my hunger and to camp after heading in its general direction for a couple of hours. Alas, sleep took hold over me, and I awoke in the late afternoon with the empyreal map still burning in my mind like a phantom. I wanted desperately to launch my trek again, but there was still daylight left, which blotted out the astral chart. Impatiently, I waited until the first signs of it manifested, whereupon I set off. Three days passed like this, at which point, my rations expired. This did not concern me; all that was on my mind was the unquenchable desire to discover where it led.

          By now, the formation of the stars waned along with the moon, and I had the disquieting fear that I would not be able to reach the end of the trail by the time it disassembled altogether. Hunger and thirst alike seared vibrantly inside my chest as vile pains, and the following days were a misty haze, through which I stumbled uncontrollably toward its conclusion before it faded completely. Standing before me in the dark was a stony face of a mountainside, at which I innately sensed I had finally arrived at my destination!

          Now that I was there, my mind became released from its weird hold, and I was able to think sanely of matters that pertained to my well-being. Torn from exhaustion, I put down my pack, and I set out in pursuit of water and food. Close by, I found a handful of wild berries, and I also located a puddle of old rainwater and devoured its contents ravenously. Returning to where I laid my pack, I rested for some time to let my sustenance settle in my stomach.

          When I felt roughly regenerated, I strode over to the craggy precipice. Inlaid within its design, I detected a door in the quaint light of the now gibbous moon. Its edges were entombed in the side of the mountain, revealing it to be a sliding portal. Mustering strength, I slid it open. Out burst a miasmal gas at which I retched until its vapors dissipated to a tolerable, yet stale, level. Inside, dark steps beckoned to their unexplored abysses. I reached to the side of my pack for a torch and a pack of matches to ignite it.

          I descended the steps and came in contact with plentiful clusters of aged cobwebs during my slow decline. Immense stone blocks fitted the walls almost perfectly, for they almost appeared to be continuous in my torchlight. The last of the steps led to a level ground floor with an extensive passageway that I could not yet see its closure. A thin film of inch-deep, murky water flooded the ground. Here, I sensed remarkable age and disuse, inferring that this subterranean structure was some sort of antiquated mausoleum. Delving further into the tunnel, I came across several branches that diverged from the hallway, each leading to unlit ends. I resolved to investigate one of the black recesses. The air became danker as I progressed through it, and the water started to elevate. A vault came into view, and I had to duck my head to enter, for the archway that loomed above had fallen to deterioration. Spindled torchlight enveloped the room that lay beyond. The chamber was hexagonal and running along its walls were sarcophagi that perched in upright positions. At the core of the tomb was a well-like basin filled with water.

          I went over to the sarcophagi on the other end of the room. They all were of stone make, and dotted diagrams laced their faces, none of which I recognized. One coffin stood crumbled, its lid broken in ruined fragments. Nothing occupied it, and I surmised I was not the only one who had entered the sepulchre, that grave robbers had stolen what was once inside of the funerary box.

          As I turned to leave the vault, my sight was arrested by a glance at the mounted pool. A white gleam reflected upon its still surface. I looked up toward the ceiling, only to find a dim and arched roof. Hesitantly, I restored my gaze to the pool. Glimmering upon the water was the starry map, the moon in its center. Had I been so obsessed with the map that I began to hallucinate?

          I drew my torch close to the deep basin, and the picture still glittered in the presence of the golden light. With my free hand, I timidly lowered my palm to the shimmering waters. Ripples formed on the surface when I touched it, distorting the image. But I had landed my hand upon the inky waters too softly and too slowly to cause such an effect. A chill encompassed my spine, and I hastily retreated my hand. Horror-stricken, I watched as the water started to undulate more. Out of its depths arose a ghastly hand that latched to the side of the bowl. It was withered and gangrenous, and its fingers scratched vehemently at the stone, hunting for a better grip amidst the mossy edges.

          I vaguely remember fleeing madly from the haunted crypt and into the wilderness in much the same fashion as I remember the latter days of my journey to the accursed site. I was found lying in a delirious state not far from my home in the woods by one of my colleagues who set foot into the forest because he was worried by my long absence. For a week, I was kept in convalescent care for my fever to quell.

          After my recovery, I told my coworkers of my deranged tale, about how I followed the stars as a map that the slate revealed to me, and how it led me into that evil mausoleum, and of that hand that emerged from the pool. I was told that I had fantasized the whole thing, that it was all a dreadful nightmare my mind generated in its delirium. And when I went to astronomers with my tablet, they could not identify the patterns upon it with any of their records. But I knew; I knew it was not a dream. It was then my fear of the sky claimed hold over my soul. I would not exit my house under any circumstance, and my friends suspected that I was in need of help. When they asked me why I was behaving in such a manner, I recounted the story with so much conviction that they became convinced that I needed to be admitted to an asylum.

          Of late, I have stopped carving lines in the walls for timekeeping, and my unsettled mind has been busying itself by flaying the dirt of my cell with my uncut nails. I have unearthed the stone floor, and I no longer shun the skies. Often do I now gaze outside the barred window overhead. In the stone beneath the dirt, I have started to claw a dotted outline that only now, has my mind begun to see as familiar, waiting, waiting for the stars at night to match its design.