Endings and Beginnings

We now live in a world of fear, violence, death, looting, and ever-changing unwritten rules. Those of us clinging to our humanity are routinely hunted by the lackeys of the halfwits who looted the banks as the world economy collapsed. Their followers have not the sense to realise money holds neither value, nor power.

It is a cold, wet late October evening as I scamper through the streets I once called home. My hood keeps off the worst of the weather as I shrink into the gloaming. Clinging close to the shadows and shattered remnants of buildings is the safest policy in this once vibrant, bustling, thriving city. My timing needs to be perfect, too early and I may be collected by a well-meaning member of the congregation, too late and a lackey sniper will snare me for tonight's entertainment.

Occasionally a pile of rags is visible inside a doorway, or an alley. The smell assaults my nostrils warning me long before my eyes see the corpse. At first the dead were buried, when civilisation still had a chance. Now I walk past the rags as once others had walked past the homeless.

An eerie silence deafens me as I creep towards the city limits. The roads are gridlocked here with a graveyard of strewn motor vehicles barring entry to the procession route; many are burnt out; some are wedged into the fronts of buildings; most have their decapitated owners gripping the wheel, with their bleached features laughing in the footwell for eternity. Every vehicle is daubed with the markings of the tribes who claimed the streets. All are left to rust; at sundown, the ruling tribe will begin their patrol for tonight’s unwilling gauntlet competitor. The nightly parade will follow, a fragile display of power where the drivers of motor vehicles, with spikes thirsty for flesh, will be worshipped as gods.

Breaking cover momentarily to cross the glistening road I dart into another side street towards my final destination. Centuries before it was in the centre of the bustling city, not on the periphery as now. The North Easterly cuts me in two as I glance up through the rain at the street corner. It has tribal marks and colours across it. Even in this desolation I chuckle inwardly, nothing really changes. Markings on property defining its purpose, or ownership, as old as time. Head down I trudge toward my old drinking hole. It had turned into a wine bar 20 years previously. A façade of sophistication. The type of place the lonely went looking for a one-night stand, and alcohol. I knew the bar in different times.

The deep blue of an approaching night feathers the edge of the sky, time for those wishing to see another dawn to leave the city or go under cover within it. I am walking into the jaws of the beast. Turning to my right I quickly check for any observers before entering. The door and windows of the bar lay smashed. Glass crunches and echoes through the cold damp early evening air as I step over the threshold. To my immediate left lies the cash register, dented and misshapen. The Pool table had stood there when I drank warm ale here. I fell in love standing against that Pool table, and lost love too. I force my eyes away before nostalgia overwhelms me entirely. The piles of smashed chairs and tables by the doorway is a poignant reminder of humanity's last stand. I scurry towards the counter of the old bar and back into deep shadows. The dusty wooden floorboards I remembered had been replaced with polished concrete intended to appear sophisticated – it failed then; it fails still. Electric pumps stand to attention; none will ever splutter into life during my lifetime. The smell of stale ale almost makes me wretch, again a wry chuckle with all the death around me stale ale was apparently my sensory limit. Along the back wall the budget version of once fashionable spirits lay smashed. Not worth looting, even for the knuckle draggers outside readying for the macabre hunt of city stragglers for their gauntlet joust; people like me.

The cold air awakens me to the thought of being skewered. I must finish this tonight. This is my chance to live the myths of this fair city. Myths I first heard of here in this room, and later in other establishments across the old city centre. Armed with my scraps of paper, books, research, and a strong pull of intuition I breathe in the stale air and turn the cold round metal handle of the cellar door. Nothing happens, the door is locked. My heart sinks. I know what awaits my eyes and nostrils beyond. Turning to my left I feel a deep sense of uneasiness at the sight of a carefully placed key dangling below the counter; despite the devastation and carnage all around. Preparing for what lay behind the door I raise my mask and take the key. Nervously I look back towards the entrance for any sign of a shadowy figure in the gloom, or glint of light from across the street, I see nothing. I hear nothing. To any observing lackey I appear to be cornered, if my theory is wrong, I will be.

One turn of the key and the door opens, focussing on the worn stone stairs I descend the first two then turn to lock the door, taking the key with me. A barrier will make me slightly less desirable prey for the bloodthirsty tribes. The darkness is overly oppressive in the cellar, nightmares of being chased and hiding from lackeys resurface. The pile of clothes and sacking I anticipated is to my right. I do not linger, though I know from the shape the humans had been gagged and bound with a sack tied around their necks before been locked inside. I am dismayed at how quickly I have become desensitised to death, and the brutality. And how I am losing grip on my own humanity.

Dropping my backpack onto the floor I remove a torch to light. I don’t see the bricks I am searching for at first, then as my eyes become accustomed to the flickering torchlight, I see the distinctive small red bricks peaking from behind the roughly thrown heap of metal kegs. I move some of the kegs and take a mallet from my backpack to break down the wall at the base. It is easier than anticipated. I open a gap small enough to glimpse a brick lined cavern beyond. I continue my demolition until the gap is large enough to push myself and backpack through. Once on the other side I gain enough purchase to drag the strategically placed empty kegs to fall around the gap then I rebrick it from the other side. A casual glance will hopefully reveal nothing out of place.

Removing the mask, I am overcome with joy, I can smell History, and it is alive. Overhead a medieval vaulted ceiling stretches beyond the torchlight. My feet are on a smooth stone floor with parallel grooves etched into it, cobbles lay between the groves. I swing the torch around to drink in this gem and notice a pile of rotten wood and a rusted metal wheel to my left. The myths had merit, there was a city under the city. Only one route from here, I press on. The Archaeologist in me screams to stop and investigate, I could not. I dare not. I move farther down the medieval cavern noticing bricked up doorways on either side of the wide underground cavern. Each doorway has worn stone steps leading to the portal and all bricked up from the other side. Most were the distinctive red brick I had removed in the cellar behind me. I did not need a degree to know they are from the time the city rulers demolished the manor houses and hovels of the city to rebuild in modern materials, reinforced concrete. On the doorway lintels symbols are visible, I recognize some as crests or trades. With the medieval city street map burnt to memory I wander its subterranean mirror through winding streets towards the old port entrance, my boots creating soft echoes in the darkness. Some streets are blocked with rubble, and some are close to caving in, they reflect layout changes above – I know exactly where I am, and where I need to be.

As the blocked port entrance nears the floor becomes damper, the temperature lowers, the brick walls become interlaced with natural rock, and the distant lapping of a living breathing river becomes audible. I smell a familiar scent, my river it flows here still. Even the possibility of been taken by the river does not alter my resolve; it’s preferable to the gauntlet above me.

I continue toward the sound of water knowing there to be a sharp left and a long steep incline within meters of the port entrance. It is cleverly disguised behind the angle of the natural rock and medieval architecture. Considering who had built this narrow passageway I should have anticipated such workmanship. Locating the correct configuration of symbols marking the true entrance I begin the arduous steep ascent. It is now that I hear sounds of human activity nearby, my only option is to keep going. The witching hour must be close now, I don’t have much time.

With the last embers of my dying torch, I reach a large Oak door with metal hinges. It is exactly as described in the books, and twin of the door on display in the old museum. In a past life, I would have danced for joy, not now, not tonight. Eagerly, I run may hand over the solid oak and ironwork, affording myself a few moments of tactile connection with my city’s history; my history.

The noise of human activity grows louder, without discernible direction. Nervously I remove a large cold, solid metal key with a patina showing its age from my pocket. The rich smell of old iron engulfs me as I insert it into the lock. It needs persuading, age and damp having taken their toll. Eventually the lock springs. I reach into the front pocket of my backpack and remove a small gold signet ring decorated with an acorn and heart, place it on my middle finger then open the ancient door. Hanging from the sizeable lintel over the threshold is a large gold heart shaped locket. It shines as if lit, yet there is no light source here except the final embers of my torch. I walk into the space beyond the door, and again lock a door behind me. Clasping the locket in my hand it feels warm to touch, familiar, comforting, there is a pulse of life throbbing in my hand. The locket fills the palm of my hand and is decorated with an inlay of blue and white enamel around its edge. Set in its centre is a heart shaped red gem, on the reverse of the outer casing an intricate pattern akin to lace is revealed in emboss. Instinctively I engage the catch to reveal a painted portrait of a woman and a lock of dark hair encased opposite the portrait. I know her face; I know the hair. Now on auto pilot I take ten paces forward and melt into an alcove. I do not light another torch. Nor do I continue along the pathway, I know where it leads, the house no longer stands. I stay and wait for all that tonight holds of the past, present, and future to reveal itself to me. Then I shall step into whatever presents itself.

For now, all that remains is for the veil to become thinner; then one way or another tonight a story will end, and another will begin.