Fantasy[FN] - Vestiges

The appearance of this architectural ensemble is magnificent. Its destruction is perfect. The inclined columns and stone walls, the perforated ceilings and gnawed floors form a harmonious chaos where countless shades of white, if not all shades of white, predominate. Exploring this impressive architectural entity could consume a lifetime, which does not exclude that many have undertaken such a venture driven by the vanity of the innate explorer or simply determined by a boredom remarked with folishness.

At each point, whether tiny or magnified, of this structure, resides a wonder. This is a fact whose verification is an individual adventure, and there have been cases in which admirers of a particular point have devoted themselves to contemplating it until they die. To a great extent, the glory of these ruins depends on the sun, on the moon, on the breezes. The morning light, for instance, falls on the walls with such grace that it seems to define the mysterious energy with which the surrounding birds fly. The twilights, on the other hand, rest on the corroded floors and they are confused with the sky, forming then a single desert that could be defined as the expression of the true pictorial tragedy of humanity. Sinking in the cracks that populate many of the platforms is a privilege, the previous step to the supreme conversion: to be an eternal entity. With absolute certainty, one of the most sought moments  is the conjunction of the soft sea breeze with the light of the moon. The infrequent event causes a state of grace that makes inevitable commit suicide; vestiges of these sacrifices lie, like rusty pins, along the slopes that are born in the bases of the ensemble.

 At this point it is propitious to clarify that the previous description corresponds only to the outside of the set. Thus, it is conceivable to imagine the exquisite vision kept inside; perhaps, as expressed by a madman, an eclipse, the greatest eclipse that has ever occurred, the one that performs  an unparalleled exhibition by a naked body in an erotic ritual. A less extreme mind and inclined towards probing history conceived that the construction was a fortress or, in any case, a prison. However, this wonderful thought wasn’t more than  a fleeting image in the particular darkness of that mind. . In fact, nobody has been able to go beyond speculations. Everybody is, without exception, seduced by the imposing outside vestiges, and the little time to escape so as to reason is reduced to the emision of a praise or a scream that remind us of the  borders of madness.

Behind the outer cord there is a world opposed to the chromatic richness of the vestiges (or at least it is a world explicable with other reasonings). A corridor, whose goal seems unpremeditated, meanders with its pure white walls and, at a distance, uniform. A special effect of light at dusk allows perceiving the high reliefs of the walls. They are inscriptions made with unknown strokes and they are so delicate that the slightest contact destroys them. When flaking off, as fine powder (never in the form of vulgar flakes), they reveal other similar inscriptions, which leads to suppose that they are infinitely superimposed layers, perhaps as protection. The wind makes of the almost invisible dust its easy prey and  disperses it through the corridor creating a kind of  melodious murmur. The dust settles on the skeletons of dead beings in the most diverse, comical and pathetic postures. It insults at sight the pretension of these mummies of wanting to become statues, works of art that are expected to keep spontaneous harmonious forms. Incredibly, the floor of the corridor lacks color. It is transparent and through it you can see the universe or the secrets of the mirror, but this does not have any importance. Wandering a short distance translates the idea of being in front of an image that always repeats itself, and the evidence of not leaving any type of trace discourages subsequent incursions. The next corridor, also meandering, has a desolate appearance. Its colors are really dark. Its mud walls are perforated as an effect of continuous impacts of projectiles. From the gaps seem to have sprung viscosities that descended forming channels on the surface of mud and pools on the ground. The very vigorous wind around here, gives off crusts of dry mud and accumulates them forming an uneven orography where the echoes transport their most dismal sounds. In some cases these formations have stopped the voracious advance of bombs and projectiles. Some of these artifacts are deactivated, and others, with their coatings almost completely decayed, expose a nucleus that seems to shelter a mummified fetus. The activated bombs retain their color, including the production series and the name of the factory. Those with automatic memory of explosion, lie paralyzed in pools that renew their freshness to counteract the date and time of explosion, which are always current. The next corridor triples in width to the previous ones. Its walls are made of stone blocks arranged in such a way that they do not allow the finest sheet of paper to pass through. This is the only salvageable description from this corridor, unless, you stuck the ear to the stone, and pay attention to a sound perceived as moans or gasps caused by the effort of pushing something very heavy. The fourth of the interior corridors is stuning. It is a corridor flanked by two hedges of compact cypress. You can traverse the impeccable manicured lawn of the ground, through the center, by a narrow path of  fluted marble. Here the importance of the wind has been subjected to the smell of the plant. This smell, magically, obliges us to forget the sensations produced by the corridors. Moreover,it even compels us  not to ponder the absence of birds, nests, insects or signs that someone has ever crossed this delicate patch of paradise. A possible answer could be found when contemplating the fifth corridor. Here is a stream of crystalline waters resting in the depth of the reddish gorge that make up the two sloping walls. Some waterfalls precipitate with a certain ease, and the contact is so tenuous that it does not form ripples on the surface of the stream. Thus, it is not difficult to distinguish that in the rocky bottom there are birds whose extremities, by force of bites, have been turned into bleeding stumps. The open breasts reveal crops that contain insects, larvae and pebbles. Surprisingly, the little bodies express one (and it is not absurd to put it that way) constant death; they are vivid corpses, and the wounds and blood exhibit a fresh immediacy. Being absorbed in these details prevents us from perceiving  the calm course of a red wooden raft along one of the banks of the stream. Actually, in this corridor, you can only be aware of one of these two facts. The major power of the first one assumes such an exclusive character  that it can be stated  that the second fact is never verified.

  The sixth corridor gives, for the first time, the sensation of height. In fact, it is a summit that some have reached. However, none of the previous points are distinguishable from the crest.  The arrangement of the upper ends of the corridors resembles strangely in a smooth and glossy ramp. The first reaction to the visual impact consists of holding to the gravel surface of this corridor. It's like being on the tip of a cone. Finding ways to holding on the gravel surface prevents from maddening and, simultaneously, perceiving that one  is part of a drop of water in threatening suspension. The instinct of self-preservation - plainly speaking, fear - works curiously: it leads to the penetration of the gravel, digging like an earthworm. An almost absence of reasonings is compensated with a formidable waste of accuracy. The route is chosen fortuitously and by the whiteness of the inner layers of the gravel, which are clouds that enable a bird gliding so that you can land in another corridor after a violent fall due to lack of practice.? In this corridor, thorny reeds join the walls to each other, as if they were preventing the walls from collapsing. The tangle is so dense that it constitutes a dark cavern. The soil is a combination of shavings, sawdust, nails and twisted wires.? This rubbish dump smells of rust, and sometimes, of the mustiness of rooms closed for a very long time. From this corridor the communication among other interior corridors is viable. Thus, it is necessary to locate the gaps that are hidden behind packaging lids or coffins. These interior corridors are countless, and while the size of the interlinked gaps between them is getting diminished the number of corridors decreases. It is not unreasonable to think that this labyrinth be  more sophisticated than the labyrinths of fine grass common in palaces and castles. Perhaps it is a reproduction of the labyrinths where you experiment with rodents in order to measure levels of intelligence. This purpose is reasonably admissible: the sense of smell, when refined, influences on the body movements, so that the movements of the rodents sniffing the walls are surprisingly imitated. However, there is almost no difficulty (except for the brevity of life) to detect the final gap that communicates with the possible last corridor. This hole, this tunnel entrance that would barely tolerate the passage of a very thin being, is plugged with a mass similar to plaster. It's like a vestige of something that was done in a hurry. Due to the effect of time (if, in short, time is possible to exist here as a whole) or because of the quality of the material, there are interstices that let in beams of light and a distinctively purifying air. The capping is inconsistent and it reveals itself, incidentally, as a continuous superposition of very thin sheets. Its destruction, entering from the last possible corridor, would  prevent from distinguishing the impressions on the other side of each sheet. These impressions are undoubtedly traces of human hands, and they remind of the inscriptions of the first interior corridor. Its contemplation would move to tears.It would be inevitable to rave about those infinite sensations related to the movement of a human being; its thorough vision would absolutely allow learning a corporal language. To ignore this portent excludes the possibility of having remorse and, thus, it ends in a very white space that retains the fullness of light. This must be the nothingness and the first impression is to merge into it, as if you had abruptly ceased to exist. 

The strange mimesis renders the common notions of time, space and the simplest sensations useless. In this place of resplendent whiteness every detail must be perceived by the sense of touch. Only in this way does someone realize that he is in an amphitheater. Their rings expand downward, and one has the impression of returning to the tip of the floating cone. Interestingly, despair seems to have no place here, before this blindness in full light, since this is a new sensory beauty. Sumptuousness is provided by the absence of shadows. You experience here a perfect midday; the rigorously upright fall of the light eliminates even the color of the objects and the entire extent of the amphitheater. And with this variant of latent eternity a question arises regarding how the ingenuity that erected these vestiges could be created. It is conceivable that their premeditated end was that they be always vestiges. 

All of a sudden, one floats the idea of pondering if the constructor of the complex tried to isolate himself. While speculating on the fact that only one persecution could have stimulated this, the careful descent towards the lower circular esplanade begins. It is then that, from the uniform temperature of the air, of the light itself and of the material of the rings, it abruptly changes to the frigid temperature of the esplanade. Here is a block whose usefulness could be that of a bed or that of an altar for sacrifices. Suddenly, when touched, one becomes aware that one is the one persecuted, and you can experience the force of harassment; one does not know if one is already the one that touches or the one that is controlled. They don’t know either if one is the touched one or the one that controls. It is not known if one is a single entity here or if, in fact, there are more unspecified beings. Since it is impossible to amplify sounds, one never knows if one laughs because one is terrified or if one groans. It just happens that that presence behind us is the insinuation of the eternity of lies, the eternity of remorse or perhaps the eternity of the sin.

Submitted July 02, 2018 at 09:19AM by SnipeRobin https://ift.tt/2lMOrNW