"We go to the underground river..."

The journey continues.

 

 

 

I saw that there were figures moving all around
me in the blue-green twilight. 

The soft, mossy
earth throbbed beneath me as I was swept along a
circle of dancers and then spun from one endless
circle to another. 

Soon I was breathless and
hysterical; erratic bursts of laughter wrung out from deep
within me as my spirit soared.

And I carried on dancing, lights beginning
to glow around me in a whirl of color until the colors
and the music were a kaleidoscopic tapestry unraveling
round me and spinning and spinning till my feet barely
touched the ground and I became lost and lost…
 

"Come,” she said from somewhere, but I was soaring
higher and higher and oblivious to everything but the
music and her voice reached me like a note of the song
and I carried on dancing.

“ Come!”
“I can’t stop… I don’t want to stop…” I panted.
Her smile somehow penetrated my senses.  “You don’t
have to.  Take my hand," she said.
There it was again, her hand, although now it seemed
like the tail of a comet in the universe. 

Yes. A comet.  And I would hold on to it and it would bear me on a journey
amongst the rest of the blazing stars in the midst of
the glorious music. 

I felt for her hand and took it and
followed blindly.
 

Eventually I could see her once more.

I could see that the figures were people like me and people like
her; not ribbons of light and glowing faces, but I was
still lost and I did not care and I stumbled on after
her for we continued to move to the music.
“I want to dance forever!”
She smiled again, touching my sleeve affectionately
and I noticed that somehow I had lost my clothes and
was now covered with the same glittering veils that
were draped over her slim shoulders, a thin dress that
appeared so beautiful now that we were beyond the
curtain of flowers.

Everything was beautiful here.
“We go to the underground river,” she told me in
her silky and musical voice.
 

*                *                *                *                * 

It was a long slick ribbon of silvery blue running through
its narrow channel under tunnels of unburied twisted
tree roots on the ground. 

It disappeared into awide rock opening

half-covered with greenery and
shrubs. 

 Stone steps shimmering beneath the clear
water led below to an underground spring which was surrounded by
the crystalline walls of the cave and these reflected the
sparkling water of the glittering pool within.
It did not seem strange that I perceived everything
as small at first, and then as we descended, larger. 

 

For indeed the cave
grew larger and larger and filled with people until it
was like a great hall beneath the earth. 

It had walls of
crystal and marble, and a large endless pool of
sparkling water with a bejeweled floor of smooth
stones gleaming in the shallow depths. 

There were
fruit and flowers pilled high on rock ledges
everywhere. 

There was more music, and dancers splashed around, laughing and
singing to it. 

 

 The hall was lit by its
luminescent roof of bright yellow light that cast
beams upon their faces from above.
“It is beautiful!” I cried.
She clapped her hands in glee, her eyes also bright.
“I am pleased you like it.  It is my home!” she said. 

She hopped like a bird round me in
the pool playfully, sprinkling water and lights.

“Are you glad you came?”
I nodded, plucking up a fruit from a wide platter
nearby and placing it in my mouth as I began to swirl
around as well, biting into its sweet juices as I spun.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Lauren Xena Campbell]

This place appears so beautiful, the music and dancing, I should very much like to go to such a place. Again your charismatic detail and telling of this story and the beautiful descriptions all carry me off into this world you have created. Truly magnificent!