PYTHIA
No. 5
Emma George | Totnes, England
If we can imagine a future where the gurglings and mutterings of the earth, the songs of the birds, and the ache of stone, mean something to us, then as Robert Bringhurst says ‘it may be that as a species we will soon learn again what we generally once knew – which is how to live in the world on the world’s terms.’
He stops, unfolds a finger from his talon claws, whispers, “enough.”
“The wrenching roil of circumstance is only relative, the burden we carry dissipates. These small years have taught you nothing of gravitas. As you labour under the loss you perceive you move in perpetual frondlike sun. Stop, your lips are filters of breeze, they remind me of the flower that grows deep in the sunless places. Do not forget you are born of rarefied tongue, your hair sings of night, your path is well worn, this descent is of your own making, and it is your fate, believe me child you are saved.”
“How lost did we become old man?" He responds, “it was a time when the linguist was only concerned with human language.” He on the other hand is always half smiling as he sings the names of the grasses, and flowers, the trees and creatures, worplesdon, brackybotrys, salmon leap, longpipes, malvacicus, coccinea, scarlet oak, ginks biloba, boksoop ruby, worplesdon, gumball, moonbeam, sargenti, borealis, serpentine, sea foam, emerald spreader, dog rose. He whistles and chirrups, laughs and sighs in his strange rasp tongue. His step never falters, his knees bend, he does not weary of the path, like he is floating.
“You cannot run he says, they will always find you. You are the architect of this undoing. There is something about the wreckage of cities, the groaning of buildings, the smashing of glass, the steam that issues from the pavements in long hisses, the exhaling of structures, it feels like a dream in slow motion, you forget the immensity of bones, the screech of twisting metal, you block out the screams, it’s too much for the soul to mend. It’s desire that brought you here floundering, you were founded on this path, you are flailing and fighting. But loss is the iridescent shell of rare marvel that protects you. You feel broken but you are strong, you are defiant though you feel helpless.”
We come to the valley of butterflies, they waft the breeze like millions of white petals hurled up to the honey dashed sun. He loops their names in spirals like he has messages for every single one. I follow and he moves in circles, palms lifted as ledges for memories of the lost. He is dancing in this descending flickering cloud, with bent legs, discarding years like old robes. The butterfly collapses into itself, as the caterpillar collapses into sludge with no belief that it will ever emerge, yet from the tomb of itself come these missives of light.
His hand like a talon touches my forehead, he mutters an incantation, breath blows on my heart, and I turn to the breech of the rock where the darkness bellows my name, the slow drip, in the distant roar of water I move forward, lose my step at the magnitude. I turn back and he’s gone, disappeared into dissipated light. I watch a white butterfly defy the sun. I walk to the opening of the cave, place my hand on the labyrinth carved into the stone, feel it’s impression on my palm, faint memories tremble my blood. There’s only one way out of the labyrinth.