Читать книгу Crystal Stair - Alessandra Grosso - Страница 7

ESCAPE AND FLEE

Life is a long lesson in humility.⁴

I was running up the stairs to fetch the key that would finally free us. I instinctively knew that there were fifty-five steps to go up and fifty-five more to go down. Behind me, doors, gates and ancient grates were closing; I could only see darkness and despair all around.

I was growing troubled and distressed, short of breath; walls were fading in colour from honey to cream... I knew I was entering hell, but I couldn’t slow down. As soon as I reached the last step, I sprang toward the room where the key to the last door must be.

In this rush, the key was everything. It was salvation, the symbol for liberation, our deliverance from darkness; but I knew the clawed monster would defend it fiercely: it wasn’t going to be easy.

He had been a man in his previous life, a strong, powerful man; an abuser.

Facing him required in fact every bit of my strength. I could only feint to the side at once and attack with a wooden chair I found nearby; a mere chair against a monster that had been an icon in life. A life of excess, of drinking until early morning, of cocaine, women – millions of women – and child abuse, up to the day he was gruesomely burnt alive.

Having always been particularly sensitive, though, even now I could perceive his weakness.

And then I suddenly attacked: with a feint, I smashed the chair on his head. The wood cracked and broke, leaving only two of its legs in my hands. Deeply distraught, I used them to angrily spear the monster’s chest and neck.

The hideous, burnt figure lay now on the ground; I guessed I could try to burn him to ashes once and for all. My attempt would certainly slow him down: he was terrified of fire, which would finally cleanse his envy of beauty and innocence. It was the only thing he had nurtured in a life of manipulative, psychopathic tendencies.

Yet, although I was practically certain of his obsessive fear, I couldn’t feel any pity for him; I had to defend myself first, and neutralise him in any way.

In his life, knowing that envy and resentment were not socially acceptable, he had disguised them as charm and intellectualism, but his thoughts had always been dark and malicious. Hunger is said to be sharper than a sword: I believe envy is even sharper, and throughout history it has caused discord, wars, and endless mourning.

I was then fortunate enough to find a lighter on the ground; it was surprisingly the one from my youth, which I called ‘the Zippo of my sweet sixteen’ – when I smoked secretly from time to time. I moved quickly, threw the burning Zippo at him and, once found the key, I took it and ran toward the staircase.

Fifty-five steps. I was young, and I flew up the stair. My knee hurt but I endured the pain: every step meant life, so I counted each one over and over again.

Once on top, I finally bypassed the banister and quickly handed the key to my companions – some sought the light, others wanted to pursue the abyss in the opposite direction.

The lock clicked open, but I could feel the monster starting to approach after a brief pause: he was trying to retrace his steps. We needed to leave that place and run toward the light, the same I had always sought.

The elaborate, white-painted gate in front of me was the last hindrance, but it also reminded me of purity, since its grating was sturdy and thick, and protected me as the light did, so that the monster would stay away.

But what could this protective aura ever be? Mere light?

And what was this light? God Himself? Or Lucifer, as in ‘light-bringer’?

Questions, questions... The answers were elusive.

The monster was furious, cursing in his daunting, throaty voice. The gate in fact had been closed and locked again, and everyone had escaped; the key was left for whoever chose to challenge him.

I didn’t think there was anything else to do, so I ventured further, to a dark and gloomy church. Attempting to unravel its mystery, I found myself suddenly alone in the pitch dark of that dusty, crumbling place. I proceeded along the hall that probably constituted the right aisle and found a curious kneeling-stool at the foot of a statue.

How bizarre, I thought. What will it ever...

It was completely covered in blood.

A shiver; then a voice.

“There does not exist one and only one Death!”

What? Won’t death actually be the end of everything? Won’t we slowly vanish like smoke?

Will we go back or move forwards in time? To a recent or remote past, or a parallel dimension altogether?

__________

I realised to be already on the outside of the mysterious church, wandering among ferns. Majestic chain ferns, with shiny leaves that smelt of wildness and reminded me of my childhood country house by the lake.

The old house was now within reach, it seemed, but I was too curious to stop here; I longed to cross that green expanse, in the inquisitive attitude of early youth. My candour actually demanded: “explore!”, my wisdom: “think!”, my heart: “feel!”. So I went on, following my audacious nature.

And then a scene from my past suddenly occurred: a fierce clash between tyrannosaurs.

I fled – although I can attest that, before running away, I was offered a close-up view of the sharp teeth of the two animals – and noticed their stance changing from confrontational to outright offensive. With their colossal muscle-bound bodies they clashed, destroying everything in their wake. They uprooted trees and trampled on my beloved ferns, in the typical fight of the mating period.

I was in such a rush that I tripped over several stones tumbling on my path. The commotion drew the attention of the beasts that, immediately alert, turned their heads and went on the hunt.

They could perceive everything, from my smell to my fear, as many wild animals do.

I dashed away in despair, my breathing growing heavy. My spleen hurt, under strain, but I couldn’t afford to stop now: there had to be a way out, somewhere. And sometimes it is even more frightening than what you are fleeing from.

The only opening turned out to be a dark alley that progressed into a cracked tunnel, running within a natural cavity.

It was time to confront my claustrophobia. With a last-gasp effort I squeezed into it. Outside, the massive beasts roared, enraged, since they could no longer see their prey.

I crawled for a long time – the air stale, smelly and unpleasant to breathe. I also had a terrible fear of spiders and mice, and had always loathed both. In particular, mice terrified me since – as a child – I had once entered our hen house and discovered an enormous brown rat stealing eggs from a nest. But I was a little girl then; now, however, I was a woman and it was time to fight for life.

Fight to survive, or flee if the enemy is bigger than you: it was the process underlying human survival. It had always been, and I had to endure it – for myself, for the survival of the human species, for all mankind even.

Society had never been foremost in my mind. Prior to this, I used to be socially inept; an intractable, introverted person, invariably in dark clothes and rather depressed, with even suicidal thoughts. It was now time to overcome my emotional turmoil, though.

In the meantime, I was still crawling; scratching my arms and legs as I struggled to move forwards.

__________

It was night when I re-emerged, an eerie, nearly moonless night; the sky occasionally ominous in its murkiness, and the clouds easily compared to big felines in terms of strength and colours.

I could still see a tyrannosaur wandering before my very eyes, as I observed it from a hidden natural terrace.

I climbed down only at daylight, feeling stronger, ready to explore and understand the true nature of things; my mind was open to all possibilities: discovering new creatures, interpreting odd dreams.

Dreams had always been everything to me; they were the realisation of all my desires, the perception of events before they occurred. On one memorable occasion, it had been the awareness that my plea for help would be ignored – by a beloved friend who had never understood me as a human being.

My dreams had predicted this betrayal, but I had ignored them in my stubbornness to go on with my life. I had slammed the door to my naturally sensitive inner voice.

The first time I had sensed the presence of this voice I was only a child; only recently had I truly become aware of it, only now that I was escaping and fighting monsters.

I started walking across an ascending valley. It was autumn, with red oak leaves everywhere, falling from the trees, and in the air smells of freshly fallen rain, wild moss.

In my close proximity a secluded spot came into view; I could finally light a fire to warm up. Fortunately I still had a reserve of dried meat in my bag. I built the fire and comfortably enjoyed my camping; then I lay down to assess the night.

It seemed to last forever; I dreamt of crossing the seas on clunky sailing boats.

__________

Upon awakening, everywhere only dew and frost. It must have been mid-September. As I walked, my boots sank into several inches of leaves that covered the ground – women’s boots, refined yet comfortable like old cowboy ones.

These musings diverted my attention from a cold and deep sting of nostalgia, loneliness and other sad, intimate thoughts. It was the same intimacy I could feel in the depths of that curious red oak forest, whose falling leaves were blood red.

I soon felt I was being followed, though.

This feeling of being spied on – the perception that something obscure was crowding me and planning behind my back – had been a recurring concern in my late adolescence, when someone had been leaving anonymous messages in my letter box. They seemed to be love messages, but were so ambiguous as to be disturbing.

Despite my foreboding I advanced in the woods, frequently looking over my shoulder since I still didn’t feel at ease; I perceived the mist, the dew and something else I couldn’t entirely identify.

And suddenly, my erratic feelings became nearly tangible; it was real fright then, horror the like of which only children can experience.

I felt helpless and ran away from the man in black boots who was now chasing me, asking like a maniac: “Why?”

...Why? Rather, why are you asking me this question? I wondered.

While running, so as not to give in to panic, I was planning out my enduring survival: it was raw instinct, a sort of natural, prideful detachment that spurred me.

He might kill me, but he would never get inside my head; my mind fought while my body fled.

Running through tree roots, I hoped my merciless pursuer would fall. Not once did I look him in the eyes. Crocodile eyes, focussed and stealthily controlling their prey from under the surface of the water.

Intuition told me that the man was diabetic; intuition, and voices coming from other dimensions, far, far away. But I also knew it by simply looking at his foot wounds; his feet would have to be amputated soon.

My hope came from my determined spirit: the hope that he would tire himself out, that his disease would strike him suddenly while on the chase, that he had a crisis and collapsed to the ground.

I ran, as the tree branches grew lower and more tangled. I bent down then, trusting his tall stature to make the path all the more difficult for him; whenever I could, I grabbed the branches that I left behind me, wishing they would slap his face.

I loathed what he was doing, particularly because of the despair he instilled in me. It was also pride, in part – I admit it: who was he to force me to flee, to gnaw at me when already in the grip of fear?

Meanwhile I went on running, but the speed race had soon become an endurance race, and his strong body seemed to tolerate it rather well.

As for me, my sweat was falling to the ground along with big tears and I could feel my hope crumbling, until I saw someone new in front of me: my grandfather.

I was certain that, sensing my worry, he would project me into another dimension, perhaps a much more intimate and less dangerous situation, and would reassure me.

My certainty would soon prove either reliable or not.