Blinded by the Love

I was at Bar Pitti with Brett eating a lunch both of us really didn’t eat. We sat at a table on the sidewalk and it was strange being at a restaurant that had so many New York memories. The place has definitely mellowed out since my first time there with Andrew. Wasn’t that the spot we went to after we broke up, before we stopped sleeping together? And then there was the time I went for some magazine, when they were doing an interview on me. It’s my favorite Italian restaurant in the West Village and I didn’t even eat today because I’m scared of gaining weight. That’s besides the point.

The point is, on the sidewalk next to us there were four construction workers who had been struggling to open a manhole while Brett and I “dined.” They were just over Brett shoulder so they were my entertainment. By the time I ordered a macchiato the thing was open to reveal a stairwell leading underground. Brett and I asked for the check, walked around the block, kissed goodbye when he jumped in an Uber, and I snuck past the smoking workers and slipped underground. The stairwell was made of connecting sets of 10 stairs, like a spiral staircase but square, leading lower and lower down. It began to hurt my ears as I descended. Some combination of the silence, a cold dampness, and the change in atmosphere made me vomit on the 300th stair. I kept going. My eyes adjusted to the dim lights that someone had laid before me. In any normal circumstance I would be terrified, but something kept telling me I’d be ok, keep going, there was some thing to see.

The visions started when I was about 1000 feet down. That and some intense calf pain (ha!). I saw visions of my childhood first. Living in rural New Hampshire in that cornflower colored house. My brother and how vindictive he was. The memories progressed through skiing while I was in elementary school to horseback riding and dance competitions and then that time I was briefly in a band. I was 2000 feet down at this point.

The stairwell kept going but the stairs became nicer. The wrought iron turned to gold and even the ground had speckled diamonds to reflect the rare under world illuminations. When I finally reached flat ground I was met with the house. There was a dim light coming from inside and I met the most beautiful human I’ll ever know, Deviah.

Deviah’s hair was matted brown and it fell over her face as she talked to me. Her body was frail and malnourished and she spoke in a rasp that suggested years of solitude. I approached her house and she opened the door with a smile, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Everyone wants to think that they’re special. That you’ve been adopted and ta-da! Your real parents are rich kings who suddenly bestowed a fortune upon you! That boom, you had that one idea that no other human had but every other human needed and poof, you saved us all! Surprise! You are a princess. We all want to believe in some great uniqueness within us. An inherent unique destiny. And anyway I’m saying this as some sort of disclaimer or apology if there is anyone even left to read these words. I was tricked by my own lack of self-confidence. I was betrayed by my insecurity. I was blinded by my own ego.

Deviah showed me a reality I’ve never perceived. Did you know that while above ground a human civilization evolved over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, that there was a parallel existence thriving underground too? They ate mites and had pale skin and they relied on echolocation and they spoke together in song. They shared food and lovers and dark shelters. And their idyllic paradise was something I always dreamt of. Barter Socialism. Communism. A communal cult.

Deviah knew so much about me, so I thought it must be true. Of course she knew about my childhood and my life, but she also predicted my dreams. And she could see my past ones, too. She knew about how hard it was on the surface and how I tried to talk to people but my words were always twisted. How even though I meant well, any partner I ever had took my good intentions as malicious and manipulative. It wasn’t my fault that it didn’t work out with Tony, it wasn’t my fault that I cheated on him with Jacob because I was a fragile artist up there, trying and searching for substantial connection amongst a species incapable of fulfilling my needs, she said. She knew about the time I was drunk with Chris while Tony waited for me at home, how I told him I was helping my mom at the nursing home but really I was clumsily pleading to a bearded stranger to move to Utah, marry me have a child that shared our love for Nirvana. And I didn’t even feel guilty. Deviah nodded when I told her. “It’s because you’re one of us,” she whispered. And I was crying confessing like how I stole from best friend’s wedding gifts and how I cheated on my SATs and Daviah is the only person who ever told me what I needed. She was the only one to say the words that released me from my sordid past. “I understand.” “I would have done the same thing,” and “Of course you would respond that way.”

Her compassion is why I stayed. That and my inability to connect with the surface kind. Underground people were so much more connected, it’s like being in one of those sense deprivation restaurants. The kind with no light. They lead you in and hold your hand as you sit at the table in darkness to eat. Your food is so intense, the sounds are so clear, and something about the lack of vision makes your conversations with your date electrified. Chris took me there on our first date. “We can’t be seen," I said. “I know just the place.”

I don’t know how much time passed but I would’ve guessed it was about six or seven months until Deviah told me the news. Turns out, my hunch was right. I was special! She knew it all along, she said. They all did. They waited for me, watching through sewer grates while I walked to school. Leaving me little clues that I was special. Did I remember the time I found roses in the toilet? What about that heart-shaped locket on the street? Of course it was I who wass blind to my uniqueness all along! Deviah told me I better believe it, and she introduced me introduced me to Posho.

You have to believe that your life can change overnight. I suppose the progression of a lifetime is punctuated by those moments that you can’t take back, and the adjustment between them. Graduation, deaths, meeting a person you love, sneaking down the stairwell into a utopian sanctuary. These are things that have changed me.

Posh kneeled in front of me as I ran my fingers on his shoulder. “Be my queen.” That was it. Those were his first words to me. I felt the strength in his arms and I pulled him to stand in front of me. I reached up to place my hands over his lips, his eyes, his nose. The face is is a braille we all know. “Yes Posho, I will be your queen.”

Turns out I’m royalty after all! Years went by and Posho was training every day. I should’ve asked, for what? But that was just the thing he did. I figured, these people didn’t have nine-to-five jobs, they have to occupy their time with something. Posho’s day consisted of staring directly into white fire, five minutes on five minutes with complete darkness, and then about six hours of intense physical work. Running stairs, lifting the equivalent of three cars. At night he would be too tired to eat. “I made you dinner,” I’d say. “I’ll eat you!“ He’d laugh as he grabbed my body and we’d topple into one another. Every so often we would lead parades and those were my favorite days. “Sarah! Sarah!” The crowds would chant as we danced by. “Long live the queen!” They would sing songs about me, and children would try to touch my skin just to tell their friends. I felt so powerful, finally.

On the day of the battle I would like to say I was oblivious but I wasn’t. Posho told me something. We woke up in each others arms, and he said this. He said:

"This love between us is not rare. It is open. To you, you feel it is special because the surface humans have shut themselves off. They do not know how to love completely. I can feel it even with you, Sarah. My fragile queen. When we make love and you wonder if I’m somewhere else. I am not, but you are. The only way to change the course of humanity is to start anew. A new economic structure supported by a new religious structure supported by a new language supported by new ideas. It might seem sudden but this is the way we can truly change, and we can truly protect our earth. Do you know those moments that you can’t take back? Like the day your mom dies or the day you lose your virginity? Today is that day Sarah. Only it’s in the name of true love.”

His speech was so beautiful. I kissed him. I told him I may not know love, but I know I love him. He laughed.

That was the day of the Great Earth Battle. That was the day that the underground soldiers won. I don’t know how they did it, but when we all ascended daisy-chained hands walking up those stairs, everyone was gone.

We kept our hands over our eyes to shield the sun and while I finally breathed freely, my underground family coughed because the air was too good.