The Underworld

Blinking through humid goggles I turned the small item over in my palm. Strokes of rose hued pink, red and gold decorated the tiny item as I began to register a need for air. A small pressure in my temple irked me to move as I resisted the urge to breath in liquid suicide. Sweet temptation.

Streamlining my way back to the surface, my lungs released at the refuge of open air.

Even without oxygen, I preferred it better at the bottom. On the topside I’m reminded of the order of things, my conscripted place. Underneath I forget the way of the world, underneath I forget what they did.

Whatcha you got there girly? The thin leery voice of a passerby lands upon me like an unwanted fishing net. This must be how salmon feel. In one moment minding their own business, joyfully inhabiting a watery playground, then suddenly under arrest.

I peer cautiously towards the man’s voice on the shore, his wiry body appears to have gone many days without care or washing. His hair is slicked sideways to cover the growing bald patch on his forehead and mangled teeth dabbled with the same black upon his fingernails.

Disgust lands like a rock in my stomach.

Underneath the water I tuck the treasure into my panties and act as if I have no idea what he’s talking about. He sneers back at me with squinted eyes. daring me to prove it. I take no chances and politely offer the verbatim courtesy responses required to signal my patriotism and homage to our present leader. He has no response other than courtesy as we were now bound in contractual agreement to speak favourably upon his leadership.

The man sneered and continued walking.

I could feel the small thing pressing against my hidden lips but dared not touch it. I had spoken the name of the authority and thus feared the investigation service might appear at any moment. So I swam, tight legged back to shore and started to make my exit plan.

Mother had warned me not to swim in the pools but I’d always been more inclined to adventure than her. I resented the stifling operating system of quarter-14 that we called home. Even the have-nots seemed to have more freedom than us; at least they had access to stories. No-one would tell me any since grandmother died. Tight-lipped everyone one of them, holding some secret shame which might disrupt the order of things.

Likely that’s why mother kept such a tight leash upon us, some secret shame. Father barely noticed anything after his nightly round of mead. More often than not he smelled of the fermented liquid before he even entered the house in the evening. I could count on his one-two sideways-steps down the garden path and fumbling hands at the gate each night to remind me of our drowning condition.

In the ponds I chose my own fate. I dove and dreamt of life untethered. I imagined what it might be to transform my freckles into gill-like structures filtering oxygen and staying ever longer in the underworld. Death didn’t seem that bad either, but I couldn’t leave my sisters like that.

The family’s survival depended on me, since four years old my role had been destined. That’s why they hadn’t sacrificed us yet. At least that’s what gran had said before she passed. It was my gift with music that would save us all, she said. Even in her last days in the quarter, when her eyes no longer tracked my hands across the piano keys - I could sense her approving my songs. A small sparkle in her eye indicating a skipped heartbeat, or maybe an early arrhythmia played across her face lit up with a smile. It was all for her, every time they dressed me up put me on display for the autocrats high on self-importance. On every stage I sat, I imagined myself alone with her in our study and the hours disappeared. We lived another day.

***

Stumbling back through the forest towards our cottage I heard the sound of oncoming voices and ducked behind a bramble to prevent being seen with wet hair. Two shiny metallic objects beep-bopped their way down the path towards me. Without time to contemplate my hiding place, I held my breath, wrapping my arms around my shins to stay balanced. They passed without notice and I looked down to see the item had fallen onto the moist and mossy floor.

It was a gold locket.

**

My thoughts screamed louder than the pulse of my heart, I was suspended in time staring at the object as if it might detonate at any moment. Caught with something like this, I would be executed. I couldn’t look away, transfixed as small streams of light and dust that fell upon her surface reflecting rich multi colour tones I had never seen before. My agile fingers found their way to the small crack and pinched it towards open at the same moment I felt my collar tug backwards and my gaze was ripped upwards towards two the two shiny bots that held me captive.

“Unmarked trespasser on nature reserve” rattled the first. “Avoiding contact with authority, suspicious business at hand”.

“Capture, destroy, dispose” announced the second and they proceeded to strangle my precious fingers with twisted metal rope. I gagged as the same rope made its way into my mouth, lurching my head back into upright position.

At first I struggled, but realizing that the ropes only grew tighter, I slackened my muscles allowing shallow room to breathe. I could not believe this would be the end of it all, only a few short moments ago the mystery seemed to be unfolding and now it collapsed upon my childish dreams.

A technicolor rainbow shattered in front of my eyes as my final breath choked off. My awareness flooded with dread, diaries of lives un lived and all that I had left to do in this world. Hypoxic intoxication drowned me in memory of earl grey tea stained dresses and sticky fingers slapped for touching the piano. My grandmother, giving my mother a locket, holding her hair and kissing her forehead. My mother, anxious and trembling, moving out of the room. A song I had never heard before.

Suddenly I found myself flat on my back staring at the undergrowth from the trees, the same soft light streaked down upon my face, now peppered with pollen that tickled my nose. The bots lay beside me in a metallic heap, and soft music was playing from the bushes.

I seemed to know the notes or at least my body did, closing my eyes, my ribcage transformed into an imaginary piano and I played. The tune was simple at first, but grew increasingly complex, impossible and perfect. Tensions built and resolved within my body which had never felt so alive, half buried with disrupted earth, completely continuous with the pulsing forest symphony.

I felt my breath empty as the final crescendo descended upon me and I turned my head sideways to examine my surroundings.

Silence. Almost more potent than sound. Not a bird or breeze within earshot. Emptiness. My ears strained as far as I could hear, nothing returned to me.

Begging my eyes to work, I sat up to scan the scene. Two heaps of foreign metal discarded beside me in the deadened forest. Nothing to be felt but an ice cold calm that pierced my bones as I painstakingly crawled back to the bush to find the locket.

There she was, sitting open for the first time. Examining it closer inside I found a small rose petal, too delicate to touch. Carefully, I closed the treasure and rested her upon my neck. Instantly the world resumed her musings. As if I was hearing everything for the first time, my senses were almost overwhelmed by the tedious goings-on of quarter-14. It felt like too much, too soon, too fast. I had to get home.

***

Marching quickly through the forest, the soundscape transformed before me. I had always had a sensitive ear but this new level of awareness simultaneously frightened and invigorated me. The small locket slapped hapless against my chest as I ran faster and faster.

By the time my sweat stained body arrived at the house-gate, I could already tell that something was wrong. The whole scene felt like a mere image of what I was used to. Identical in form, but empty of life. This was not home. My bones trembled as I swallowed a breath in order to step towards the house, when a light hand tapped my shoulder.

Spinning on tip-toes I came face to face with the figure of my grandmother, as solid and real as I remembered her all those years ago. Her wrinkle-worn face bore eyes shining by the light of the moon, she pressed a single finger to her lips to say, silence.

I obeyed.

Shrill screams erupted from the skeleton of my former home as I hurriedly reversed direction to follow my grandmother. What about my sisters? There was no time to think.

Grandmother pressed backwards towards the forest, following her I stumbled back down the path from whence we came through the winding forest trail, the echoing dreamscape unfolding before my barely functioning eyes.

By the time we arrived at the pools, I was nearly blind. Choking on the hot air I looked around. There were people everywhere. Familiar and unfamiliar faces outlined the steamy air. Some form of smoke was setting in and the people seemed not to notice or care, they simply watched with an eerie knowing and responsibility. There was an understanding in the air, the kind you that can only be shared between lovers or children of parents who know them too well.

My last ounce of courage was spent stepping into the water to follow my grandmother as she waded deeper and deeper beckoning me to follow.

She disappeared beneath the surface and the midnight air resounded with piercing screams at intolerable decibels, the oxygen seemed to have disappeared from the sticky atmosphere and I gasped in vain attempt to breathe but it didn’t work, willingly my legs collapsed beneath me taking my head below the surface where the cool water felt like heaven on a midsummers summer’s day.

Quarter 14 was gone, I opened my eyes beneath the surface and began to breathe.