Unburdening & Mine Particulars

 

Orlando and I continued along the roads, coming to the honeycomb of mines inside the foot of the Olympic Mountains.  After his spontaneous sleep under the Wise Oak, many things had changed.  I had also changed, witnessing the burned out wood on my walk.  Yet still, the critical voice remained, taunting us in the form of a mischievous grey ghost, hovering near our shoulders and rustling the dead leaves in the trees, and putting sticks and stones in our path.  On the horizon we could see Spring had changed the landscape around the foot of the mountains.  We could also see the other seasons beyond the mountains, in our imagination.  This was but one more trace of winter to be left behind.  We had to be mindful of following the instructions Maude had told us, and I could see her bold jewels flashing by way of Mnemosyne, in my mind.  If something would go wrong in those Olympic Mountains, the grey ghost would be of no use.  And what would Maude think of Orlando, and what would he think of himself?  “We ought to make our way easier,” I said.  “What do you mean?” he said, kicking at the stones in his path, “I don’t think that’s possible.  Struggle is part of life.”  “I want to let go of it,” I said, stopping just as spring sent blossoms winging across the path.  “I want to go with the new.”  Orlando looked at me as if I had lost my mind.  “Struggle is the only worthy thing,” he said, forging ahead.  The entrance to the cave was guarded by a mysterious creature, dressed in red and holding a skull in her hand, waiting.  A man was making his way across the path, as if out of nowhere, calling, “Unburden thyselves!  Unburden thyselves!  This is the only true way, the only true way.”  He hauled easily a cart filled with every possible load imaginable, people’s woes and fears, anguish and heartaches, and there were a number of grey ghosts hanging off the back, which looked suspiciously like ours.   And so it was that I tricked the ghost, into joining again with it’s own…as like attracted like…with Orlando powerless to stop me.  Like a magnet it stuck, hauled to the back of the cart as it moved away, and clung to its likeness.  “I’ll be back…” it said, as the cart moved away and the man’s cries diminished into the distance.  Spring sent white petals around us and a quickening wind that made us hurry along the path toward the cave entrance.  “You know it’ll be back,” said Orlando, biting into a rosy apple he’d got out of his pocket.  “Perhaps, but it won’t ever be the same again…” I said, quickening my steps to the mine ahead of him.

(copyright Imogen Crest 2006.)