Passing into the Other World

The grass is burnt straw brown of high summer. Heat rises from the earth in geometric heat waves. Olives smoulder in the heat and the scent is resinous and strong all around. I scramble up the mountainside onto a small ledge. The way is hard and takes some effort. I skin my knees - an offering of blood. I don't give up. I take a sip of the sweet cordial water from my pack that I have bought with me and move on. The ledge becomes concave and I walk into a thorny encrusted bowl of shaped area that looks like a dead end.

I see the brown slither of an asp and feel a stirring of excitement. The bright bird watches me from behind a protective screen of thorns. I move strangely towards the centre of the mountain wall where the thorns become stangely matted. They are a barrier protecting and veiling something. I pull aside a couple of branches and cut my hands - more blood offering. I'm starting to feel annoyed but excited. Underneath the branches is a sandy dip that becomes a hole. I can see the dark eyes of a cave a few metres in. I can even taste the slight dampness of air emanating from it and vaporising quickly in this oven like heat. One would never know this entrance was here unless guided directly to it. It is a natural made door of thorns grwon by august Mother Nature herself.

I am about to get on my belly to slither through on my belly when three ghosts appear like dirty stains on the landscape. They are my mother, father and sister. Ontological terror clutches my throat. I am paralysed by fear and anger. These are jealous shades of the past, a chorus of spite and angry hatred. The sour smell of unlived life and thwarted ego emanates from them. In unison they gibber, "Don't you dare pass this threshold! It is not for you. Who do you think you are? If we cannot do it why should you? You have no right - even to live. We will break you, haunt you forever rather than let you pass."

The shades of my family fly at me and I see the shade of my sister eagerly attach itself to my wrist with hungry gaping lips to suck from one of my thorn wounds. Monumental titanic rage rises up in me. A lifetime of a spirit held in check erups into a tidal wave of fury that explodes outwards and burns teh stains into nothingness. "Fuck them!" I say as I slither onto my belly and pass into the Other World.