Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven.
—SHAKESPEARE
Ross Porter has reached the nucleus.
It is a cathedral, this place, its immense black bark pilasters buttressing an emerald leafy dome; all down from that high ceiling run adornments of climbing vines and dusky flags of Spanish moss. Its windows are openings in the leaves where the sun dazzles through to light ensconced flowers. Its stations are rising hammocks set apart from the flat of the liquid floor. And it contains secretive places too, confessionals set in the darkest grottoes and below its vegetal base and black water, the crypts which contain the remains of its tenants.
Its choir consists of a flock of storks nesting high in the tops of the trees. From their lofty stalls they drone chants echoing through the temple. Accompanying them is the organ sound of croaking frogs, their vocal chords sounding like old, dry pipes opened by comical fingers playing on stiffened keys.
The pilgrim enters the nave, a huge grassy marsh in the swamp’s very centre. The sky opens out above him a cyanic blue and the rushes whisper in the breeze of the open place. Dragonflies dart about him on iridescent wings. He clutches his votive offering in his left hand, a rusty relic from another time, and his right arm pushes the rushes aside as he moves to the centre of the expanse. He can see, not far off, an oasis of trees, the altar on which he must place himself, knowing it is the heart of this feral temple. He slogs toward it. He is parched. He is dirty and tired as all pilgrims are when they reach the climax of their wanderings but his faith is immaculate. He knows without doubt he has reached the source.
The laughter of running water.
At his feet now is a burbling diaphanous spring, a fountain a few inches high in the midst of grey limestone. Ferns and flowers mark its circumference. The rippling pool is clear and unclouded but the depth from which the fountain gushes he has no way of telling, for the fountain itself conceals its well in the sparkle and dance of its effluence. In the water the rocks are gilded with a pearl shimmer. A rainbow of coloured crystalline pebbles lines the sides of the pool. They appear like jewels from the greater depths thrown up by the force of the water. The pilgrim kneels beside the pool to look deeper into its mysteries.
He wonders what properties it might contain. This close the water’s aroma is acrid. At first this disturbs him but he soon discerns it must constitute elements which come from the core of the earth. He inhales the pungent, subterranean fragrance. He has come here to drink of this secret water. Preparing to drink, he kneels and cups his right hand. But before he does he takes time to relish the moment of sweet culmination. Then he looks at the surface, at the point where he intends to plunge his hand and sees something which freezes that hand in the air.
He sees life in the pool.
On the skin of the water are insects: tiny, ephemeral water striders skimming almost aimlessly. But the pool itself is not smooth for them. It undulates with the waves from the surging spring. He examines the creatures closely. Their travel is not so simple: moments of brief flight where they might catch glimpses of the whole pool, and then other moments of little submersions, minuscule half-drownings. Then they struggle again to the surface, and on the surface sharp little pushes against the ripples propel them a mere few inches. These are the smallest of creatures.
He catches sight of his own reflection: imperfect, it floats on the surface distorted by the wavelets. He peers down at the grey of his temples, at the lines in the wavering face and the eyes which stare back at themselves, refracted by memories of the life behind them. He looks at the familiar face of a stranger.
In the scheme of things is he any more than these transient sprites? He has had their flights of comprehension as he raised himself fleetingly above the travel and beheld the far, far distance. And he has suffered the awful submersions, the harsh baptisms below the ripples, glimpsing the depths. But mostly he has just pushed along on the surface, moving here and there almost thoughtlessly, sometimes with purpose, sometimes without. The water sprites live fleeting lives. He does not know how long but suspects it is merely weeks. And in that time they are born, procreate and die. The ripples move them. They move with the ripples.
I am in the birth room when my son enters the world. He has no name; he has nothing human. He is wet and bloody before they clean him and cut his umbilical. He surfaces for the first time. He already knows how to breathe.
I was like that once: at the source.
I see now what I have become.
Emily is taken from me so I begin to lie to myself.
Then I take myself away from Robert. I make my boy cry.
Oh, how I wish I could cast off my armour.
I obsess in a search for the ephemeral.
Sometimes I think I have gone too deep.
The sprites swim away from the fountain. It is far too tumultuous there. They travel out to the edge where the water is calmer. They lose the source as they find the shore.
Is that what death is? A shore?
Yet the water escapes through gaps in the rocks and is lost beneath the ferns. The water transforms, touched by what it touches; still water but changed, not the same as its source. It feeds the marsh rushes and circulates through them to make the swamp and then flows in a soft indeterminate current to streams and rivers running to the sea. It evaporates then into the vastness of sky. It becomes rainclouds and that rain falls and touches the ground and percolates down once again into the earth.
And begins again.
Cycles.
We all know the truth.
It is not profound.
At the source.
At the edge of forever.
Ross Porter looks up from the water. He rises and shifts his gaze to the sky. There is daylight enough to leave safely. He knows he will find his way back. In his hand he still holds the rusted sword hilt. He studies it quizzically, turning it this way and that, the way an archaeologist would. He smiles at it: a collaborative smile. He will not keep it.
It is not his to keep.
He tosses it into the pool. The water sprites dance with the splash. It sinks: turning and turning and for one brief instant seems to gleam in its former glory. It comes to rest on a bed of pebbles. The water is a good home.
Though he is thirsty, Ross Porter rises from the edge of the pool.
He does not need to drink.
Instead, he turns and walks back to the rest of his life.
Smiling.