wide arched steps switchbacks ran
before him and up inside a brilliant white cone
to the side he couldnt see where
he assumed the steps later descended a pale ochre light marbled the cones face
up into its apex
a misty bluelight an underwater
tropical light lighted the broad ascending steps they were organic on shallow risers and
hinted to be more a ramp than a staircase
though no matter they aroused his curiosity and begged him forward to
walk up and up
as he ascended and to his mild
surprise at the inside of the steps of the rising switchbacks were prehistoric
relics which rung by rung gave way to more modern artefacts the higher he rose off the stone and brick
cobbled floorwhich he didnt bother to look down upon he recognised he was
moving physically through the worlds prehistory and history and its cultures
and as he gained altitude they became more and more contemporary their creation
more precise
the cone its steps suggested a
Guggenheim-sensibilitya towering sensibility to his exploration and ascension and even before he
made its top the mottled ochre lighting now dominating his way the displayed pieces
confused him he couldnt determine if
they were assembled scarce seams or if they were organic he couldnt distinguish
if they were functional or rather elaborate ornaments
those that preceded them had
function whether they were used in ritual or commonplace or of common knowledge
despite their acculturation
and on these many uppermost
steps their artefacts defied alignment or possibly origin from their
predecessors almost as if he had stepped off his planet onto
an alien planetary surface
when he began his descent into what
had been the unseen side at its top the edges
of these steps were crumbling whether of
old age or poor construction or inferior materials he couldnt tell but the artefacts at his back he had just
stepped away their cohorts on this side
were degenerate
every step languished and demurred
they were steeper and irregular and became more unsubstantial
there were occasions he had to leap
down onto a next platform but before he
leapt he discerned that he could retreat
if he wanted
he wasnt blind to the possibility
that despite his determination his descent might irrevocably become one way incited by his awareness that when he jumped down
the platform that received him shook under his weight and impact and often clods broke off and fell
on those lonely suspended islands
he tread to their ravaged edges and glimpsed down
and beneath him was a rotating
maw that cast the ochre light that seethed voluptuously rapturously
he might have conceded it was a caldera
but there was no violence of magma of belching heat and gasesin fact he wasnt
sure it possessed any depth the fallen clods
were scattered on its roiling face he wasnt
sure it wasnt a kind of lookingglass a caramel singular dimension a profane pane
of glass
where he stopped was where the relics
stopped if a relic could be a barely
worked stone a negligibly altered piece of bone or shard of wood
this was an ugly prehistory
this side was desperate
looking up the switchbackthe humpback
he saw the distant apex heavenly in a
cool blue colour that eroded the grim rust he saw above him before he began up the
steps
these descending steps swayed and as they swayed they piqued himreminded
him of a nursery rhyme he hadnt considered or thought of in a very long time
rock-a-by baby
on the tree top
when the wind blows
the cradle will rock
when the bough breaks
the cradle will fall
and down will fall baby
cradle and all
wha? Mankindes
cradle?
1523, Twosday,
13 6. 17
1846, Thursday,
15 6. 17
