The Labyrinth
COUNTLESS TRACKS COVERED the empty desert plain that lay before the small throng of workers. In the gloom, there were the deepest and freshest footsteps to guide them, but there was also the mountain range sat in the distance, mountains that covered the sea from view, and greedily claimed the gifts it brought to land. And then there was the one that stood before them, a solitary figure, a contrast to its peers, sleek and tall, emanating a sort of glow. She stood as if she had just raised the ground to her feet, vanquished all foes and forced the mighty mountains to retreat into the distance, where their power, through force of proportion, seemed timid compared to hers. She had an air of wealth to her that they did not, in their roughness. She had been born yesterday, or perhaps millennia ago, no one could tell.
Looming there, in the desolate darkness, was the effort of countless generations, conceived under her star, grown, faded, passing and passing on under her watchful gaze. Their burdens and pains were her foundation, their aspirations and joys her outstretched arms that caressed the sky. Her breath was the pulse of life, and for a long time now she had held it. It was she that spoke to them.
It was Nuzob they made for.
The mountain has layers, is a labyrinth, beckons some and hinders others. Nuzob knows who is to be trusted, who furthers her, knows whom to abandon, who would dismantle her.
She knows why.
Amal climbs the well-worn ladder; through a small opening he penetrates the skin. Sirhan follows him. They are working men. They stay late for their mistress. They lose themselves in their work.
There are so many tasks, stones to cut, bricks to shape and dry and lay, mortar to spread, wedges to drive. The mountain is a hand-made thing.
There are tunnels to dig, bridges to span, in the region they call the heart. There are walls to erect and buttress, paths to be paved, dams to be built and canals and wells, else they drown in her womb. The mountain is a fragile thing.
There are pulleys and lifts to be installed by the head, taking care not to let the high winds take hold of one’s clothes. There are restorations to be launched, deep underground, with the discovery of forgotten labours, detailing, inscribing, records to be written and archived, knowledge to be preserved. The mountain is a fleeting thing.
There are places to be found and there are places to be lost.
Above all, there is the story of those working on her, those who banish themselves freely into her, that might be of some small value or interest to whomever happens to be looking in from outside. Nuzob is anything but a mountain.
Somehow there is already enough to gain from such a plentiful landscape, one which we are so rudely and abruptly awoken to. Every day could be coloured a different shade, every morning an excitable hum, and every evening a daring spice. But there is infinitely more to gain from a starless night, or a quiet afternoon. A story can never be about nothing. But a story about nothing, that is possibly the greatest thing one might find in a sea of diamonds, it is lump of coal.
It is who or what we are before we are and after we were. Still, there are many works being done, too many to possibly grasp. And countless more that never even amount to a thought. How could they, when diamonds immortal vie for our attention?
