Briefing for a Descent into Hell Part 5

Here rocks are tufted with lit fern, and fish

Swim shimmering phosph.o.r.escent through the weed,

And shoals of light float blinking past like eyes,

Here all the curious logic of the night.

Is this sweet drowned woman floating in her hair?

The sea-lice hop on pale rock scalp like toads.

And this a gleam of opalescent flesh?

The great valves shut like white doors folding close.

Stretching and quavering like the face of one

Enhanced through chloroform, the smiling face

Of her long half-forgotten, her once loved,

Rises like thin moon through watery swathes,

And pa.s.ses wall-eyed as the long dead moon.

He is armed with the indifference of deep-sea sleep

And floats immune through searoots fed with flesh,

Where skeletons are bunched against cave roofs

Like swarms of bleaching spiders quivering,

While crouching engines crusted with pale weed,

Their shafts and pistons rocking through the green...

NURSE: Now do come on dear. Oh dear, you are upset, aren't you? Everybody has bad times, every one gets upset from time to time. I do myself. Think of it like that.

PATIENT: Not everyone has known these depths

The black uncalculated wells of sea,

Where any gleam of day dies far above,

And stagnant water slow and thick and foul ...

NURSE: It's no good spitting your pills out.

PATIENT: Foul, fouled, fouling, all fouled up ...

NURSE: One big swallow, that will do it, that's done it.

PATIENT: You wake me and you sleep me. You wake me and then you push me under. I'll wake up now. I want to wake.

NURSE: Sit up then.

PATIENT: But what is this stuff, what are these pills, how can I wake when you ... who is that man who pushes me under, who makes me sink as drowned man sinks and ...

NURSE: Doctor X thinks this treatment will do you good.

PATIENT: Where's the other, the fighting man?

NURSE: If you mean Doctor Y, he'll be back soon.

PATIENT: I must come up from the sea's floor. I must brave the surface of the sea, storms or no, because They will never find me down there. Bad enough to expect Them to come into our heavy air, all smoky and fouled as it is, but to expect them down at the bottom of the sea with all the drowned ships, no that's not reasonable. No I must come up and give them a chance to see me there, hollowed in hot rock.

NURSE: Yes, well, all right. But don't thrash about like that ... for goodness' sake.

PATIENT: Goodness is another thing. I must wake up. I must. I must keep watch. Or I'll never get out and away.

NURSE: Well I don't know really. Perhaps that treatment isn't right for you? But you'd better lie down then. That's right. Turn over. Curl up. There. Hush. Hushhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

PATIENT: Hushabye baby

lulled by the storm

if you don't harm her

she'll do you no harm

I've been robbed of sense. I've been made without resource. I have become inflexible in a flux. When I was on the Good Ship Lollipop, I was held there by wind and sea. When I was on the raft, there was n.o.body there but me. On this rock I'm fast. Held. I can't do more than hold on. And wait. Or plunge like a diver to the ocean floor where it is as dark as a fish's gut and there's nowhere to go but up. But I do have an alternative, yes. I can beg a lift can't I? cling on to the coattails of a bird or a fish. If dogs are the friends of man, what are a sailor's friends? Porpoises. They love us. Like to like they say, though when has a porpoise killed a man, and we have killed so many and for curiosity, not even for food's or killing's sake. A porpoise will take me to my love. A sleek-backed singing shiny black porpoise with loving eyes and a long whistler's beak. Hold on there porpoise, poor porpoise in your poisoned sea, filled with stinking effluent from the bowels of man, and waste from the murderous mind of man, don't die yet, hold on, hold me, and take me out of this frozen grinding Northern circuit down and across into the tender Southern-running current and the longed-for sh.o.r.es. There now. Undersea if you have to, I can breathe wet if I must, but above sea if you can, in case I may hail a pa.s.sing friend who has taken the shape of a shaft of fire or a dapple of light. There, porpoise, am I true weight? A kind creature? Kith and Kind? Just take me South, lead me to the warmer current, oh now it is rough, we toss and heave as it was in the Great Storm, when my raft fell apart like straw, but I know now this is a good cross patch, it is creative, oh what a frightful stress, what a strain, and now out, yes out, we're well out, and still swimming West, but South West, but anti-clock Wise, whereas before it was West with the clock and no destination but the West Indies and Florida and past the Sarga.s.so Sea and the Gulf Stream and the West Wind Drift and the Canaries Current and around and around and around and around but now, oh porpoise, on this delicate soap bubble our earth, spinning all blue and green and iridescent, where Northwards air and water swirl in time's direction left to right, great spirals of breath and light and water, now oh porpoise, singing friend, we are on the other track, and I'll hold on, I'll clasp and clutch to the last breath of your patience, being patient, till you land me on that beach at last, for oh porpoise, you must be sure and take me there, you must land me fairly at last, you must not let me cycle South too far, dragging in the Brazil current of my mind, no, but let me gently step off your slippery back on to the silver sand of the Brazilian coast where, lifting your eyes, rise the blue and green heights of the Brazilian Highlands. There, there, is my true destination and my love, so, purpose, be sure to hold your course.

There now, there's the sh.o.r.e. And now more than ever we must hold our course to true. There are no rocks, shoals or reefs here porpoise, which could stub your delicate nose or take strips of blubber off your sleek black back, but there is the shining coast and of all the dangers of the Southern Current this one is worst, that if we keep our eyes on that pretty sh.o.r.e wishing we were on it, then the current will sweep us on in our cycle of forgetting around and around and around and around again back to the coasts of Africa with hummocks of Southern ice for company, so hold on now porpoise and keep your mind on your work, which is me, my landfall, but never let yourself dream of that silver sand and the deep forests there for if you do, your strength will ebb and you'll slide away southwards like a dead or a dying fish.

There. Yes. Here we are, close in, and the thunder of the surf is in us. But close your ears, porpoise, don't listen or look, let your thoughts be all of a strong purposeful haul. In. And in. With the wash of the southdragging current cold on your left flank. In. Yes, and I'm not looking either dear porpoise, for if I did not reach that sh.o.r.e now and if we did have to slide away falling South and around again and again and again then I think I'd ask you porpoise to treat me as men treat porpoises and carve me up for your curiosity. But there, closer. Yes, closer. We are so close now that the trees of the beach and the lifting land beyond the beach are hanging over us as trees hang over a tame inland river. And we're in. But will you come with me, splitting your soft fat black shining tail to make legs to walk on, strolling up with me to the Highlands that are there? No, well then, goodbye porpoise, goodbye, slide back to your playful sea and be happy there, live, breathe, until the poison man makes for all living creatures finds you and kills you as you swim. And now I roll off your friendly back, thank you, thank you kind fish, and I find my feet steady under me on a crunching sand with the tide's fringe washing cool about my ankles.

And now leaving the sea where I have been around and around for so many centuries my mind is ringed with Time like the deposits on sh.e.l.ls or the fall of years on tree trunks, I step up on the dry salty sand, with a shake of my whole body like a wet dog.