Sebastian Michael's Blog: EDEN by FREI, page 24

Jupiter

I shall return to Saturn. I’ll not ignore it, not have passed it for good, unawed by its majesty, unwondered by its spheres. Unswayed. It sways me, Saturn; but not now. Now I am drawn on further, down—not down, across—the path: the gravitation is too strong, its presence too immense, I must succumb to Jupiter. For a moment. For a while.

For an eternity that lasts a fraction of a thought. For a whirl of a gas storm. For a communion. With Callisto. Io, Ganymede. Europa. These friends I have not met. These habitations. These absorptions; moments, these ideas. Sensations. My body, more than my spirit, attracts them and they me. We enter each other’s orbits, and dance. Moons they may be, mere satellites to a planet all of their own, but I enjoy them, their company, their zest, their life. Their juvenation. I visit them, they me. We journey not together, we relish the here. The nowness of it all, it is not mere. Have I not longed so long to be in the now?

This here is good, I like it, though it will not, doesn’t have to, last. The mightiness that overshadows us encumbers us not: we are not oblivious, but we don’t care; choose not to be intimidated by this massiveness, this bold inelegance.

The world right now, that world that is not this world and that is this world still though we may never wish it so, it bears great force, great danger; anger too. But not for us. We delicate ourselves out of its artless rage. We are not like that. Are not of it. It not of us. I no longer feel the need to explain myself, and I no longer long for the need to be free.

I am free, now, having got this far, and I relish that freedom more than I treasure my life. I am not Jupiter, nor ever want to be. That bulk, that pompousness. That body of hot air, covered in cold. That implacability. That dehumanising fervour.

And yet, these satellites, seductive with their charm. I’m glad I came here. Happy to have paused. I’ve long abandoned the idea of destination. These are sojourns on a celestial perambulation. How privileged I am. How powerful. How small.

Here, seeing Jupiter be big, be brash, though not beguiling, I believe my time has come. This is not new, I’d thought on one or two occasions once or twice before I’d felt the tug above my wings, but here I realise my strength is not outwith. You may be one and a half score septillion times the size of me, but you are no match to my mind. You have the mass; the sun has all the power: I have the intellect. To survive, to thrive even. To discern. To accommodate myself in this universe, or any other. 

I launder my library of references by adding experience. The hunger to live. The need to swallow. The acceptance of millions of potentialities in one go. The taste and the texture. A slither of hope, of forbearing, of premonition. A spark of the imagination; a tenderness, returned. And wanted. Handsomenesses. No warriors, these, no battle axe ire, no strategy and no plan. No tactics. No goal. A glorious swim in the sea, a pool of tadpoles of random configurations, a swirl in the mind of the gods. Ye gods. Ye godlinesses. Ye buds of brimming boisterousness. Ye flowers and sparks. Ye spermly waggers of tails. Ye lusciousnesses. Ye beetrootjuiceredvoluptuousness. Ye inspiration.

Ye words.

Saturn calls me back, I know. I’ll have to detour there, a loop. This Jupiter wilfulness cannot last. I feel for Ganymede, I feel for Europa. Ye Kepler-452b. I feel for you too. I feel for my brother who is writing these words in a universe just like ours only different, having acceded that that’s what he’s doing without knowing why. I feel for my coccyx; I feel for you.

I feel for you and I sense you are there, and I feel strongly for a new love a new warmth a new glow a new smile a new touch of a new hand a new face and new dimples a new tuft of hair and a belly button; a new mind, a new generous heart on the horizon. Where is the horizon, in space, in the orbit of Jupiter, near one of his moons? I baffle myself into submission and accept the reality as it is, though I know full well that there is no such thing; and there is no such thing as necessity, distance, perspective or pain. There is pain, it is felt, it is lived. Does it have to be, ever? It need not be celebrated quite so. There is no hate, it is an illusion, and there is no anger, it disappears. There is there is there is love.

I like that thought and take comfort in it although I can’t prove it, and I think of my new love on the horizon whom I haven’t yet met. Literally, have not yet met. We know each other, we are in communication, we are getting closer all the time, but the whisper of the unknown persists, and we both hold on to it a while longer, not because we want to, but because we want to believe that we must. So we must. So we do. We’re pragmatic like that, and we have lives to live. So we think, so we hope, so we trust.

I salute Jupiter for all his preposterousness and kiss each of his moons goodbye. I’m not sure I need to come back here: this was great, this was fun, this was excellent, while it lasted. But possibly, probably, for me, it has now run its course.

I bid thee farewell, most mighty of planets: you have been, I know, quite misunderstood. But don’t worry, my gaseous friend, so have we all…

< Neptune        Mercury >

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Neptune

I sit on the edge of the solar system, with Neptune, invisible. I’m known to exist, but nobody sees me. I think I see them, from a distance, through a haze. I can’t be sure. Twinkles, here and there, allover really: wondrous…

I have, inadvertently, become a god. This is both puzzling and absurd: those powers they invest in me are merely mythical. I am not even drawn to water, not as other people are. Some see the sea and jump right in. I don’t. I am content to sit there, pondering. Until the time comes. Until I’m ready. Until I feel the need. Until curiosity gets the better of me. Or temptation. Or just the wanting to have been in the water before going home. Not so much the desire to be in the water, as the desire not to have not been in the water at all. For a moment. Or two. With the lover, the dolphins, the mermaids, the waves and the fishes. The other gods. This propensity to ponder. It may be an affliction; but why not. ‘Why not?’ seems to be the overriding question. Is that what it is: a question?

I walk from Neptune towards the sun through the snow – like shooting stars, falling. I love the snow falling on my face as I look up at the sky, at the space, at these planets, the aboveness and the aroundness of it all; the path ahead is white and clear, and there’s no-one about. Of course not: I’m alone. Alone on the edge of the universe.

A pang of love, a moment of pain. Love for whom? Pain of what? A special one now, this time, really? A sense of myself, now, really? Or of the idea of myself. Of the Concept. The Unreality.

I like my reality right now, I can deal with it, I can live up to it, make sense of it, or so I tell myself, knowing this not to be true, not entirely.

I walk, steadily—not fast, not slow—along the path of the planets, thinking myself Neptune. I am not a planet. I am not a god. I am not a myth. I feel millions of miles away from the allness of it all, but I’m about to dissolve into it, and this thrills me.

Is that a lonely path I walk or is it just deserted? Because it’s late. Because it’s out of season. Because it normally is deserted, the path, around now. Is it too late? This turns into a portentous question all of a sudden. Am I too far along the path, do I circle too slowly? But we know, we know, we are not planets, we are not rivers, we are barely human.

We are human. So bare though, so vulnerable, so thoughtful, so cautious, so hesitant, so almost capable. So willing, yet, to survive. So surviving. Thriving, even, against the odds. So gentle. So soft. So curly, the hair. So even the teeth. So tender the lips. So lovely the legs. So quirkily satin the belly button. So elegant the fingers. So delicate the eyelashes. So warm, so warm though the chest.

So fleeting, so insubstantial as I walk under fir trees and the snow they are clothed in, so naked, so wrapped up in my delusion, my reading the signs that aren’t there, my wanting it all to be and to mean something. Wanting it all. To be and to mean. Something.

I take pictures of the snow so I can send them to him, though I don’t even know if he wants to look at the snow through my lens through my eyes through the synapses of my brain that miss him, but I know he has never seen snow for real and I want to show it to him. His mind is not here any more than his body. What of his soul? It sits right in me. He would love the snow, I know, if he saw it for real. If he were with me now. If we were insubstantial now in the snow together, seeping into the ground.

I know these things. I now know them all, and they all make sense, and they will come to pass, and it all just needs time to arrange itself now. I want to be sure.

I missed Uranus on my journey, I realise, as I pass Saturn, wondering why that took so long, and I don’t mind. There’s an irony in this, but it is not a metaphor, not even a pun. Not a sign. It’s a coincidence: sometimes you miss a planet, that’s all.

I’d decided to surrender, to go with the flow, just to be. I’m calm at the thought, now, at ease. I feel a greater certainty than ever before, but I’m not sure about what. Just about. And I know I don’t need to investigate this, I don’t need to probe.

I don’t need to understand, because I already know. I don’t want to be the one any more who longs. I don’t want to be the one any more who pines and freezes. The one made of ice. And rocks. Enveloped in abundant gases. Who errs on the side of reason, out of sight, out of mind, out of being. I want to thaw and to melt and to meld with the one and to bloom and to lose myself in the all and to be.

And so I walk on, sunward.

< Preamble        Jupiter >

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Preamble

I whirl within the wherefores of my wonder

still coming at me are the satellites, the comets, the debris —

celestial collisions

I am at home here, though my longing knows no boundaries now, no aim

knows no deliverance from thought, from search for meaning

would my soul took over

would my skin shirked not the touch, would I felt this fear of losing were not real, this holding on, this

need for explanations, this

reluctance

ever to surrender to what is: what is this if not ice not gas not water and not energy, what is

the reason

reason holds me, holds me in or back; then back from what, back where, back to what end?

is there an end?

There’s no beginning, then how is there

reason?

Neptune >

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The Ice King – 7: The Beginning

The End. Stillness. Like Neptune viewed from a distance: all turmoil at bay. The Ice King and I are no more, we have surrendered our identity to being. We both are both particle now and wave. We float, directionless, emotionless in the cell that is our universe and bob like a bubble in amongst the infinitudes of multiverses.

We are everything we can imagine and everything that we can’t, nor can imagine could be imagined at all. There is no fear and no joy, no pain and no longing, no aching desire for love, for compassion, for that which is and remains unattainable, or that which we already have; there is a bliss only that simply persists.

Out of the nothing that is everything that is the blue that is the colourless white darkness that is the presence of invisible energy comes the spark of an idea, and the idea is a signal that we’re alive.

We are animated, willing. I had forgotten the idea as I had forgotten the toenail, as I had forgotten the mole on my chest and my glasses.

The Ice King sits facing me in the open space; we seem to be orbiting, circling away from our sun. His smile now is knowing and satisfied. I see myself reflected in him though I know I look nothing like him, and with this recognition comes a new kind of want, a new kind of need, a new kind of desire. I stand up, and as I do, so does he; and I look him in the eyes—wherein lie worlds and histories, characters and motions, achievements and hours of unspeakable pleasure—and I offer him my hand. He takes it. We acknowledge each other, I him, he me. The grip of his hand is soft and firm, like his skin like his heart like his glans like his lips like his medial plantar, and I inhale him once more ere I go.

I leave rich, filled with power. As I walk through space past the planets that are really mere pebbles, I pick up the garments his tailors have woven throughout the ages, and I put on ones that take my fancy, those of my choosing, what I accept as my attire. I leave all the rest. I leave him behind, not with disregard or as obsolescence, but in love.

The love that I bear him I now bear myself, and I bear it out into the nerve ends of Laniakea and beyond. I fill my universe with this love, I pervade the dark matter and the light, I become that I am that I am.

I don’t stride, I don’t float, don’t proceed: I expand, I infuse. Somebody walking by says to me, in the casual, friendly manner that raises no eyebrow, ‘all right?’ and I know this is not a question, nor is it an observation; it is an invitation. I smile at him with kindness and wisdom. With love. Not of my doing but of my being, not my desert but my gift. Not my accomplishment not my credit and not my reward. My absorption, my purpose, my meaning.

I answer his invitation, ‘all right?’…

< 6: The Core

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The Ice King – 6: The Core

Into the core I dissolve.

I remember The Ice King, he lingers. In my body. In my senses. My mind. In my nature; my idiom. In my eyes. In my aptitudes. I was never like The Ice King at all, yet I am he, he is me, was that unavoidable, or was it my wish?

Down at the core of the centre of the stem of the flow of the pulse there is no movement, no stillness, no anger, no pain. No cold and no ice and no view and no argument, no perspective. There is liquid lava only. The core is the place at which everything starts and everything comes together and everything ceases to be, and everything is alive, but the heat melts the molecules and causes nuclear fusions: it’s as close as we get to the sun. The energy. The source.

As I come up for air I realise to my joy I’m still breathing. In, breathing out. Im Atemholen sind zweierlei Gnaden. I remember things I never knew were instilled in me, but they, like The Ice King, remain; they are rooted, they grow.

I grow. I grow out of the core and through the pole, and I form into something almost human. I laugh inside. Not happy, relieved. The fact alone that there is a core. That there is a pole. That there is a word. That there is a thought. That there is a kiss. That there is a chamber. That there is ice, that there is a king. That the king rules me because I want him to only. He has my permission. I am his subject, he is my slave. We get on swimmingly.

Like happy spermatozoa we float in the semen of our need towards the egg of our imagination, flagella wagging, willing us on to imminent fertilisation. Often we fail. But we are not unique, we are two among millions, and the consciousness from which we have squirted is generous, patient. There is more. There is plenty. We are not alone. We are not lost. We are not meaningless. We are not wasted.

Up through the salty water I burst, slithery wet and elated. If this be living I’ll have me some more of it, yes. The Ice King, tranquil now, regal, mischievous, hot, smiles at me knowingly. He knows me better than I care to admit, but I care not. I have him in my mind and he has me in his gonads. Together we’re strong. Let this be our universe. The force that holds us together may yet tear us apart, but for now there is only the idea of what may be.

Strengthened, revived, I emerge. The Ice King walks with me now, as I go. I am The Ice King, I am the snowflake, I am The Snowflake Collector, the wonder and George. The innocence lost and found. The anguish, the great satisfaction. The invention. The story.

I walk on an empty plane that extends into all directions, without end. Absence of colour surrounds me. I have conquered my fear. Not lost it, not abandoned it, no: embraced it, loved it, wrestled it, made it my own. I am the master of that I create. I am god. I breathe in, I breathe out. I breathe in, I breathe out. The swirls of air from my mouth form a flurry of flowers whose pollen disperse and populate the void. It is a paradise. It is rich. It is the land of beauty, abundance. This is where I belong; this is home.

< 5: The Pole        7: The Beginning >

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The Ice King – 5: The Pole

At the pole the world finally stops. Respite at last. The world doesn’t end, it ceases to turn. At the core of the axis there is no motion, there is only the centre, and the centre is both still and alive. Everything spins around us, and we are the point that extends in no dimensions and all dimensions at once.

Here in this space that has no expansion and no description and no volume and no coordinates, we are at one with everywhere, and The Ice King rules: I am his. His court, his jester; his courtier. His counsel, his subject. His servant. His chosen. His man. Am I his Queen?

I do not want to be what The Ice King is, and nor can I. Here, the Ice is eternal for as long as Eternal exists, and here it is ever in motion, and here it is still absolutely; and here the snowflakes are effervescent sparkles in our mind, which now is conjoined as one, but not one alone, but one that has in it the snowflakes like gossamer dust and the depths and the infinities of the sky in which there are stars that do not make sense any more than the snowflakes which they outnumber by magnitudes of improbable potentialities.

I lie on the ice bed The Ice King has bid me rest on, as he stands on the edge of his universe, overlooking everything with the eye of his mind, which is my mind, which is the mind of the snowflakes and the mind of the stars, which is the mind of the glacier, the river, the sea; which is the mind of the water, the air and the ions, which is the mind of the magnetic force of his presence and the electricity of my spirit; which is the mind of the other side and this, and the mind of the shadow he casts not on the ice but into the core that has no expansion and no dimension and no rotation; and I know that soon I must leave him, but not now.

Now The Ice King turns around to me, and I see that he is made of ice as I thought. And the ice, as I thought, and as everyone knows before they are told, is like fire; and the fire is just the energy dying and the energy dying is the source of all life and life is preserved in the ice and the ice is nothing but water and water is living and living is knowing and knowing is forgiving and forgiving is patience and patience is growth and growth is taking the energy on and becoming the other and the other is just an extension and the extension is continuation and continuation is the reflection and the reflection is the same as what is and the same is the all and the all is the now.

I welcome The Ice King onto me with my eyes, and as he melts into my open-arm, open-rib, open-mind being, I feel we are no longer one, we now simply are; and having him having me makes the ice disappear and the fire burn out and the water rise up and the energy surge and the stillness the stillness prevail.

I look down on the pole, spinning on my own axis as I lift up above; I see myself writhing and being consumed, I see The Ice King drowning me out and myself burn up in blue and greenpurple flames that dance on the water, and I know now I know now I am.

< 4: The Word        6: The Core >

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The Ice King – 4: The Word

Hand in hand we walk north in the night, now upon the ice that stretches ahead to the pole and beyond. Can there be a Beyond, beyond the pole? The penguins are asleep. They know not of The Ice King, they care not for me, their dreams are of flying turtles and jellyfish in a trance.

Above us the sky is a fantasy of too many colours; those yellows, those greens, those purples again, I have seen them before: I saw them, I’m sure, in the chamber, but here in the open, we are naked and free.

Naked we walk hand in hand on the ice that has no horizon, it just yields to the sky. It extends so far that the eye wants to rest, but the light and the ions and the glow of the heart have emboldened us to go on.

After the water, the land, and now the ice once again, only this is no glacier. This is the home of The Ice King, it is where he belongs. I’m not sure I should be here at all, but with his palm in mine and the steady sound of his breathing beside me I feel safe and assured. His step too is steady and strong; his eyes are determined now, and his hair, which I hadn’t noticed before, here in the open waves in the wind. The wind cuts our cheeks and our chests and our thighs, and the ice is so cold that it burns the soles of our feet, but we are not afraid, and we are not tired, and we are not alone: we have each other.

I don’t know what having The Ice King means, or he having me. Are we now one? I glance across to him as we stride, and we are so far gone now, the aurora has left us behind, and all about are the stars: magnificent molecules in the sky. Never have I seen them so clear, nor so many. Numbers no-one can name. In the light of the night that is moonless and large The Ice King looks like an invisible force, a presence that cannot be known, that can only be sensed; that cannot be fathomed, it can only be lived. Am I living The Ice King?

The Ice King inwardly laughs, and his mirth appears on his lips as the memory of a trace of a smile. I love these lips, and I have no regrets. I regret not kissing them, nor sailing on them to the pole, nor listening to them as he speaks: I do not hear what he says, the wind is too fierce, the snowy crystals it blasts our skin with too sharp, the tremor of thrill of being exposed to his world too intense for me to indeed understand, but the melody that emanates from his body, and the idea that shines in his temple, and the soul that has taken me on make me trust in his language, his word.

His word that I do not now nor ever imagine I shall comprehend grows in my brain a new constellation of axons, and I tingle at the realisation that this is an initiation, it is certainly the commencement of something, it is a whole new creation. I do not know what this is, but I know it is good.

< 3: The Thought        5: The Pole >

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The Ice King – 3: The Thought

I feel the ice melt under my skin, I sense us slip away in the rush of torrents, surging up, then drowning into the depths; my eyes closed, I heave into his brain.

Where there were colours there is now only green and blue and that purple and the sting of the white in flashes between: I bounce and tumble and dissolve, the water rushes through me, the glacier crashes all about us as we tumble down the mountain, turn into a stream—the quicks, the pools, the depths, the shallows and the waterfalls—into the valley, then the river, the calm.

Then the meadows passing and the flowers on the hill. The trees. Is that a sun in the sky? I haven’t seen one in years. The Ice is gone, the King is no more. What have I done?

I float on the easy current along the stately swans and the comical ducks, and I wonder. Was that necessary? Was that emotion? Was that too much? The cloudlets above sing a round that lulls me into a new kind of sleep, and I dream that I am already restored to my senses, but senseless in love. I know not what that means, but it’s a feeling I have.

As we reach the towns and beyond these the cities, it is more a case of becoming a boat, or a ship, from which to greet the other farers of waterways, and nod at them gravely: the river has turned so serene. I am not sure I want this. I’m not sure I’m ready to leave him behind or to see him head off, onto land, into the streets, the multitudes, become a citizen: like everyone else. I cling on to him, but he is no longer there, has he never existed at all?

I refuse to panic and say to myself, it’s only a phase, it will pass, it’s all in my mind, soon I’ll wake up in the glacier, gazing at him by my side, and I’ll marvel at the tone of his skin and the glint in his eye, and the nearly-smile that says, I nearly get you, you’re not quite alone.

I dream that I’m not alone and for a moment feel warm, and the glow that encompasses me is enough for a while to soothe, to restore.

We yield into the wide, and buoyed by the salt, and cheered by the seagulls, we stretch our limbs, and with strong strokes make for the open, the free. I half expect a dolphin to greet us, but it seems we are heading north, which is just as well. At least we are now at sea.

Soon the seals and the icebergs. I’m not at home here, although the shades are familiar. I feel I have lost myself and I want not to mind.

He’s in my head now, I in his body, and against all odds we’re afloat, but are we together? I don’t even know who he is. He is The Ice King, but I’ve turned him into a fish. That is not true, of course, I have turned him into a captain. I have not turned him into anything, he’s still The Ice King, but like me he is out of his element now, and so he may just be a prawn. He may be a wave or a plastic bottle discarded in old Amsterdam. He may be a thought or a lover. He may be my nemesis. Can he be my salvation?

I want to say, ‘polar bear, be not afraid,’ and mean it. We’re here to help. The Ice King looks at me kindly now, maybe for the very first time, and thinks a thought of astonishing beauty. This, I know, is the noble mind. And the thought alone that thoughts can be beautiful, and merely to know that a mind may be noble, fills me with joy.

< 2: The Kiss        4: The Word >

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The Ice King – 2: The Kiss

The Ice King doesn’t speak, and I don’t ask; the questions are too many, too small: too trivial by comparison.

I feel my body tremble, not with fear, not with cold; with unfamiliarity? I look him in the eyes, and their glint reassures me: I want his power to be absolute, but benign.

As I take off my heavy boots and both pairs of socks, I expect the ice under my feet to sting or to burn me, but with my eyes on him still, and his gaze still steady on me, there is only the glow that expands from inside my spine.

I take a step towards him, and his presence feels no longer silent, it hums, or so my mind makes me believe; in truth he lies still and alert, and my breathing is no longer shallow: I want to melt into him, meld with him, and as I step closer, he sits up just enough to extend his hand and bring me into his orbit.

Now the colours, the touch, the sensations, the heat from within, the cold from without; this surface I lie on is as hard as polished marble, this skin that I breathe is softer than ermine, but his grip and his hold and his motion are firm; no longer can I tell what am I and what he, my focus is gone, the ice and The Ice King, the light and the scent are all one; I dissolve into it, into him, into the fire of him in me; into the ice that is no longer chill but a mould of clean edges that envelop us like multiple layers of soothing gauze, like everything ever imagined but more, and more real, like losing myself, my thought and my fear, like everything ever felt but not known, like owning the universe through being owned, desiring only being desired, like being The Ice King through being his, not wanting not pining not longing not hoping not dreading not doing not acting not willing not giving not taking not talking not buying not selling not looking forward and not thinking back, not imagining and not dreaming. Being and ceasing to be all at once in the now and forever.

The Now. The Forever. We breathe. We hold on to each other. I think I smile, but I can’t be sure. He tilts his head back and exhales. I feel his breath on my neck and bury my face in his shoulder. The light is orange and blue and a bit purple too, and we are embedded in the ice that feels now as if it had melted and made a pool of clear water that seems to flow warm, although this may just be the pulse in my temple and the beat of his heart and the protective embrace of his arm and the comfort, the comfort of him.

We lie thus for hours, or so it seems, as I drift in and out of awareness, and The Ice King is deep in my mind, quiet and quite majestic. I know I can’t stay here but nor can I leave. I bathe in the silence, but words are bubbling inside me. I want for nothing now, but I wonder how deep, how old, how immaterial is the ice. I lift my head to look at his face, in repose. His lips are not of this world. I hesitate. I pause. I cannot ask permission. I cannot resist. I kiss him.

< 1: The Chamber        3: The Thought >

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The Ice King – 1: The Chamber

Deep inside the glacier lives The Ice King, supple and smooth. His skin is aglow with the cold, and unbelievably soft. He should be milky white, but there’s an olive tint to his hue, and no sooner do I see him, than I want to touch him. Without gesture or words, he demurs.

He wears no clothes, but it is clear that he’s warm; he’s in his element. He is The Ice King, and he doesn’t beckon or smile: he stands at the end of the hall that is lined with blue-sheened green walls of ice. They look soft, insubstantial, but they are hard as stone: centuries of gravity have worked them into solid rock. I close my eyes for a moment; the smell of the ice is clean and pure.

I slowly move towards him, and as each step feels heavier with uncertain awe, my head gets lighter. I realise, for him I’ll have to be all or nothing. Already I am sensing that heat, and I’m twenty, thirty feet from him yet. There, at the end of the hall, tall with ice and nothing else, is a gateway, a passageway, in which he stands; he has no need for me, but I am beholden to him now: I slowly advance, and as I do I have to let go; I have to, have to let go.

I half expect servants to take off my coat and my woolly hat, but there are no servants and no attendants, there is only he, and he looks at me, unsmiling but kind. He is ageless, of course, he is dark-eyed and strong.

The Ice King waits for me to come to him; he knows that I must. For a moment I’m tempted to look back to see what’s behind me, to confirm that this is the path I have chosen, but something tells me it’s too late for that now. Now there is only forward; and so the snowfield, the mountain, the moon, the cavernous void of the night, the narrow, low gap that I happened upon and through which—more curious ever than brave—I had entered, fall away by this wayside and become immaterial.

There is no echo in the glacier and no breeze. There is no fire, and so there’s no smoke. There is air, and the air is still. Cold as it is, it doesn’t move; it envelops me, and so it feels warm. The Ice King knows that I am now in his power, and he turns and walks ahead. I follow.

The gateway, the passage, the transition. A corridor of light and dark, of shapes and patterns. It neither narrows nor widens, it extends.

The Ice King, naked, not tall and not short, of a human-scale build, moves ahead, and with each step that he takes on the ice, the ice seems to light up a little under his feet: it may do so in my imagination. It may just be a reflection.

There is no other life in here, only he and I; and there’s the light that plays on us, on our bodies, our faces, our minds. Deeper into the glacier we go, and the deeper we go, the closer the corridor through which we pass must become, but it doesn’t get lower, only narrower still, until it is possible, just, to walk in a line, just about, without your arms or your shoulders touching the walls, if you go slowly, that is, cautiously, but determined, dead straight.

He walks ahead of me, and I follow closely; I feel the warmth off his body, and the icy walls look as though they glowed just a little with each step, as he passes. It may be just my imagination; maybe a reflection. Every surface is smooth but not flat: the curvatures of natural ice. Undulations.

We arrive in the chamber: the chamber is empty and neither dark nor bright, there is a greenish whitish blueish light that comes from all directions at once, and in the middle of the chamber is a large elevation where the ice rises to knee level, just: is this our bed?

There is no fire, but I am not cold, and while The Ice King reclines, I loosen my scarf, take off my gloves. I want to touch the ice but his eyes are on me, and I take off my coat and my jumper, my shirt…

2: The Kiss >

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