8: Silts

the attraction if it can be called such a thing having many qualities far beyond that of sight seeing all theme park rides but anyway the attraction most people visit our town for is an old crow who inhabits part of one of the four ground floor rooms in the gobern seer tavern apartment restaurant opposite the coach stop and set 100 meters back from the main road leading out towards the coast yet these are not tourists who arrive here to snap and add another little tick to an inconsequential checklist but seekers who learn of this place only by an unobtrusive whisper in the ear or an anonymous tip-off scribbled on a scrap of paper slipped among their junk mail by an enthusiast who may have just overheard a fraction of a conversation in passing a hint of their circumstances or merely noted a recognizable quality within their voice a familiarity that lends itself to such a prompting and the recommendation in turn chimes for the individual who is prompted reactivates a faculty that allows a long forgotten unbroken tone that has until that point resonated with discretion backstage and now is pushed suddenly to the fore the bird's dwelling is an alcove in an area away from the hubbub of the main bar and dining area of the tavern a patch of the same room partitioned away from sight by a screen made of two deep red heavily weighted curtains that are always drawn it's a large solitary hooded crow roosting on a perch by a scaled down open fireplace scaled down because the design of the alcove is a half-size replica of the section of the room it is itself a part of though this miniaturization isn't perpetuated within the copy i say this aware of course that all this is speculation intimated by rumor and law both room and crow having never been glimpsed by anyone alive but even by the current owner of the property on any given day there's a constant stream of visitors to the crow the queue often starts to build outside the park just before mid-day when the bar officially opens and within an hour it will often extend out of the side door and snake along the full length of the car park formal guidelines are typed on a laminated sheet found at the back of the food and snack menu scattered about the pub the one is placed conveniently on the small round side table near where the two curtains join but everyone knows the appropriate rituals being either regulars or new arrivals drilled by the fidgety apprentices dotted amid the line so people tend to order crisps or a couple of sides while they wait even though the drinking of alcohol is not permitted before going in a free beverage is usually offered when coming out the necessity clothed is courtesy the instructions well there are some props first you've done the eye mask the tatty pair the landlady picked up from a long-haul flight to attend her sister's funeral in new zealand a couple of decades ago the mask has the addition of some swimming goggles sewn onto the inside adding a seal around the sockets in the first instance these can be rested on the top of the head while the other instructions were carefully followed but must be fitted tightly over the eyes when the time comes to go beyond the veil a pair of oversized tennis shoes too big for the majority of patrons are placed under the entrance table shoes that must be worn by all regardless of the fit used as a device for the visitor to gauge the distances within the room a footstep a clear unit of measurement aid the temporarily sightless person when negotiating the correct path and the imposed darkness backward steps are prescribed so as not to ever directly face the crow placing one foot immediately behind the other five steps back turn 90 degrees clockwise then forward two steps and this situates you facing the leaning platform a low bench enclosed inside an ornately carved oak booth once the knees are resting on the tilted wooden platform then the palm of the hand suppressed over the ears with me always closed and my ears covered which way is it coming from quiet with eyes closed and he's covered which way is it coming from people with no eyes to close now he needs to cover which way when two perfect people happened to meet in a perfect town on a perfect street one asked the other being perfectly polite excuse me do you have a light i'm sorry i don't smoke came the reply oh that's okay the first one said because neither do i and so as each perfect person went on their way they both smiled themselves for it was going to be another perfect day oh in the depths of your despair in the lowest fathoms of your withering misery know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and though the tunnel may be long hundreds even thousands of miles and though it may be cold freezing down in the negative forties and though the tunnel may be damp wet flooded with thick putrescent sludge know that there really is still light at the end though it may be a dim indiscernible pinprick lost in the bleak omnivorous darkness know that it is there and though the way may be slow arduous oppressive and wearying and though the flesh may come away at your heel your gangrenous toes be gnawed out by rats though your hair may fall out and the raw skin beneath it turn to scab and painfully flake away and the non-scabbed flesh may erupt in agonizing boils and infected buboes may swell at the base of your neck inhibiting your breathing causing you to periodically pass out only to wake moments later gagging on the tunnel's secular slime and thus your gums may succumb to a ravaging fungus and the teeth may splinter and rot away and though your nose and upper lip numbed by frost may be eaten from the inside by burrowing flesh worms and your clothes may turn to rags and your body become hunched and disfigured from the labors of your progress know that there is progress there is movement and there is light though you may not be able to see it now due to the months of retinal understimulation not to mention that large corneal ulcer on the right eye the result of a bacterial infection from the tunnels putrid effluent know that the light is still there and slowly slows the movement of the hour hand to the mayfly it's getting closer and closer and when after the eternity of your travails you finally emerge scrambling blindly into the light though the people of the light may be silent at first save for some hushed mutterings and the shuffling sound of mothers shielding their children from the sight of you and though a slow murmur of disgust may rise from the people of the light and you may sense the agitation of the crowd as it surges towards you and though you may hear the people of the light say not another one i thought we'd sealed up that bloody tunnel though you may feel hands pushing you and feet kicking you back down into the tunnel and though you may find yourself once more face down in the tunnel's tainted silts and though you may hear the door slam shut behind you down in the depths of your despair in the deepest fathoms of your withering misery know that there is a light at the other end of the tunnel you