17.
Shadows of Del Pululahau
[Diary Entries; and the Lotus Demon
[Location: At the crater Del Pululahau, 30 kilometers from Quito-Ecuador, by what is known as: The Middle of the World
Entry4/2004. To whomever is reading this: Shadows my friends, shadows, they are more deadly and clinging than cancer. Here are my last words on them: for I have but a few hours to live. GS Jr.
I flew into Quito, Ecuador, it was a warm fall day, went to the Hotel Barnard, jumped into the shower, turned on CNN, got the local news, something to do with Iraq, and President Bush. I seem to watch that a lot, the war thing you know: I suppose it has to do with my Vietnam War, or Vietnam era. Later on during the day I went to see a few churches that sparkled with gold all over the place. Then I went to visit the Cater Del Pululahau. And that is where it all started, the curiosity, the interest. The crater, an old volcano, was lush with sectioned off plots of gre en, and people with small houses living in them. It is a great volcano, with towering walls, walls that look more like mountains than walls.
Joann, my guide walked me down to the plateau area were the farms were. The people had no electricity in the hallow of the crater, and to get necessities, theyd have to climb the paths leading up and around the craters inner face, and to its top, and thirty miles away was the distance into town, into Quito. It says a lot for their will power to maintain a life in such a unique place.
This first day was intriguing; especially when Joann introduced met to an old man in the valley type setting within the crater, his name was Org. I stood along the side of his mud house, and I will quote him:
Who so ever goest into the cave of shadowswills the shadows to cast their spell [s upon him!
Well, enough said about that, for I am not a man of folklore, that is, I do not take it beyond reality, the reality of touch, sound a nd smell; the physical realm that is; the here and now reality. I should add I didnt at the time anyway.
My senses of exploration, wonderment, and just down right suspicion, got the best of me. And I asked the old man with excitement to spare,
Where is this Cave of Shadows?
And he pointed to the north, toward a towering type mountain in the crater. And then he stood up, and Joann felt something in her stomach, as I did, and said:
Org, hes not going into that cave!
Said Org [with a mannish hard tone: He asked me, and Im going to show him, if he wants to mock it, fine, if he wants to challenge it, fine; he is a man, and a man does what he needs to do!
I felt a bit odd for a moment, a girl sticking up for me, sticking up for something rather silly I felt at first; and so I brushed her care- taking aside, and told the old man to show me the cave. And we walked several hundred feet to where it was. It didnt look like much, just kind of a ho le in the side of the mountain, that went down; the entrance hidden in back of a huge rock. I looked at Org and Joann, and said simply,
Let me go down a bit and see what is in this silly tomb. Having said that, I seen Orgs eyebrow go up, as if I was to learn that Joanns advice was better than his; he remained quiet and somewhat stopped provoking.
As I descended into the pit, crawling at first on my hands and knees, half fearful of the ceiling caving in, more so than what I thought of the so called Shadows, the cave started to expand, broaden, and I could then stand up. Matter-of-fact, the farther I walked into the cave the larger it gotthe broader it became. I would say that it got so huge in places it looked like the makings of an underground lake. And as I walked I forgot about time, and a music filled my ears, and shadows seemed to be digging themselves into my brain, just kind of a wind shifted about, and carried these shadows, I paid little attention to t hem at first, but I now had become lost within the labyrinth, and as I stopped to gather my faculties, I now could see plainly the shadowsthey looked like ghosts, ghosts of a story I once read about the Lotus Demon of Mercury, they looked as if they had FACES [I drew a picture of one face, I will put it with my dairy, I named him Axon the II after the story I had read, he looked like a Shadow Demon
My sensory receptors seem to be dulling to a morselas this certain shadow seemed to be digging itself on or into me, digging or attaching, or melting itself on to me. I knew that on Mercury things were different than on earth, these beings were out in the open, not in the walls of the cliff structures; yet they filled the description of the beings on Mercury, the ones DS wrote about. Was it possible a few of these Lotus Demon Mercury creatures ended up on earth eons ago? So I asked myself. At this juncture I got quite tired, and rested against the moist and mucky walls of th e cavern. In a way I felt like a caveman, or possible a lost explorer in a Knosses type chambers like on Crete, but here all was filled with gloom, andand I should add at this pointshadowy sibilant gray gas. It burnished over my bones, haply hanging onto my moistened skin.
At this point I really was too exhausted to fight off the mottling stannic oxidized shadows (or simply the Lotus Ghost) that was molding itself on top of me. Sometime around this period, during my exploration into cave I fell to sleep, and when I awoke it seemed to be attached to my feet the Lotus Ghostincredible; this gray-shadow hovered over my head like a waving flag, like a giant wasp.
I heard an echo coming down through the tunnels passageway, it was Joann, her voice was saying:
Flee, flee from the shadows that has a soul, like a bird, flee
Said I [in deepest rival O unkindest thing what ever you are it cannot be, be gone! Yet it did not flee, nor did I, not yet anyh ow.
It was a short time afterwards when I got my senses back and I hastilyhalf deadstood up and took a short walk back to the y intersection I had walked through earlier. I remember telling myself, my way back was to the right, the right: stay to the right, so I took the right where the y section was; and soon afterward saw a little light glimmering through a hole: that is, a patch of light, giving me more hope of finding my way out of this network of tunnels.
As I continued to walk I now noticed this really was a graveyard of exhumed imposing shadows, with faces, many faces sewed into the gray mistwaiting for something, someone, hoping I was it I suppose; we all want to hang onto hope, but this was not the way I liked hope to befall me. The appalling thing I now experienced, and hadnt noticed until that very second, was that, I was dragging something behind me, a weight, like a rug or something, it was tiring me out. It forced me to walk slower, and to take de eper breaths to gain more strength. It was the shadow of the Lotus Ghost, Axon II, as I have named him (after reading DSs story on this): anyhow, unbelievable, a nasty looking shadow, with a hideous smile to it, and teeth that seemed to have layers; two legs hung on to me, as if it was for dear-life, or a matter of life. Its neck seemed to grow like a tree right into its head, which had two huge eye sockets; very little hair, high cheek bones, and a long stretched out back spine to it. I looked and looked, than named himself, Rio Romaic (it echoed its name to me because I was calling it Axon II, I reasoned it got a little irritated with it), his face stretched with the breeze, and lights, ever so weighing on my forward trust. I figured if I could make it outside, the light might force the shadow to let go, and so I pulled my 170-pound body forward to the little light in the tunnel. It was a different way out I figured, different than the way I came in because more light w ould had been available had it been the other entrance, but it was heaven sent nonetheless. It clung onto me like white on rice, like a dog to his master, like fire on fire; then softly it spoke in a clear voice:
Thou wilt hear me cry and the winds of my cave blowing in your headforever and ever [hahahahah, for I am the sad and the dead Ghoul cursed to this pit until the end of time, we are a race of Lotus Demon cast throughout the universe for our corruption eons ago. You will never sleep alone, but we can become friends if you wish?
Having heard this I picked up my speed to get out into the upper world, seeing that open light head. And then I got thinking, DS was right about these creatures, they are all over the place, perhaps with different powers in different places.
[A long pause
[Entry note It has been several months now since that all happened, and the shadow remains attached to me. I know it remains unexplained, and shall after Im gone; nature or the demons would prefer it that way at any rate.
That day has remained in my mind constantly and of course the happening of which I must live. Thus, today I stand upon these crumbling stones, a blacken mountain, a meteor for the most partfor I have not left the valley of the crater in all this time, and again here I say, and stand, my solar days ending in duress and darkness, the shadow beside me. It wants me to kill myself in the cave so it can live in a corpse like body I presume, but if I must die, so will itI think, but then if it is like the story I read on Mercury Demon, I guess Ill be the only one dead; otherwise, Ill be out in the rays of the sun tugging this shadowy piece of crap along all the days of my life. We shall not part, I know that now: so I say dear shadow: cling on tight for we will go for a ride in a moment. I know once dead, it will melt like doomed glaciers off me, like molting lava streaming down a mountain side, but it will be too l ate, like a vampire who sees light, the shadow I have learned will flutter like a lit candle, to and fro, and out it will go, alive it may remain, but quiet and sustained in some rock among many rocks here. (Incidentally, I told this story to DS, I hope he tells it to you.)
Note: 4/19/04, the author has been in the mouth of the crater, del Pululahau, in Ecuador, where he wrote this story. Revised 9/2005
See Denns' books at http://www.abe.com
Author:: Dennis Siluk
Keywords:: Chapter Story
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