the square ruins

There was, once, a deepness to the night: shadow of leaf beneath shadow of tree, where the stars lost their way in the jasmine. The air possessed the transparency of a black diamond, so that the eye, deprived of stimulation, opened to its fullest extent, snatching up even a single photon. The snore of monkeys was the least of the chorus summoned by the forest lost in darkness, the ceaseless murmur of countless hidden creatures, the creak of trees, the hush of the breeze, the soft padding of a tarantula on the leaves of the forest floor.

It was a land of ever-changing waters, where a vast river, crazy as a god, could spring up in a season and then be gone forever. But not here; this river ran its course deep and steady, isolating an island. Its thick stream flowed slow as tar, hiding its viscous eddies. Wider than a tiger’s leap, its black surface mirroring the black above, it swallowed all who tried to cross it.

Until now. In it moved a man who bore stillness within him.

Ignored by the crocodiles and sharp-toothed fishes he proceeded rippleless. His movement possessed a strange quality of stasis, so that at any moment he appeared to be still, yet there was no doubting the fluid grace of his limbs. His stillness, or so it seemed, made him invisible to the treachery of the waters. Until the shore, where he emerged to stand upright. It was hot there in the infinite wild and his dripping skin soon dried.

He came from the North, alone. In the villages nearby, they had cursed him with fire and poison when they found out the direction his path was taking him, so he had learned the art of discretion. Curses meant nothing to him, but he had no desire to be hated. He was driven only by singularity of purpose.

His face, undetectable save for the slight cast of the stars on the river, rose to meet the darkness of the forest, and in it his eyes attained a darkness blacker still, save only a single spark deep in each orb, like the glitter of a firefly on the water in a covered well.

Lithe, thin, effortless, he stepped forward into the fearful forest. Where there was no path he moved with assurance. He had never been to this place before—and neither had anyone else, not for many a long year—but he set not a foot astray or a root or a loose rock. He walked like a prince entering his castle.

No external sign or trodden path guided his way past hulking masses of darkness more felt than seen. He wandered as if at random for no small distance, for his stride was long. Some uncounted hours after crossing the river, the path evened and flattened, took form in lines and corners and eventually in steady rises of what might almost have been stairs.

He rose onto a flat, clear space. It formed a perfect square. The stars shone clear above the treeline, and by their light he saw the rigorous geometry of the opening, beyond which the jungle closed in gloom.

Centered in the square was a slightly raised platform in the shape of a circle, oily black and perfectly symmetrical. Unlike the exposed brick of the rest of the square, it was coated with a thick, viscous layer, waxy and glossy: a patina of ashes and ancient blood, the residue of a million sacrifices. There in the center of the square, facing one side, the man sat cross-legged. He folded his legs atop one another and closed his eyes.

The purpose of his meditations was unclear to anyone but him. It was as if he strove to awaken a man from being. He had tried, before, to explain it, but they just looked at him like a crazy person. Perhaps he was; who else would come to such a place? Yet the longer he sat, the more being there was. Though he had come so far to find aloneness in his body, his mind was growing crowded. Nameless people drew close, their clothes richly detailed, clustered in families, lovers, friends. Old and young, friend and foe, whispering to each other with words just out of reach. And while their garments were precise and vivid, any revealed skin was blurred, out of focus; most of all their faces. They had murder in them, but only a little.

It was not long before the darkness began to falter towards the direction the man was facing. It was the East, and a lone bird sang in the dawn as the surrounding contours came alive, as if creating themselves, moment by moment, struggling to find a source of inner being, though knowing all along that they were simply reflecting the golden light of the dawn as she stepped towards them, smiling as she bared her breasts.

The square was laid in brick. Smallish, very regular, fired and laid an age ago. Strange to say, but the man had never before seen a brick. Buildings were wood, or rarely stone. Here thousands of bricks, each indistinguishable from the next, attested to a world of astonishing wonders.

From the darkness around countless more wonders awoke. Strong walls, thick and resilient, now overgrown with creepers. Houses, one after the other, laid as far as could be seen. Half of them still had their curved roofs intact. They formed serried rows, sharing walls, creating a grid delineated by roads of the same brick. A regular intervals there were open spaces of rectangular squares, now filled with tall trees.

Most buildings were the same size, a few were larger, but the largest of all was the one the man had climbed. It formed a massive structure many stories high, with rows of what indeed turned out be stairs ascending it on four sides. Its purpose was not apparent. A palace, perhaps, or a temple for gods who now languished unnamed and forgotten.

The sun was full ahead before the man opened his eyes. Slowly he let in the light. He beheld.

Startled, he jumped up. His indigo eyes opened wide. He turned, surveying all around. He was seeing, for the first time, a glimpse into a past so deep as to overturn all knowledge. It is one thing to hear legends of forgotten magnificence, quite another to witness it.

The buildings shone in the sun. Stucco, white and vividly illuminated, still clung to the bricks, and on it was inlaid gold, its gleam safe from robbers in this desolate place.

He saw all this, the houses, the open squares, the care, the design, the vast intent behind it all, and he wondered who these people were who built a metropolis so much greater than any he had seen. He saw as if come alive again their lives, their work, their loves and stories and values, so sensitive had his mind become.

After a time he descended to walk the streets in broad daylight. There were hearths in the houses where he could almost smell the pepper and cumin and turmeric. The noise of song and shout seemed to envelop him.

But all was gone now. All their works, these nameless folk with their wordless language. Lost to time, lost to the jungle, lost beyond ken.

Was he drawn by the same impulse that drew him to the island, ignoring warnings of dangers, the old women spitting on his heels? Of all the houses in all the rows, thousands in every direction, he stopped at one. In it, he felt, he had lain his heart.

The doorway was like any other, the windows were like any other. The floor was intact, the thick walls still strong. The roof was still there, but close, he saw, to giving way. The lintel and the walls inside were plastered, and on them drawn colorful, if patchy and faded, figures. Decorations of flowers and bright-winged birds, of creatures that might have been half lion and half rhinoceros, but were probably gods. These people loved beauty, just like his. How many houses like this, he wondered, had he built?

In the dirt on the floor he saw a small object and bent to pick it up. It was a small model, a toy cart, a plaything for a young child. He smiled.

Abruptly he left that place, each step long and even. On the shore he left nothing behind but the impression of his foot in the wet sand. It filled with water, glowing in the last light of the setting sun. In the middle could just be made out a circular shape, a wheel of a thousand spokes.