The Passageway

A girl found herself in a passageway. It was very long. So long in fact that she could see neither the end nor the beginning. Therefore she assumed herself to be in the middle, chose a direction, and began to walk. There were no doors or windows in this place. No suits of armour for the girl to pass, or candles to mark her way. Yet is was beautiful and full of light, the walls themselves shimmering with gold. The floor was red flagstone, and the ceiling a painted pale sky with streaks of red and orange cloud. The walls were segmented by pillars and arches, between which there were paintings. Image after image decorated the passage until the walls came together in a neat little point just out of sight.

The pictures were of many wonderful and enchanting things. There were evil sprites and fey creatures clambering over the frames and balancing on the cracks. And kings, and queens, magicians and witches, handsome boys and handsome girls; all who were acting out huge and significant tales the girl did not understand.

At first she paid them no heed, but as the repetition of the passage took its toll, she turned to a picture on her left. It was a wood full of the greatest trees one could imagine. They stretched so high into the sky that the girl lost herself in the feeling of smallness. From the greenery stepped a woman wearing a brown dress of skeleton leaves. The girl in the passage was a little shocked and took a step back.

‘Oh,’ said she, ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

The woman in the picture looked at the girl in the passage, blinked and smiled a half-smile. She replied, ‘Life would be awfully dull if one was never disturbed.’

The girl walked on, a little perturbed, and soon found herself drawn to a picture of a great and grand hall, filled with a banquet of food. It was the most beautiful food that you could imagine, steaming and sizzling in the paint. At one end of the table sat an old king. He was drowsily staring down the table, and as he saw the girl passing by his wall, he jumped up and called out, ‘Little girl! Come and join me, please! For there is far too much food for me to eat all alone, and my guests were never painted!’

The girl was indeed hungry after walking for some time down the passageway, but try as she might, she could not enter the picture to join the king. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sadly and walked on. She heard the king’s disheartened reply, ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t truly taste of food at any rate.’

Soon after, she came across a red knight upon his horse, standing defiantly before a cave. Smoke was billowing from the opening and all of a sudden a black dragon issued forth. It flew up into the high reaches of the painting. ‘Please excuse me, fair maiden,’ said the knight, politely nodding at her. He closed his visor and charged the beast. The chase surged through the sky of the ceiling and raced down the passageway, the dragon’s fire making the paint bubble. The girl ran after them as they disappeared ahead, but she soon found the dragon fallen and the knight victorious. The hunt had ended in a painting of two now somewhat alarmed lovers.

Without warning, she came to the end.

So surprised was the girl, that she almost struck her head on the final image in front of her. It was a city so blindingly golden that she could hardly bare to look at it. Towers were spiralling up into a cornflower blue sky, and trees and pools spread out their inky colours. When the girl pressed her nose up against the paint, she could see people. There were little girls dressed in red, sitting on the edges of fountains and giggling in the spray. Little boys dressed in yellow ran through the streets, leaping over walls and flying through the air. Old men dressed in brown were reading piles of leather-bound books on rooftops. And old women dressed in orange played music under the boughs of the ancient trees. The girl took a step back from the picture and sighed in wonder at such a lovely world.

For a time she had been looking so closely at the picture that a stream of light coming from its centre had gone unnoticed. Now she followed it to what seemed to be a painted window in the central tower. She put her eye to it and saw only light, but a slight breeze blew her hair from her face. Her fingers found a crack leading from the hole to the ceiling, and another tracing down to the ground. Placing a hand either side, she pushed the stone wall outwards with all her might. A warm sun wrapped about her, and the girl stepped out into bright air. Before her, a city gleamed happily in welcome.

: 31 Oct 2007 21:36 |  Tags: Prose |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem