Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

I felt like a levitating assistant whose hand was being held by the magician. I felt us moving through the lid of the coffin, and then we were traveling up through the soil. An orange glow spread across the insides of my eyelids as we got closer to the surface, and I was not even sure whether I was still breathing.

I felt the tug of earth as I broke into the sunlight, and the color exploded. I was lifted upwards, a few inches above the surface of the ground. Soil trailed off my chest and I could feel it trickle down my ribs, falling from my sides. I was floating in the air unsupported; the woman did not break the grave’s surface with me. Only her hand came through, connecting me to the earth like a balloon on a string. Her hand held mine for perhaps a few seconds before it let go and was pulled back into the grave. It was then that I realized that she could not leave: she had not been a visitor to my coffin, I had been a visitor to hers.

My body settled onto the mound of dirt. My eyes adjusted to the light. I was on a mountain and I could hear a river nearby. It was peaceful, just for a moment, until the ground beneath me started to move once more. For a panicked instant, I was worried that the silent woman had decided to pull me back down, but this was not what was happening. On all sides of me a hundred little eruptions began, like burrowing animals clawing their way out of the soil.

There were, at first, only glints in the light. But then shapes began to emerge: flowers, with colorless petals. When I looked closer, I could see that they were made of glass. Lilies. Blooming everywhere were a thousand glass lilies, glowing with pulses of light that seemed to come from within.

I reached out to pluck one. As soon as I touched it, it froze under my finger. Turning from glass into ice, all the thousands of flowers-as if they were connected by one soul-began to shatter in tiny explosions. With each came the release of a single word, in a woman’s whisper, and together they fashioned a symphony that sounded like pure love. Aishiteru, aishiteru, aishiteru.

The bursting lilies raced down the mountain like dominoes detonating their way to the horizon. Underneath the joyous blanket of Aishiteru in the sky, the mountain itself shook and trembled and fell, flattening itself into tundra that unfolded everywhere. Just moments after it began, all around me the frozen shards of flower had become a field of ice that extended as far as my eyes could see.

I stared into this vast icy wilderness and it stared mercilessly right back at me. The arctic wind whipped hard against my shaking body. I was now completely aware that I was naked, save for the angel coin necklace that never left my neck.

The grave was gone-naturally, now that the entire mountain had disappeared-but there was a simple robe lying where it had been. When I picked up the garment to measure it against my body, flecks of dirt fell from it and were carried away by the powdery ballet of the blowing wind. The robe was much too small but because it was all I had, I put it on. I looked as ridiculous as you might imagine a burnt man in a tiny woman’s garment would look, but when you’re freezing there’s little profit in worrying about fashion sense.

The robe was the same one that I had seen on the Japanese woman at the Halloween party. Without a doubt it, and the grave it had come out of, had belonged to Sei.

The gleaming bleakness of this new world engulfed me. How complete was my change of venue: from the smallest and blackest space I could imagine, to the widest and whitest. For miles around I was the tallest object, enormous simply by virtue of possessing legs upon which to stand, and yet I felt dwarfed by the immensity of the sky. To stand on tundra is to feel concurrently grand and inconsequential.

The thin robe was little protection against the cold, and the wind cut to my marrow. Something moved at the edge of my vision. I was already developing snow blindness, but I squinted to confirm the sight: a trudging bulk outlined against the vicious blankness. The figure seemed to be coming towards me, but it was hard to tell on such a flat surface. I headed towards it. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be any worse than standing still, awaiting hypothermia.

After some time I realized that the object moving towards me was a man. He must help me, I thought, for to not help me would be to kill me. The first detail I could make out was his thick red locks, which stood out against the snow like bloodstains on a bedsheet. Next I could see that he was wrapped in heavy furs and wore thick boots. His pants were thickly strapped leather and his coat was an animal thing. Over his shoulder, he seemed to be carrying a parcel of pelts. Puffs of steam exited his mouth. Ice frosted his beard. He was close now. Deep creases lined the corners of his eyes and he looked older than I believe he actually was.

When he arrived in front of me, he held out the package he’d been carrying on his shoulder and said, “Farðu í Þetta .” I understood what this meant: You will put these on.

I unwrapped the package to find a full set of clothing, thick skins with fur that would protect me. I pulled them on as quickly as I could, and soon I felt the air between my body and the material starting to warm. “Hvað heitir Þú?” What is your name? I was shocked to hear Icelandic out of my mouth as well.

“I am Sigurðr Sigurрsson, and you will come with me.” His answer confirmed the identity that I had guessed; but only hesitantly, because here-wherever here was-Sigurðr was unburned despite the way his life had ended. Which made me wonder why my body was still damaged.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“When will we get there?”

“I don’t know.” He squinted against the horizon. “I’ve been traveling a long time. I must be getting close.”

Around his waist Sigurðr wore a scabbard, the same one that had been clanging against Sei’s hips when they were dancing. He extracted Sigurðrsnautr by its serpent handle, and handed over his belt and sheath. “Put this on. You’ll need it.”

I asked why. He answered that he didn’t know.

I threw away Sei’s robe, thinking it useless now that I had the skins. Sigurðr picked it up and handed it back to me. “In Hel, you must use everything that you have.”

I twisted the robe around my waist, as a second belt above the one that Sigurðr had just given me. I asked him how he could tell in which direction we should head.

“I don’t know,” he answered. Sigurðr was quite a conversationalist. He used his sword as a walking stick, the blade cutting into the snow with each step. For a man who didn’t know where he was going, he took very resolute strides.

“Is this a hallucination?” It struck me as supremely odd to be in a hallucination, asking whether it was a hallucination, in a language that I didn’t understand. (In fact, how many people in the entire world know the Icelandic word for “hallucination” is ofskynjun ?) Sigurðr answered that he didn’t think it was an ofskynjun, but couldn’t be positive.

We walked. And walked. And walked. For days, but the sun never set. Perhaps you think this an exaggeration, that I really mean we walked for hours, which seemed like days. But no, I mean days. We traveled in constant fatigue but we never came to the point of needing sleep, and despite my bad knee, I felt I could continue indefinitely. I thought of the places in the farthest northern reaches of the world where the sun remains in the sky for six months at a time. Would we have to march that long?

Sigurðr remained a man of few, and confused, words; for the most part, the only sound that came from his body was a slightly musical clacking from under his pelts, around his neck. After a while I stopped talking to him, except to try to make him laugh. I never succeeded. Sometimes I stopped walking simply to break the monotony. I would beg Sigurðr to wait for just a minute but he would always state that there was no time for rest. When I asked why, he would answer, “Because we need to get there.”