Ascension can never be truly realised until one has fallen.
Ten years. Has it truly been so long? Years since I felt smelt smoke, an entire decade since I felt her fiery embrace. All I can do now is sit here by the fire and reminisce on those childhood days. This warmth is as close as I will ever be again, with its smoke and its flames.
Memory. They say it’s gold tinted, but all I see when I look back is all that I’ll miss.
One time when I was five. My mother and father took me on a long car journey. I fell asleep, woke up, much like any child does at that age. I have no idea how long the trip took, but it seemed to go on for days. We arrived at a brick house - that’s all I remember about it - and they led me inside. They showed me a wall. I can see it clearly in my head as if it were yesterday. I wish it had been. White plaster decorated with pale blue around the edges. Clean, but marked with pocks and scratches, and the occasional scribble. Children must have gone there a lot, I think.
In the very middle of the wall was a circle. Its edges blended seamlessly with the plaster around it, and when I reached up with my fingertips, straining on my toes to be tall enough, I felt pleasantly warm metal.
My dad hoisted me up on his shoulders, told me what a good boy I was, and held me at the hole. So small, I could easily fit inside. They told me to go in, so I did. I crawled for a few seconds, the entrance quickly disappearing behind me. I panicked, tried to go back, but I couldn’t turn around. I got stuck, took an age to pull myself back to the way I had faced. But eventually I was there, and I carried on crawling on knees and elbows, determined to keep going, to make my mum and dad happy.
I had gone but a few metres in an endless tunnel.
There is no time in a place without sound, without smell, without clocks. There was light, a faint glow that reminded me of the ambient candle flicker. It was there one moment, then I blinked and it would be gone. When I looked again it would be back again.
Soon I caught the whiff of smoke. Like a dog any smell interested me, and I eagerly scrambled towards it with renewed vigour. Not long after I heard the faraway sound of a voice. As I drew nearer, I found it to be singing. A woman, one I had perhaps known? It was not my mother, that much I knew, but it was comforting, invigorating, caring.
I never once stopped to wonder how a tunnel could be so long in such a small house.
All at once the singing stopped. The smell faded. The light winked out. Alone in blackness, I curled up into a ball, terrified of what might be lying in wait for me. Monsters like the one that waited behind my bed, waited for me to climb out at night so it could catch me and eat me-
I pushed on. I had heard that voice, and I had to reach it now.
The singing started again.
Instead of light now, I saw fire in the distance. A tiny light, still very much far away down the tunnel. But it was there. It was real.
I crawled onwards.
