Image via Wikipedia

Cora (Kore) of the Underground Stream

She swirled to no particular music even as dark, phantasmagoric shadows danced around her. She glimpsed a billowing of fantastic shapes hinted at in the greater dark as she twirled – a kaleidoscope of inked out patterns, black on black.

In the womb of eternal night, her eyes were accustomed to catching what could only be seen at the peripherals of vision. “There are so many movements in the dark if you study it from the corners of your eyes,” she mused. She’d become a connoisseur of the hideous, having lived in shadow for so long.

At first she’d fought with passionate restraint the urge to dance the dark. It was only when she gave into the stirrings of shadow within that she could catch the movement of the greater darkness. The swirling shapes had a heady scent of tuberose and musk with a hint of menthol and felt like warm, damp mist.

Once, like any other child, she had favored the sun in her eyes and dappled meadows with sparkling streams in which to dip her toes. She danced the sway of wildflowers to the rhythm of songbirds and she sought all the bright places. Her name was Cora when her childhood was an eternal springtime. There were no seasons then, except the one when all was becoming, and she was never alone.

Even unknowns were wide and verdant spaces she could fling herself into beneath her mother’s watchful gaze. Her mother, her sunshine. She wanted for nothing in her fragrant field.

Nighttime had been only a dream as sunshine both opened and closed with her eyes and light was the only reality she knew … now a dream itself.

One day by the stream, she first noticed the darkness of her reflection. There was also something else she never noticed before – her mother said it was mist. The sunlight didn’t dance upon it but was absorbed into it, as with her reflection. It had a headier scent unlike the wildflowers she cuddled her nose into. Something mysterious and not wide open and verdant.

Intrigued, she fell madly in love with the shadows on the water. Nighttime was to be no longer a dream, as it descended earlier than usual and she was awake to meet its approach.

Her mother’s perfumed voice faded into the background as if coming from afar and she fell further and further into the mystery till she couldn’t be accounted for. It was a terrible place, a place of within.

Her mother’s eyes and mindful voice could not reach her there – this she knew – and for the very first time, she felt alone.

In a place of shadow hidden beneath the light that was, she sank deeper till she couldn’t see her reflection – all was black. There are so many shades of black if you study it and stare hard enough as she was learning to do. Every color had its black counterpart. The more you see in the dark, the easier it is to forget what came before. Like an underground stream starting out shallow, it has a current the further you meander with it … and reveals its own unique spectrum as it twists and turns … deeper.

Cora was lost. The more she struggled against the dark current, the more lost she felt – going nowhere, splashing up nothingness. Exhausted, she drifted into a dream where the sun rose in a far off land, and she knew she was only dreaming. She awoke to the night and a new caress. One which she resisted with all her might – the caress of an unknown that could never be illuminated. It was the current, the sense of being carried along that gradually relaxed her will and the dark befriended her.

Hungry and overcome by forgetfulness, she bit into the dark’s cloying sweetness. A fruity sweetness that hinted of mist and reflection … and she felt less alone.

Fortified, Cora reached a dark shore where she cast off the soaked garments that had dragged her down. Shivering now, she cuddled up in a rocky crevice … the embrace she’d surrendered to had only been watery illusion. If only her mother had caught her before she fell into the underground stream. She lived for dreams of that distant world. She saw something white and cold in wide open spaces and her mother called it the moon and she knew she was dreaming.

Tears became hard diamonds glistening in an icy moonlight – her mother’s tears, not her own. Yet something inside herself was glistening when she awoke to the dark.

A beautiful dress had been cast by her now dry feet.

She could barely see it but her eyes had become accustomed to seeing the colors of the dark. It had fine texture and a fetching pattern … she slipped it on to cover her naked dreams – her dreams, for her alone. No mist could penetrate the wide, verdant spaces she held within. No cloying sweetness could disconnect her from her mother’s tears or the purity of the white on that other shore. She withdrew again into her corner.

Gradually she forgot again as her ears got accustomed to a new music. There was no birdsong, but she detected a fanciful rhythm of water wearing on dark stone – a persistence both within and without.

She saw the movement through the corner of her eye – something swirling, exciting her to join. Still, she preferred to dream on, but her dreams no longer held the familiar meadow or sun. There was always that thing called moon, and it was colder now than the greater dark.

The aqueous syncopation of the underground aroused her. She ventured from the corner she had allowed the dark to paint her into.

A heady mist warmed her and she knew she was no longer alone – or at least she didn’t have to be.

Her belly swelled with dreams undreamt … in a dream, her mother called it life. She knew the dark had claimed her in a way she had to reciprocate. She danced, matching the cyclical rhythm of swirling secrets.

Chiffon, tulle, inky pattern, black on black became wings – she was no longer a prisoner of the dark and was not even dreaming. The shadows shifted to reflections of wildflowers and the corner became a wide and verdant space she could fling herself into beneath her mother’s watchful gaze. Her mother’s once richly pigmented hair was now the color of the thing called moon and the sun-kissed stream had overflowed from melted snow of many seasons she’d missed while dreaming inside herself.

The Lord of the Underworld would not come again to reclaim his bride till three moons hence – she’d yet to experience Summer. A bargain had been struck through her mother’s tears – precious diamonds to be traded so that life could continue through its cycles and some other child could experience an eternal Spring. And for a little while, that child did.