Monolith -by Daniel Gensemer

“Monolith”

You probably won’t make it there. Few know the place exists, and even fewer know how to get there. You probably won’t even regret not going there. Nobody regrets not visiting a phantom place they have never heard of.

 But if you ever make it out there – if you ever dare to break the chains of regimented bureaucracy, drive half a day into the wilderness and still have the strength to break out your feet on two long and lonely days – you won’t regret it. Anyone can be sure of that.

Even on the approach, you’ll find hints of what lies ahead; rock outcrops and gullies, mountains that bear resemblance to gargantuan and dirty rocks. The subtle hints and clues intensify as you draw closer to the fortresses and barracks of the place. You’ll see rivers that curve along the edge of cliffs without falling off. Golden escarpments, glinting like the treasure behind their walls. And caves. Many of them, carved as if they were the shelters, housing and headquarters for a vast building site. The building site itself is well protected, with the fences, traps, combinations, and razor wire of nature. Only those clever enough to crack the code are admitted. Of course, cracking the code isn’t as difficult as it used to be. There are too many whistle-blowers; cairns and footsteps pave the way to formerly hidden gates. But that won’t take anything away from the magic of the place. The fact is, you can’t drain an ocean with a teaspoon.

It’s unlikely you’ll see anybody here, but you might, heading in the other direction. He’ll be a young man from one of the nearby towns, looking to escape. Your conversation will be short. Been to Corang Arch? How’s the trail around there? What’s the track to the valley like? It hasn’t been well used in ages . . . could you still follow it?

 It’ll be a couple days before you reach the golden gates of the place itself. They boast of power and awe. And despite being dirtied by the marks of people, both recent and truly ancient, they will hit you with the same radiance and glory they have always held. As you walk in the company of the Queen’s Guards, which stand rooted to their place, their eyes at the level of the mountaintops, it’s unlikely you’ll guess correctly what lays ahead. More likely, you’ll guess that the entire place looks like this; comically oversized, with decorations of sandstone plastering the cliffs. You’ll be surprised at how wrong you were. Nature has been at hard work here. She found a part of this place that looked like it defied everything and gave it an indescribable glory.

You will continue to follow the lightly beaten trail down a hallway. The hallway will be a tennis court wide, twice as high and over a kilometre long. It will be well decorated. You will pass hanging moss curtains that drip in the constant rain from the above world. Musty smells like those of a dark and undusted library will fill the air. Your footsteps will trace the underside of arches wide enough for a four-lane highway. You will duck and weave around the strangest trees you’ll ever have seen. Finally, the track reaches the emerald heart of this serene and surreal world.

It will be impossible to describe. Your brain will dip between explanations as it attempts to find the match to what your eyes are seeing. Depending on what you’ve done with your life, answers will differ. You might think the place is some kind of ancient and overgrown temple, so old that trees grow on top of it. You might think of it as the centre of a vast hedge maze of stone. Which is, in a way, exactly what it is.

The idea of wandering probably won’t occur to you. It shouldn’t. Tracks from this place only lead to the edge of knife-edge cliffs, dead-end valleys, and to even worse perils such as the maze itself. There are no camping spots here. Everything is either rocky or carpeted with thick moss and ferns. Which means that if you somehow end up in this place at night, you’ve definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere. But if you look up, all you’ll ever see is a vast blanket of stars . . . and that’s all you’ll see when you look around, too. If you ever end up in the dark here, you will be one of the few to have witnessed the stars of the earth. They normally only lurk in the darkest caves, where they can kill small beings to ensure their light blazes forever. But here – here, in a place that never sees the harsh light of head torches and lamps; here, in a place that looks timeless, like a hidden treasure, forever untouched by the outside world; here, they breed unabated.