The Last Undiscovered Destination in the World My voyage begins with a spare pot of pitch in case the batteries run low. Traders rig up hotdog stands along the path and rock pools for bathing at fifteen euros a hour. That much I knew to expect, but not the Roman Centurions who bunked off from the colosseum with their polaroid cameras, with their demands that I share a pose before I pass. A gipsy woman, who lay baby-at-breast outside the frozen-food store the previous week, sells T-shirts and virtual-city tours between fortunes. Her shadow stretches across the red chalk line, beyond which, I�m told, no human foot has made its mark for centuries, until I leave it for dust with a scuff of the heel. The entrance lies ahead to the underground site, the last undiscovered destination in the world. Now � no footprints to follow, nothing to buy or sell, no appointments to break � I shimmy down the rope ladder to the neon pink ridge below. The usual remains rest there � body-husks sprawled beneath wall scratchings, a book of Greenshield stamps (worth at least a car seat cover), a batik slashed with wax and sticky-back plastic, a pack of three thousand-year-old Cornflakes rigid as roof slates. I trip over the IKEA floor-light, shatter it. My torch drops, and in the darkness, I cup my ears for the clatter that never comes. I fit the cresset to its pole, pour the pitch, strike the match, fire the lamp, dive headfirst, and some day before I hit rock bottom I will catch up with the torch and I will read their brochures and hotel ads and bar recommendations as if my life depended on it. Where I go, in any case, the official guides are soon bound to follow. |