XX: On the Road with the Dead

There are some dreams that just seem so real. In fact, they seem so real that you lose the faculty, albeit momentarily, of distinguishing what’s real from what it’s not.

            Two weeks into his Moroccan experience, as we may describe it, Leonardo had one such dream. Except it was not exactly a dream, since it was more like a hallucination.

            If you go to Morocco, be careful choosing what you eat. This is especially true in what comes to water, meat or any kind of dairy products. If you’re not careful, you might end up drinking some water you shouldn’t drink, having some rotten meat that will make you feel like you’re gonna die or, as it happened to Leonardo, you might have a Vanilla milkshake that will lead your stomach into the path of civil war, and you will have to reap all the casualties yourself. 

            First day: Stomach Civil War breaks out. Bowel movement  soon hits light-speed. Fever debilitates body and mind alike making every second go by slower and more painfully. All of sudden your minuscule hostel room is not enough and you have to expand your living quarters up till the Moroccan hostel’s excuse for a bathroom, that is, a smelly, vey dirty, hole in the ground. Soon enough, you start to love that nasty hole in the ground, temporarily losing your condition as a civilized man in the process.

            Second day: You’re lying on your bed the smelliest and sweatiest you´ve ever been in your life and you wonder if something very wrong is going on with your body. I mean, there is only so much you can expel out of your body before you start becoming severely dehydrated. Then you start thinking that maybe coming to Morocco by yourself without telling anyone about it may not have been the best move ever. Maybe you should go to the hospital, you think, but you’re so weak that it’s getting harder and harder even to get as far as the “bathroom” from your tiny room across the hall.

            Third Day: Now things are REALLY looking bad. You’re not getting any better and stuff is still coming out of your body at a vertiginous rate, making your fear that soon enough your internal organs are gonna start to pop out too. The fever doesn’t show any signs of wearing off and you slowly but steadily lose the ability to fully distinguish hallucination from reality, dreams from real life. You spend the whole day either in bed delirious or in the bathroom and when you dream, it’s like no dream you’ve ever had before.  

So, enlightened by fever and dehydration, he fell into a cauldron of wild dreams, manufactured by human nature’s most irrational thoughts.  He entered another world, carved deep into the realm of dreams.

            He descended gradually onto the deeps, as if he was falling graciously into the centre of the earth. It was as if an irresistible supernatural force was dragging him into the deepest of all abysses, into the bottom of the deepest of all seas, towards the final frontier of existence.

            Whilst Leonardo continued his slowly descent into the realm of the unknown, he grew progressively more aware of the unending nothingness surrounding him. An absolute blackness prevented even the slightest glimpse of colour of flourishing, and a deathly silence reigned supreme throughout the darkness…

            So he fell and he fell, into an absolute nothingness that expanded towards the infinite.  Yet, it was a smooth fall. He felt like a marine explorer, travelling through the deeps of the ocean, uncovering its deepest mysteries.

            It’s no easy task to put down in words how, somewhere along the silky fall, leading to the bottom of the universe, everything that Leonardo had known throughout his whole life lost all importance and meaning. Even the very act of breathing was no longer necessary. It didn’t even make sense. To be alive or to be dead, it was an irrelevant distinction, since all was part of the same whole.

            His memories, carefully brewed over the course of a life-time, which used to be an important part of who he were, were now quickly dissolving in the black waters that surrounded him, as if exposed to deadly acid. All that was artificial was therefore gone soon enough, leaving only the core of his being: His soul was now liberated from the drama of mortality and his spirit embraced its infinite nature once again.  He had been purged, freed from the shackles of life and unleashed in his purest form into the black seas of nothingness.   

            The fall seemed to last forever, it seemed that it could not end, because the abyss was infinite. Yet the creature that was once Leonardo would not fall forever. At a certain point, absolute darkness was diluted by the slightest sparkles of light, and deathly silence was finally interrupted. At first, the sounds that he could hear were so low that he couldn’t discern what it was or where it came from. But as he continued falling into the deeps, penetrating into the deeps, the sounds grew louder, gently, until they resembled what could be described as a melody.

            The sound grew progressively lauder and clearer, alerting Leonardo to the fact that he was getting neared and neared to the source. Not only did the sound become louder. The blackness became lighter until finally, a focus of light became discernible in the horizon. It grew bigger and bigger, as Leonardo moved in its direction, hypnotized, driven by an invisible current.

            When he was close enough, Leonardo, or rather what was left of him, could finally appreciate the beauty of the melody that echoed across this mysterious realm. It was the most beautiful thing Leonardo had ever listening to. Now that he could listen to it clearly he realized that it was a chant, not a regular chant, but something divine, different from anything else he had ever known. Such a chant could not have come from human lungs, and throats and mouths, its origin had to be non-human, supernatural, maybe even divine.

            It was the most beautiful chant you could imagine. It had the power to dilute all feelings of lost and fear, and to turn cold into warmth and despair into pure happiness. It wasn’t composed words, but only voices, sweet, gentle, yet powerful voices. Not even Mozart’s most beautiful symphony could match its beauty and majesty, and no mortal would ever be capable of reproducing it faithfully and fully.

            When he came close enough to the light, Leonardo saw the first of those marvellous creatures, followed by a second, a third and then many others. He now found himself in bright waters, surrounded by angelical water creatures, swimming towards and around him. They were mermaids, as Leonardo had always imagined them, swimming graciously and effortlessly whilst singing their hypnotic melody. It would seem that the light came from their very magnificent bodies, which were locked in a seductive undulating movement, almost as if they were dancing.    

            Their facial features were extremely beautiful, and in this aspect alone they looked remarkably human, although all of them were exceptionally attractive. All of them had golden hair that shone like pure gold. Their eyes were grey although it wasn’t until they were really close that Leonardo could notice that. Their bodies were also tremendously beautiful: the upper part was just like the body of a woman, and the lower part was a long tail, covered with emerald-green shining scales. Never before had Leonardo seen something so stunning. In fact, they were so gorgeous, and their appearance was invested of such a divine quality, that he would have gladly attended to any wishes they would have professed without opposing any sort of resistance whatsoever.

            They started swimming around him, so close that he could almost touch them now and he could discern every single feature of their angelic faces. At least a dozen mermaids formed a circle of beauty and light around Leonardo, enchanting him with their synchronized dancing. Leonardo could also feel their smell now, which was the most marvellous scent Leonardo had ever smelled in his life, and that was now inebriating him. Their beautiful chant, meanwhile, echoed even in the most remote corners of his mind.

            They danced and swam around him, swinging beautifully, starting to touch him even if only slightly with their velvety hands. The sight of those beings, of their naked breasts and their golden hair was nothing short of bewildering. The movement of their tales left emerald-green traces behind them, cutting through the golden waters that now surrounded Leonardo, impregnated with their bright light, inebriating scent and seductive voices.

            Two mermaids grabbed Leonardo’s hands and started to drag him along, into the deep, whilst the other mermaids followed closely behind. They swam and swam, always towards the unfathomable abyss, until finally a sight started to take shape ahead of them. It seemed then that their destination was finally upon them. As they proceeded, swirling through that mysterious, seemingly bottomless ocean, Leonardo started to feel this intense warmth. At first it was pleasant but as they spiralled downwards, the temperature went from tepid to warm, then from warm to hot, and finally it went from hot to boiling hot. Leonardo was now feeling intense discomfort as the temperature of the ethereal waters rose continuously and fast, yet the mermaids maintained a tight grip on his wrists and kept dragging him along. As he tried to stop, they continued to drag him down, relentlessly.  

            Far ahead, still barely in sight, something made of fire seemed to become visible. Leonardo could not discern, not yet, exactly what it was. He only knew that it was big, that it was made of fire, and that it wasn’t anything he wanted to be near of.

            The further they advanced the hotter the water became, until it became unbearable. And although Leonardo was now trying to go back, using all of his strength to freed himself from the mermaids, he could not freed his wrists from their tight grip.

Their hands had felt smooth as if they were covered in velvet, yet now they were as firm as if they were made out of stone, and they dragged him with them with supernatural force.   

As his skin started to boil, and blisters covered his body and face, Leonardo struggled desperately to free himself from the mermaids grip, but his resistance proved futile. Meanwhile, his cries of pain and despair were muffled by the mermaids’ chant, which had now evolved from a beautiful, peaceful melody, into a symphony as sinister as it was powerful.

His chest was filled of fear as he beheld what lay ahead. A palace of fire rose from the deep, bigger and more majestic than never he had ever seen before. As they approached, the huge fiery gates opened, allowing the mermaids to drag him into the underworld, past the end of the world. When they were already inside, the mermaids finally let him go, initiating their ascent, back to where they had come from.

Leonardo tried to fall them, but the waters had turned into flames, burning him and leading him to contort himself in excruciating pain. Not only that, a host of demons had now quickly surrounded him, grabbing his arms and legs and dragging him down.

As they proceeded, he saw a gallery of both men and women being submitted to a myriad of different tortures in the hands of sadistic demons. Leonardo’s own cries of pain joined theirs, in this most macabre symphony produced by a collective of lost souls, spread throughout the many rooms that composed the ultimate mansion of horrors. He then knew, without doubt, that he had fallen into the pits of hell. 

Horrible demons devoured his arms and legs, while evil goblins needled his eyes. Yet his members grew back again and again only to be devoured again and his eyes regenerated themselves over and over only to be pierced another time.

A train of demons escorted Leonardo to a room where they tied him down to a table. A demonic being, much bigger than the others, with black horns coming out of his head, skin red as blood and the tail of a goat opened his stomach with his long, sharp claws, and as he did so he shuffled his bowels and feasted on his intestines, delivering Leonardo a world of pain beyond human endurance. Yet he could not set himself free or fight the demon back, his hands and feet tied to the burning hot metal table as they were.

The fiendish meal lasted for an eternity, or at least it seemed that way to Leonardo’s tortured soul. This was until a blinding light all of a sudden erupted in the room, scattering away the demonic horde except for their leader, Leonardo’s torturer. The beast was pierced in the heart by a long spear made of light silver that shone like a beacon of light.

Leonardo watched in awe as a regal knight, on the back of a magnificent white horse with ample wings stood now before him. It was caring a standard of some sort, and its face was elegant and even beautiful, although at a first glance it wasn’t clear if it was a man or a woman. Its hair was short and golden, and Leonardo thought that he might be looking at the mythical Joanne of Arc. She then drew her sword out of its sheath and cut Leonardo’s chains, freeing him and helping him to mount the flying horse. As he did so, they started to ride through the corridors of hell, as Joanne fought of legions of demons with her sword in own hand and her bearing on the other, until they finally took of the ground and ascended triumphant leaving the pits of hell behind them.

They road in the direction of the silver moon across the sky, crossing the black space filled with stars until they finally reached a place of extreme beauty, a garden of magnificent splendour. When they arrived, a crowd made of cherubs and people alike, all of them naked and fair, welcomed them. 

Although Joanna never told Leonardo her name, she introduced him to the garden’s inhabitants: genderless angels, men and women of great beauty and wisdom, all of them young and healthy, and illustrious men who were enjoying their eternal rest in heaven after having lived eventful and meaningful lives on earth.

Leonardo thanked Joanna and said goodbye to her as he moved inland into the green hills that sat next to the gardens of Eden. He walked for a few hours until he saw a castle made of silver and gold on top of a hill and made his way towards it. This was the home of King Arthur and his brave knights, and they took him in and gave him food and wine at their table. They also allowed him to listen to theirs stories, told throughout the evenings. These were tales of bravery and nobility, and as each knight spoke proudly, while they drank from their glasses made of gold and shared regal banquets, young virgins played the harp and the flute.  As Leonardo took joy in their friendship, he marvelled upon their stories that spoke of incredible adventures.

One day, wondering around the woods around the castle, Leonardo found a large cabin, where he found Mohamed, who was smoking some hookah. He sat with him and they smoked together, whilst they had talked about religion.

Many days later, Leonardo reached a temple hidden deep in the woods. When he went in, he saw Siddhartha Gautama, meditating on a Buddhist altar. He agreed to take Leonardo as his disciple and during many months, he taught him about the mysteries of the universe.

When time came, Leonardo and Siddhartha parted, but the latter decided to give Leonardo a goodbye gift that would help him in his wonderings.

He took him to a road where a red Cadillac was parked and pointed him in the right direction. He drove for a while and he saw a sign saying ‘Parallel Realities’ and he kept droving onwards. 

Leonardo drove through a number of roads and saw incredible landscapes, that can’t even begin to be described in the languages of men without sounding sacrilegious. He roamed across those strange roads for a period of time that seemed like an eternity to him, discovering many worlds, some insignificant and others breath-taking.     

In one of those trips, driving along a well paved, well signalized road in his brand-new red Cadillac, a road that connected heaven to a planet where all men live their entire lives without ever wondering about the significance of their existences and consequently without ever reflecting upon the existence of gods or similar entities, Leonardo sighted a man wearing a long immaculate white tunic, with long, wavy brown hair sticking his thumb up as people in earth do when they hitchhike.

Leonardo stopped and picked him up, and as he did so, the man told him that he was curious to see a world where men live without religion, and that he would like to know if people living in that world were more or less happy than people who have religion as part of their lives.

The man introduced himself as Jesus Christ and they drove on until they finally reached the land of non-believers, where they lived for a while until they finally got bored and left.

 So they hit the road again in their red Cadillac and they drove until they reached another land. This other realm was the inverse of the previously one, and all of its inhabitants dedicated their entire loves to their religions and their gods. Eventually they also got bored in that land and they decided to leave and go back to the gardens of Eden.

In our way back to heaven they met with Mohamed and they had black tea together and they smoke mint-flavoured hookah while they discussed whether it was worse living in a land without religion or in land where men live their whole lives obsessed with serving their gods.

One day back in heaven, Jesus told Leonardo that all people in heaven are always happy and that everyone in hell is always miserable, but that even that being the case, sometimes the people in heaven get so bored with their idyllic existences that they feel the urge to do something different and sometimes they even decide to go to hell and spend some time there in order to appreciate how good life in heaven is and be fulfilled again, and when they go back to heaven they appreciate what they have a lot more than they did before.       

After spending some time in heaven again, Leonardo decided to leave again and get back on the road in his shiny red Cadillac, and he drove a long way until he got to a wide plain where he saw a herd of buffalos being chased by Indian hunters that were massacred along with their families by the white men on Earth.

The Indians, who had died over two hundred years ago, welcome Leonardo to their tribe and allowed him to partake in their rituals. So he consumed Peyote with them, and he learnt how to pray to their magnificent gods, and he made love to their women, and he understood the meaning of life in a thousand different ways, before beginning his ascent back to the world of the living.

When he was lucid enough again, he forgot most of the dreams he had had, but not all of them, and vague remembrances of Indians, and demons and riding with Jesus on a red Cadillac stayed with him for a long time.

A few days with virtually no food or water had brought him to physical as well as mental exhaustion. He could hardly move to get out of bed and go buy some food and something to drink. Then he heard someone knocking.

He took some money out of his wallet, presuming that the guys in the hostel had come to ask for rent but when he opened the door he was surprised to see a westerner with a smile and some bread and water standing at the hallway.

‘Hi. My name is Peter. I couldn’t help noticing that you don’t seem to be feeling very well these last few days. Either that or you just really like going to the bathroom and staying locked inside your room the whole day.’

‘Huh… Yeah, I think I got food poisoned or something like that… I haven’t been feeling too well…’

‘I thought you would want some food and water so I brought you some,’ the stranger said, handing him a baguette and a bottle of fresh mineral water.

‘Thanks, I really don’t know what to say…’

‘It’s okay really. I’ve been in your place before. A lot of westerners here have. You really need to watch out for what you have to drink and eat around here, but I guess you know that all too well by now…’

‘Yeah… I would say so… I had these really strange dreams… Do you mind if I seat, I don’t feel that great, I think I need to eat and drink a bit…’

‘Sure, please do, that’s why I brought this stuff.’

Leonardo sat down and drank half-a-litter of water and half of the baguette in less than a minute. ‘Sorry, I didn’t even introduce myself. My name is Leonardo.’

‘Don’t worry. Look, I’ll come by later today to see if you’re feeling better. A few travellers and I usually meet in the evenings at the terrace to have something to drink and chat a bit. You’re welcome to join us tonight if you’re feeling better.’

‘Thanks.’

            After eating and drinking Leonardo did indeed feel better. He was still shaken, but it seemed that the worst part was behind him. The craziest things can happen on the road, food poisoning, wacky dreams, nice people you find along the way… even some dead ones at times. But you move on, one step after another, wondering where the road might lead you next.