Katabasis

Our whole lives have been leading up to this.

What, going underground?

Something important is waiting for us here. Everything’s leading us down.

Delusion – always delusion.


It’s a shithole. Just a hole for tramps, who want some place to smoke crack out of the wind. And miscreant postgraduates. Who want to play dens, or something.


Have you brought the wine? Good – we’ll need supplies. It’s part of the descent. We have to maintain a certain level of blood alcohol.


Livia would have wanted this.

Our descent? Because it deepens the farce?

Exactly.

Because we have unrealistic expectations? Because we’re one a wild goose chase, with no grounding in reality?

Definitely.

Because we still have the idea that reality actually corresponds to our … imaginings?

Yeah, that sort of thing.


This is the katabasis.

The what?

Like in literature. In Homer and Virgil and Dante.

Listen to you, Mr Culture. Have you actually read Homer?

I’ve read about Homer.

We studied Homer in Greek.

Fuck off with your Greek.


This is just a tunnel. And it’s barely even a descent. Like what angle is this? Five degrees? It’s dry. It’s quite good shape. It doesn’t smell of piss. It isn’t a crack den. That’s a bonus, right?

Admiring the brickwork. The arch.

It was built really well.

Where does this even lead? Where does it go? What’s the point of this?

They used to send trucks of coal down here. On rails. Down to the river.

It’s open to tourists further down. You can visit. Get the Victoria Tunnel experience. Kids used to come down here.


What are we doing here? How did we end up here, underground.

Blame Sophia. Blame the postgrads. And the paragrads.

What paragrads? The fantasy paragrads? With their fantasy ceremonies?


It’s just … what are we doing here? Why are we here? Why anything? Why this? Why not this? Why the fuck?


It’s dark and it smells musty and there are no signs of human habitation.


So this is leftover World War 2 stuff? Can we just sit here? Isn’t it part of some museum?


Underground. In our underground adventure.


We have to sink down. We have to acclimatise.

We have to give the katabasis some time.


Let’s drink. Let’s swig some wine and see what we find out. See what Livia’s lesson is today. What we’re supposed to learn.


It’s getting darker.

Is it?

It’s getting warmer.


A wall. Rubble.

We can’t go any further.

Good. I’m sick of underground. Of katabasis, or whatever.

What’s supposed to happen next?

Just bathos, as usual. Nothing revealed. That’s our whole life, right?

I think we should share something. Some deep experience. That we all have in common.

I think we should have a therapy session.


There’s no lower we can go. We can’t descend any further.

So when’s that katabasis you were talking about? Has it happened yet?


Is this it? End of the line?

After this, it becomes part of the city sewer system. There’s this culvert that runs into it. Can you hear the river? And after that, much further down, it becomes a museum.