‘They havebeenbuildingthatroadfortwothousandyears.’

‘But they haven’t gone far at all.’

‘I know. They have only built two feet of the road.’

‘But they are working so hard.’

‘What has that got to do with it?’

‘All they seem to be doing is building the road.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘But why are they building it?’

Dad touched my face and his hands burnt me. He shook me. I felt my bones rattle. My head rocked violently. He churned the emptiness of my stomach, and stirred the fury of my famishment. He stared deep into my eyes. Some of the inhabitants of the valley stoppedworkingandturnedtheirmaskedfacestowardsus.Dadthrewmeback on the bed, got up, and left the room. The people resumed working.

‘Because they had a most wonderful dream.’

‘What dream?’

Dad slammed the door shut when he left the room. The force of its slamming shook me all over.

‘They had been living for eternity as faces on the great tree. They got tired of eternity. They were the ones that the sun didn’t melt into precious water. They became beings, people in masks. One day their prophet told them that there were worlds and worlds of people high up. The prophet spoke of a particular people. A great people who did not know their own greatness. The prophet called that world Heaven and said they should build a great road so that they could visit those people, and that those people could visit them. In this way they would complete one another and fulfil an important destiny in the universe.’

‘Why did the prophet call that other world Heaven?’

‘Because his people are the dead.’

‘How can the dead have prophets?’

‘There are many ways to be dead. Besides, the dead are not what you think.’

‘Carry on with what you were saying.’

‘About what?’

‘About why the prophet called the other world Heaven.’

‘Yes, because the prophet’s people are the dead. Heaven means different things to different people. They wanted to live, to be more alive. They wanted to know the essence of pain, they wanted to suffer, to feel, to love, to hate, to be greater than hate, and to be imperfect in order to always have something to strive towards, which is beauty. They wanted also to know wonder and to live miracles. Death is too perfect.’

‘So why has it taken them so long to build so little?’

‘Their prophet said many things which they never understood. One of the things their prophet said was that the road cannot be finished.’

‘Why not?’

‘What their prophet meant was that the moment it is finished all of them will perish.’

‘Why?’

‘I suppose they will have nothing to do, nothing to dream for, and no need for a future. They will perish of completeness, of boredom. The road is their soul, the soul oftheirhistory.Thatiswhy,whenthey havebuiltalongsectionofit,orforgottenthe words of their prophet and begun to think they have completed it, landquakes happen, lightning strikes, invisible volcanoes erupt, rivers descend on them, hurricanes tear up their earth, the road goes mad and twists and destroys itself, or the people become distorted in spirit and start to turn the road into other things, or the workers go insane, the people start wars, revolts cripple everything and a thousand things distract them and wreck what they have built and a new generation comes along and begins again from the wreckage.’

I looked at the road with new eyes. It was short and marvellous. It was a work of art, a shrine almost, beautiful beyond description, created out of the most precious substances in the world, out of amethysts and chrysoberyl, inlaid with carnelian, brilliant with patterned turquoise.

‘Why is it so beautiful?’

‘Because each new generation begins with nothingand with everything. They know all the earlier mistakes. They may not know that they know, but they do. They know the early plans, the original intentions, the earliest dreams. Each generation has to reconnect the origins for themselves. They tend to become a little wiser, but don’t go very far. It is possible that they now travel slower, and will make bigger, better mistakes. That is how they are as a people. They have an infinity of hope and an eternity ofstruggles.Nothingcandestroythemexceptthemselvesandtheywillnever finish the road that is their soul and they do not know it.’

‘So why don’t you tell them?’

‘Because they have the great curse of forgetfulness. They are deaf to the things they need to know the most.’

‘Can I tell them?’

The spirit stared hard at me, and continued travelling. We went down into the valley. When we got to the lowest point the colour of the place transformed from orange to deepest red. The sun was blue. Constellations were visible in the sky, each star a different colour, luminous and pulsing. The redness of the place came from the lights converging on the substances of the valley. The redness hurt me all over and then it changed, astonishingly, to a ravishing golden hue, pierced with a shimmering of crimson lights. The valley was a place of marvellous reality. We went amongst the inhabitants working in the valley, creating their road. As they worked, striking their tools against the earth, against metal, compressing and distilling the gemlike substances with which they made their road, they produced wonderful music. The music came entirely from their tools, from their work. When we were amongst the inhabitants of that golden valley I experienced a rare serenity. The people could not speak; they had no need of speech. Lights came out of the holes of their eyes. The lights were understood. They clustered round us and led us to their houses. We stayed amongst them and rested. We were treated like honoured guests, like people whose coming had been prophesied in oracles and riddles. We were given food, which the spirit told me not to eat, but which he ate with great relish, feeding all three heads, while I became more wraith-like with hunger. My growling stomach alarmed our hosts. They held feasts in honour of our presence which lasted several days. They had clearly misunderstood the prophecies concerning our arrival, if it was us they meant, for towards the end of the feasting Mum came into the room and wept over me. Her tears became a rainfall which wiped away the most recent labours of the people. Dad came in and shouted at me and his anger resulted in thunder and rainstorms and hurricanes. The people began to look upon us as harbingers of disaster, bringers of misfortune. They were so disgusted that they began to make plans to sacrifice us on altars of gold in the names of those most revered prophets whom they had consistently misunderstood.

‘It’s time to leave,’ the spirit said.

Mum wept over me, pleading with rue in simple words of love, and I was a little moved. It rained so heavily that the houses of the valley got flooded. A river, roaring and delighted with the prospect of fresh destruction, descended on the land, smashed the houses, felled the trees, which instantly regrew, and destroyed sections of the enchanting road. The spirit grabbed me and led me over the wreckage. The acropolis had become a place of ruins. Time had accelerated over the land. Heliotropes and hibiscus, wall-flowers and cana-lilies grew wild in the once flourishing sites of the enactment of their Mysteries. Their city stank of dead lands. The people were in deep mourning, not for the children and families that had been killed in the flood, but for thedestruction ofpartsoftheirroad.Theirwailingsoundedeverywhere.Thesunwas now a pure white. The sky was black. The stars were drunk with the brilliance of their own indescribable colours. The road of two thousand years had been laid waste and the people bewailed their fate and some of them committed suicide at the loss of a way and their bodies were burnt at the root of evil trees. The warriors began to search for us everywhere, believing that only our deaths could in some way restore the potency of their ancient dream, the power of their way. As the spirit led us through secret tunnels of water, up into the land, a group of warriors attacked us. They stoned us, shot arrows at us, and fired guns at us. We fled. I was wounded in the stomach. The wound bled into my hunger. I shouted at them, saying: