Lessons from the Catacombs

Vincent Phelan liked to think of himself as professional, a trailblazer in the practice of keeping one’s hands to oneself when coming upon something that has defied time. He’d been the sole voice preaching the discipline for years, bringing forward laws and regulations for future archaeologists. They were, before anything else, historians.

He stood leaning on his cane at the mouth of the catacomb. The sun was setting behind him and as he turned away from it he felt as the old kings might have felt, entering the shadows with the warmth of their final sun still warming their backs. Above him and around him, on ancient stone tablets, were written the last words of these kings, who had once ruled the world, and were now condensed to a few dusty letters. The students would take a look at them tomorrow and send the words out to a world that has grown a thousand times since them. They would be alive again.

Vincent Phelan had some words for the world, but at his age lacked the energy to yell loud enough to reach it, and doubted whether the world would even care for the last words of a man like him. He tried recalling the final lines of the letter he’d written for his wife. She’d get the news of his death much later. For now, let her be entertained with sketches of the surrounding temples, and the rumours of a curse she wouldn’t believe in yet. She would read it aloud to her friends.

Vincent Phelan shook the dust from his shoes. He crossed the threshold to where voices that tamed the oceans came to be silent forever.

It was dreadfully silent. He tested the temperament of the chamber by striking a match for a candle in his pocket, and was shocked that the flame exposed the smallness of the room. The echo was close and bounced several times off the walls, retreating into the cavernous depths, tempting his curiosity, and his desperation. The ground inclined steadily, and he felt ahead with his cane.

He had told the students not to come down here until they were given clearance, and gone to bed early. He could still hear the dying laughter of the party he left behind. Two dozen men and women celebrating the discovery that centuries of archaeologists had been walking over, buried under tonnes and tonnes of sand.

He had sat up in bed an hour later. It was a familiar, yet unwelcome feeling that attacked his chest and neck, the same he had felt the night his father died. Now he knew it had come for him.

He had peered out of his tent, at the sandy slope leading down into the square mouth, the final rays of sun being swallowed up in ancient air. He had made up his mind in that moment, taking up his cane and sneaking past the other tents.

And here he was now, creeping in the silence like a curse down the throat of the giant tomb. If these were to be his final hours, let him spend them feasting his eyes on that which thousands of years had kept hidden from the world. Soon the sights would be available in black and white, plastered over the front pages of every newspaper. Soon the curse would be exposed as fact or fiction.

But for now, he heeded the siren call of the catacombs alone. It was for his ears only, the marvels for his eyes alone. He felt like a thief and a king at the same time as his feet trod on undisturbed dust, pressing footprints in his wake, and he smiled.

His fingers were warmed by the candle’s flame, and his cane dragged along the ground lazily. He’d shed the weakness that came with his age at the prospect of this discovery. It seemed now he had made it, his bones were remembering themselves. He felt the walls with ungloved hands, the ground before him, felt the air sting his nose, and wondered if this chamber knew its own age. Was every fingerprint dragged along its walls as painful a reminder as a deepening wrinkle? Did the floor sag under his weight? When he reached the belly of the grave, would he find bleeding ulcers or fresher wounds?

Sure, ageing was a difficult thing. But he’d gone through it as gracefully as he could, brushing away the dust from his memories as he unearthed the scars of the old worlds and put them on display. He did all that in the name of discovery. This was an unfortunate vanity he had to go through with. He knew he was the best of the best; he couldn’t risk losing the first look because of something so menial as death.

His fingers grappled the edge of the wall as the long hallway came to an end, opening up in a wide chamber that his feeble flame hadn’t the power to light up. He decided, as in a maze, to stick by the right wall, and follow it around.

He squinted past the dying flame, and in his final hour, found himself.

Vincent Phelan was declared missing the same day an unexpected earthquake sealed the entrance to the lost tomb. It took months for the entrance to be excavated. The students were patient, waiting for Vincent to return. They couldn’t do it without him, he had to have the first view, after all. Hundreds of stone tablets were lost in the tragedy, brittle and precious with their age.

At last they ran out of patience, and when clearance was granted there was nothing to do but venture into the restored path. The walls that had once been smooth were now wrinkled with chipped corners, and the ceiling sagged and had to be kept up with stilts. Lanterns lit the way into the chamber where mythical kings were said to be laid to rest, but the first student that laid his guilty eyes on the innermost chamber found nothing but a smooth, round room. He peered close to it, holding the lantern up to the paint, and saw himself.

He saw the yard where he played as a child, saw himself leave behind the love of his life, drop the last bunch of flowers on his mother’s grave, and finally board a ship to an ancient land. He approached the other end knowing less than he knew before — what curse could this be? He ran his hands along the wall further on, but the paint was no more. Ahead was only a blank wall that curved on and on. Where the doorway had been was now just more stretch of smooth stone. He longed for more, for the knowledge of what was in store for him. He ached to return to the lover who waited across the sea for him, believing him unchanged after so many years, or to return and plant another sentiment at his mother’s grave. Would he ever get the chance?

His mind was only on hope and regret as he drove himself mad, following the blank walls around and around and around…

It was almost an hour before the other students gave up on calling down the tunnel, and nominated one of them to follow and bring him back. The rest busied themselves with sketching over the impressions of the ancient language on the tablets. All their minds, however, were on the rumours of a curse. All their mouths, however, scoffed at such a thing.

The second young student disappeared into the shadows, swallowed up by ancient shadows, ancient memories and regrets. While everyone looked away, the deep crack that had opened up above the threshold silently sewed itself up, leaving behind a pale line — a scar on its aged, petrified skin.