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You will forgive us. You whose eyes call upon sleep to shut all out. We come to you, though you attempt to ignore us. We are visions compiled, catalogued, housed in places appropriate or not, uncontrolled images, flashes of indeterminate light. We are entangled with your thoughts.   

We are a vision of catacombs. Cold masonry encloses us, and we are enwrapped by an eternal dampness. We envision the slight sound of a river above. It may be a false image of sound, an image only memory can make. But our memories are made up of pictures, passing through stale air to you. Your flesh may misinterpret. There are also images of bones. We are, as nearly as we can ascertain, a pile of them lying on the hard clay floor. 

We know bones do not speak, so do not become confused. We are not these bones, per se, we are what once was propped up by them and it is not just these bones, these scattered femurs, cracked hip bones, tattered ribcages, and white shards. We are all bones, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust that do not speak to you, but rather steer your eyes to a representation of our vision. 

As wine is blood and bread is body, we are a thin veil. A light gauze of the left behind, beyond the puss of thought. We leave thoughts behind us. As soon as they appear, after their initial creation, they can no longer be ours, for we no longer have them. They become yours.  

Your hands are shaped by what you are and by what you do. They are calloused by the grip of tools, or they are softened by the aid of privilege. Your fingers learn functions you ask of them, and you do not realize the genius of their simple actions. Yet you are all action. Movement is yours. You belong to the movement of nature and above all to the movement of technology that sticks to your body, an adhesive of gadgetry, engaging in never-ending manipulation of time, space, and structure. A structure such as these catacombs. Do not trust this movement, trust only our visions, for you are amid discovering immortality while death moves you into its sphere.  

We paint a space inside you, this place deep under the city. This image comes from within you as it leads you to look at the walls around you, arches, pillars, the cartilage of structure, a world built by hands like yours. Soft are the hands of planners, hard are the hands of builders. In this cursed and unlucky ditch, the walls look older than Earth, each stone a singular unique shape packed with the bits and pieces of what holds you up. There is the smell of wet stone, the occasional drip of wild water, for there is the pounding current of that river, albeit a fictional river. Below on the dusty floor that cannot decide whether to be smooth or rough, our bones lie among mildewed books, paintings, scrolls that have long lost their ink. 

There are casks of port wine that missed their stowing upon an ancient ship. Our vision takes you to sails and the sweetness of the port which you lick off your lips. There is the smell of fish and salt, and pastries lacquered with sugar harvested by stiff, coarse fingers. 

You wonder about the books, what they say, voices from the past, so much like bones, and the paintings that feature glowing shapes real and surreal, sacred life stilled, halos on their heads, scepters in their hands, spears piercing their hearts, images of a past that never existed. These representations of illuminated life lean against one another, haphazardly, like litter among the broken pieces of wall and ceiling. There are thousands of them.  

In those hands of yours, you hold a light. Its source is like the daylight sky you wish you could see. A few fallen bricks reveal a false wall hiding a hidden enclosure. Your light helps illuminate chains behind the false wall, more bones interlaced with them. Unopened bottles of port litter the enclosure. Your hands are talented. They reach through a small opening and grab a link of chain. You pull. All is fragile. 

You swear the sound of the fictional river becomes louder, deafening. The walls of the catacombs become as soft as moist dirt. The kind of dirt crops are planted in, mixed with occasional stones and both your soft and rough hands. 

You will forgive us. You whose eyes call upon sleep to shut all out.