The Catacombs

'Pass me the fucking light' he hissed, tapping on the soles of her boots, hard. She ignored him and scuffled forward, gollum like, on her belly. She heard a crackle of stones loosen from the roof of the tunnel - nothing to worry about, just the earth letting them know it was here too, and not merely an inanimate thing to be trifled with. The torch threw a pale blue saber of light ahead of them, and worried softly at the distance blackness. She moved further forward, away from his insistant tapping, shifting her right knee forward and pressing it hard onto the tunnel floor to propel herself forward. She was glad she bought knee pads and gloves - last time they explored the catacombs, both palms and the inner side of her knees were wet with blood. She could hear drips of water in the distance, suspecting they would arrive at a larger cave in moments, likely pooling with water as many were.

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'Jess, I'm fucking serious, pass me the goddamn light'. She hated him like this, and wished she had decided to do the east passage with Milo instead of Raphaël, but she was meant to marry the guy so what was she to say? Tell him that she hated exploring the underworld with him, because he made everything more tense than it was already, down there with the rats and ghosts? Other catophiles were less anxious. You couldn't afford to lose your shit down here, but Raphaël did, just as he did on the surface. It never simply forecast rain, in his world, but deluge.

Still, she remembered the time they had thought they were lost inside the endless tombs, and trembling with fear, finally found the exit point and burst coughing into the luminous Parisian night, alit with a full moon that reassured them that the world had not ended after all, and they were blissfully alive. He had hooted, lifting her high, brought her down and dipped her toward the cold cobblestones in a hilarious tango. They had spent three days in bed, kissing elbows, ears, hips and toes in celebration, vowing to never descend to the upside down dark world of the catacombs again. Both had heard disembodied voices, calling them in the wrong direction, echoing from the damp walls.

Yet relationships dull with time, and thrills are sought in dark places. Besides, the illegality of the past time coupled camerderie of the secret club of underground explorers was compelling. Before long they were thumbing old maps, investigating rumours of unexplored tunnels, and braving the darkness so that the day became more golden, more lit, more beautiful in contrast. Raph became more animated, her own ennui evaporated. They loved the underground gatherings far from conventional gazes, the art emblazoning walls and picked out in candlelight, the hidden dinner parties and dancehalls. They loved finding new places in the maze of this upside down world, sliding, wading and crawling to find them. Even the ossuaries were lovely in their way, the beautiful architecture of bones. Still, sometimes in the tombs she wished he wasn't there, especially when he endangered them like lost the map or forgot his torch. People disappeared down here, awash in silence and murk as the city of light above dined, partied, danced and sung.

'Jess, I'm serious. There's someone behind me. Please. The torch.' It was not unusual to be so unnerved in a place that housed millions of the cities dead from centuries past, but his voice was odd, as if echoing around his skull before being born as a frightened thing. She rolled on her back to glare at him, or later, she would try to think more kindly of herself and think she was about to reassure him.

There was a sudden whoosh and scrape as he slid backwards, fast, as if someone was pulling, hard, bony hands around booted ankles. The torchlight thrust and sliced into the space where he had been, and was no longer, futile.

'Raph?' she hesitated. 'Raphael?'.

Later she would imagine she had willed him away in the catacombs, the ghosts of the malingering dead obliging her, absorbing his body into the cold and damp clay and foundational bedrock to warm their bones. She would make up stories to explain that night, that perhaps he had taken a wrong turn behind her, or had not come with her after all.

But often, on the dark moonless nights that the dual city of living and dead offered, or on All Hallows Eve as the children called trick or treat, she could hear him calling from the secret entrances of the catacombs, asking her for the light, and her scrambling forward, ever forward, away from him.

`With Love,`

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