He being a critical merger of contrasts and contradictions, pure epiphanies of immortal angels battling eternally against the beast of evolution forever red in tooth and claw. His brain not his heart their craven prize. One stroked his heart with the manifestation of peace, calming his raging spirit and tumorous head with the liquor of heaven and the sweet beckoning of eternity. the other was a merciless night spirit encouraging his brain into spastic intellectual convolutions that produced new wild distortions of reality, mysteries and manifested scientific patterns probing the recesses of spiritual borders, unlocked through religious trauma and pattern recognition the mysterious ingredients of the imagination and then to top it all mixed with a kaleidoscope of earthly evidence. One promised life eternal and the other death.
On the outside he appeared as any other a thin shell of intellectual nobility and civilisation in which he dressed. To what part of himself did we owe this wardrobe? Was it the primordial slime, baked nearly dry on the shores of a desert earth three billion years ago? Dressed now in 18th century spirit of a decorated practicality. An animal produced from colossal breath of ages, the continues strive for survival of organism against organism to arrive here, martini splashed lamp light and talk of the trivialities. Or was it at the behest of god, chosen from the stuff of stars, not given the privilege of heaven from the beginning but a lesser being spun from the cast off thread and angel fabric and like the bloody beasts on the prickly poisonous banks of this word, made to strive towards heaven’s door on the broken stumps of sickness, murder, or age. He basked here on the shores of evolution, gazing into the void of what he would do to his beloved god, one day when his vision came together is his papers and books.
It was the annual summit, a somewhat scandalous auction of disempowered crackpots, those that preyed the recesses of acceptable shadows, they often made wild hypothesis for already established things and made things into wild hypotheses. They dredged the oceans of improbability hoping to solve problems that their poor maths couldn’t. Why was he here in the shadow and influence of these dicast off casts? Well, while these were indeed strange places, historically these were the grounds that the best ideas prospered, society was still in love with its own enlightenment, the common man had dragged down to his level the secrets of the stars and it was only time before man himself left the planet. What could grow in this ever-growing acceptance of reductionism. Of course, the church had its omnipotent presence, swaying these poor souls enraptured by lens, smoke and reactions. All this did was prove the metaphors of god and the eternal creative spirit, god merrily manifested his greatness in the greatness of man. And yet power be power and the hand of the church still gentled agnostic discontent and sought to silence the sayings said here.
So it was here, 3 dusty doors across, 3 flights across, an ancient disused hotel boardroom, filled with excessive wood smoke and stale farts. The conversation was heated and varied, the exponential growth of intellectuals when crowded together, geologists rubbing shoulders with evolutionists it truly frightening, one feels inadequate, ostracised purely by snobbery and vocal impediments alone. Let alone the need to air vast volumes of hypothetical information across space already heavily occupied by similarly obscure conversations that spent more time being lost in beard and ear hair than actually participating in meaningful conversation. Things often became so confusing that whole papers were mixed up in the conversational cross currents that spawned whole new branches of science and conspiracy opened up for future intellectual exploration. It is believed that most conspiracy theories actually started in this very room.
It was not conspiracy theories that Darwin had come for on this night, it was something far stranger. The rumour mills of London spun fresh farthings of the latest news. The dusty hollow halls of alchemy and academia swirling with discouraged discussions on arcane evolutionary topics. A stranger had appeared in old London town, a blind gentleman that while blind had the facility of sight, rumour had it that he may attend a meeting such as this and Darwin wanted to know firsthand the wild theories of this gentleman firsthand. Of course, it was near impossible to distinguish anyone amidst the intolerable clouds of pipe smoke and fart gas, at this time academia had gained a certain following and it was considered fashionable for the sons of well off families to parade their miserable lonely existence in such companies, donning the stereotypical costumes of pea coat, monocular and great gushing unkept beards, spilling over with dustings of ancient layers of dandruff. almost anyone could pull this parody off and it soon became a safe haven for unmarriageable bachelors with a penchant for both the profane and utter garbage and the more they were able to mix the two into an indistinguishable word salad the more their status was elevated in this company. Darwin didn’t know much so he made his cautious rounds using the clues of conversation to uncover his prey. Two gentleman nearby were his first target, but quickly he realised their conversation somehow confusing electricity and magnetism were neither the people he were after, his second foray into discovery included three such intellectual buffoons gathered together so closely that to make any sense of what they were saying Darwin was forced to interrupt in such a way that he pretended to know one of them, however his failed attempt at false full recognition only caused them to huddle even closer, their beards merging in a continuous monotonous monotone. Soon growing board of the conversations surrounding him he decided to retreat to the tiny balcony that a pair of dusty doors bared from view. The view on the other side was a rather grateful surprise and as he cleared the fart sting from his eyes he beheld the view.
The claustrophobic expanse of London spread out before him before distant smokestacks fell away to revel the oily reflective expanse of the Themes on which only a few rotten frigates settled, their motely hulls slowly disintegrating into the dim moonlight that spilt and surrendered serendipity through a crack in the encroaching night. The last of the day light was spared and stretched sparingly over the scene, as though its quick exit had been hampered by the rain and it now felt somewhat embarrassed to still be on stage. The storm inbound brimmed with some sort of dense miasma carried in from the North Sea, swirls of dreadful drizzle that hung forever in the evening light, in more ancient times, a clever camouflage for the pillaging Northman it hung like a shroud separating worlds. Ther buildings up close were visited by the same wet expanse that cast them momentarily in a sheen of romance that they probably didn’t deserve.
The night air was full of muted sound, noise like disjointed gramophone recordings flittering in and out of focus, sometimes loud as though close, at other times significantly further away and slowly dwindling into nothing. The air was as always thick with the cloying bite of sewage as the surrounding sewers deposited excess gases into alley ways. While the sea was close, its crisp salt was but a memory, or a hallucination, something tasted momentarily on the lips, but not rich enough for the nose.
London, the centre of the world and civilisation, a culture in both ascension and decline, slowly dying under the fruits of its excess, a giant chasm rendering the city in two, dividing its cultured beating heart with the poverty that lay shameless on its elevated doorsteps. The great theories of evolution seemed to dry up under his watchful eye, if human was the pinnacle of evolution, then why did his soul yearn for the frontiers of civilisation, the savage banks of wilderness beyond the lamp light? The realm beyond civilisation, evolution was dead here.
His vessel was soon to leave and soon the stink of civilisation would give way to the strange smells of distant lands. His course undecided, the world was awaiting, as he pondered his future and this predicament and then something upon the deck seemed to bleed out of the shadows. “Charles” glad to make your acquaintance, the words came. The figure was stooped in shadow, merrily an all too pail face, full of the antiquity of old age, a thin hand dangled in quite disregard for protocol and yet the rip crisp and surprisingly strong, two black orbs where eyes should have been. At first startled, he reflected upon his predicament, this was the man to which the shadows spoke. Lanark, presumed dead 5 years before, recovered from an unmarked grave from a peasant’s burying plot.
A momentarily feeling of unease gripped him, his faith in the holy spirit, competing with his deep disregard for superstition, how could this apparition, both fulfill his need for science and his tendency towards spirituality?
“I hoped you would be here, my compatriot, my successor”. With these words the figure of Lanark shuffled further from the shadows that didn’t holy give him up, tendrils of darkness seemed to gather unnaturally about him, particularly around the figures neck, where the shadows refused to flee completely.
“I know of your journey my friend and I needed to see you before you left”. You know my theories, my friend and in your heart and brain you have dispelled them, time and time again. You wish to replace my theories of the acquisition of acquired traits with something else and yet now you see me, seeing you in the darkness and you know doubt. “You see while you are partly right, you are wrong. “Look closer my friend upon me”. “See how I navigate the darkness” I do it better than you and yet here my eyes, two biologically dead pits, not a ray of light fills them. “How then do I see?” “Do you want to know my secrets, my friend?” Do you want to know how I see what I see? “Darwin was in shock, revelations compounded his head, before, only Science and God and now this unquestionable revelation of what stood before him.
“An agent exists in this world, my friend, an agent of focused change, working upon the unknown substance of evolution, prodding, pushing coaxing the very stuff of existence into something completely different, the acquisition of acquired traits stand before you and with relish he released from the confines of his coat juggling balls and proceeded to send them confidently into the air around him, the deep dark confines of his eyes blind to the experience and then with a gesture the balls were gone. “Go forth Charles, south, the antipodes await, there you will find the evidence that still sits sleeping in your imagination. Somewhere down their south lies an island, and south of that island something else, the answers lie there, bring my reality to the world that I can no longer be a part of and with that the figure seemed to slither down the wall, liquid darkness, until it reached the streets below and slithered off into the slowly dimming moonlight.
Was it a moment of clarity in the London night? Or a confounding ball of confusion dressed up as science. What had I experienced and how could science explain it? I knew it was Lamark I had seen his portraiture amidst the ordered pages of scientific publications
scrawled with artistic licence amidst his astounding publications, I had greedily consumed his words like proof from a page and while I sought to destroy, dominate and replace his theories with my own I could not deny the clarity of his presence beside me moments ago. He was indeed blind; no miraculous return of vision would have been possible through the milky white clouds that obscured his vision and the six juggling balls that flowed like silk through his hands. His sense of place could not be explained by the over development of compensating sensors and the fact that he was even alive after his internment 5 years ago spoke of events that were highly peculiar. But were I to accept his revelations, If I were to walk into the shadows where his secrets dwelled, would I have turned my back on both science and God?
Later that night I found a small piece of parchment shifted secretly during his acrobatic performance into my coat pocket, scrawled upon the image was a rough image of a continent whom I recognised to be Australia Terra Nallius and yet the immense continent appeared but a foot note against the detailed map that lay below it Van Diemen’s Land, a triangular mountainous place of forests and mountains largely undiscovered and on its south western tip a red mark as though denoting an important place. Against the wild imaginative sketches of forests and mountains and the vast areas designating not much at all unexplored I could make out rough co-ordinates, this place could indeed be discovered, but would it disclose the secrets that Lamark alluded to? I thought much on the proposition that night and began the arduous task of resketching a voyage. The Beagle would make a side trip, a small departure from its intended course. This island continent demanded attention, no botanist in Britain had escaped the impact of the zoologists and botanists that had brought back and sketched these lands unique inhabitants, and as for this Island even further south and more remote, it truly seemed to possess the geography to elevate or crush my growing theory of evolution. If Lanark wanted me to go, then I must for my theory would never be safe if evidence of its error existed. What happened during that long
monotonous voyage was well recorded by Darin himself in his famous publications and need not be the discussion here save for 2 minor details.
The bay was a passive eddy of frozen starlight when we caressed the edges of the bays forested shores with the quick stream liquid grace of our bow wake nocturnal silence hung like a giant gramophone in the sky all sound amplified as night filled the trees and a dormant moon hung down ways like a silver crescent where the horizon should have been. The air was alive with sounds at this natural amplification, the ugly screech of nocturnal dwellers alive upon the river banks, Night birds flittering silently by escaping detection and the distant hum of insects in the still night.
We made anchor as arranged. We were at the time rather celebrity like in nature; the enlightenment hadn’t faded so far, and our kind were largely celebrated across the civilised world. And though I could not travel with a swag of physical electrical trickery to bamboozle the world with magical DC alchemy. I had to a degree enraged most of the European religious world and in many circles that was still considered quiet the thing. So we only made landfall the next day, against a muted dawn where the clouds sat like family, as they did back home, the air was also thick with the same maritime humidness and now the sounds of the town came towards us muted and disturbed across the narrow expanse of water. Ghostly disembodied sounds of civilisation spared sparingly through the morning tide. I spent no large time here; the town was as always and although it did pervade a good position below the mountain and against the sea it lacked nothing but groceries and drinking houses. And its inhabitants appeared the most wretched and aged inhabitants that dwelt upon the earth and I had no need to hear of their complaints. Though I made a discouraging foot note in my diary to one day write a small epitome their lack lustre living. I moved through the city the towering towers of dolerite above me, trying not to make eye contact with these miserable citizens. my uncharted journey took me through the most wretched of scrub and I could not now let the men’s facial expressions go to waste. They either had this scratching spiny catchy thing or mud, civilisation of course always chose mud. I dwelt little further on Hobarts town miserable inhabitants as I wondered if their whole vocabulary and miserable faces had evolved better to winge, instead I began my eastern assent of Mt Wellington. The vistas took the last stench of the city away save for the guide who accompanied us, a singularly wretched one whom I wanted to take home as a specimen, an example to the folly of colonisation. The view from the top, a vast conglomerate of intersecting bays, wrapped around each other in soft elaborate displays, forests aplenty great coloured changes in geological gradients reflecting a myriad of underground realms. I dwelt here for a while, until the insects that this man was obviously attracting at last became too much. Later that afternoon when moon near touched the trees of the opposite shores. I made my way by this moonlight upon the western shore. Something had called to me I pondered, releasing the parchment from my possession. Something haunting the distant places to the west. It was in this moment I stumbled a fresh geological boundary beneath me, a startling abundance of biodiversity. Fossils of Ediacaran decent and I worked these loose from the rock well into the hours beyond midnight. The fossils extraordinary, evolutionary spectacular. I wrote frantic notes about this fossilised iron rich layer.
What relevance this work had on my future secret musing, my alternate even less appealing alternate hypothesis. I did not know, but this iron dust could have a potentially outer space origin, and the fossils created in their meeting and parting. Extraordinary. We were to make journey that night, but as we headed out into storm bay it was decided we would make way to the location on the map west of where we were to the opposite largely unexplored shores. The places which harboured only shipwreck survivors and the native people. Who to my eyes seemed to dwell partly in this world and partly in another, beautiful embodiments of their land and yet I was warned not to make contact. The moved through the landscape like a cobbled path fell under their feet. Our voyage was clandestine, a secret scientific journey free from political interference. We wanted to remain off record with our discoveries and our only official commitment was in Melbourne in a week.
The Westcoast was a different thing, a brooding ominous thing, quite like no other land and its seas from calm to raging in moments and its mountains softer and irregular, their heights covered in thick snow even in spring. The shores were also a dense catastrophe of ripping things, and while I collected specimens, these all could be put safely in the irritating prickly things department and posed little significant interest. The animals the few we saw were these elusive rat-like things, marsupial creatures of unknown evolutionary origin and by their widespread timidity they weren’t happy to talk more. We saw neither the converted platypus although we did penetrate up black water rivers so that the canopy closed around us and stole the light. The tiger was already an elusive myth, and I despaired of seeing this shy treasure. The ship made good head way upon the favourable conditions of spring. The bay appeared uncharted when compared to our navigational charts, but at last of days meandering through the silent expanse of this foreign land we again made landfall. The track took us inland at once, the scrub returning sparingly to the landscape, hiding humanities desecration and yet it held on, and we were able to follow it to a deep excavation. We had neither the means to begin our way into the partially avalanched tunnel and yet the black expanse of its doorway seemed to lead into the centre of the night. We camped their neither able or willing to move further into that hidden world. Before sunset something occurred that I cannot explain. I had left the shelter timidly moving adjacent to the camp into the sanctity of the trees and became lost almost instantly. I followed then what I thought was an alternative path that snaked its way slowly up the mountain side crossing small waterfalls as I progressed until I stood in a small opening and before me a tree and it spoke to me publish your book, don’t tell the world of me. We talked like this long into the night and it seemed as normal as you and I converse now. I took that trees pledge with me, fossils that I had collected went mysteriously missing, the charts were removed, annotations removed until it was only a memory, a memory of a tree that talked to me and told me such fantastical things.
CRAG CRY DARKNESS 