Down into the Dark

Okay, time to try something that requires a bit more cognitive thought. Here comes day 2 of the Writing 101 Challenge:

Today, choose a place to which you’d like to be transported if you could – and tell us the backstory. How does this specific location affect you? Is it somewhere you’ve been, luring you with the power of nostalgia, or a place you’re aching to explore for the first time? Today’s twist: organize your post around the description of a setting.

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Outside, amongst the sea of sand and sun, it is almost unbearably hot – the kind of dry heat that makes you long for water as though it is the one and only important thing in the world. Outside it feels desolate, almost depressing. Outside, looking out into the desert, I can’t help but think about what it would be like to be stranded out here, with hundreds of miles of cruel, pitiless terrain all around in every direction.

But inside the pyramids…oh, that’s another story. Inside the air is cooler, safe from the blazing sun. The air is musty, but in the exciting way that reminds you that few people have ever breathed this air.

Inside, when you touch the sun-baked stones, you can feel a kind of energy, like the soul of the great structure is speaking to you, whispering its secrets.
It is dark, of course, the only light coming from what we bring in with us, and that is part of the charm, the mystery. As we make our way slowly down the torchlit tunnels I can’t help but feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Even for the strictly scientific mind, a person can feel ghosts here, but that thrill is half the excitement. What is around that next dark corner? What do the wonderful drawings on the wall mean? Who was buried here, and what kind of curses may ancient people have placed on the tomb? What wonderous treasures might we find at the pyramid’s heart? What precious artifacts? What amazing and terrible histories?

These questions and more do I long to find the answer to, for sometimes reality is even more astounding than imagination. That is why I long to visit the pyramids of Egypt.