I had to scour the unknown—it was a battle with a reality that was constantly shifting and changing. I traversed the voluminous plane and the very air I breathed was poison, creating illogical spaces with intersecting arches and vaults, and ladders and staircases that stop short of the abyss—a place where no light ever invades the everlasting darkness.

I pursued her.

A cold and miserable region like the life that she came from, my inside felt being stretched to no man now knows what. The mood of despair conveyed by my distraught face and gesture is heightened by the inhospitable, rocky landscape. The ghastly thinness of my figure and my tattered drapery over my protruding bones are mesmerising—face ashen, hands and feet coiled in pain—I allowed the unconscious to dictate the path.

After millions of years, I found myself looking upon a familiar sight as my feet had brought me to a rocky riverbed and trees—decorative, colourful, and whimsical—the grass is every gardener’s dream— no weeds, no fallen leaves, only a dewy lawn embroidered with flowers. There was a romantic figure carved into a great wall of granite and sandstone: a beautiful lady dressed in a rustic costume who appears like a muse in many of the old tales. I heard a voice. It was singing. It led me to a sacred inland sea to be awakened from my trance and renewed by the waters. I drank and cast myself down, finally letting my tears commence—freeing myself of utter madness.