The Artist's House - Days 15 & 16 (Near Gubbio)

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” 
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

There is a place in the heart of Italy where peace and tranquility are interrupted only by wild boar, porcupine, crickets, food, drink, conversation and laughter.

Karura ate plates of eggs and pasta dripping with truffles and drank Sicilian wine. Within minutes, the heat of the city, the noise of the traffic, and the endless tourists had become a thing of the past.

It had been eleven years since Karura last visited this magical place. He promised himself, hostess willing, that he would never leave it that long again.

Karura rested both mind and body, his contentment complete and the friendship more than enough to see him through the next stage of his journey.

Karura Visits the Gods - Days 12 to 14 (Rome)

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Over two thousand miles into his pilgrimage, Karura arrived to pay homage to the gods at the Pantheon in Rome. Earlier, he had felt the thrill of walking out into the arena at the Colosseum, where the mortals had entertained themselves so cruelly. But now, Karura acknowledged the presence of the divine and became silent.

The gods came to Karura as he sat in contemplation and they whispered in his ear.

"If you, Karura, could live forever, would you at once fall to the ground and curse the gods for their malice, or would you rise up and meet the divine? Would you, Karura, become a god?"

Light seeped into Karura through the oculus as he considered the question. It was true that Karura loved life and the thought struck him that all joy must wish for eternity. Or, more precisely, that the joyous moment ought to have infinite value. Were these two notions of the same root? With integrity, could Karura encapsulate the essence of joy and not only allow it to be but also to be forever? Moreover, how could a point at which nothing could proceed further, a point which simply is, not be eternal?

Or were the gods offering merely a longer and endless struggle for perfection?

The desire for existence, the desire to be liberated from your triumph and shame, the need to experience a better life, never to lose hope. This religious instinct with its focus on a future point in time as an escape - "If you just pray/fast/meditate long enough, your hopes will be realised and your fears will disintegrate." - is not enough.

Karura sensed the need to find an answer for the gods.

The thought that things can only get better had sustained Karura through many difficult times. Yet there had been times when he needed more. It was in those deepest, darkest caves far into the underworld, where all hope seems lost and where the nothingness descends that Karura found his answer. For the mortal man, death is always an option. It is not the desire for death and certainly not the act of dying that was important to Karura, but the possibility. The knowledge that one could, if one so wished, end everything, deprives life of its sting. There is nothing that this universe can do to the free man to take away his ultimate autonomy.

Those who are immortal share with force fed prisoners the ultimate denial of integrity. Karura, the lover of life, would find such an insult intolerable. He felt sure the Roman gladiators would have understood.

As he prepared to leave Rome, Karura forgot to throw his coin into the fountain. Perhaps the gods would forgive him.

Make The Money, Don't Let The Money Make You - Day 11 (Between Corsica and Sardinia)

“What I'm sure of is that you can't be happy without money. That's all. I don't like superficiality and I don't like romanticism. I like to be conscious. And what I've noticed is that there's a kind of spiritual snobbism in certain 'superior beings' who think that money isn't necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly.... For a man who is well born, being happy is never complicated. It's enough to take up the general fate, only not with the will for renunciation like so many fake great men, but with the will for happiness. Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time. That's the only problem that's ever interested me.... To have money is to have time. That's my main point. Time can be bought.

- Albert Camus

In the early hours of day 11, before falling asleep on his ferry from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, Karura recalled a conversation that happened a long time ago in the dark ages. Wrapping up some Pecksniffian advice on parenthood and relationships, Karura's interlocutor had posed the question:

'Why do you want to be married anyway?'

Karura's initial response was cut dead in mid sentence.

'Well, I have made a huge invest . . .'

'Aha', the judge's decree fired back triumphantly, 'so it is all about money!'

That was the moment when Karura realised everything he had heard was correct. He would never speak to his interlocutor again. There is nothing to be gained from one so methodically ignorant of love.

Karura would consider the question of love many times, but now he turned his mind to money. He hoped to find an ATM in Rome tomorrow, to facilitate a meal out with friends, fuel for his bike, entrance to the Colosseum, and a roof over his head. That would be OK. He had time.

Enough on money. Growing bored with his wandering thoughts, Karura drifted off to sleep.

Pandora's Box - Days 8, 9 & 10 (Barcelona)

“It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!” 

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Pandora opened her box of holocausts and all but one flew out, ravaging the world and the minds of men with torments. Like so many, Karura had experienced many of these evils, yet he had escaped many more. As is the way of all who pull themselves from nothingness, Karura had taken to heart the evil beyond all other evils. It was Zeus himself who had ordered Pandora to shut her box, leaving only hope inside. Mankind in its innocence, took this final evil as the greatest good and each held the almost empty box to his heart. Could we not see that Pandora had brought us a box of evils? Did we not understand? This most terrifying, most harrowing evil of all gave rise to all the great religions and is still the source of power that keeps men clinging to futile thoughts of salvation or enlightenment; to making a virtue out of slavery. In inflicting hope upon mankind, cruel Zeus had ensured that, despite constant attrition from the other evils, mankind would continue to strive, continue to live, continue to become. Hope was the necessary evil that gave all other evils their bite. Hope alone had the power to shake a man to his very foundation. 

Karura had spent three days in Barcelona. He had found life, art, architecture, warmth, companionship, sustenance, passion, and laughter. Pandora's evils had not troubled him, for the gods were still on his side and life had remained unexamined, experienced in the moment. Now, as he sailed towards Sardinia and Corsica, Karura sat once again upon his rock. Tomorrow he would be in Rome where the gods would watch him continue the fight in the Colosseum. He lay on the deck, imagining himself hoping for nothing, merely allowing the rumble of the diesel and the gentle sway of the ship to caress him to sleep. He imagined that he could whisper consoling lies to himself. But the stars still called to Karura and his heart beat its response . . . . . regardless of his will.

(Dancing to Django Reinhardt's 'Minor Swing' on the streets of Barcelona)

King of the Mountains (You sat upon your rock, Sisyphus) - Day 7 (Col d'Azet)

“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.” - Nietzsche

It is not the yellow jersey that draws Karura's greatest respect, but the polka dot colours of The King of The Mountains. For he is the one who comes into his own in the high country, pushing upwards as others fade away; reserving his strength on the plains and biding his time. The King of The Mountains is a specialist whose greatest attributes are sheer stubbornness, a refusal ever to give in to the pain, and an absolute need to reach the highest points first.

Karura knew that the Col d'Azet, on this hardest of days in the Pyrenees, would be the greatest test. With the road closed, Karura faced a long climb up the mountain to be there. He set off pushing his boulder in front, starkly aware of the absurdity. Why did he want to be there? What could he gain? In four hours time he would be at the top, sitting on his rock, anticipating a fleeting happiness. At the same time he would be four hours closer to death, still in revolt, still pulling himself from the nothingness to which he aspires.

Step after agonising step, Karura set himself to the task, heaving his boulder up the mountain, with all thought, all effort, concentrated only upon the next footfall. There was no time to think, just relentless toil until finally Karura reached the crest. Exhausted, he sat upon his rock and waited.

The mountains had taken their toll on the peloton resulting in a first small group of riders flashing by, followed by a much bigger group. There Karura saw him, The King of The Mountains, looking utterly at ease with the physical and mental demands. Serenely the polka dot jersey pressed the pedals, watching, listening for danger and ready to pounce. And then, with the last rider disappearing towards the valley, it was over. The mountain remained impassive in the face of Karura's futile search for unity and so there was nowhere left for him to go but back down. His rock creaked and started to tumble with Karura chasing behind. He knew he would be doomed forever to push his rock up mountains, but it had become Karura's rock and he was beginning fully to understand its shape and texture. Karura would carry his rock each time better than the last, and in this way he would embrace the absurd and live as a hero.

All is well. One must, in the profoundest possible sense, imagine Karura happy.

Karura Chases Dragons - Day 6 (Castres to Vielha)

Col de Peyresourde

The time had come for Karura to return to the mountains. Perhaps his deep affinity for the peaks arose in those childhood years, soaring through the clouds chasing and devouring dragons in a far off land. Or perhaps it could have been his need always to reach higher that gave him the desire to return whenever he could.

Here in the high country every wheel beyond two diminishes the experience exponentially. With four wheels, inertia drags you sideways rendering rapid progress a three way battle between man, machine and nature. With four wheels you are isolated in still air, protected from the elements, from life itself. On his two wheels, Karura flowed through the bends, his motorcycle using the laws of nature to the full, leaning easily into each hairpin before galloping along the straights. Karura could taste the heat from the road and smell the ice cold snow, his senses tangled in the perfume of the moment.

Airport Peyresourde

Higher and higher Karura climbed until he reached a place where the crisp air is ice thin and the trees can no longer seed. Eventually the peak was his, but still Karura craved more. After so long deep in his cave, Karura's thirst was unquenchable. He would not stop until once again he could fly with the dragons.

The gods remembered Karura and smiled. A small unmarked road to his left seemed to offer just a few more meters of height and Karura felt himself drawn to follow. It was at the end of the road, where the ski lifts lay dormant, that Karura stumbled upon a field of dragons. A scribbled sheet of A4 paper pinned to a hut invited Karura to reach higher still. For twenty blissful minutes, two wheels became none and Karura chased dragons in the realm of the gods.

A Rope over the Abyss (Between Beast and Superman) - Day 5 (Vienne to Castres)

"Give me a star to aim for, tell me what it takes and I'll go so high, I'll go so high my feet won't touch the ground" - Macklemore

Millau Viaduct

Karura stood at the bottom of the greatest pier. His intention had been to ride over the Millau bridge, but he became inexorably pulled towards the almost silent underworld where horses play and 'penicillium roquefort' infused ewes' milk ferments in caves. An interesting decision. He felt himself reclining onto his back at the side of the river allowing the coolness of the long grass to sharpen his senses to the songs of crickets and the smell of wild herbs. An Eiffel Tower above him, the pinnacle of the rainbow bridge shimmered in the haze and an almost silent procession of cars took flight. Perhaps he had felt the whitest of gods keeping vigil at the southern end, watching, waiting for the final battle. Or perhaps Karura himself, so recently divested of his bandages and veil, was not ready for this stage of the journey.

It was silent now as once again Karura entered the moment.

Millau Viaduct

Karura fixated on the rope over the abyss. As he watched, the shimmering path seemed to turn to fire, rendering the whole massive structure a molten flux of brilliant steel and concrete. Observing further, the fire grew stronger, fingers of blue hot flame stabbing towards him, fearsomely, invitingly. The heat was beginning to melt his clothes as the sky tore in two releasing a sheet of lightening which crashed through the heavens directly enveloping his pounding skull. At the same moment, Karura's eyes were blinded by rivulets of sweat splashing from his forehead, salting his lips; an aching fear anchored Karura to the spot. The coolness of the grass and the heat of the bridge obliterated consciousness of anything other, searing into his soul, tearing at his mind, threatening another chasm of cataclysmic proportions. He had glimpsed the land of the gods, a noumenal realm so holy so other, a truth so final, that it took the most tremendous all too human madness to break back to his own.

Bifröst - The Rainbow Bridge

Karura roared his lungs raw, revelling in the bitter sweet taste of eternity. As the beast shrank away, he hauled himself just one non-step back from the brink and peered down far below where he could faintly make out a river. Close to its banks, oblivious to the battle that had raged above, wild horses grazed.

The rain came slowly at first, dripping huge droplets onto his pungently new leather jacket, seeping down before moistening the dust of three millennia. Then faster and faster it poured, hammering into him until Karura was soaked through the skin laughing as he had never laughed before. Thor had returned. The fire was extinguished. The final battle would come, but not today. When it did, Karura now understood that, whatever the outcome, he would be ready.

The sun blazed once more and the steam rose from the tarmacadam like some primordial figment. Heimdallr lowered the great horn of the river and a blue motorcycle sprinted over the spirit of Bifröst and onwards towards Castres, where the King of the Mountains elect lay dreaming of polka dots, waiting for the cool warmth of moonbeams and sleep.