But Each Shall Tell by Peter Suchin
One day, many years ago now, drifting deep within the cryptic element of sleep, X experienced a dream image so vivid and persistent, recurring as it did night after night from for many months, that, after the sixth or seventh repetition, he mentioned it to Y, quite casually, without really intending to talk about it at all. It bothered him considerably however, and he needed to let it out. At first, he wasn’t sure whether or not Y was joking when she reported, implausibly, that she too had been having a recurring dream, a vision of what she assumed was an immense temple, ancient and abandoned, its vast columns forming a grid of neatly worked vertical shafts intended, perhaps, to support an immense and heavy roof. The edifice was completely open to the weather for she saw in sleep, again and again, a deep black slice of sky, starless, uniform and infinitely dense, attempting to infiltrate the edifice’s monumental avenues. Wasn’t there a legend, originating from Egypt, Greece or Rome, of some superhuman creature whose task it had been, long ago, to prevent the sky from crushing the earth? The structure seemed to go on forever, possibly in every direction, like Borges’ labyrinthine library, yet all she ever saw in her dream was a remarkably static image, a frozen picture which in spite of its utter stillness displayed a grainy corporeal disposition rather suggestive of a conditioned delay, the video camera placed, as it were, on “pause”, held in check while some unstoppable action, just beyond the horizon of predictability, readied itself, slowly materialised being prepared, just out of shot, for its inevitable manifestation.
X too had considered this remarkable nightly apparition as an indication of something about to occur. They had both experienced exactly the same stark, occulted cipher, prediction or transmission at exactly the same moments over the previous weeks and months. Comparing notes at regular intervals, they became convinced that the image each of them encountered in sleep was identical. They described it to each other over and over, drew diagrams, and discoursed upon at every opportunity. The rhythm of the image’s relentless return both perturbed and fascinated them, though they disagreed, now and again, upon what it showed. Was it, as Y believed, an ancient ruin, either functional building or an unimaginably vast sculptural conceit?
For his part, X thought the apparition might be a snapshot of a huge missile silo, the rockets aligned in ranks like robot soldiers waiting for instructions; was this clandestine armoury secreted on the dark side of the moon? What they both witnessed might be a NASA storehouse of Saturn V rockets constructed for the Apollo space missions of the 1960s, in which case it was most likely merely a resurfacing of an image viewed in childhood – X had followed the splendid narrative of the “space race” on TV when still at school. But why on earth was it always returning in his dreams, and why now? The granular tone of the perpetual dream-scene also reminded him of the time he witnessed an eclipse of the sun, sitting on the hillside at Greenwich Observatory with the fading light taking on the appearance of a video screen’s muted lustre, everything shifting from blazing colour to grey, to black then back to a scintillating half-light before, finally achieving complete bright sunshine once again.
Peter Suchin, Ghosts at the Gate, 2022
That what he and Y experienced was a glimpse of something actual and not imaginary was, they both believed, beyond doubt. But if this repeated “parallel picturing” was considerably disquieting, a new phase of unease began when, late one night, Y texted to tell him that she was sure that she had discovered the source of the image. While looking through Frederick Thomas Elworthy’s The Evil Eye (John Murray, London, 1895) which she briefly perused in the Leeds Library during a visit to the city to undergo more mundane research she noticed, as she replaced the book on the shelf, that a postcard had slipped from its pages, being used as a bookmark, she supposed. It seemed at least as old as the book itself; the image was, to her complete surprise, identical to that in her recurring dream. Already late for her train she quickly photographed both the recto and verso of the card and headed outside.
The printed caption told that the postcard showed a well-attested ruin somewhere on the Nile, but someone had crossed this out and written beside it an alternative description comprised of a map reference and other obtuse notes. After several days scrutinising the card she sent the message to Y: she was certain she had located the “temple” so relentlessly haunting their sleep.
Many details about the subsequent expedition to the small island “somewhere north of Africa” were never revealed, and only the most minimum of clues as to its location were given in the notebook in which Y wrote up various aspects of her journey. X accompanied her. His own account of the trip has not been found.
After a few weeks during which X and Y made the necessary preparations, they eventually made their way via the old ferry, and then in the donkey and cart Y captured in her photographs; the latter can be seen trotting away after reaching the furthest point to which its owner was prepared to go. Y records that during their time on the ferry the boat encountered a whirlpool or submerged object and spun about, very smoothly but without being able to extricate itself for two or three hours. Once this curious, seemingly spiteful imprisonment ended X and Y continued on their way.
The unnamed island has a small population of around 90 people, most of whom refuse to go anywhere near what they too call the “temple”, which is in fact an abandoned military structure vacated many years ago, though its machinery – or some of it – continues to function to this day. We can see this in the seventh photograph of the series Y published after their return, the spotlights surrounding the base still glowing brightly. The term “power station” has been used in this context, and is decidedly apt.
Before reaching their intended destination the travellers walked for miles in burning sunlight, stopping next to two huge seated figurines, clearly a king and queen, to rest and casually joke about a reference to a royal couple in David Bowie. X told Y the statues brought to mind his favourite film, Last Year at Marienbad, in particular the part in which the protagonists exchange contradictory views about a fake classical sculpture. This is a light and happy moment in the film, a play of amusingly open readings as to what exactly the sculpture depicts. Following this respite, after Y took a single picture of the serene yet melancholy monarchs towering over them, the pair continued along the increasingly dark, dilapidated road. It was already night when they reached the mountain on the far side of which is the “temple”. Y took another picture. They are on the edge of the last occupied outpost; it is not exactly forbidden to go beyond this point but, locally at least, there is a great fear of doing so. The prevalent rumour refers to a serious accident having occurred years before, causing the complex to be abandoned. One result of this disaster was the appearance of all kinds of unusual phenomena: eerily penetrating screeches heard mostly at night, flickering, drifting balls of light hovering above the outer fences, and numerous other sonic and visual apparitions – or, as the official reports put it, “intense and recurring audio-visual hallucinations”.
Y photographed what she called “those belligerent hieroglyphics” shortly before reaching the gate to the abandoned structure, and it may be that when these marks were deciphered they made possible a way into the complex without the travellers having to negotiate the still buzzing wire fences surrounding it. It is shortly after this point – after moving into the decommissioned zone – that they found themselves unable to believe their eyes: a narrow spiralling track led them around several outbuildings into a low stone tunnel in which they needed torches to see the route ahead. It took about a dozen minutes to pass through the tunnel, which was wide enough for them to walk side by side. On reaching the end of the passage they turned off their lights and emerged once again into the open air. What they then saw took their breath away: lying right before them – but they just can’t believe it – is the exact image that has haunted their sleep, and indeed much of their waking moments. There is the tight channel of immense columns and a pitch-black sky, a deep, deathly darkness hanging above their heads. The air is cold but there are no stars; the extant passage, feeling both open and enclosed at the same time, itself seems to suggest they enter into it, and though they later agree that this is how they both felt upon emerging from the tunnel and encountering this now infamous vision, they also agree that a passage cannot call you out or call you in. Something or someone wants them to enter, and, although in a way too scared to approach and penetrate the corridor, that is exactly what they do.
The scantily available material reveals nothing definite about what they find or do after they move forward between the columns. They are inside for less than three hours. X’s watch stopped precisely at 10.19, which is exactly when they claim to have made the decision to go in. They were inside, according to Y, for exactly 2 hours, 31 minutes and 40 seconds, though it was never explained how she kept a check on the time.
The objects the couple drew attention to on their return to London have been examined many times. They are obviously connected with their perverse excursion but how this can be the case has not been revealed. They are mostly paintings but, although they now have been exhibited a number of times, no one knows what they mean, everyone just ignores them. All the attention has been focused upon Y’s photographs. One begins to wonder if the whole story of a doubly-occurring dream image was little more than a means of attracting attention to an obscure artist who X and Y had slyly agreed to promote.
In Y’s report she glosses over their return journey very quickly but there is a notable change in the tone of her prose, as though there is something she just does not want to mention and yet cannot help alluding to. The last photographs show the small ferryboat X and Y took at one point during their return trip. The boat itself seems to be dissolving into the mist as though, its final journey completed, it no longer needs to exist. Stranger still is a photograph taken from the speeding vehicle X and Y travelled in once back on the mainland. There is, behind their car, a blurred figure – or figures, visible on the left-hand side of the road. Perhaps the scraggy creature is on horseback, though this description isn’t quite right. Something about the picture insists that X and Y are desperate to get away from whoever is signalling to them. I once had occasion to discuss the matter with Y, and although she refused to talk about the details of their return to London I had the distinct impression that when she took the photograph through the car window she was filled with fear over what she saw lurking behind them.
Just two months ago I heard from another source – which must also remain anonymous – that since returning to London a different image has haunted X and Y, but this time it persistently creeps into their waking hours, times of sleep being their only respite: a large white sculpted head, recognisable as Rameses the Great, its eyes a bleak milky white, remains their constant companion.
Note: This text, here slightly revised, was included in the exhibition One Day, Two Delays, a collaboration between Kathryn Best and Peter Suchin, held at AND Eventspace, London, in 2016. Aside from its presentation in this gallery context it has not previously been published.
Lead photo: Peter Suchin, A Chance Configuration One Quiet Afternoon, 2014
