Buried

Staring down at the four story staircase, we slowly descended… step by step. 

I didn’t think I was claustrophobic, but as we lowered further into the abyss, I stared at the walls in complete understanding of how someone could feel them closing in. 

When we reached the only remaining Edinburgh catacomb, appropriately called a close, my emotion was torn. I wondered how people could live everyday all day without fresh air or sunshine. It was depressing. 

I closed my eyes and tried to picture the bustle of people traveling the corridors, the marketplace and various workshops to satisfy daily needs, as the tour guide described. But when I opened my eyes, I saw only emptiness.

A few steps later was a small hovel that would house a family. There was a simulation of a small table and floor bedding to show how they lived.  It was bleak. The air seemed thin. The ceiling was very low and the small area had no measure of privacy. It was like bears hibernating in a cave. I couldn’t imagine living like that, especially for years. 

Remembering that during the bubonic plague, the catacombs often housed quarantined individuals, the last step on the tour was the hovel they called the chapel. As soon as I entered, I felt a cold chill of eeriness I couldn’t shake. Prominently displayed was the ragged doll of a little girl called Annie, who died in the plague. The guide told us that many feel her spirit captured there. I did. 

But then he explained that some catacombs were actually preferred by poor people for the security of living below ground. Astonished, I gasped in disbelief. To me it was like being buried alive, sad, hopeless and forgotten. 

Maybe I was reflecting my own bias or perhaps I channeled the echos of spirits left behind. But as we ascended the staircase, my mood lightened with each step as if I was reaching for warm sun and fresh air.

As we reached the top, I thrust open the door, ready to inhale salvation, yet while I spent an hour buried beneath the streets of Edinburgh, a thick Scottish moor enveloped the entire area. We walked back to our boat shrouded and perplexed by the mystery and past of its subterranean dwellers.