The White Road.

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?

      When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road,

There is always another who walks beside you

 gliding, wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

-but who is that on the other side of you?"

T.S.Elliot, The Wasteland And Other Poems.

    

Mount Everest was named after the British Surveyor General of India Sir George Everset. It could have been worse I suppose as one of his predecessors was named Hugh Bottoms.In Tibetan it is known as Chumolungma, Goddess Mother Of The World. Amazing, eh. A region of the world so high and remote and counter intuitive to our existence that after a particular height our bodies begin to die as we climb and breath. The higher ground is the resting place for the bodies of those who have died attempting to conquer a region that allows us to sometimes cross it. No wonder it lends itself to a history of ghost stories and accounts of supernatural experiences.
             Journey To The Dark Side is a fledgling web site which seeks to draw in subscribers using photographs and subscribers created purely to appeal to its viewers prurient natures (Ahem, 90% of everything on the internet.) Simon Newman is a founding member and main contributor to the site. He is a sort of "Go With Noates" for a nightmarish millenial generation in search of the Darkside. In search of arcanna and thrills that will not require leaving the soft glow of a console screen. Simon is a damaged fellow following a harrowing experience with a madman deep underground on a perilous potholing expedition, one he escaped with his life if not entirely a healthy state of being. He is something of a wounded beast desperate for closure through widening his life experiences by perhaps throwing his negative feelings into some comparitive relief. A trip to Everest seems to be just what a bad doctor would prescribe and indeed proves to be the bitter pill he swallows. The things people will do for secure web hits, tsk,tsk. Causing people to go against their better natures.
               Its a book that plays with memories and notions of regrets. It is a story about a damaged man trying to rebuild himself in a haunted realm. The horror is subtle and lingers, like a climb in a high place. The story never gets above itself though, the characters remain complex but very human.
                The stuff of ghost stories.

                                                            Ghosts Of Everest painting
                                                                  by William Besik.