This is where the battle is being waged

And if you look to your left you’ll see, just coming into view, the profile of our middle-aged writer.

There are very few obvious routes into the heart of this environment so we will have to skirt its edges, I’m afraid. The usual openers don’t seem to work here; small talk leads only to blank, closed spaces on the fringe. Without a guide, alas, we’re unlikely to make much headway.

As you can see from here, its interior seems to be more of an untidy, tangled mass than a lush paradise. No postcard views here! Being complex to traverse it has, over the years, become increasingly repellent to casual visitors who had hoped to find something prettier and easier to photograph. Who has the time these days to navigate deeper!

Now, now, I see your looks of disappointment too, but bear with me, ladies and gentlemen. There is more here than meets the eye. Let’s give it a chance, shall we?

Cut off from the world for most of its existence, this body remains something of a conundrum to the wider world. What resources does it hold? Over the years, countless people have posed the question, ‘is there any money in it?’ and come back irritated, the answer taking too long for impatient investors. Demands for fast consumption and experiences designed for short attention spans have grown in recent years alongside this body’s changing terrain. As such, this older, slower, stranger and more complicated place is increasingly side-stepped as tourists and investors pick newer, shinier places for easier and more immediate returns. Yes, you are quite unique in being here at all! I can’t say that many tourists pick this tour from the selection on offer. A rare breed you are, yes! haha!

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. Oooh, do you feel that? Yes, best to keep your seatbelts on, esteemed visitors! Our body here is known for sudden ground-shakes as well as inclement, changeable weather, unexpected heights and unpredictable drops! No wonder it’s proven unpopular with developers, hey? Indeed, there’s a common opinion held by neighbouring bodies that the land’s continual reshaping of itself marks a deeply audacious, difficult nature, causing endless issues for those in power who keep hoping to make it more tame and hospitable. As soon as someone tries to map it or market it, it seems to shift. “It’s very annoying,” a government official was overheard saying recently during an attempt at a land-grab. “A most inconvenient place.”

And yet, ladies and gentlemen, away from the eyes of corporate interests, there is a growing belief that this forgotten place may well be a hidden treasure. Oh yes! That is why we’re here, of course! No-one quite knows what lies at his heart, but travellers lucky enough to have passed deeper report fascinating discoveries.

Although many of its surface levels appear somewhat dried-out, scarred and uneven as you can see, it is now thought that the vast majority of this ageing woman’s life-mass is subterranean. Indeed, it hides a prolific and unusual number of natural caverns, as big as cathedrals.

Only in recent times have these strange places become accessible to visitors and its secrets still remain widely unknown. It is said that a huge array of colourful but shy stories prowl the deep, dark interior which have been known to voice surprising truths when tempted closer. Above them, bumping across the cavern roofs, float dreams, vast and rich, filling the caverns with sudden light and darkness. Are they trying to get out? It has been pondered! And what might happen if they do?

Great forests grow beneath them, its strange wood seemingly resistant to axes and chainsaws. Rivers of thought that appear to defy time and physics itself are known to spring unbidden from the bedrock, only to disappear again. Fiction or fact? Ah, not for one such as me to decide, yet tunnellers and explorers agree that all the evidence hints at a rich, mythic history that may well prove to be world-changing. Indeed, few enter its expanse and come back quite the same.

It has been suggested that the thickness of this body’s soil contributes here: researchers have concluded that it acts as a vast sponge. Everything that flows over it and through it is thought to pass into its matrix where it is worked, shaped and reformed. As such, it may indeed well prove to be a growing repository for many of life’s biggest mysteries and wonders, all held in its depths, ripe for discovery.

What’s more, it has been hypothesised that the nature of this land may provide a deep ecological service that benefits the world’s ecosystem as a whole. By sucking up the poison of the world and transmuting it into something else — whatever that something else turns out to be — our body here seemingly cleans up the world around it, one day at a time.

Indeed, more and more researchers agree that this place does hold resources, substantial and nourishing, perhaps just not ones that will feed the pockets of fat cats and rouges. The irony is, of course, that its dismissal by these types may well prove its salvation: capitalist scavengers have turned many a similar landscape into ruin.

Yes, there are people here! How good of you to enquire. A growing number, in fact! Word of this body’s stories and mysteries, its unpredictable yet relatable weather, and its fascinating, changing shape have begun to reach the wider world and here they have tiptoed, my esteemed listeners, perhaps hoping to find a way past these easily dismissed, dusty edges we see before us. Indeed those who come seeking refuge often seem to find it. A slow blossoming of guides are appearing worldwide offering introductions and entry. It is even said that doorways open spontaneously for those with the most open of hearts. Have I tried it myself? Goodness, no. I haven’t the courage!

Wait now… I say… well this is most irregular.

You’re leaving right now?

You’re going in?

Good lord. Well, godspeed, my friends, godspeed!

A brave bunch indeed! Godspeed!

With deep thanks to National Geographic Magazine who inspired this strange little piece and provided the most perfect quotes.

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Introducing Letters From Wonderland

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Read all about it here

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