The Cave

The character is a neurotic, he alters the world and life-narrative to rationalise his faulty self-conception and to evoke pity from the reader. Though this is not revealed until later in the book.

I know, at least, that in hell, the birds do not sing, they weep; and this lonesome observation has been the unique misfortune of my life, for in all my centuries of living I have had to listen to their weeping. I have observed also how they do not leave their nests, preferring to abandon all claims to the open air and cherish instead the cold comfort of their unrelenting abjection. Unique to me has been the accumulation of these tragic details which I have perceived only because I have lent a curious eye towards the dominion of the damned; but even now I am wary of words I speak, for alike to these birds, I refuse to leave my nest.

                The complexity of my own troubles is too intricate to state outright; It would not be sufficient for me to pour my explanations into the cup of insubstantial comprehension and hope others would come to know the same experience as I have; the taste would be too sour, and even so, the cup would only reach its half-capacity. Nevertheless these measly contents might convey the conviction that in life I feel I am much like a prisoner wrongfully accused; moreover I will relent my trepidation in explaining myself is not because of some moral deformity, or because of some mysterious ailment of physical tension; I suspect I cannot relate the fullness of my experience because I am yet unconvinced as to my own guilt, though the shame that afflicts me is great indeed.

                 More accurate in my unwillingness to explain myself would perhaps be the cause of meek indifference; I do not care for the possibilities of my own existence, though still I would not find peace in the accuracy of this statement.

Unique to me is this affliction: it is hard to describe that I am not so much indifferent to life as I am to the mundanity of the endless parade of fruitless obligation often pinned with the appellation of “life”. This “life” has become for me, a dreary march; I have learnt to refuse accommodation to the laws and rules of my everyday existence. I cannot accept them. I am not entertained by the accumulation mundane experience; In learning the same cold lessons over and over again to no avail, in the petty wisdom purchased at a vile cost.

But alike to all others, to retain my sanity, I must fashion a story of my own life, I must narrate my own experiences. But I would prefer sooner to explain matters not in the cold terms of objective and rational discourse, but rather, in the mythical form of ages past. This would be better for me because the immensity of my shame could be lightened, though I will admit I am no longer capable of explaining my life in any other way.

                To begin is the hardest part, for it is true I once attempted to live; that in my shallow youth, I ventured out into the world with a haversack brimming of juvenile illusions and ridiculous dreams. But life has always been stern with me, and it was not long before I came to an appalling comprehension of the secret recesses of my own soul and thereby the world around me. In the face of my own impotence, which with horror, I found, had soon overtaken me, I began to find fault in every possible endeavour; the inevitable outcome was that I soon rejected outright the fullness of any experience, and found a dwelling on a mountain of shame, which seemed to distinguish me from all others.

                No later than this, there began to form inside of me a conviction of my eternal guilt, which, as I have said, I remain unconvinced of; nevertheless, it remains, and has succeeded in confounding me again and again. Often it has attempted to drag me down into pits of inescapable despair, wherein I would lament the possibility of ever recovering my position �"for there was once a time when things were well, but I will not expound upon these times, yet, if ever.  

                Faced with this state of existence, of perpetual shame and impotence, I began to regret its continuation, until at last, I no longer wished to be.

One may consider such a conclusion to be of the most thoughtless and irresponsible kind, perhaps even melodramatic, and they may say that there comes a time in one’s life when one must accept what has happened to them, when one must brave the misfortune of life and take on the weight of consequence and bear it nobly. But likewise, I would reply, there are times when we have played our cards in such a way that to accept failure would be so catastrophic that one must somehow conjure more cards out of thin air in hopes the game can be reversed. In the event that this impossibility cannot be performed competently, and one has not prepared themselves for the aforementioned catastrophe, then the only recourse is to displace oneself immediately, under the pretext of some brief excursion, and therein find a hole to hide in where they cannot be found, and there, bide one’s time. More often than not, if the event is traumatic enough, one may have to hide in that hole forever.

When precisely this point came in my life, I cannot say. I know, at least, that it has been knocking at my door for quite some time, and it was only at the denouement of my youth I deigned to act, and discover for myself such a hiding place. At length I found a cave in which to hide my face from the world. I believed, sincerely, that there was so much evil within me I would have to spend a century of time locked away to defeat it. But that is not to say I was intent on somehow saving myself, or in finding salvation. I did not know what I wanted in the end, but I was sure I did not want to be reminded I was alive and somehow capable of fixing my position, for the shame was so insurmountable, and up until this point, every act of my long and dreary existence seemed to lead only to greater decay.

I recall vividly my first discovery of the cave; I stood before this final precipice of my dreary life, and felt its cold dampness greet me through a chilling draught, and I heard the gentle dripping of solitary droplets; I knew at last, I had found the home I deserved, and so I drew further and further into its winding depths until I was surrounded by a blanket of darkness and was confident no new impressions could reach me. Here, in this hiding place, I thought, no new sensibility could torment my mind; I was covered in nothingness and could not even see my own hands. For the first time in a long time I was imbued with a sense of comfort, sitting simply in that empty silence. More keen was the impression of resolution, gone was the trouble of sight�" likewise I could barely hear anything except my own breathing, but with enough practice I could perhaps lose awareness of even that. The only real problem remaining was the problem of thinking �" how was I to stop myself from thinking? I was not seeking to reach enlightenment, I merely wished for everything to cease.

I felt the cold, rough stone beneath me, but I knew I would grow used to that in time, the main desire, in any case, was to prevent new sensations. All that was left was thought, and I, like a idiot, tried to think of ways of stopping my thoughts.

I contented myself for some time in continuing to think on my success. I had found some semblance of comfort and relief, and this act, I knew, would be the last major action of my life. I felt I had taken a step in the right direction. Yes, sight had never lent me anything, I looked only where I shouldn’t have, and hearing, what was I to hear but the denunciations so often heaped on me? They still repeated endlessly in my mind, reminding me of my idiocy, of my guilt. And taste? I had never tasted of life what was good, I tasted only sour things, which burnt my tongue and forever decreased my sensibilities for those sweet and pleasurable things which others were so fond of. Neither did I ever wish to speak a word again. I would tear out my tongue if only it meant something. But again, I did not want to feel pain, nor anything at all, ever again, and so refrained from such desperate acts. I tried to cease, I no longer wished to be.

                Unique fascinations began to enter my mind, things I longed to explore in my more decent days; it was as though life at last had decided enough was enough; that it had only been playing me and wanted me to return at once to the loathsome act of living. But I held fast; I was done with it all. Perhaps in another life I could have found salvation, but all that was left for me now was to live out this final act.

I even began to consider dwelling on my shame, and the cause of it, but only briefly. I would be willing to accept something, a truce with life of some kind, but only after a sufficient explanation was provided; I did not want to be labelled as something terrible and forced to play the role of the criminal. I needed to know why I was ashamed, and why I felt so much guilt. But this was not provided, and so again, I remained unconvinced of my own guilt; I knew certainly the situation was very complex; that the shame I felt was not the reduction of some singular act, but rather, a derivative of every significant action I have ever taken, precisely because it has led me to where I now find myself. If I were to state outright what I have done, it would bear no significance, it is only under the light of accumulated experience, day after day, hours upon hours, that one can come to understand the irreparable nature of my actions against myself and others. One may struggle, perhaps to comprehend what it is that I am trying to say, but the complexity of the matter has confounded me as well; and that is, perhaps, one of the many reasons I had forsaken life, and contented myself with this cave-dwelling existence.

But alas, good things can never last for me. Even when I thought I could not fall any further, my mind began to unravel, and the guilt and the shame began to pour forth with redoubled fury. I spent long hours stuck in a tormented state of mind, the only remedy to which, that I could find, was to descend further and further into the cave �" into greater darkness. And here at times, I regained that sense of comfort and solace.

As the days passed my depravity grew more and more pronounced. One night especially I heard the sound of thunder from afar, it split the heavens and made me tremble; I felt like life was trying to reprimand me. In my agitated, deprived, and hence excitable state, I was whipped up into a panic terror, and drove myself deeper and deeper into the cave, like a wayward beast, fearful of what it could not comprehend.

                Eventually the cave opened up into a cavern, and a source of water revealed itself. In this gentle trembling water, I saw my face for the last time; all the delineations of identity disturbed me, and only served to call from recollection those memories of shame and misfortune which originally drove me here. Still I was horrified to find that enough light reached into the cave to reveal my own reflection in the water; My treacherous eyes kept climatising themselves to the darkness. I decided to go even further, to reach the end even, if that were at all possible. Soon I found the darkness enveloped me so that I could no longer see around me, all was completely opaque, more so than before, and my eyes could not adapt to that impenetrable darkness. I was, at this time, obsessed with the conviction that if I could no longer see myself that I would forget that I was alive, for the shock of my reflection in the water had returned to me a more conscious appreciation of the fact I was still living.

Another haunting possibility enforced by my unforgiving life was my fear of death, which I refused even to acknowledge. But do not mistake this as a juvenile delusion, or a kind of theatrical exaggeration; I was much like the savage, who does not know of what he has not seen, and who does not trust in the wisdom of others, or in the shared knowledge which humanity attempts to force upon him; perhaps I remained unconvinced of the certainty of death, since life for my had lost the weight of conviction, and so I mistrusted everything, purely because I felt the shame thrust upon me to be an immense injustice.

                In the utter silence of the cave, one felt an acute sense of loneliness; the feelings of guilt and shame inevitable returned, and I, as always, sought, desperately, to find a way to escape from the reality forced upon me; I knew I could conjure images in my mind, through the use of imagination, and that these would perhaps distract me. I planned on dreaming of myriad things, wonderful and positive, and I would exercise the muscles of my imagination until they reached a strength wherein I could suddenly dream of nothingness, and block everything out�"then, I knew, I would cease to be.

Alas, it was my unique misfortune that the tender beginnings of my illustrious dreams were rudely interrupted by the intrusions of an embryonic form of madness. Once more life confounded me, for I had dreamt only dreams of innocence, yet soon found a floating sensation envelope me, and I thought all would end well at last; I exercised my mind and found strength in those muscles. But like all good things in my life, it refused to endure, and I found I was not so much entertaining my thoughts as I was merely in the presence of them, and perhaps this was borne from my languid health, which dwindled in strength over the days and weeks and months that I spent in the pitch darkness of solitude; this retracted all power from my will, which became, inevitably, a feeble thing.

                Voices, voices and voices, came from the darkness, I know not how, or why. But like the muses of ancient Greece, they increased the numinosity of my mind, and led me down a winding road to a path never once travelled before. At first they were but distant things, not too distracting; At times they functioned merely to give advice, a word, of this or that, and I had initially presumed them to be merely the emanations of an inner intuition. Alas, they began to speak to one another, and then they began to propagate, and grow more plentiful. I lost control of them, and my shattered understanding separated from me and sought to express itself outside my own will and comprehensive power. I heard words uttered which I had never uttered before, thoughts came that were entirely novel, and could not have possibly come from my own accumulated experience. With fear I looked upon the thoughts that were once mine and saw that they were distinct from me and yet inhabited the same space of cognitive action as my own thoughts. No matter what I wanted to believe, they went on believing otherwise, and instructed each other, at times, in why it was, quite rational, in fact, for this to happen, and yet, I could not accept them, or what they said because I suppose, I did not know why they were saying these things, especially since I had given up on life and no longer sought to exist, so any lesson became pointless.

                As this precarious state of mind deepened, and grew out of my control, I recognised with a fearful dread, and a tinge of weariness, that this was not a good sign. I tried to distract myself from this, though, by diverting all my energies to the imposition of a cognitive black out; I tried to repress everything into silence, with a forceful despotic hand. But my attempts at distraction were short lived, for I began to dream in my moments of my boredom, and I saw whatever little delusion of repression I had constructed inevitably give way to the weight of my accumulated shame. And so the dreams I had were possessed, inevitably, by the same themes of the waking life I wished to reject. Imagine my surprise when the settings I conjured to distract myself soon trumped the very ideas I was trying to distract myself from; and it was a sudden recognition, but it tortured me, because I couldn’t get away, and whenever I went silent, a voice would march in and announce something completely absurd, trying to prompt me to react.

The first voice that addressed me directly was the most startling experience of my life. “Wherefore?” asked the voice, the first one, like a faint sound from the back of my mind -- and at last, when I reached towards where I was before, in my thought, towards that silence, it came again, “Wherefore?” it asked, “wherefore?” and then “Who?” “Who?” what was it trying to ask me, this voice?  What manner of outrage had I performed against myself when I could not answer the most simple probing of my own identity? Who? I do not know “who”?  “I,” I reply, “It is me, it is mine,” whatever that meant �"perhaps due to my time without contact I abandoned all attempts at conventional communication, for in one’s own mind it is possible to adopt a wayward method of speaking, symbolic almost, because we instinctively know what we are trying to say, by aid of intuition, and these voices, which were my own understood my broken attempts at communication �" and I sensed this intuitively, even when I did not say anything, but rather thought of it in a distant manner. What I said, my jumbled way of speaking -- it had some significance and meaning in that fractured mind-state I found myself in but in retrospect would appear utterly meaningless and almost comically absurd. I had now settled on a gentle indifference, so far as I could say in respect to that, I believed firmly I would never encounter another soul separate from mine again, and so there was no point in trying to marshal an attempt at sanity. Yet all these words, which I said, appeared frantic, and genuinely stupid to say, because I was trying to understand what this voice wanted, and yet still, it demanded, “wherefore?” “Who, who?”

                There were other voices still. One voice spoke of obvious things at such length I wanted to tear out my eardrums, it spoke pretentiously, in a verbose manner, and explained nonsensical things, as if purposefully trying to enrage me. Time passed and yet more voices came. I heard one that spoke of its own silence, interminably, and filled the air with its contradiction. Yet another came and went at intervals, beginning on a thread of thought hitherto unexplored, and then gradually waning into an insignificant whisper, refusing resolution --and when it returned, it had taken up another subject, and expounded upon that, in equally meaningless measure. And they came and went and all I could do was listen to them.

Again a voice called to me directly from within, it was the first one, from before, and it spoke the same words, but which had taken on new significance in light of the recent choir of voices, it asked “Who? Who?” as if searching for I, but I cowered from it, and its calls became louder and louder, as if drawing closer to my hiding space. I feared being found. Until, it came, I believe, within sight of me, for I heard its tone elapse into something bordering on recognition, “Who?” and it faltered even, before stopping suddenly and withdrawing �" and I sensed keenly the impression that it had withdrawn to somewhere else. And I was back in silence once more not knowing whether this was that or that was this because I could not see anything clearly in the darkness of the cave.

For eternities then, I sat, pondering nothing, hoping for nothing, being nothing. Just waiting and trying to depress all that I was. I did not want to feel anything, I refused to recognise what I had done because it was too much for me to endure. And so I simply refused to be, and cowered in the darkness for what seemed like centuries. And yes, it was centuries, the clock of time wound itself round and round until its motioning hands became a blur, and all of time was expressed in an instant. In fact, it was more than centuries. It was forever in an instant. That is the gravity of my suffering. Perhaps, I have lost more than you can imagine.

                Yet the voices understood this, for I could not escape from them �" they were within in my own mind and pried into every single thought of mine. Choirs began to sing comforting remedies. I searched desperately for privacy, but it escaped me. I did not know what to do. I was beyond the avenue of thoughts which sane minds usually skip along.

                At length the recognition of my own failure dawned on me. I struggled to digest that recognition; this escape into this hidden place did not fix my problem. But I ignored that, like all things, for it was all too familiar to me to find my hopes so heartlessly dashed. I kept my secret tendencies close to my heart, and continued to repress everything, in hopes that it would go away.

The voices, I began to grow used to their presence, begrudgingly accepting them; they were better company than the thoughts of shame and guilt. But I kept my distance from them, letting them come and go without remark; it was as though I shuffled over in the cave to make space for them. There were so many of them I could not even attempt to count them, most were of no significance, -- there were only a few which still remain in my recollection. As I have said, centuries of time elapsed inside of that cave, and I perhaps witnessed the march of every possibility of personality embodied in those detached voices.

Eventually I became utterly depraved of mind; I began to suspect they were tangibly real, like goblins, which were sitting beside me in the cave. The most disturbing thing was the fact that eventually I could not decide whether the voices were coming from inside my own head or from further down the cave. I even went so far as to travel further down the cave, and by some strange, enigmatic logic, the voices grew more immediate --and yet, still were in my own head. I believe perhaps, I was simply tricking myself, if that were at all possible. Or perhaps some kind of unconscious synchronicity between my own inner crisis and the significance of my environment �" the fact I was in a dark cave and descended deeper. All the while, I did in fact, move closer towards the greater depth of the cave, though this was something that almost passed without me fully noticing it. It seemed my body as well was no longer under my control �" or perhaps it was the control of my memory I had lost.

Some voices began to say ugly things, and this disturbed me deeply. Some made spiteful remarks at first, commenting upon aspects of what I was. I listened to these without replying; I had already faced my fair share of reproach in life and I knew that it was but a voice, and so it didn’t afflict me so much. I struggled for a while in trying to keep a great silence within, but it came to nothing. I did not have the strength of will, and my mind began to explore the most perverse thoughts. At last, I gave in, and allowed the thoughts room to wander in hopes they would find nothing, and cease. But alas, they came with luggage and all, and pitched tent on the empty lot of my mind and began to discuss with one another their most disturbed fascinations, and I sighed, at last, because now I had invited them into my home, so to speak, and did not know how to get them out. 

I dreamt of cycles of life-- and wonderful things, of dawn to dusk, of winter to summer �" and then a voice called, interrupting, and declared itself and its business, before being washed away in the stream of never-ending inner impressions. There was one voice in particular that annoyed me, it attempted to fill my mind with the most verbose nonsense, espousing nonsense loudly; it was the one from before. I began to consider just what the substance of these voices were, for as time went on I came to know them, and it seemed they had a finite number, for the same few ones kept returning and it was only occasionally that new ones spawned. But sometimes it became too much for me, and I began to dwell on my lowly depraved state, on how far I had fallen.

At last I sought to cover my eyes with my hands, as if it would drown out the endless stream of consciousness from within. Yes these little mocking voices were mine own �"at least, that is what I said to myself. “This whole thing, it is me, it is mine.” But I did not even believe that, and a voice came and said that that wasn’t so, and that in actuality, it was separate from me, and I still chanted my little tune of madness, “it is me, it is mine,” trying to likewise drown it out, and a back and forth ensued, each of us growing louder until at last I could not take it anymore and ceased abruptly in my chanting, and the voice too sensed that I would soon grow tired and stopped likewise at that exact moment, as if recognising a truce �" and oh! How that tortured me! how it implied this voice which wasn’t real had grown tired, and that perhaps was the most significant thing, how wretched, how subtle and nuanced this madness was! But it wasn’t real, no I could not accept that. It wasn’t real! And yet, when I said that, at last, after dwelling on what had just happened, and perhaps, in the wake of experience, wondering whether I had not been tricked in my sensibility �" so much so, that I taunted the remembrance of that voice, “it is me, it is mine,” �" but I said it in a whisper, hoping it would not hear, perhaps knowing like a fool that it was in fact real �" and the voice as well, the treacherous, sly thing, said nothing for a time, and perhaps even measured the silence�"and I waited like a fool, in full expectation, knowing �" just knowing, that it would say what it said so many times before: “It wasn’t so,” it said, and so ensued our battle once more, and like a man driven mad by obscure threads of thought, the hours wound themselves around the clock, dancingly, and like the clock’s winding hands, each second, “it is me, it is mine”. And the voice continued to mock me. And soon another came, and another, and many voices came until a choir began inside my mind and drowned out the silence. Until I could no longer take it. 

And what mockery it was -- Life imposed itself in my tortured thoughts. Going along in merry symphony just outside my door, so it seemed, until at last, I felt the stirring of life from within �" yes, a recognition of what I was, and what I truly wanted. All that was repressed broke through the dam of oppression and devoured the land of my blighted crops. Yet still, I couldn’t face it anymore! I went in search for a way out, seeking to drown the impressions of within with the without. But I settled on this end only insofar as it quieted the voices, and I removed myself towards a nearby location in the cave, and when the voices settled, I inevitably returned to where I was before, further down the cave.

I did not deign to name these voices because I feared what that might lead to -- Perhaps the only wise decision I have made in my life was during this time, when I refused to partake in this dance of madness. I also decided to no longer interact with them, though I did not do so in any significant manner up until then, aside from attempts to deny their ascendency. I sensed that they were growing darker, somehow, more malignant, and that this mirrored the outer strife I felt in my decaying body.

Occasionally there were lapses in protocol, though not directly by my own fault. At one moment a voice arrived and asked if there was a place he could put his suitcase, and I spontaneously burst into a hail of laughter -- For how could a voice possibly possess a suitcase and what need would it have, being intangible, to place it somewhere? Imagine the jittering laugh of insanity as I sat alone in that dark cave, biting my nails, conscious, even then, of my own brittle sanity. Likewise the feelings of shame and guilt that followed the remembrance. I felt as though something was trying to pull me further and further into that mime of madness �" further into the depths of myself so that it accomplish something �" I know not what. Needless to say, the voice had accomplished its duty and immediately dispensed with itself. There were many occurrences of this, where a voice would come and ask me something absurd, hoping to prompt me �" I quickly copped on, and it stopped.

Alas, eventually I slipped up and relented. In the sheer madness of that place, I entered dialogue with those thoughts. I will not provide any particulars because to do so would only disturb, and I am fully aware of the outlandish admission that I have made. Suffice it to say I made this outrageous mistake because I began to fear the silence, for whatever reason it soon filled me with a sense of impending dread. I asked, out loud, what was happening to me, I asked what was real and what was not �" and I heard only silence. The voices went away, for a duration of length I cannot recall. And I sat disturbed, fearful of the darkness that enveloped me, for I sensed that something was lurking, and that the silence of the inner voices was a confirmation of this premonition. At last, a little voice came and began to weep, and I sat listening to it �" I did not have a choice -- not understanding why it was so �" and yet, the complexion of its voice covered my countenance and I felt the weight of sadness draw my eyes into mournful introspection. How haunting it was!

Following this episode, the voices began to have a real impression on my emotions; for I felt as though it was incumbent on me to ask that little crying voice why it was sad. As if I were being shamed for something -- for what I failed to express adequately. I did not know why that little voice was crying and it disturbed me because it felt so real. How strange it was, this voice! This crying little voice! Entering my mind uninvited and making me feel bad about myself, even though I had done nothing wrong.

Old dreams, old emotions, that’s what the crying reminded me of. I saw the panorama of my life begin to unfurl like a reel before me, and I turned away quickly. I did not want to be reminded. One can imagine the tormenting logic of these thoughts and voices, how they sought to deceive me in the most subtle way, how they led me on, at last, until a final terror could impress itself upon me. Now imagine my fear when I began to understand with more clarity the fact that I no longer knew what was real or not.

This final terror, of unreality, which I almost dare not utter �" the most unspeakable impression of my life. Heed me when I say, do not emulate what I have done, for I know for certain the same end will befall you. For I witnessed, from the darkness, a face creeping closer, until it hung obscenely in clear visibility for a moment, before retracting, and dissipating back into the darkness. The silence that followed was the most haunting of my life, for I watched the dark around me fearing it would return, and what it was I did not know. But I was sure it was real, for I heard, even, faintly, the scuffle of its hands as it climbed over the rocks and retreated to another part of the cave.

In a sobering bout of recovered sanity, I realised that my extended stay in this cave was but an extension of my original folly and not in fact a most wise decision. And also this impression of terror so disturbed me that I felt done with all this pitiful hiding �" though I still believed in the necessity of rejecting the experience of my past, and what had happened, but the prospect of remaining inside of the cave filled me with dread. I felt genuine mortal fear and wished for some kind of impression to distract myself. Like a little child I wanted to play with something bright and colourful, if only to sedate the capacity of my mind to conjured imagined fears �" though this is not to say the face came from within, it could very well have come from without-- a real tangible thing which I perceived through the veil of darkness. I believe I even smelt some unholy stench at the time of this possible imagining but I cannot be sure. The same can be said for all other particulars when this thing came, I cannot be sure fully what happened, for I was so seized with terror, and the excitability of my mind meant that I had trouble separating fact from fiction.

In fearful acknowledgement of my own folly, I began to relocate myself.  A new experience had overridden the initial one, I no longer wished to think of nothing because I feared the silence and what might come from it.  I wished to distract myself with an endless stream of tangible impressions �" to reach out into the world and reject this inner experience. I had had enough of dreaming of nothing, I wished now, not to dream at all. �" to forget about it.

I came upon the source of water in the half darkness, and once more saw my own reflection. My cheeks were gaunt and emaciated, my hair dishevelled and ruined; I was less than half of what I had once been. The shame. The guilt. I left it, this reflection, confident I was real, in some strange way, though unsure again of life itself �" as one who has not walked in so long, finds the use of his legs foreign to him. I could at least tell that I was real because I existed in the reflection.

As I drew further and further from the darkness of the cave, and more towards the light creeping in from its mouth, the voices lost their power, and still I wondered, were they real or not? Did they live in the darkness of that cave alone, or would they always lurk in the back of my mind? Still nothing had truly changed; It was only because I feared that terror which I had seen, and I wanted to say things to comfort myself with distraction. The shame and guilt were more now, not less. I also trembled fearfully as I retreated from that cave. And at times, as I scrambled through the darkness, I was nearly overcome by a panic terror, lest the face I saw return -- it was only upon exerting the maximum effort that I could keep myself calm.

At last I found the light, creeping in, and I advanced, like a despairing creature from the depth of misery, “Out! Out!” I uttered, obscenely as I scurried out from the darkness of the cave’s mouth, “Out! Out!”  my tender hands gripping the cold stone, pulling my frail weight towards the blinding light, and into a dawn both grey and dreary, at last, with hollowed eyes, I searched an empty expanse for something worth seeing.         

Immediately the voices became a distant memory, far off, as life returned and gradually became more familiar and I screwed my eyes to engage the blinding light of day; uncomprehending of what was happening, of life, of light, and both a stranger to the language of sanity I once knew, again I uttered: “Out! Out!” forgetting how to speak, except through those words. I spoke them louder, “Out! Out!”

Those voices now, so distant, as the world around me transformed from the empty silence into something worthy of being called life. I could not see much, for a terrible wind blew, and the cave was nestled in a hollow which protected it from any vantage. I knew I could never return to that cave again; but nothing had fully changed, I felt the incessant need bear down upon me, like an iron weight, to distract myself from the guilt and shame. “Out! Out!” I uttered again, desperately, for they were the only words I remembered.

And then there came to my horror, a voice, again, asking “Who! Who!”, coming from my left, and I despaired into a pang of shock �" alas, the voices were real! But then I turned to look, and to my amazement, saw, perched on the barren bough of a lonesome tree standing just outside the mouth of the cave �" an owl, hooting in the early morning. As if nature herself meant to poke me in jocular mockery.

“Out! Out!” I cried in triumph, a creature that had climbed from the depths, and the owl took fear in flight, “Out! Out!” I shouted, and I watched in awe, something alive express its resentment. Still I could feel that sense of dread, of terror, deep inside of me. That face of terror.

Yet what a miracle it all seemed! To leave that endless darkness, to have found my way. But I assented to the prospect of recovery with a heavy sigh, knowing well what lay in store for me, and soon recollection oozed damply onto my spirits, and weighted me down, even though I began to understand that it was over, but still I asked, wherefore?

                Though I know I will be denounced for this, I will nevertheless hold to the conviction that I spent centuries of time inside of that cave. Because only that could explain the world I found, so different, smouldering in ruins, devoured, and expiring.