Nobody is allowed in here - 285 words

There is a chill, stone dry air drifting across my bare shoulders and the back of my neck. The light centered on my face is it’s equivalent. This place, this shadowed cave is where part of me always sits contemplating in discomforted silence the flickering shapes on the clear wall that windows the world.

Once this lost cavern was filled with the gentle soulfire light and enveloping heat of creative passion. My last journey seeking the light of day and it’s supposed truths went on too long though. The fire now dead cold embers, the wall naught but a waiting obstacle in a pervasive dark.

I find I can’t return. The state of spark lost without the knowledge of creation. I stand in the mouth peering into the abyss. Having returned with only fools gold and scars I am changed. The dark of the cavern inhospitable to me. Echoes speak, Nobody is allowed in here.

As I stand caught in the mouth I find a familiarity. The light of day cast flickers within the cave, illuminating in slippery waves. Moving forward, feeling my way into this darkened space I startle to find part of me still outside. The knowledge of the sunlit outer world informing the shadows. I hesitantly mark on the wall the outlines of these ephemeral wisps.

As my eyes adjust and the pictures I’m drawing clarify I wonder of this cavern. As I draw, the shadows I’ve outlined hint at the former sunless ones. After a time I rest to contemplate this clear wall that reflects shadows of the world. I realize there is a firelight from behind me now and I’ve ignored the cold so long as to miss the warming.