So—four sources of light were not enough. New boots, hooks, spikes, new jacket, new pants, not enough. Extra batteries, bulbs, gloves, all of it at the bottom of the bottomless cave. After all the preparation to offer his woman a new and improved man, Julian was right back on novice course, climbing a steep uneven terrain, barefoot and without his clothes, holding a small cheap flashlight between his chattering teeth.
Past the moongate, the river was shallow and flowed slowly—and in the wrong direction! It flowed back toward the black hole cove. After a curve in the cave and a shallow whirlpool, it finally turned and flowed in the direction Julian was wading, filling the barrel-shaped passage to his knees. The cylindrical walls shimmered with hallucinations, with carved etchings. Julian no longer believed his eyes. It could be a Rorschach test. He saw what he wanted to see, not what was really there. But why would he want to see illusions of writhing beasts with open groaning, screaming mouths, why would he wish to see colliding live things loving each other, fucking each other, killing each other? In many cases all three.
Before long, trouble came. It came in the form of water that rose to his legs and then to his waist. The Thermoprene suit was wet inside, and the trapped moisture kept him warm, but the water that seeped in and trickled down his ribs and back also made him itch like a motherfucker. The cave remained troublingly warm, as did the water. Weren’t caves supposed to be 54ºF at all times? Maybe not magic caves. He should’ve brought an inflatable boat. He was so tired. There was no ledge or shelf for him to rest on, no dry ground. Endlessly, relentlessly, half-blind, Julian trudged hip-deep in water, avoiding the images that filled his defective vision, of gods and men and beasts intertwined.
He should’ve known better than to complain about cave drawings. As soon as they vanished, the water rose to his chest. He could no longer walk in it. That meant he could no longer carry the flashlight or even hold it in his mouth. In impenetrable darkness, he swam. Either the water level kept rising or the cave narrowed, because when Julian lifted his arm for the front stroke, he hit the roof of the cave. The space between the surface of the water and the ceiling—in other words the space in which he breathed—was no longer large enough to fit his head. He had eight inches, then six, then four.
He stopped swimming, turned on the flashlight, stuck it between his teeth, and put both palms on the ceiling to rest for a bit while he looked around. He lifted his mouth to the limestone and breathed through the slit of remaining air. He couldn’t stay still for long because the channel began to fill up with black rushing water. Oh—now it was rushing. It swallowed him and pitched him forward before he had a chance to put away his one light. While Julian was flung about like a rubber duck, the flashlight slipped out of his hands and swirled into the void, and Julian once again was plunged into wet spinning darkness.
What did he learn in advanced spelunking that could help him now? The first thing he remembered was decidedly unhelpful.
Never cave alone.
Dennis, his unruffled instructor, could not have been more plain. The only reasons to be alone in a cave were injury and emergency.
As he tumbled through the gushing current, Julian came up with a third reason. Insanity.
Cave diving was the most advanced, specialized, dangerous of all caving activities. Without training, Dennis said, no human being had the knowledge to stay alive. Only months of rigorous preparation could help you. You had to learn to control five things on which your life depended. If those five things weren’t built into your muscle memory, you would die.
Not could die.
Would die.
Julian recalled precisely two things.
Number one: respiration.
Number two: emotion.
The first one was impossible, since he was fully submerged in the current, and as for the second one, check. Emotion aplenty.
You have no training for open water, he kept hearing in his head. Stop. Think. Picture the reaper. See her face. Prevent your death. Respiration. Emotion.
What else?
His head bobbed up for a moment, he gasped for air, was pulled under, and then driven forward. But there was air above him! There was oxygen for Julian. Sounded like a song.
Respiration!
Emotion!
Calm yourself!
Think!
Another bob.
Another gasp.
Oxygen for Julian.
He must keep his mouth closed. If he swallowed water and his lungs filled up, he wouldn’t be able to continue bobbing like a buoy. He would sink. Think! Breathe! Another bob. Another gasp. Oxygen for Julian.
Trouble was, when his mouth was closed, he couldn’t breathe.
How could he save her when he couldn’t even save himself?
Josephine. Mary.
Calm yourself. Think! Breathe.
Oxygen for Julian.
All he could feel was panic for his life.
Finally, Julian found something to grab on to, a churning plank. Pulling himself on top of it, he lay down on it lengthways, grabbed the short edge with both hands, put his head down, gurgled up a lungful of water, and was asleep in seconds. No terror was so strong that it could force his eyes open.
HE WAKES UP BECAUSE HE’S BURNING. HE CAN’T TELL WHAT’S wrong with him, only that it’s so hot, he wants to crawl out of his skin to cool down. The plank he drifts on is hot, the water underneath him is hot, the air is hot. Not warm like cove water, but hot like near boiling. He falls sideways into the water, and the steaming plank, scorched as a summer deck, drifts down river.
Julian can finally stand, and even though his flashlight is gone, the cave isn’t completely without light. He can see.
Why is it so blisteringly hot? His body itches intensely under the Thermoprene. He unzips the suit, pulls it halfway down, stands against the wall of the cave and like an animal rubs against the rock to relieve his back. He pulls the suit down to his knees and scratches his legs, his stomach. It’s better, but not great. The more he scratches, the more it itches, his skin as if crawling with a thousand mosquitoes feasting on his body.
Now that he’s out of the water, Julian remembers the other three things he learned about cave diving. Posture. Propulsion. And buoyancy. How the hell do you learn buoyancy, he thinks. You either float or you don’t. I know this for a fact. Idiots.
Julian is so excited to be alive even though he is fucking itchy.
No way he can zip up the suit again. He tries. As soon as the foam fabric touches his body, he’s in a frenzy. Both he and the suit need to dry, but as he dries, he starts to sweat, and the salt in his sweat makes his itchy body burn. What a hot mess he is. He’s got to get out, get to somewhere cooler. Where is he? Where did the river bring him?
Leaving the wetsuit dangling at his waist, Julian climbs up the slope, away from the river and toward the dim flickering light. He’s burning the soles of his bare feet and the palms of his hands on the hot rocks. The light that illumines a sliver of the cave is somewhere above his head. He keeps climbing to it, as if up a spiral staircase carved into the rocks, up, up, up, and round and round.
There’s an overhanging wooden ledge above him. Wooden? He pulls himself up and GI Joes through a narrow opening, crawling out into a tight, musty space