the cave

It was actually a cold night. And phenomenally dark with the moon nowhere in sight. And despite the fact that we were all literally glowing with an array of glowthings: glow wands and glow sticks and glow bracelets and glow masks, we couldn’t see anything in front of us. But we trekked out anyways across fields of fragmented lava rock.

The cave looked like a doughnut: a swirly dark hole in front of us. We carefully climbed down its edges, circling and clinging desperately to lava rock, wondering how a cave could form this way. Air bubbles? Whirlpools?

We crouched down in parts, creeping through tight spaces with our glow around us, protecting us from the fear of whatever lived in there. But it was dry, dusty. Not the place for creepy crawling things anyways.

After what seemed like hours, the cave opened up into a dark cavern. We stopped. We looked around. We spread out into the space. And then someone said, “Well?” And someone else, “Grab a rock.”

We crushed our glowthings with rocks and they sprayed light onto our fingers. We flung the light at the walls and the floor, splattering every surface with stars. We created worlds. Galaxies. And the hum of the light filled the enormous space with a warmth and electricity entirely palpable and real. We leaned against the walls and disappeared into them, the specks of light on our clothing and skin making us part of the rock itself. I never imagined that such an unnatural light could be so beautiful. 

When the neon flecks started to dim, we crawled out of the cave into the black night, unaccompanied by the glow of the things we’d left behind. But we didn’t care. We were gods of creation. Immortal glow-spotted beings. And we laughed and stumbled back to the road as the fluorescent stars in the cave behind us melted into nonexistence.