A Bit of a Wash

Rishi pushed himself along the smooth floor of the narrow cave into the moister air below. His light showed a glimmer of something, far along the descending cave. He knew it was the pool he had dreamed.

Suddenly the moisture on the floor increased and he found it easier and easier to slide.

He had just enough time to think, "this is easy," when he realized that he wasn't able to stop himself from moving.

The floor of the cave had grown wider and his feet no longer touched the walls. He began to slide faster and faster down the cave. The very distant glimmer from his flash light approached much more quickly than he cared to admit.

He flipped onto his back hoping to grab the ceiling with his hands but it raced away from him. The corridor had opened into a room.

He did not want to get wet. He did not want to disturb the water. He tried to maneuver sideways, tried to make it to the edge, but he fell flat on his face.

The floor of the cave began to level off as he approached the pool of water. As he attempted to lift his head to see how close he was to the water, his face splashed into it and he stopped moving.

He pushed himself upward, grasping for breath. Terrified of water since birth, he had never allowed himself to be this close to any body of water no matter how small. Glasses to drink and showers to wash were all he tolerated.

He tried to stand on the wet floor and slipped again, this time falling hard one hand landing in the pool.

He rolled to the side, away from the pool and then used his little flash light to look around the chamber. He would not attempt to stand again.

The chamber was large. It was so large that he couldn't see the ceiling or the walls with his weak little light. Glancing toward the pool he could not see over it or where it went, he only noted that it too stretched left and right toward the impenetrable dark.

"Surely," he thought, "the old man drinks from here, surely he knows how to get out."

As if to answer him he heard the very distant voice of the old man. "I'm afraid you are on your own Rishi, I know better than to go in that room because the old man who lived here before warned me when I accepted his first lesson. I have never been in that room. I drink water elsewhere.

"You mean I'm stuck!" shouted Rishi.

"Oh no. There is a way out."

"I have rope!" Cried Rishi.

"I have checked, it is not long enough."

"You will come and help me?" Asked Rishi. His voice echoed around the chamber and he marked how large the chamber must be to create an echo of that delay.

"I cannot help you Rishi, you found your way to the goddess and she has shown you that you must always bow when you approach her. Her ways of teaching are quite slick, wouldn't you agree?"

The old man said that last sentence in English which showed his mastery of it. Perhaps it was his native language.

Rishi took a deep breath and thought, "There must be a way out of here."

He carefully attempted to crawl toward the left side of the cave along the still and lucid pool of water.

The humid air felt good in his lungs. The hard damp stone under his hands and knees felt comforting. As he crawled toward the edge he looked for the wall. It was many minutes before he found it. The pool met the wall here, there was no way around the pool to go forward.

It was at this point that Rishi's mind began to clear. "I must conserve my flash light."

He switched it off, placed it deep within his pant's pocket and felt along the wall trying to use it to climb up the slippery slope toward the opening he had entered.

As he crawled his hiking slacks became more and more coated with the slime rubbing off the surface of the stone. Why had he not put on his caving equipment? Why had he been so rash to explore?

He got a dozen meters or so when his slimed jeans stopped being an aid and slipped out from under him. He fell flat on his stomach and slid down the slope slowly coming to a rest a few feet from the pool of water.

He flicked on his flash light and could just make out the wall he had attempted to use to escape the chamber.

Then, back up on his hands and knees, he made his way toward the right wall. It was some ten minutes before he got there. This was indeed a large cavern. The pool of water filled the rest of the cave and he could not tell how large it was.

"I should at least have put on my cleats," he grumbled under his breath.

Switching off his flash light again, he tried again to use the wall to propel him toward the entrance he had fallen through.

The floor here was not so wet and he made good progress until he go to a point which was roughly thirty meters from the pool, there his hand slipped and he tumbled down coming to rest directly next to the pool, exactly where he had first crashed.

"This is so frustrating!" Thought Rishi.