Qualities & Talents

"I must have a name for you old man," said Rishi, "we have known each other for nearly two years and I feel ridiculous calling you old man."

"Your ridicule is my newly found function," replied the old man wryly. "Names," he continued, "are useless ... you might as well call me Bob."

The old man shuttered and thought, "what was I thinking!"

"Bob!" shouted Rishi. "That's perfect!"

"You can't call me Bob. I forbid it!"

"What ever you say, goes Bob," replied Rishi, "I am your servant."

The Old Man put his right hand on his forehead and wondered, "how could I let my birth name slip out like that?"

Then a feeling of knowing came over him. He brought up his beloved coconuts of future possibilities and noticed that the number of outcomes had increased by several orders of magnitude since yesterday.

"I see," said the old man, "you have found the qualities of your talent. You helped loosen my tongue."

"Yes." Said Rishi. "Its exactly as you said, right before my eyes the whole time, I have a track into people's minds through my own will."

"You understand..." said the old man before Rishi interrupted him.

"I know. I know. I must be careful how I use my talent."

"Very careful. Need I remind you that it was my talent that enabled us to both survive the trial of your fears and it was only because I faced my own fear that my talent could save us at all."

"Yeah, I know. I promise to be careful. Its not like we meet people up here anyway. What have we seen, like maybe a dozen of your worldly students in the two years since I arrived?"

Rishi laid back on his dusty old sleeping bag and surveyed the cave. It was cool, dank and stank. He absolutely adored the smell of it. It was home to him. He could just make out the entrance in the distance with its trickle of light flowing down to Bob and him.

"Ha!" he thought to himself. "The old man is Bob."

Bob stood up and headed toward the cave entrance. "I'm going down to find out where our suppliers are. Are you going to search for the 1000 meter cave?"

"That's what I do every day Bob."

Bob growled and said, "I'll stop you from prying my mind in the future. You know I can."

"Yes," said Rishi, "but I'll get satisfaction every time I say, 'hi Bob!'".

Rishi rolled off his sleeping back, picked it up and followed Bob to the cave entrance.

"You could tell me your last name," said Rishi, "I'll call you by that if you like."

"You'll get no more information from me!" shouted Bob.

Rishi laughed as they hit the cave entrance. In a few seconds he squinted out into the morning sunlight and stepped around the old man.

He shook out his sleeping bag, trying his best to eliminate any dry soil that had gathered from the cave floor. Then he rolled it up and carried it back into the cave.

There hadn't been any food for a few days so Rishi and 'Bob' were fasting. Bob called back to Rishi and said, "I'll be back this evening with food, if I'm not you best fend for yourself, okay?"

"Got cha Bob," replied Rishi.

Rishi traveled past Bob's animal skins and back in the cave toward the watering hole. When he got there he noticed it was nearly empty. It had been a dry and cold winter. Water, the Rishi knew, was not an issue. Where he was going there would be lots of water, too much in fact for him to get past to make it to the 1000 meter cave.

Every day he mapped out new pathways in the cavern complex. He knew more about these caves than anyone had ever known but he still could not find a safe way to the 1000 meter cave. He had climbed up the slide and retraced his steps to the top of the cave, looked down into it and wondered if he should get a rope. But there at the top of the cave he saw a grand opening in its western wall. He knew there had to be a way to get to that cave, but as of yet he'd not been able to find it.

He hiked up and down the caves and then squeezed through a tiny opening into a small chamber with several large stalactites. There were no stalagmites because water flowed through here for thousands of years, preventing their formation. Rishi jumped up and grabbed a ledge in the top of the chamber. He couldn't see where he was but he knew the cave so well that he didn't need to.

His eyes continued to adjust and he began to see the green glowing algae as he pulled himself, snakelike, along the floor of this narrow passage way.

"Into the chamber of possibilities," he thought, "a physical representation of what Bob sees in his head when he closes his eyes."

A memory surfaced. "Why won't you tell me the way to the 1000 meter cave?" Rishi heard himself ask. Bob replied, "Because you must find it on your own and it'll help keep you busy."

"But you can see the route?"

"Yes, several routes, one of which you know, but of course that way is certain death if you should try to enter. In late summer when the water is calm, it is not deep enough for you to jump in from the top of the cave and in the winter when the water is deep enough you will get swept downward in the caves and drown to death."

"I'm not very fond of water as it is," though Rishi once the memory dissipated.

Rishi sat in the chamber of possibilities, closed his eyes and tried to meditate.