Blinded By The Dark

Rishi awoke some days later.

The thirst overwhelmed him. He heard a torrent of water flowing nearby and with great effort forced himself onto his stomach. He crawled carefully toward the sound of the river.

"Pitch blackness, yet again. Somehow I wish this was all just a dream."

Groping carefully as he slid himself along he reached the water's edge and realized that he once again climbed along quartz crystal.

"It must be beautiful in here. I wish there were light.

There was light, but the pounding throb he felt on the front of his head was the buildup of fluid on the front of his brain which prevented his vision from working. His eyes were on, but his visual brain was not.

He bent into the water drinking in a full bellies worth. The water tasted wonderful. Truly wonderful.

He recognized the danger of the torrent flowing so close and began climbing higher in the cave. He felt every crack and crevasse, and avoided the smooth crystal when ever possible.

The echo of the water in the chamber told him that the room was huge. As he climbed he reached a precipice and started climbing down. In a few minutes he his the stream again.

Had he just climbed in a circle? It was a possibility. The spliting headache might be interfering with his sense of direction. He might have come full circle.

"No." He thought, "The stream is flowing the opposite direction. I'm on a peninsula or an island.

He began following the edge of the stream, fifteen minutes of crawling, climbing and walking told him he was on an island.

"Swim now or later?" he thought. "Later. When my head stops splitting."

He climbed to the precipice and found a large flat rock. Shifted it until it made a nice place to sit, sat in full lotus, and closed his eyes.

He reached up and felt his head. It was badly swollen and he felt a scab on the center of his forehead. He must have struck it on his fall. Surely not at the bottom. Probably on the way down. Perhaps that was what knocked him unconscious. Not being a doctor he wondered how badly he had been hurt.

Rishi drifted out of consciousness sitting in full lotus.

The water seemed to grow faster and faster by the hour. When Rishi woke up he could hear it all around him. It had been a mistake to wait.

"If the river takes me," thought Rishi, "so be it. I think I will honor my UncEgg and try to meditate."

Rishi focused on his breath, watching it move in and out. Then he remembered something the old man had said about his breath. "One count inhale, four count hold, nine count exhale."

He practiced this breathing and drifted off. When he returned he was still breathing one, four, nine and his head felt better.

The water flowed around him. Perhaps a couple of inches. It was cold.

He recognized light through his eye lids and tried to open his eyes. They acclimated quickly and he saw the chamber. "The Thousand Meter Cave!" he exclaimed out loud.

His vision was blurry and the light caused pain in his eyes and head but he looked around and saw that the stream to his right was only four feet across and there was a way up to a higher portion of the chamber.

Rishi stood up carefully and noted the beauty around him. Then making a huge leap he just made the ledge and fell onto it.

His strength diminished, as did his eye sight. He crawled as quickly as he could up the chamber to a level at least ten meters above the surface of the water. His strength left, his vision followed and then consciousness put out his lights.

He awoke with the water nipping at his heals again. He could see but it was dark. There was a glimmer of moon light streaming through the quartz at the top of the chamber. He scurried up the chamber. His head felt better and he felt like himself again. "Who had I been before?" he thought.

Looking through the bleak light he saw a cavern opening about twenty meters up. It looked completely attainable. But he wasn't sure it truly was a cavern, it could have been a shadow playing tricks on his eyes.

The water was rising fast now. Although there was no way to know how long it would take because he had lost all sense of time.

He climbed along a wall, along a treacherous outcropping and made his way toward what may have been a cavern opening.

It was a cavern opening and it lead up along a steep incline of loose stone.

He waited at the cave opening, hoping to see the chamber in the light but the water got to him before the sun light did, so he took a drink and he began to climb.

The loose stone made his steps precarious. Often he would pull the rock down risking an avalanche just so he could find decent footing.

He found a small off shoot that lead toward the cave and thought, "I may never be able to come here again. I have to look."

He walked down the smooth surface of what may have been an ancient pathway for the river. There was no loose stone on it. It got quite short and wide at one point and reminded him of the water fall. But then he saw light and crawling forward he stepped into an opening half way up the side of the thousand meter cave. The sun had just risen and he could see the quartz, gypsum, and various other minerals glistening.

"I wonder," he thought, "if this cavern is safe from the water throughout the spring. What a great place to visit for attempted meditation."

Feeling a little tired he sat and drifted to sleep. He awoke a day later with the water just a meter or so from the entrance to his haven.

"I guess its not safe during the spring," he thought as he sprinted down the cavern, crawled on his belly though the narrow portion and then as the light ran out found his up slope and continued up it."