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Show 132 wherever the moon hit. I could see their bodies slowly submerging until their heads were cutting through the glassy water like dorsal fins. I had been in that cave. Wrapped my hands around the well-worn rope tied to both sides and followed it through the fifteen foot tunnel to the cavern with head space on the other side. Before I sank in the water I was intimidated as I stared into the moon's reflection on the otherwise dark water. I took off my shirt with hesitance and touched the water with my feet. My skin tightened and I felt a charge through my body as my veins started to change colors. I had clutched the rope the whole way, vaulted my body through the water all around me. When I emerged in the cavern I was nervous and afraid that I might somehow lose my energy, and I stayed there long enough only to look around, breathe deep, then swim back. I usually felt the fire of fear in my bones and never stayed long in the cavern, relying on that fire to shoot straight back through to the other side. A few seconds down there, and your own biology is about all you know. It was as good as anything I've felt to rise, dripping, onto the weeds and dirt. The last time I went was just before sunrise. The sky was violet when we arrived. In the time it took to make the hike, move through the ice water, and arise back on the other side, wide-eyed and anxious, the sun fell halfway down the mountain. It felt like rebirth to emerge from dark water like that and back to earth at morning, suddenly warm and bright by contrast. The cave was freezing, constricting, frightening; but quiet and calm, too. And breathing again afterward was to inhale and swallow sunlight. |