The Cave

By: Nathan Fletcher

There is a cave beneath the mountain.

Or perhaps there was a fire first,
and the mountain grew around it.

I no longer know.

Age rearranges memory.

The cave remains.

That much is certain.

Most never find it.

That is for the best.

The entrance is little more than a wound in stone,
a black seam hidden among weather and years.

Easy to miss.

Easy to mistake for nothing.

Yet the air changes there.

Colder.

Older.

The scent of rain-soaked earth
and iron sleeping beneath rock.

A few steps inward,
the world begins to loosen its grip.

A few more,
and daylight no longer feels important.

Water falls somewhere in the darkness.

Slowly.

Patiently.

As though time itself
has found a crack in the mountain.

The stone breathes.

The silence watches.

The shadows move

like memories that never entirely died.

And deeper still,
where darkness becomes something almost holy,

a fire burns.

It has always burned.

Beside it sits a boy.

Or sat.

Perhaps he still does.

Time behaves strangely in caves.

One hand rests toward the flame.

Not touching.

Close enough to feel its warmth.

Close enough to know it is real.

He is not weak.

That is the first mistake people make.

The second is assuming
he does not understand.

He watches.

He listens.

He learns.

The world touches him.

Sometimes gently.

Sometimes not.

Years later,

certain voices remain.

Certain rooms.

Certain silences.

Not because he chose them.

Because they stayed.

The boy says little.

About any of it.

The fire says nothing.

Yet both are paying attention.

Years pass.

Or moments.

Again,
time behaves strangely here.

The dragon appears.

Not with thunder.

Not with spectacle.

As though he had always been there,
waiting beyond the reach of the firelight.

Red.

Ancient.

Beautiful in the way storms are beautiful.

Terrible in the way truth can be terrible.

Most who see him
notice the teeth.

The claws.

The heat.

Few notice the restraint.

Fewer still understand it.

The greatest dragons
are not dangerous
because they might become monsters.

They are dangerous
because they already have.

And chose another path.

There are caverns
even the dragon avoids.

Places beneath the mountain
where old hungers sleep.

Where rage still remembers its name.

He knows the way there.

He simply no longer travels it.

Once,
he forgot.

Once,
he mistook fire for a throne.

And everything near him burned.

When he returned,
there was smoke in his lungs.

Ash in his mouth.

The water still fell.

The stone still breathed.

The fire still waited.

For the first time,
the dragon lowered his head.

Not before fear.

Not before power.

Before purpose.

And from that day forward,
he guarded the flame.

Willingly.

The king carries graves.

Not bodies.

Versions of himself.

Dreams that could not survive reality.

Certainties buried without ceremony.

A younger man laid to rest

so an older one could keep his word.

The weight of a crown

has never been gold.

It has always been memory.

The sage sits nearest the water.

Listening.

He learned long ago

that feelings are often poor judges,

but useful witnesses.

So he listens.

The water says nothing.

The cave remains.

Not beneath the mountain.

Beneath me.

I have descended there
in triumph.

In grief.

In rage.

In exhaustion.

I have entered believing
I was right.

I have left knowing
I was wrong.

I have buried men there.

Not others.

Myself.

Versions of myself
I once thought would live forever.

More than once,

life brought me

to the mouth of the cave

with nothing left to offer

but honesty.

Even so,

the water fell.

The stone breathed.

The fire endured.

And always,

always,

the boy sat beside it.

Not older.

Not younger.

Unchanged.

As though time itself
lost its authority
the moment it entered the cave.

The dragon remained nearby.

Silent.

Watching.

The fire reflected
in scales the color of old blood.

Sometimes I wondered
which guarded which.

The dragon the flame.

The flame the dragon.

The boy both.

Or neither.

The water never answered.

It simply kept falling.

Patiently.

As it always had.

As it always will.

The years took their share.

They took men
I thought would walk beside me forever.

They took futures
I mistook for promises.

They took versions of myself
I buried with my own hands.

Still,

the water fell.

The fire endured.

And when age comes at last

to bargain for the fire,

it will find me where it always has.

Listening to water

older than memory.

The water still falling.

The fire still burning.