The Cave

I ventured deep inside a cave. Down into the warmth of the earth. Into a place where the sounds of the surface are left behind.

It’s beautiful.

The rocks were magnificent. Each different formation had a name, ‘Actors on a stage’ or ‘The father of federation’, who faced the only exit.

But these were young names given to impossibly old monuments that have no thoughts or feelings. They neither love nor hate.

Yet attractive and full of mystery, the cave didn’t seem an important place for humans to venture. 

That is, until my light went out.

It was total darkness. No phone screens, no torches and no lighters.

Nothing.

I could not see my hand in front of my face.

Heavy is the air that held me.

In that pure darkness, with my breath held silently in the still air, I discovered something.

I exist.

I could still feel my hands. I could feel the texture of the rocks surrounding me.

To base existence on the perceived reality of touch, or any other sense, is far from profound. It was more than that. I based my existence on the following:

I felt the gentle warmth of skin brush past me for a split second.

In the billions of years the cave took to form, that minuscule fraction of time was the most powerful. A fraction of time smaller than a particle of mist that lands in the ocean.

I exist and so do you.

The external is real.

I climb to the surface with the other explorers. The sounds of nature return to my ears.

My eyes have become windows. I’m now a guest in this world.

In the light under the warmth of the sun, I feel that moment of invisible beauty.

Existence.

– By Randall Evans.