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What a strange world this swimming without water. He felt light, floating in a blackness that suddenly seemed thick or heavy somehow. But there was light! Bursts of silver white. Like bright falling stars or many flashes from musket muzzles. The lights came with each sudden pain as if a warrior’s club had struck his head.
He opened his eyes. No! They were already open. He opened and closed his eyelids to make sure. Still, the blackness sealed away everything with its thick nothingness.
Was he blind?
He?
Who was he? What name should he call himself? Try as he may, sense would not come to this moment. He had not judgment nor wisdom to place himself or direction to draw his next thought.
Tightened muscles and quick breaths brought unquiet alarm. He recognized quickly what moved him to concern. Dead calm. Nothing ruffled. Why were there no sounds? No birdcalls or voices. No leaves rustling or the soft swishing of pine tree branches yielding momentarily to the wind. But now one sound did come to him. Water. Soft gurgling sounds as water flowed over rocks in some stream not faraway.
He was on his back. He knew that for sure because he could reach his left arm up into the space in front of him. There was pressure on his chest, arms, legs, but nothing pressed on his face. He started to lift his head but pain drove him back. Then he thought to move his other arm but some force held him fast, held him down on a hard surface. The force pressed harder, and he struggled, shoved, twisted, grunted with pain and effort. Then something moved. The load on his arm left, followed by clicking sounds of stones rolling away, ending in soft thumps and louder thuds. He moved his hands toward his waist. More rocks on his stomach and legs. Heavy. Painful. He began to raise himself to a sitting position, shoving stones aside . . . fighting the pain and the disturbing streaks of light.
He knew it now. Buried! Dead and covered with stone. This must the dark Spirit World, he reasoned..
With the rocks gone, he moved his legs and stretched. Nothing broken. But stinging pain came from what must be cuts on his legs, and a thick trickle . . . no, oozing ran down the left side of his face, over his ears onto his shoulder.
Pain? Blood? He was alive! Somehow, he was alive in a dark world.
Such a senseless world. Surely memory, light, maybe even real images would soon replace the blackness. Warning, maybe even fright attacked his struggle for clear thinking. He must make himself safe from the spirits of this dark underworld. He felt for a silver band on his left arm. None. No protection.
His mind leaped into alarm.
Silver band?
Protection?
Wisdom must be returning. But not enough?
The pain again. He raised his left hand to his forehead and swept it down over his ear and neck. A wetness, a sticky wetness, near the pain. It trickled, and seeped over his body. More blood? He patted the ground around him. No grass to wipe his hands. Only a thin, gritty crust of dust barely covering a surface he took to be rock. He took a deep breath and dust lodged in his nose and mouth. When he coughed, he instantly grabbed his head with both hands as if to somehow contain the intense throbbing. Taking to hands and knees on the bare rock floor, he crawled around in a small circle until one hand found a stick wrapped with cloth. He picked it up and smelled. Grease of some animal coated the cloth. Groping around, he found another stick close by and gathered it to his side. There were no words to tell him what he was doing, but he continued his motions. Searching.
But he knew not the thing for which he sought.
Faint. Consciousness began to fade and he settled down on the ground, on his back. Then a hacking cough drew him to a sitting position. Again, thick air stuffed itself into his lungs and smothered his breathing. He sniffed the chalky air. Dust so thick he could touch it, taste it. The coughing ended. He felt the left side of his face and arms . . . crusty and cold, legs chilled and bare. Some manner of clothing started just at his knees and ran to his waist, a vest hung from his shoulders. He put a hand to his stomach and found a belt or a sash. Then a pouch.
This numb mind still would not give reason for his actions, but he moved with some forced purpose nonetheless. Back to the pouch. He fumbled inside and found four slick stones and two rough, sharp ones. With the rough stones in his hands, he felt compelled to strike one on the other. Sparks. He held the stones close to the cloth on his stick, and hit the stones together rapidly. More jagged pieces of hot stone flew into the cloth. Blowing hard, the stick finally glowed and a small yellow circle went a short distance, then grew larger, danced and bounced around before him.
He was in a room. A large room with rocks for walls and ceiling. Scattered about all matter of things glowed from his light. Many of them looked like the white skins colored glass that hung from the women’s ears, necks, wrists and fingers. Red and blue glass like eyes staring at him reflected the light. The slick stones in his pouch came to mind? He reached and drew them out. Yes, the same as the others in the room. How did they get in his pouch? Was he a spirit that collected these things? No. Spirits do not experience pain.
What world is this that has no meaning? His mind whirled. A name? A place? A reason?
Whatever guided him now came from some action from the past for at this moment he could not tether two thoughts to make sense. Cold air gripped him and he shivered.
Maybe he could stand now. He staggered to an upright position, but the seemingly liquid world gave little support and he reeled from side to side. As he sat down on a mound, he nudged something which brought forth clinking sounds that mixed with hollow thumps of tumbling metal cups. He bent and placed his elbows on his knees and looked down between his legs. Among the shiny objects lay a silver band with a space in the middle. Large enough to go around his upper arm. Ah, protection. But it seemed so far away as the swirling, fainting spell came back. He managed to pick it up, sit upright and place it around his left arm.
He turned to his right and the circle of light fell on a pile of huge rocks that ran from the floor to the ceiling. A twist to the left and straight-ahead, about forty paces, an opening through a wall of sorts. At least, there had been a part of a wall there but the whole back of the cave had crumbled forward and created a wide opening into another room or passageway.
He looked down at where he laid moments ago. His body had fit into a crevice between stacks of bags of yellow metal and other things made of silver placed along the sidewall. Some spirit had watched over him because many rocks fell around him and only a few heavy ones had covered him. Obviously, some had found his head. He ran his hand over the length of his body. No blood in other places, but he could feel lumps and knots over his legs and arms.
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