The Cave

She hadn’t gone on a hike for some time. When she woke up that day, and all the stuff she needed to do started piling up in her head, she decided to take a hike.

But she had promised to take Betty to chemotherapy, and the girls, her granddaughters Suzie and Nicole, needed to be driven to school, and the refrigerator was empty again, and the laundry basket was full again – not to mention the Women’s League meeting, and dealing with the membership committee at church. And didn’t she have a doctor’s appointment – or was it the dentist? To hell with the dentist. And it turned out that Betty’s chemotherapy was not due until the next day.

She asked Bob, who was already watching the early news program, to please drive the girls to school today and he said O.K. She got dressed, noticed again that her sneakers were in tatters, but never mind, jumped into the Malibu, and drove up to the Finger Rock trailhead.

You have to hike early in Arizona, as it gets pretty hot pretty fast. But now the air was light, the sky wide open, and the space all around well defined. She didn’t mind that the stones were sharp, the plants prickly, the critters rustling about unlikely pets. 

After some time of walking uphill, she recognized a flat stone she had used before to rest and enjoy the view of Tucson spreading out below. She thought she knew the trail well, but now she noticed something different in the rock formation to the side. She hesitated: disturbing a nest of rattlers or walking in on a mountain lion’s lair was a distinct possibility. But she wondered about having missed this spot before and decided to investigate.

She left the trail and approached what now looked like a sharp rock edge. And sure enough, behind the outcropping there was an opening. She hesitated, and regretted having forgotten the cell phone again, which she could have used to light her way. Never mind, she would be careful. Placing her right hand against the side of the rock for balance, she stepped forward.

Surprisingly, the ground under her feet didn’t feel rough. She stuck close to the slab of rock on her right, and when it seemed to curve, she followed. She wasn’t sure whether her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark, or whether there was another source of light somewhere else, maybe up above. She had heard of mine pits in the area.

Now her feet were moving forward step by step, as if on a path. It was a path, because it seemed to be leading somewhere. And sure enough, there was another source of light ahead. As the rock wall guided her to yet another turn to the right, the light source, first tentative and diffuse, revealed itself before her in full force. What was it exactly?

The ridiculous thought of a giant mirror placed in the middle distance flashed through her mind. But it was not a mirror as it didn’t reflect anything. As her eyes, first blinded by the strange phenomenon, adjusted to her surroundings, she realized that she was in a large hollow space and that she was not alone.

There were seats, arranged in a semicircle, facing a light-suffused wall. The seats were not like pews exactly, but it felt like she was in a church.  There was no service in progress, yet the seats were filled with people. They sat still and looked at the wall.

She walked to the side so the lighted wall would not monopolize her attention. As she focused on the people, she realized that they seemed organized in distinct groups. She couldn’t make it all out just then, but the group nearest to where she stood were all wearing the same outfit, colored a shade of brown or maybe green. The light from the wall bounced off something on their chests: it looked like they were covered by rows of little pieces of shiny metal.

The group in front of them occupied the front rows. They were wearing regular clothes, and baseball caps. They did not look trim like the others but tended to be on the stocky side. She wasn’t sure, but they seemed to be munching something: was it popcorn?

There was a third group, further back. They were wearing their Sunday best, and they were holding hands, swaying gently side to side. Sometimes one of them would jump up, and maybe say something.

She moved to the other side of the seating semi-circle and tried to make out what the people there looked like. They were nice looking, both the young and the old, and sharp dressers. They stared at the lighted wall with a sense of anticipation as if they had placed their bets and knew the outcome.

The people in front of them were like the people in the front row on the other side. The only difference was that they were seated at an angle and the light from the wall did not reach them as well as the others. They were in the dark: they looked dark.

It occurred to her that she was missing something. What about the back rows? If there were people there, they were furthest from the light wall, and likely in a separate category. She walked back that way, but there was a divider of some sort, a railing, and in any case, the show started, and she too began to watch the wall.

It felt, somehow, that the show was meant for her, and her alone. She had skipped breakfast in her hurry to get out, and the offerings on the wall began to absorb her. Bowls of cereal, studded with brightly colored raisins and filling slowly with silky milk poured out by an invisible hand moved toward her, growing bigger and bigger. She realized that there was music, that it was the music that animated everything. The music turned syncopated, only to slow down expectantly when slabs of lasagna drooling melted cheese grew to fill the entire wall. Was it lunch time already? She had been standing all this time and felt the need to sit down. She wondered which group she should sit with.

She decided to go to the front where she had seen an empty seat. She would have to edge her way past some big guys. No problem, they were all watching a football game. Her Dad had taken her to baseball games. She was thrilled to hang out with him, but there also was an undercurrent of nagging boredom she valiantly tried to ignore. The game was really slow, and whatever her Dad kept talking about went over her head.

Later, a very cute boyfriend made her look at football games on TV, but she would have

really rather spent the time necking. He was telling her all about the goal posts and lines of scrimmage and all the tactical moves and grand strategy involved, but all she saw was guys making weird signs with their fingers or tapping their helmets.

She prepared to maybe get it this time around. Those guys were huge. Their king-size shoulder pads and head masks were obviously there for protection because they lunged at each other like bulls. But then repeatedly things just stopped. Sometimes somebody tried to run for it, but everybody piled up on him. What was the point? Maybe it was more of a wrestling match – but don’t thy say wrestling matches are fake?  What she now saw didn’t look fake at all: they were biting, head butting, and eye-gouging each other. And all around her the guys went wild. They jumped up and yelled and laughed and gave each other high fives.

On the wall the action changed suddenly: long-legged girls marched up and down, shaking their booties, but that was nothing: a huge troop of dancers in glittering costumes filled the screen, a rousing choir sounded off, and then a smallish rather blah looking woman was swung down from on high from some sort of cable in the midst of it all – and she did have a big voice. The woman jumped up and down, and belted out some song, and fireworks exploded, and planes rushed the scene overhead. She noticed that all around her was in a hush now. Everyone stood up, hand on heart, and pledged.

She decided that it would be easier to get out of this group the other way, toward the aisle. The front seats across the aisle were still poorly lit, but it seemed that the show they were looking at was the same. Only the light was dim, and now she noticed that the

players were all black. The light would go out altogether from time to time, and anyway, she had seen the game, and decided to check out the middle groups.

She found a seat among the guys in the green-brown outfits. She was disappointed because it looked like they too were watching a football game. Here too the players were huge, but their padding was up-to-date tactical body vests wired with weaponized optics and imaging devices, and their helmets were mounted with screens. The heavy equipment was really part of their body. They looked like they were growing in size and power before her very eyes, and they could accelerate their pace at will. They were now bounding over high walls and leaping across roof tops. They were surrounded by firework explosions in technicolor and lightning bolted from their fingers as phalanx upon phalanx of the faceless enemy was zapped below.

But this high-powered performance, despite some variations and the obligatory suspense, always sided with the digital heroes. And she was wrong about the faceless enemy: they were terrifying monsters. But no matter how massive the invasion rising from below – they were always wiped off the slate. She began to find this rather predictable. The people around her, however, stood to attention, saluting. She decided to check out another group.    

The group immediately behind welcomed her, and she found herself holding hands with them. They were singing, and people on the lighted wall were also singing: the football stadium was chock full of them. They were doing the wave, and as if birthed by the fused

heartbeat of the crowd a single voice rose from it and thundered with the revelation, the annihilation, the conflagration of the end of times… but not for us, not for her. For her, the word, instead, was RAPTURE! It promised the good news of rising from the ashes of this life into the glory of life everlasting.

As she contemplated this radiant vison of herself hovering on the light wall, she felt the grip of her neighbor’s hand soften, and gently come to rest on her thigh. She turned her head to look at him. He was an elderly gent, about Bob’s age. He never turned his head as his hand moved to the inside of her thigh and began to creep further up. This unexpected turn of events was a definite wake-up call in the midst of her out-of-body trip. She moved the man’s hand away and struggled out of the group.      

She felt like running away but didn’t. She just had to see it all. She thought that maybe the large group of the nice-looking people across the aisle would hold a promise of something different. Those people looked normal. They looked congenial with each other, they looked like her friends and neighbors, and she felt congenial with them.  

She sat down among them and prepared to watch the show. The people on the wall looked just like the people around her. Sometimes a couple of them would fill the screen, smiling, nodding their heads. She felt, for some reason, that they must be discussing the weather.

But then the background would change and a number of them stood on the steps of official buildings, smiling for the cameras, shaking hands. Sometimes they addressed other well-dressed people, likely inside those official buildings – in congress halls, or court rooms, or board rooms. Or they shook hands with each other in the lobbies of the same official buildings, congress halls, court rooms, board rooms, maybe resort hotels. And definitely on golf courses: they did not wear business suits on those occasions.  

She wasn’t sure why, but she began to feel uncomfortable. She wanted to talk to the people around her, to ask them questions, but they were unresponsive. It was like they were caught up in the constant smiling, hand-shaking round. Like they were part of it, like they got it, but she didn’t. Somebody did say something about pledging, or registering, or petitioning, or serving, or marketing, or investing, or voting, or hedging. These nice, smart-looking people really looked like they were having a good time.

Everybody was having a good time in this place, except her. What was wrong with her? She decided enough was enough, she needed to get out. She stood up, turned her back on the wall, and looked for the exit. But that was like turning her back on the light and stepping into darkness. She went on gingerly, following what she thought was the line of the seats toward the back. 

Again, it occurred to her that there must be people occupying the back rows. She had forgotten about the railing, and now stumbled up against it. She tried to regain balance and grasped at something that felt like a handle or a lever. This lever began to move, and the floor at her feet began to move. She clutched at the railing and just stood there, watching the floor glide away, opening to something like an orchestra pit. They, whoever they were, were not sitting in the back rows, but in this separate, secluded, secret place.

It was a rather small group, and sure enough, they were playing musical instruments. There was no conductor to direct them, but they were in sync. They were looking at some sort of switchboard, or panel. It looked like they were reading it like the notes of a musical score, but the process was interactive. What they were playing seemed to also change the patterns on the panel itself.

She figured she wasn’t supposed to be there and crouched on the floor. She began to see how they were managing it all, how they amplified the sound or switched the settings, and how they synchronized sound effects to visual clues. At some point a world map appeared on the switchboard, and dots on that map began to light up. The trumpet man stood up and sounded off, and the planes she had seen during the football game took off and roared away.

She looked back to check the wall behind her, maybe to see where the planes were heading now, but it showed nothing. For a brief moment there was a close-up of the warriors in their impregnable armor. They were straining under their heavy gear, trudging on, and the ground was swampy, the ground was stony, the ground was barren. But one of the musicians played the piccolo and this was immediately erased.

Instead, people on the wall were now wandering in a dimly lit city, and the music was taking her along with them. Some of them were coming out of side streets in twos and threes. Others were outlined in lighted windows, waiting for something. Main street was full of the people now, and they were all moving together, carried by the music. The music grew intense. Straight ahead, gradually lifted up by beams of light, and radiating above the crowd, there appeared a sign. It was a silver dollar.

Bells rang out up above, but the people didn’t wake up. If they had, they would see what she saw: like in some old movie out of Depression times, they were all standing in bread lines. But that was a glitch, quickly corrected.  The silver dollar shone as big as the full moon.

She wondered about the dark people sitting on the wrong side of the front rows. What could they see as the light went on and off? Some of them did get onto the football fields. Many of them got to trudge in the jungles and deserts with the heavy equipment on their backs. One of them even got to sit in the orchestra pit. Did he look away when a helicopter, or was it a drone, showed up on the wall? It was surveying big compounds surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. Trucks full of dark people lined up at the gate, then the gates opened, and swallowed them up. No wonder they kept turning the lights off where the rest of them were sitting.

She wondered what else was hidden. She wondered about those planes, so quickly sent off on cue, and where they were heading. But nothing came up. Then she saw the wall switch from technicolor to black and white, and it filled with women and children. They

looked ragged and emaciated. The women clutched at the children and ran. They ran away from burning cities, and burning villages, and burning fields. And the planes screeched low and bombs whistled and the earth shook. But the vision was so brief, that she wondered if it had only taken place in her head. She looked at the wall, and the scene there was a glitzy beauty pageant.

She tried to concentrate, she tried to see on the wall what there really was to see. Clouds gathered and filled the screen. Winds began to blow. Sheets of water poured down, ice caps melted, and the oceans rose. The elements collided, whirled and danced across the earth. The earth was still at last, and empty. Then the brief vision vanished, the nice-looking men and women reappeared on the wall, smiling as they discussed the weather.

In the orchestra pit, the guys were also smiling. They were playing a Mozart-like piece, the nice people on the wall were now wearing wigs and dancing the minuet in the Versailles hall of mirrors. Their feet didn’t touch the ground: it was a puppet show.

She felt sick: her heart was pounding and her skin felt creepy. She knew she was trespassing and began to back away from the pit. Holding on to the railing until she felt her way back to the rocky side wall, she began to retrace her steps. It took a while, but she knew not to look back. After another turn, the Arizona sun greeted her at last with its fiery welcome.

She sat down on the flat stone and looked down at the town spread before her. She had a message for the people now, she had something to tell them.

First off, she would tell Bob all about it. About the wall and the various groups looking at it, and how a handful of people in the orchestra pit ran the whole show. He’d better stop watching the news and listen to her. Wasn’t it obvious that they knew all his buttons and played him for a fool? And what would he say and what would he do? He would look at her, and smile, and say something about her latest conspiracy theory. He would say something like, sure, there are bad news outlets, but also perfectly respectable ones, like the ones he always watched. Yes, he would smile and keep watching the news.

Then she would tell the girls – what could she tell the girls? That the Sixth Extinction was in progress, and that their young lives were doomed? Would they even look up from their smart phones?

What about the Women’s League at the next meeting? Women could, women should know better: not parade at football games, not fight for equal opportunity to die as soldiers. They need to start from scratch, reconnect with their old alliance with Mother Earth, sound the alarm, and call to action. She knew well what her good friends at the

League would do. They would give her a puzzled look: were they not doing just that already? After all, this was big time: a woman, at long, long last, was running for president. Their job was all laid out for them, and they meant business.    

She considered her chances at church. Her church was not about end times, they had their feet well planted in the here-and-now. Right now, the whole congregation was in the throes of a power struggle between the bean counters who worried about the budget, and the expansion enthusiasts who militated for bold action. After all, attendance was low, and something had to be done. Exactly! She would step in and tell them about her journey.  She would tell them that she had had a vision, and that she had seen the truth. Really? Well no, she didn’t mean like end-times or fire-and-brimstone. Actually, she did, in a way. They too would smile, and the minister would crack one of his jokes, and the budget debate would resume.  

And what could, what would she tell her friend Betty? That she had had this amazing adventure?  Struggling with chemotherapy was enough adventure for Betty. Yes, yes, O.K., she would take her to chemotherapy tomorrow, and drive the girls to school, and get the groceries, and do the laundry. And yes, check about her dental appointment. She stood up and started down on her way home.