‘The Watery Grave’ is slick, at first, with blood from my various clam-wounds and with a half-stomachful of sea water. It is a difficult place to stand in, looking like some volcanic bubble, some still-born fart from the early, gassy days of the earth when things were still quiet and clean and smooth. I dreaded finding a body- I was sure I would, if not in the tunnel then certainly in the cavern itself, but there are no signs of life except my own. There is the sound of rushing water and sucking air as I watch the tunnel disappear under the black water. Then, the tunnel and the noise are gone, and I am left in absolute stillness.
I have packed well and learned the wisdom of catching my breath. I bandage my wounds and set up a modest camp, laying out blankets on the ground and making a table of my deflated pack. I eat a handful of a bland trail-mix that I make myself for times of lying low. It’s cheap mixture, caloric. Most importantly, it makes me want to not eat, it eventually becomes less desirable than going without.
Later, I am squatting awkwardly over a plastic bag, unable to find the proper balance for anything like a satisfying shit. My thighs ache terribly, my toes clenching and unclenching, shifting like worms in the dim light of my lantern. The only flat place in ‘The Watery Grave’ is the pool of water at the center, the flooded exit. At its fullest it is almost indiscernible from the stone- the potential for a twisted ankle in the short term, maybe a cause for madness over time.
Later, I have removed a marble from my pack, a thick, cat-eyed shooter. I roll it up the walls so that it rolls back. I am launching it in full circles by the time the water has drained halfway again, the marble spinning round and round the room and whizzing like a toy car and rattling at the stone’s invisible imperfections.
Later, the marble drops into the pool in the center and is swallowed, immediately, by the stillness there. I wade in, naked, the water rising to my stomach, and I grope with my feet.
Nothing.
I am startled by a sudden gasping, a sputter that sprays the unprepared stretches of skin across my upper half. I leap out of the water and see that the tunnel is reemerging, now. I watch it, a naked, suspicious man in a dark place. I realize I have not slept and that I am not tired.
There is a noise each time I turn off the light. Before, it was like the low hum of a distant lawn mower. Now it is the ghost of the marble, buzzing in constant circles. I try to sleep, but I wake often to the sound. The tunnel empties and refills in the dark interludes. I lie awake and grow claustrophobic, checking, often, that the pool is still there, that it has not moved. I dream of the sunrise and wake in the dark.
At its fullest, the pool in the center pushes just past the brim, a thin, black jell-o. I watch it and imagine its moving, or, it moves and I chock it up to my imagination. Claustrophobia gives way to boredom as several days pass. I write out song lyrics in dust- in the dust that must be shaking off of me. I forget to put on clothes and lose hours staring at the water.
Even though it’s dark.
Even though the water makes no sound, except for the awful sputtering that wakes me each time I start to doze.
When the shit-bag starts to outweigh the trail-mix, I consider emerging. A week has passed, according to my phone, and, though I have achieved a meditative calm, I recognize that it is being pressed and that it is fragile. To leave ‘The Watery Grave’ in a panic would be disastrous.
I give myself one more day and I start to pack and as I pack I hum a tune that I eventually hear, that I have been hearing and parroting for nearly half an hour. It is a man’s voice and it grows louder as I listen, louder and louder, though still very quiet. Louder relative to itself, and to everything else in the past week. I lean in close to the pool, which will begin its desperate coughing any moment, and I realize too late what is about to happen.
A man emerges with a massive splash, tossing a bag up onto the stone and twisting his shoulder-length hair into a pony-tail. He sees me, crouching in my underwear like some haunted goblin, and he smiles.
“Looks like we’re roomin’ for the night!”
The tunnel disappears below the water and the man begins to hum.
-traveler
