“What exactly are you…looking for? Why…did you come?” His voice was ragged and slow, leaking from his crusted lips like air from a balloon you can’t quite hold closed. I couldn’t see him very well; he was sitting in a far corner of the cave, wrapped in a dark blanket, shadows playing under the angels of his face and his ragged hair. I could see that he was gaunt and dirty, probably living in the outskirts of society for who knows how long. A long time. I couldn’t tell how old he was, but he sounded decrepit.
I was squatting against the back wall of the cave, jacket open, hair wild all over my shoulders and back, playing with matches. My feet hurt from walking all day, but that was the norm now. Had been for weeks. I’d been hoping that they would acclimate by now and I would stop aching at the end of every day.
I looked at him as he talked, wheezing between fragments. I said nothing. And he said nothing more. He was just breathing, waiting. I felt that he wasn’t necessarily waiting for a response, but instead waiting for an internal shift, something to change in me. I didn’t know what he wanted to hear (or feel). I had nothing to say. I was just wandering.
One match finally sparked as the wind died down and I held it upside down to watch the flame climb higher and higher on the short piece of wood. He coughed, I looked up–
Damn it!
I shook my hand hard and flung the now-charred stick across the cave; the flame had climbed up to my fingers and burned me when I looked away. A low, raspy chuckle escaped from his chest, barely audible, like that was what he wanted to happen.
It was the first thing I’d said since I got here, and maybe that was his goal: to break my silence.
It was almost dark and I needed to decide if I wanted to stay, to go, to continue on without any agenda. I didn’t like to travel at night, especially in woods like this. The next town was probably about 15 miles away, and I would probably hit roads with street lamps before it got pitch black, but I would have had to leave immediately. And I felt a feeling of incompleteness, like something was unfinished. I had something more to learn, to discover from this man.
There was something there.
