A bit of advice: if it’s your first time hiking, don’t go alone. 

I’m sure there are quite a few people in my life who could’ve been convinced to drag themselves up a mountain with me. But that’s besides the point. Think for just a moment about how much easier it is to plan and execute a trip alone than with even one other person, and I think you’ll understand my decision.  

Still, if only for the purposes of personal safety and security, suck it up and bring a friend along.  

We’ll go on.  

I’d become lost almost immediately, I think, but the amount of time it took me to realize I was lost was enough for me to find myself significantly more lost than I had been in the beginning.  

Fortunately, I’d at least had the sense to bring a phone, even if it was more to fill my ears than to ensure my safety. Unfortunately, my service plan does not seem to extend into mountain territory.  

The sun is falling. Dark clouds are, with alarming quickness, gathering overhead. I look to my map.  

I’d grabbed this map almost instinctually as I speedwalked from my parking spot to the bathroom in the visitor center. In my arrogance, I’d assumed I’d never actually need to use the map for its intended purpose, and was intending to keep it primarily as a souvenir.  

And I’d lucked out – the map (at least to my untrained eyes) would be much more useful hanging on my wall than it would be as a source of direction. I think about the spot on my wall I’d like to use, if I make it back home.  

It starts to rain. Slowly, but in the way that is clearly building up to a downpour that I’m not capable of handling. My steady pace picks up into a run, following the path forward towards nothing in particular.  

I think about riding my bike in middle school. There was a terrifying, multi-lane highway separating my neighborhood from the other half of town, the half with the mall and fast food and all my friends. On most days, I didn’t dare cross over. But every so often, on occasions when I was particularly sad and bored, there came over me a sort of strange courageous apathy, the kind that can get you to ride your bike across eight lanes of crosswalk. And I made it there and back, untouched, every time. 

I stop running. To my left, slightly obscured behind some foliage growth, is an opening in the rocks, giving way to a featureless black void that I assume hides a cave.  

Thunder booms.  

I have no choice. I enter. 

Darkness surrounds me almost immediately. The flashlight on my phone, which is not (at least as of this update) tied to an internet connection, illuminates the way.  

The scenery ahead is indistinct – stone surfaces on all sides and a nothingness that seems to extend back forever.  

It occurs to me that I have never actually been in a cave. All my experience is through stories, true and fiction, through articles and movies and broadcasts and books.  

I think about all the things that happen to the people in those caves, in those stories. And for some reason, I keep walking forward. 

I don’t know how much time passes before the light hits the back wall. But it does, eventually, when I’m a few yards away.  

There is something back there, on the ground. 

I become aware of two things in quick succession. First is that this something on the ground is immensely powerful (or, at least, this is how I mistakenly classified it at the time). I can sense clearly that there are no limits to what it is capable of, and so being stupid and mortal and human I think only of power, of the ability of this thing to do great harm. 

The second thing I become aware of is that this something on the ground is alive.  

It does not display any traditional signifiers of life, no movement or breathing or warmth (it is above them), and yet as life it is clear to me that it is alive. 

And then, after a moment, after these thoughts have had a chance to sit with me, I become aware of a third fact. That this mass, this indiscernible, indescribable thing, this living possibility, can be changed. Can be molded. Can be brought down from the infinite to finite, with but a thought from an observer. 

And here I am.  

I consider what might happen if I walked away. If another were to stumble into here, lost and looking for shelter, and found themselves standing where I am. I think about all the terrible intentions that person might have. I think about my own. 

Infinite possibility. My mind goes to grandiose ideas about saving the world, about ending hunger and homelessness and making everyone get along. And then it proceeds, in a quite disorderly fashion, to thinking about all the ways in which whatever I conjure would result in everything getting screwed up. I feel as though I’ve stumbled across a third of a genie. 

Then – shame. I am no better than that hypothetical future person stumbling into the cave, exerting my will to get power over the world. This thing is alive. 

As am I. 

I reflect back. Life’s been fine. I have no particular high hopes for the future, and no particularly disastrous thoughts about the current state of my existence. I enjoy it, I guess. Living. I wonder if I might enjoy it more if my family had been a bit less messed up and if I’d had a better time in school and if I’d have tried after graduating instead of just sitting around. I think about all the mistakes I wouldn’t make, if I only could’ve been there for myself. 

I look down at the something for the last time as I make a decision. My eyes close.  

I’m back at the front of the cave. The rain has finally stopped. I step back out onto the trail, cradling the baby in both arms.