The Ascent(2)

After a time, I realized I could make out the paleness of my hands in the darkness, which meant the darkness was not absolute after all. Squinting, I discovered the suggestion of light issuing from a coin-sized opening somewhere far above my head. I did not know if this was actual daylight or just its reflection off a frozen, glossy spire. It was like trying to weed out reality in a hall of mirrors.

The flashlight came to life in my hands, startling me. I aimed thebeam into the hole where the light dulled to a milky nothingness. The fall could have been twenty or thirty feet, but I couldn’t tell for sure. The flashlight’s beam fell upon vague indentations in the walls, which might serve as handholds, but the passageway itself looked dubiously narrow. How in the hell had I managed to fall down such a tight shaft?

You came down that way, I told myself. You can climb back up.

Taking a deep breath, I attempted to stand on my one good leg. My thighs, which had been soaking in the stagnant, icy water, were practically numb. The shaft was narrow enough to lean against and keep pressure off my wounded leg, although the mere act of readjusting its position sent fireworks up my spine. I gritted my teeth so hard I nearly ground them to powder. Still, I raised myself on one leg, easing my head and shoulders into the hole in the cave ceiling. I heard the fabric of my anorak ripping and the metal hooks on my belt scraping against the stone. Each exhalation brought my breath back in my face. The opening was snug enough to disallow my arms to pass through; panic shook me as, for one terrifying second, I felt stuck.

Then somehow I managed to free myself and push through. Halfway up, the flexing of my muscles caused the space to tighten around me, and I froze with one hand pinned against my chest. The hand holding the flashlight was still below, too bulky to work its way through the narrow mouth of the hole, so my vision was dependent upon the minimal amount of light issuing from somewhere far above me.

My injured leg refused to straighten out. It would be impossible to climb the shaft without straightening the leg. Trying not to think about it, I attempted to slide my hand back down, but it wouldn’t budge. I was stuck.

Jesus …

I started thinking about my SUV, and that was always a bad sign. My metallic green Jeep Cherokee was parked maybe thirty yards from the main road, visible only to those who might actively been searching for it. Not that anyone would be searching for it. I’dheard enough stories from spelunkers to know that when you started wondering if your car was visible from the highway, you were already in too deep. You’d bought the farm, as the saying went.

But I was panicking. I wasn’t thinking.

Five years old, I thought. Swimming lessons. Dad kept telling you to put your head underwater, put your head underwater, put your head underwater. Deep breath and put your head—

“Underwater,” I whispered. I said it not to hear the word but to release the last bit of air in my lungs, narrowing my chest in the process.

The rock loosened around me, and I was again able to move my hand. I thrust it upward and slapped a numb palm against the wall of the shaft, groping for one of those handholds I’d spotted. My fingers slipped into a groove and gripped it. Something caught in my throat. I thought of skeletons blanketed in cobwebs. I was able to rise on the tips of my toes and snake my other hand through the maw, spilling white light from the flashlight straight up through the narrow tunnel. Everything smelled of sulfur.

It’s not sulfur. It’s chlorine, I kept hearing in my head. This is no different than swimming. You’re swimming. This is swimming in a pool; can’t you tell?

I could tell. I could tell, all right.

The flashlight fell from my hand. I heard it clatter against the rocks as it dropped, pulling the light with it. It struck the water with a hollow, plastic sound. An instant later, I was awash in blackness again.

This is swimming. This is swimming—

I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in quite a while. I took one now, my lungs aching and my chest expanding, pressing hard against the stone all around me. The constriction was too great. I couldn’t catch a full breath.

It was the fear of dying alone in the dark that set my body in motion. I proceeded to scale the wall, my fingers seeking out niches in the wall to hold on to, the muscles in my arms and shoulders straining as I hoisted myself off the ground without the assistance of my legs. The tunnel was too narrow to bring a knee up; my legs hung uselesslybelow. My broken left leg felt as if it were rigged with coat hangers and packed with broken glass.

I gripped a ledge above and felt space open up behind my shoulders. The tunnel was widening. This is swimming. This is swimming. I managed to raise myself up farther—

My hands slipped, and I anticipated the fall before it actually happened. But when I crashed to the bottom, the pain in my injured leg was potent enough to send my mind whirling …

I stood at the end of a long pier watching a Ferris wheel pull slow rotations in the oncoming dusk. Something tickled my throat, and I coughed into my hands. People shouted from the boardwalk, and when I looked in their direction, I was shocked to see many of them pointing at me. I cupped my hands to my mouth and coughed into them again. This time, however, I coughed up the head of a daffodil, glistening with spittle in my palm, and I stared at it with wonder—

And then I’m there once again, standing off in the distance, admiring the green, sloping lawns of the Italian countryside. As soon as I realize where I am, I see the motorcar speeding around a curve in the road. I wave my arms as it approaches, pleading for the driver to slow down.