chapter thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

            While Maxwell was sincerely concerned about Ms. Butternut, he still found himself extremely relieved to have gotten out of school so early.  This relief came particularly due to the fact he hadn't had time to talk to Jenna Myers, as he was scared to death of her.  He really had no idea what he was going to say to her, and he wasn't paying any particular attention to what the group was talking about at the time so he definitely dodged the proverbial bullet on that one.  Now that he was home though, it did seem like the only thing he needed to worry about was the cave.  

            In regards to the cave, he felt so excited that he could hardly move fast enough to get there.  His mother had no idea what the deal was with her son as he talked and gabbed all the way home from school. She was glad that he seemed to look so happy.   

           

            Once they arrived home, he quickly raced up to his room and grabbed two flashlights, an extra one just in case the bulb in the first flashlight burned out.  It wasn't lost on Maxwell that an extraordinary number of lightbulbs had been burning out around him lately.  This made him wonder if the quality of tungsten was somehow being lowered by the manufacturers recently.  He also grabbed a notebook, pen, extra batteries, a couple of granola bars, a bottle of water, a small length of rope, and solitary yet somewhat strong carabineer.  He told his mother how he intended to be in the woods for a little while and that he loved her very much, and also that he planned to be back later on that evening.  

            "But don't you have homework to be doing Maxwell?"

            "Mom, come on, you're always the one begging me to go outside more often."

            Realizing that he indeed had a point in this, she smiled and simply sent him on his way.

            Outside in the sunny afternoon air, he found that the sun itself still seemed to be quite hot.  The days were growing longer as the sun began to stay out later and later into the evening.  'How incredibly wonderful it feels to really be in this place that people call outside,' Maxwell thought to himself.  It had never really occurred to him before that he might actually enjoy going on an outdoor adventure.  There was just so much to explore really, so many things he'd never seen before that turned out to be so incredibly interesting, and he definitely didn't have to obtain such things by turning on the television.  As far as fate would have it, had the television not been broken, he'd probably have never even bothered to go outside in the first place.

            And so away he blazed through the dense undergrowth of the forest floor.  'How cool is it that I live out here,' Maxwell thought as he trekked.  Before he and his mom had moved, he'd always lived in the city.  All he really knew were the confines of concrete jungles and warehouse wonderlands.  Never had he known what it was like to hear anything other than man made sounds such as car engines, horns, jackhammers, and police sirens.  It tripped him out when he took the time to think about it.  Everything out here could only be consided pure nature.  The only sounds he could find in his ears were the buzzing of insects, the random high notes of the local bird population, and the wind itself as it danced playfully among the branches of the trees that surrounded him.

            Maxwell had always thought of nature as rather lame.  Now, he was considering technologies, such as television types of mind control devices,  things that brainwashed children into not having thoughts of their own.  Television encourages children to live vicariously through the lives of their prettier, wealthier, and happier counterparts, he imagined  How odd it was to him that he might be able to find a suitable alternative in regular doses of Mother Nature.  

            After much hiking, Maxwell found the entrance to his very special cave.  Sure enough, it was exactly where he'd left it the day before.  He retrieved a flashlight out of his bag and immediately turned it on.  As he began to shine the light into the mouth of the cave, he saw how it was still very dark and somewhat creepy, yet it still came across as way too cool for Maxwell to ever consider not having a gander inside.  After all, had he not been inside without any light at all before?

 

            Maxwell found the creek which had flowed into the cave, and noticed that it seemed to have decreased in width.  He figured to himself that it had probably swelled to a larger size due to the snow melting from that crazy blizzard they'd experienced last week, and had only now drawn back down in size.  As it turned out, he could actually walk along both sides of the creek without even worrying about getting his feet wet, and he could even hop over the stream to the other side if he needed to. 

            As he continued to walk forward, he lay witness as the cave began to open up in front of him into what could be nothing short of a gigantic cavern. 

             Maxwell hadn't seen anything whatsoever like this before in all his life.  It appeared as if it were to split up into parts as the path diverged into two different directions.  On the left side, it wound up an incline where there were several large boulders scattered about that he'd probably have to climb over.  And on the right side, the creek could be viewed flowing ever deeper into the cave.  Maxwell decided to try to go to the left side instead of the right since he'd had quite enough of the icy cave water the last time he'd been there.

            He carefully hiked up the incline.  He found the footing was tricky but manageable.  It was much easier to navigate when he actually had light to show the way in front of him.  Beyond the boulders which he deftly navigated, the walls seemed to narrow inward for a moment and then give way to an even larger cavern.  It must've been the size of a football field.  On top of that the ceiling spanned at least eighty feet or more above his head.  At the very top of the room was a tiny hole where the tiniest glimmer of light seemed to seep in from the outside.

            Boulders were literally scattered everywhere.  They all seemed to have this strange appearance of being eroded.  He could imagine eons of water from the flooding stream chiseling the boulders down to size. 

            He continued ever deeper into the cave. 

            One room generally led into another as he found himself walking up inclines and down into valleys.  Some of the chambers were somewhat small, when they would suddenly open up into larger caverns.  Sometimes he'd walk around in circles and slowly find himself in the same place he'd been only minutes before.  He found that he slowly began to feel increasingly lost; not exactly in a physical sense, but almost in some form of metaphorical sense.  His mind seemed to reach a higher level of calm than he could remember experiencing in recent memory as all his thoughts and concerns disappeared into nothingness.

            Absolute silence. 


            Other than the sound of occasional bat wings, the dripping of water, or the mild hum of the flowing creek nearby, the cave was absolutely silent.  It instilled a tranquility within the depths of Maxwell's very soul.  Such a feeling as this, it made his heart swell profoundly with contentment.

            Maxwell thought to himself that perhaps he may never actually want to leave this place. 

            Eventually, the course Maxwell was taking inevitably lead to a dead end.  But with careful observation, it slowly became obvious that a shadow along the back wall appeared when he shined his light.  Perhaps this would be a different exit. 

            He checked the shadow out, and much to his surprise a crevice formed from an outcropping of rock.

             After finding out that he'd be able to squeeze through this new found crevice as long as he took his book bag off, he continued into it, shimmying his way ever deeper into the cave. 

            The crevice, which couldn't have possibly been more than twenty inches wide, ended up opening into a room of maybe four feet by four feet, without being more than six feet tall.  At the bottom of the crevice, it seemed as if there was  a hole. 

            Maxwell, who was not fond of such tight spaces, found himself driven by a relentless curiousity.   The cave was beckoning him, and its enchanting novelty was having a very profound effect on him.  He'd basically lost all sense of himself, including his very deepest of fears in the process.

            The hole was tight.  Jagged rocks brushed against his already very sore and scabbed torso, yet he began to wiggle his way through the tiny hole, twisting this way and that, contorting himself like links on a chain.  He put his flashlight in his mouth at one point, so as to free his arms to help him feel his way through the tightness.  He realized how he wouldn't be able to move his head to see in front of him much longer, so having the flashlight in his hands wouldn't have done much good anyway.

            Deeper he went until it became so incredibly tight that he began seriously wondering whether or not he'd be able to go any further at all.  Ultimately he came to the realization that he was stuck. 

            Panic began to gradually creep itself into the electrical artifices of his brain.  His heart began slowly speeding up as he imagined the weight of the earth itself effortlessly collapsing inward upon him.  This caused him to hyperventilate, as if for certain he was going to die in the very position he now found himself.  'Why had I even decided to come down here in the first place?  Why couldn't I have just stayed inside my house like a normal person?  I'm supposed to be studying for my project right now!

           He wasn't going to be around for any project anymore if he didn’t get himself out of this tight squeeze, of this he was most definitely certain. 

            As fear turned into sheer panic, his emotions suddenly began to give way to a complete and extraordinarily surprising level of calm.  This had been happening to Maxwell a lot lately, this eye of the hurricane feeling.   He'd been stuck in this position now for what seemed like at least an hour and a half, and all the while he'd done nothing but accept his fate.  In this supreme state of objective peace, he found himself able to think on an unbelievably clear level. 

            This will of survival drove him.  He twisted a little more, contorting himself into the most painful position he had ever been in.   He then wiggled a little more.  Slowly the earth surrounding him eased up on its grip.  The walls were starting to to give way.

              'It's another chamber!  

             He had almost made it completely through the entire length of the wormhole.  He immediately began to squirm as much as he possibly could until he gradually began to realize that he would in fact be able to move forward.  Now that he was slowly able to pick up momentum, the tight squeeze that he'd originally felt began to relax its grip upon his body as the weight of the earth began to open up substantially before him, allowing him to find within himself the ability to crawl his way from his current position into the room before him.

           

            Maxwell let out the deepest sigh of relief. 

            Just then, in the most astonishing moment in all of Maxwell's life, he realized that he wasn't alone in the cave.  There was someone else directly ahead of him! 

            It wasn't just anyone either, it was ... 'It's the dirty old bum I gave twenty dollars to!'

           

            "Hey there, sonny," said the old man in the eeriest way imaginable, "I was just wondering if you might be finding me down here sooner or later."  The old man said this as he flashed a disturbingly toothless grin that sent chills down Maxwell's spine all the way down to his toenails.

            "Who in the world are you?," Maxwell inquired incredulously, fearing that the old man might even batter him senseless if he wasn't careful.

            "It don't really matter who I am, but you can call me 'Tom'," said the bum, "Welcome to my humble abode!"

            "You actually live down here?"

            "Indeed I do, yessuh, I reckon you could call 'dis here place ma' home, at least fo' the the moment, anuh how."

            "Wow!", Maxwell muttered breathlessly, "How in the world were you actually expecting me?  How could you even possibly suppose I'd be coming down here in the first place? What exactly did you say your name was again, ... 'Tom' was it?"

            "Yessuh, you can call me Tom, although that isn't really my real name, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you why I thought I might find you here someday t'either.  So I can't exactly reckon dat dey is verruh much reason fuh me explainin' verruh much of anything to yah at all."

            "Oh come on, Tom, you can at least try can't you?  I'll believe you, I promise!"  Maxwell was literally begging him now.  He was filled with so much curiosity that he found himself completely befuddled by this entire scenario, already to the point of being somewhat beyond belief.

            "No buddy, I don't exactly reckon you would," said Tom to Maxwell.  "You don't believe in nuthun!  You don't even believe in the man in your mirror!," he paused, " ... well maybe I will tell you some day, but right now yuh isn't ready to hear of such thangs."

            Maxwell found himself thinking of how extremely peculiar this old man's accent seemed to be coming across.  It was an extremely different dialect than any form of vernacular he'd ever remembered encountering before in his life.  "I will say one thang tho'," he continued, "You sho' look a daggone lot like yo' fathuh, dat's for damn sho'!", he grinned, once more revealing his empty mouth from behind his scraggly beard.

            "What'd you just say, you actually 'know' my father?  You couldn't possibly know him, because my father's dead!  Who are you, anyway?  What's this really about?"

            "Know yo' fathuh?  Haha, of cou'se I know'em, and I still do!"