The Black Hat

Harren walked into the cave without any clothes on. He had stripped nude on the beach in a fit of fury and rage, believing what his third eye told him about his inner demons. Wanting to be free from their control, his clothes having been earned through his black money, he choose to remove all and continue into the night. He wasn’t all lost though and knew for his own protection to wear his holster around his waist. The gun and holster were fortunately from a time before he chose to enter the darkness of the world and so he felt no remorse in keeping them on his naked waist.

All else bare, the darkness of the hollow mountain beckoned him nearer. His third eye lit his way in the dark cavern as he walked cautiously into the mouth of madness. Despite the blackness surrounding him, the water dripping from the hanging stalactites reverberated as they fell onto the smooth seeming floor and gave his eyes a music to see and hear, lighting the cavern, it’s walls and it’s corridors. As he neared, the darkness pulled him deeper till he was in the blackest and dampest corner of the cave.

His third eye snapped shut and he howled in pain as he realized how truly lost he was. Feeling cold and shivering in the corner, he remembered the matches he kept for safekeeping in his holster. “When you run dry”, he remembered his wartime comrade Leonard’s word, “always keep a few cigarettes and matches in your holster. With as mad as the world is, you never know when you’ll run out!”. Gingerly, he took out the matchbox emptying half of it onto the floor and lit one to see where he was. The cave sparkled and reflected the bright orange light, feeling it for the first time in the millennia it had endured without any. As though tiny gems littering the walls were rejoicing for the heat they had never known, the match went out halfway through it’s short life, leaving Harren in a state of distress.

Harren howled in that pit of death and decay as if he were at war with life itself and seemingly life was hurting him back with the same force a thousand of his screams would have built. The cave shuddered at this sudden change from shining to trembling at the whim of the madman. Desperate for finding a way out of his impending doom, Harren lit another match, this time making sure to allow it to burn full so he could pick up those that had fallen in his earlier haste. The cave once again felt the warmth and heat and seemed to sigh with relief when Harren chose not to scream a second time.

As he waded in the cave, lost beyond belief, lighting match after match in search of where he came from, the naked fool saw a spark of moonlight coming in from a broken roof in one of the corridors. What surprised him more was seeing a small moon-flower blooming without care in the tiny space where the silver light allowed it. He knelt near it and caught the scent of the untouched flower as he chose to continue down this crevice into what he believed to be a series of caverns with broken roofs. With the seventeenth match that he burned, his prediction turned accurate as he entered a large cave without a roof, filled with other night blossoms and insects that gave his weary eyes a moment of relief. He lay down in the grass, happy to find rest and vowing to continue his search for the exit as soon as the sun came up. After many hours of sleeping, he realized magic was at work since the sun chose to not come up and the moon chose to remain in it’s position as though it were too stubborn to move. What he found odd on waking was that the stars had instead changed their position, the little dipper having turned clockwise by a few degrees.

Now horrified at the prospect of having to die naked and alone in the cold and dark night he screamed again against all the gods and his own third eye for leading him astray. He wandered about the cave, now noticing it’s truly immense size and found more plants. Plants that he had only ever heard about and many more plants which shouldn’t have ever been. Glowing plants of different sizes and orientations and plants with flowers that moved of their own will, without the need of air, with the exception of the gentle breeze which wove around the cave, looking for a way out, just like the fool who had wandered into it.

As though a demolition crew would blast a cave, Harren heard a large explosion more natural than a man-made one but too loud for it to be possible. It sounded more like the cave itself crying than rocks being made to leave the position God placed them at. As he knelt down and held his head in his hands, he unknowingly allowed his head to first touch a rather large and red flower which glowed eerily. This flower, having been touched for the first time also started to move back and forth till it turned mad. Seeing this happen at the same time as the cave cried in pain would have been enough to set any sane man out his wits but having his third eye opened many times before, Harren was able to endure the sight and sound which he experienced. As the plant became more quiet, Harren chose to inspect is closer and saw how each leaf in itself was an image of the plant that had grown.

The plant had a single large red closed flower and twelve branches and every leaf had eleven veins with the midrib leading to a red and circular tip. Much like the glowing flower, the leaves too glowed. He also noticed how it looked as though the glow was emanating from tiny specs of energy coursing through the stems and the whole of the plant. This made Harren look closer at the ground and on seeing how the soil beneath his feet too glowed in the same fashion, he stumbled backward. As soon as he did, he saw again as though an oyster revealing it’s pearl to a diver, the red flower had opened and revealed to him a tiny globe, glowing in an unnatural and exquisite beauty. Having come from a plant that glowed, it didn’t surprise him that the flower’s pearl glowed as well. What did ignite his fascination was how the glow shifted between colors, ranging from those he couldn’t name to the same blue his mother wore on the weekends as she kissed him as a child going off to play with his friends. He saw the red same as the flushed faces of the bullies that beat him when he walked by the river alone. He saw the purple his wife had worn when he had finally gained the balls to ask her hand in marriage and he saw the white her father wore when he went to ask for his blessing. This pearl too seemed as though a blessing from the cave so he could relive his memories, the best and the worst, all within the span of a few minutes.

Seeing this glowing pearl, he realized he had found a way out of the cave. The glow would be bright enough to light his way and he wouldn’t have to waste any more matches. He walked around the cave a bit longer to see if there were any plants that gave fruit and found a grape vine with grapes of all kind growing on it. He walked around more to see if he could find grass tall enough to fashion a sling to carry the grapes in and found lemongrass that he could use. He also found a branch long, strong and thin enough to which he tied the pearl around with the grass he had found and considered himself ready to head back into the darkness of the cave.

This confidence that Harren found himself thinking he was a mad mage. A naked man with a glowing stick with nothing but a gun and a sling full of mad grapes and large flowers, wandering about in an endlessly dark, black cavern of misleading tunnels. As he ventured further, he realized not only did he have to find a way back but also find a way to not walk in circles so he chose to carry the abnormally large daises he found, leaving their head pointed in the direction he chose at every point where the tunnels split or converged. Soon enough, after running into a few circles of his own making, he found himself in an unfamiliar portion of the cavern which looked older and felt darker. Feeling proud of his own solutions he wandered in and found the cave paved with tiles older than time itself. Tiles made of gold and silver, leading him undoubtedly further into the cave he wanted to leave, making him choose to delve deeper and deeper.

After what seemed like a few hours, he heard the soft trickle of water and was overjoyed. He remembered the water which dripped from the ceiling when he entered and believed he had found the was back, forgetting how when he entered, there were no tiles on the floor. As he ran to the sound of water, the soft drips turned louder into a churn and he found himself beside an underground river that ran blue as the sky itself, which if not for the night would have been a sight to behold. Magic was at work and such a blue river couldn’t be in such darkness if not for a higher power at work. Cautious of the rivers content, he dipped the end of his magelight into the water to test if it really were water and found that indeed, it was not something to fear. He then put the pearly end of his staff inside to see what lay beneath the blue and found nothing but a riverbed filled with the skeletons of fish that had died a long time ago.

Collecting his thoughts and after quenching his thirst, Harren recalled what his father had once told him. “Harren”, he has said, “When you find yourself at a crossroad, not knowing where to go, choose that path which you know will keep you safe. Else, if you wish to take a leap of faith and experience more out of life, choose that path which you know nothing of. You won’t know what lies beyond it until it comes and that suspense will force you to stay alive.” Harren knew now that if he crossed the river, all hopes which he had of finding the cave’s exit would end and instead he would set down a path which he knew would in all likelihood lead to his death. He chose then to cross the river, believing the cave to have been his savior. When he had needed light, it had provided as it had given him both food and water when he was hungry and parched. It had shown him a path paved with gold when he was lost and now showed him that the river has only a small hurdle. Had the cave wanted him dead, he was certain he would have been.

On the other side of the river, the golden path no longer continued and instead was rockier and covered with wet reeds. Being barefoot, he cursed his luck but chose to continue for discovering the next treasure the cave would reveal. Harren breathed a sigh of relief as he hummed along to the songs he had heard as a boy in the war. He felt safe because he still had his gun and pearl-light. Although half his grapes were gone and none of the daisies were left, he knew the path forward was the path through. The river had quenched his thirst and had energized his body with a batch and he could walk on for another few hours before he felt the need to rest.

As he continued, in the distance beyond the light his staff produced, he saw moving and glowing lights like firebugs dancing in the air. His feet now wet and bruised needed him to rest and he knew where there was life for these bugs, he could find a more appropriate place to rest his legs. To his surprise, as he drew closer to the firebugs, they flew away into another corridor and he quickened his pace, getting impatient for the rest he felt he needed. He found that the firebugs had led him to a cave larger than the previous one but emptier. It was covered but the ceiling was broken in places and wherever the moonlight fell, there were plants that grew akin to the ones he has seen a day ago. He couldn’t for the life of him, find a flower same as the one which had given him his pearl. He filled his sling with the fruits he found, as mad as the grape vine with branches of tiny trees yielding grapefruit, oranges and sweet lime. He also found the resting place of the firebugs, among reeds near a small pool with blue water, as blue as the river he crossed.

As he traveled around this new cave, he managed to find a place where the grass was soft and left his sling, holster and staff there to return and continued exploring this new hall. He then came across a set of black shoes, black socks, a pair of black pants, a black shirt, black velvet overcoat and a black hat that had been left behind by presumably another lost wanderer. Harren knew he had stripped himself in fury but knew no reason why anyone would strip themselves here, considering they should have stripped, if at all, before crossing the river! Choosing not to wonder more and after thanking his luck, he carried the new clothes he found over to the spot he chose to sleep in and on waking up after he was well rested, donning them and looking for the next tunnel to enter.

By this time, he became conscious of the fact of magic being at play in this cave. He knew he had been underground for at least over a day and having chosen to sleep beneath the cracks of the ceiling, he knew the sun would wake him when it rose. Instead, he only noticed the stars changing their position and the moon remaining rigid in it’s place. Perhaps the cave was enchanted or perhaps the whole world had gone mad, he thought to himself. Regardless, the cave was indeed alive and working for his betterment. It had not yet led him astray, excepting the time in which he saw it through his third eye.

He remembered now that he had no need to be conservative of the matches he had saved, so he chose to smoke one of the cigarettes from his holster. He couldn’t remember how old they were, just knew that it had been a long time since he had tasted tobacco and the situation which he found himself in currently, knew no laws of man and so his smoking it would only ease his mind as he intended it to. The cave, having only felt the faint glow and fast smoke of his matches earlier was unaccustomed to the smoke now lingering in it’s cavern, burning slower and giving off a fainter light. The cave welcomed this change and Harren saw how the smoke he released was going in a direction against the flow of the cold and soft breeze. Thanking his stars and his luck once again for finding these clothes, he was glad to no longer having to feel the cold, but enjoy it through the warmer coat he now donned.

Harren followed the smoke into another chamber which was adorned with what had once been torches on the wall. He wondered if the cave had created these torches as a part of it’s magic as it had prior his rest given him clothes or if the cave had led him to an old mine. He chose to not believe either as he continued into the four sided tunnel. Had anyone other than Harren seen this tunnel, they would have been convinced that some older civilization must have built this labyrinth but since Harren knew better, he chose to leave it to chance that the tunnel was the just the way it was without reason, not because anyone willed it to be so.

He found stairs and saw the corridor now splitting again after a long time to two sides, one leading upward and the other downward into the ground. Harren didn’t know the difference between up or down anymore since he had entered the cave on the side of a mountain and there had been too large a distance covered with varying inclinations of the floor to determine his precise elevation. If he were still in the mountains, the stairs leading him upward could lead to another mountain side and if he were further beneath the ground than he believed, going down would only send him back into the caves. Having adventured enough, Harren chose to go up the stairs instead of deeper into the mine and found a door in front of him.

Now his journey nearing the end, he was scared to open the door. If the door led him into another corridor or tunnel or cavern, he was certain of the beginning of his decent into insanity. On the other hand if this door led him back to civilization, he wondered if he would ever be able to find the cave again, if he would ever get the chance to visit those beautiful gardens in the endless night or if he would ever taste those sweet and crisp grapes again, if he would ever be as amazed to see clothes again or ever find an unlimited source of light like the flower-pearl he had found. Truly, the cave had at the start been a place of madness and darkness but once he had given himself to the will of the deeper magics, the cave had only helped him and given him gifts no other person would believe. The cave had both taken his hope of life away and at the same time given him a newer way to look at life. He trusted the cave just as the cave had trusted him and now he didn’t know if he would ever be able to return to the real world again. The magic in his life would be gone for good.

In war he had never questioned his orders and had done exactly as had been asked of him. He had killed his enemies and had rescued the innocent. He had taken away hope from the families of those he had killed and given that hope to the people he had saved. He had been a villain and he had been a hero. He knew this to be true. Now, he had wandered into a cave, naked and with a gun, looking inside it with his third eye till he was blinded by the darkness around him. Now, with the light he had found in the darkness, he found himself wanting to leave the cave and chose to open the door.

A flood of light overtook him the moment he opened his eyes outside the the door he had opened. The clothes he had found inside the cave were still with him, acting as his shield against the bright rays of the sun. The Black Hat protected his eyes from those penetrative photons that bothered him. After days in darkness, the brightness of the day felt foreign to him and he embraced it. Having not known what was around him, he looked down the valley by the mountain he was and saw all the different directions he could go in. As his head cleared, he saw a small town in the distance which he recognized as the same as where his parents took him for the fair when he was a child.

He saw birds flying above him as though after an eon of not hearing their chirp and he saw bees buzzing by the mountain flowers just like the firebugs he saw near the reeds in the cave. He was back in the world he lived in and thanked his pearl for guiding him safely. He took another look at the door through which he had exited and saw that indeed was that of a mine, closed for repairs. He recalled some news he had read of people disappearing in a nearby mine and not returning due to poor construction efforts. He wondered if they were finding their way back through the cave he had entered from. The magic of the cave must have helped them too, if they would have let it. Everyone who entered the cave, Harren thought to himself, must either die in there like the skeletons he saw in the river or come out the other side, like he had. To be lost forever in the darkness was to embrace madness of impossible plants and a never ending night. The beauty of the insane was always going to be difficult to let go of.

Fin.