(An) Allegory of The Cave

The itch from the collar reminded her to shift her neck ever so slightly to reduce the friction on the left side. She must have entered a trance, but she couldn’t remember which of the sacred figures put her there. That would be an unforgivable lapse during the test. Fortunately, she had passed hers a while ago.

She tried to work backwards. An elephant was in front of her right now. If it was then followed by three rabbits - the Innocence - and sped up for five of her regular heartbeats after that, that would make it the second of the three elephants in the total sequence - the Quiet of Resilience. The last sacred figure she recalled before her trance had been a person with a stick in the right hand - the Spirit of Dedication. She remembered it clearly because that meant there were two more sequences before it was time to sleep. It was her responsibility to announce slumber time. It would have taken her a certain number of heartbeats to enter a trance. And since she must have already been in the trance so as not to hear the humming from the figure of the person with a child in the arms - the Nurturing - it couldn’t have been more than 20 heartbeats. The three rabbits in front of her sped up. She sighed with relief. She knew exactly where they were in the sequence.

It was a beautiful thing to know the meanings of the sacred figures. They gave her people peace and calm. Nobody remembered how they knew the meanings - the knowledge had been passed down through generations - but that was what made the knowing all that much more meaningful. They lived in a beautiful world, where everything made sense and everybody had a role. She shifted the eyes to her partner on her left - he and his sister were responsible for the first meal time. Her mother was the keeper of stories of the Chaos that existed in other worlds - the worlds that didn’t have the sacred figures to keep the order. This was her first year helping to keep the Chaos at bay, and she was proud to be finally serving her people.

A few heartbeats later, she announced, “Slumber time. Everyone, it is now the slumber time.”

***

The collar fell off her neck.

She froze. That had never happened before. She had never even heard of something like that happening. Her heartbeats sped up. This was wrong. She would probably die now.

Three elephants later, she still didn’t die. What was happening? Her hand found the collar on the ground and closed around it. Could she put it back on without anyone noticing? Everyone was focused on the sacred figures in front of them. She traced her fingers along the collar only to realize to her utter horror that it broke into two halves. Was this the beginning of the chaos her mother had been warning them about?

She couldn’t sleep during slumber time without the familiar itchy comfort of the collar against the skin of her neck. This was wrong. Unnatural. Part of her feared that her neck would break or her head would fall off.

Seven slumber times later, her head and neck were still intact. Her neck didn’t even itch anymore. When she woke up, she found her head laying on her chest for the first time in her life. She didn’t know it could do that. If her neck could bend forward - could it tilt backward too? It could! Wait, she might lose track of the sacred figures. She snapped her head back up. No, she wouldn’t lose track. She knew the sequences by heart. She took a deep breath and let her head fall back again. It couldn’t go as far back as it could forward. Still, it was the strangest sensation. She started to wonder about the significance of the collar.

It took her a few more slumber times to learn that her neck and head could move in all sorts of directions. She feared she was creating chaos with her explorations, but her people didn’t pay her any attention, or at least they didn’t say anything, all focused on the sacred figures. There was something bright and fluttering behind her. She wanted to take a better look at it, but her neck wouldn’t turn all the way around.

Finally, after yet another slumber time, she dared to turn around her entire body. Her eyes were attacked by the moving brightness. She immediately closed them, but the brightness remained burned into her eyelids. The Source! The sacred power that was shaping their world. Mother had told stories about it, but could it really be just right there, behind them? And was she now being punished for daring to look at something she wasn’t worthy of seeing? She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. What if she could not ever see again? She would be useless to her people! Her heartbeats sped up. She was going to lose track of the sequence. She turned back around and forced her eyes open, blinking adamantly. She tried to keep track of her heartbeats to help her with the sequence but they were too fast. Tears streamed down her face. She thought she saw the rooster. The Hopeful Beginnings. She blinked again, and the rooster appeared more clearly. She almost laughed in relief.

She spent three dozen slumber times without further experimenting. She was just so grateful to not have caused any permanent damage to her ability to see the sacred figures. Why would she ever want to risk that? For what?

Yet she couldn’t forget the sight of the Source. Even the little that she was able to see with her unworthy eyes. Even as painful as it was to look at. It called to her. Sometimes she suspected that maybe the temptation of it all, the temptation to risk her ability to perform her duties, was a sign that it wasn’t the Source but rather the Chaos. But she didn’t want to believe that.

She wasn’t sure how to make herself more worthy of the Source, so she just started taking occasional sneak peeks at it, believing that since she didn’t lose her sight after the first insolent peek, she was probably allowed brief glimpses of the sacredness from time to time.

Eventually, her eyes could endure looking at the Source in all its beauty without looking away. She didn’t have words to describe it to anyone, not even to herself. So, she didn’t mention it.

Sometimes, it seemed to her that the voices of the sacred figures really came from the Source. It made sense somehow. Still, she wanted to take a closer look.

68 slumber times after her collar had broken off, she got up and walked to the Source.

When she got close to it, hands appeared from behind it and yanked her forward. The Source and her people disappeared behind a wall. A wall? There were other people there and they carried objects in their hands occasionally raising them above the wall. The hands dragged her away from the wall towards another brightness up ahead. Another Source? But this Source was nothing like the first one - the closer she was getting to it, the more her eyes were getting pierced by unbearable pain. It was the light. The light was cutting into her eyes. She tried to close them but that didn’t help. She tried to wriggle her arms free - she needed her hands to protect her eyes but they wouldn’t let her. No, no, no. No! This must be the Chaos. The Source wouldn’t do this to her. Or would it? Her heartbeats were frantic, echoing in her ears. She didn’t know the sequence. No, no, no! She let her people down. Maybe it really was the Source, and this pain was her punishment.

She dropped on the ground. The arms that were dragging her finally let go of their hold. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. This was it. She would never see again. She had everything she could wish for. She lived in the beauty and peace of her quiet world. And she risked it all, gave it all up, for nothing. Tears streamed down her face. Was it the pain? The sorrow? The grief? She wished her collar had never fallen off. She wished she had never seen a glimpse of the first Source. She wished she had never left her people.

Her only source of relief was in the knowledge that she was the only one suffering the consequences of her insolence.

***

They taught her. They showed her the truth. Their truth, anyways. The sun. The day. The shadows. The cave. The rest of the world. Her eyes continued to hurt, but the pain was in the background now. Almost like the itch of her collar had been before. Except this pain wasn’t comforting. It was meaningless.

She missed her people so much. But these people here wouldn’t let her go back. They kept on assuring her they were doing it for her own good. She didn’t believe them. They claimed they acted in the service of truth because truth was the greatest virtue, no matter how destabilizing or disrupting it was. They kept on pointing out the tragedy of her people, the tragedy of her life, the emptiness of it all, the meaninglessness. And they expected something in return for saving her from all of that. She ignored them. What did they know of meaning? What did they know of purpose and dedication and peace? For her own good!… If anything, it looked more like they were doing it for their good, although she couldn’t quite tell what that was either. They could really benefit from beholding the sacred figure of the Peacock of Arrogance. She bit her lip. They made sure to show her that there was nothing sacred about the figures.

She liked to sit in the shade of a large tree, keeping her eyes closed. When her eyes were closed, it didn’t matter whether the light was there or not. She could just as well be with her people, keeping track of the sequences with her heartbeats. She spent a lot of her time doing that.

It had been 134 slumber times - or “days” as they said around here - since she had been ripped away from her home. She grew to appreciate some things about this new world. It turned out that while the sun was still a torturer to her eyes, it felt rather divine on her skin. That surprised her. The air was also different - it moved! Sometimes more than was enjoyable. And they had water occasionally drop from above! They also had a lot of rules. They claimed it was to control the Chaos, but some of those rules seemed to provoke the Chaos. She wondered about that.

The people around here looked to the sun as the Source. She wondered about that too. If her Source turned out to be a false Source, why wouldn’t theirs? They had their own sacred figures - only twelve primary ones, but they still looked to them for guidance and structure. Why didn’t they seek out to know the truth - to know if there too was something else behind those shadows they worshipped?

They gave her tasks. They called it labor. They used it to measure things about her. Maybe even her worth. They said she would find higher meaning and purpose here. These people! How ignorant they were to look down at the meaning and purpose she had before! They who never experienced the blessed joy of serving a function that supported the lives of her people. Now she was to do all these things to support their lives but they weren’t her people, so there was no meaning behind any of it. She had been living her purpose and they took it away and forced a new one on her and called it higher! The audacity!

Someone approached her. She forced her eyes to unsqueeze, wistfully abandoning her daydream of being home. A man stood in front of her with his eyes squinted. He nodded at her then sat on the ground in front of her. She didn’t think she knew him, but there was something familiar about him. They were both in the shade of a large tree, where other locals seemed unbothered by the brightness of the sun. But this man squinted his eyes, barely hiding the discomfort. He reminded her of herself. Her breath caught. They sat for a long time just looking at one another through their squinted eyes. And she knew that he too was reciting the Welcoming sequence in his head.

She found herself uncomfortable under his hopeful gaze. He had been on the surface for a very long time. He told her that he had even tried bringing more people up here. To which she gasped in disbelief - what right did he have to impose this empty torturous misery onto someone else?! On her. But nobody had followed him, so eventually he had given up. Until her. He didn’t expect her. He never tried to lure her out. But he was glad that someone or something did because he had hope now. He didn’t belong in either world. He was looked down upon by both their people and the local people. But he had made a choice to stay and prove them all wrong. And now he wasn’t alone. There was something ferocious in his eyes. She shook her head. He seemed taken by the Chaos. She could feel her heartbeats pick up and she leaned away every so slightly. He saw that. Or rather he saw something. Something in her face? His features changed so quickly, it almost scared her. If faces could drop, that was what his did. He gave her a look that was filled with both sorrow and understanding. She even thought she spotted envy. “I shouldn’t have assumed,” he said quietly. Then he added, “If that’s what you truly want, I’ll help you.”

***

The man kept his word. After 211 days on the surface, she could finally return to calling them slumber times. She was going to miss the feeling of the sun on her skin, but that was a small price to pay for the familiar comfort of her home. The darkness blinded her. He had warned her about that. He had also promised it wouldn’t last forever.

She put on the collar around her neck - his parting gift - and cried as the familiarity of the feeling overwhelmed her. She might never be able to go back completely to her previous state of happiness - or what the surface people called “blissful ignorance” - she might not even perceive the same purpose in her function anymore, but she was home. That was all that mattered.

She found the hands of her mother and her partner on the ground and squeezed them tightly. They jerked away at first but quickly recognized the owner of the hands squeezing theirs. “We thought the Chaos got you,” her mother sobbed.

“It almost did.”

P.S. The image is from my illustrated poetry book “Ode to Hope and Despair.”