World Upside Down

World Upside Down

         Danilo turned his face from the limestone wall to admire his wife's legs. Brielle's trim figure always rivaled any natural wonder they found in the caves they loved to explore. This was their third cave this year, but their first in Mexico. The LED lights from his helmet bounced off the steel curves of her calves as easily as her boots found their next purchase in the rock. They were slowly descending into what they hoped would be the heart of the cave, or El Corazon according to the Googling skills of her best friend Carmela Clark.

         "Hey, heads up!" Brielle warned, and Danilo got his mind back in the game. He had been about to scrape his shins on an outgrowth of dolomite. "You can ogle my legs later," she grinned, though something in her eyes was not smiling. This was how she had wanted to spend their anniversary, so here they were. Danilo knew Brie well enough to let her work out whatever was bothering her in her own time. No doubt she'd get it off her chest once they reached a resting spot.

         Knee and elbow pads scraped the rock, but little by little the hours flew by until they hit the bottom of the cave. Then Danilo heard a trickle. He glanced across the rope connecting them, and her face reflected that she heard it too. Laterally they scaled until they found a tiny rivulet of groundwater. Brie, the more experienced spelunker of the two, tracked it like a bloodhound until she found their goal: a further opening chiseled through the apparent ground. "Let's do this?" he asked with a floppy smile.

         "Yes, Leroy Jenkins, but first a snack." Brie was always smart about staying hydrated and nibbling on trail food. "Otherwise the growling of your stomach could cause a rockslide," as she used to tease him. So Danilo snacked on a beef stick and some almonds while his inquisitive wife peered down into the newly discovered hole. She shined a secondary flashlight and dropped some pebbles, testing their route. "It's a straight drop, about forty feet into a shallow pool, no sidewalls apparent. You got that rope?"

         Of course he had the extra rope. She had hammered all the climbing rules into his head and loaded his pack with supplies until he felt he was carrying a gorilla. Honestly he was glad to use the silly thing for once. They usually never needed more than their own harnesses and guide rope. "I can tie off to this rock formation over here and let you down easy," he pointed out.

         A weird look came onto Brielle's face, and she seemed to make a decision. "Here, I'll belay it. Besides, I wanted to ask you something." Finally, here it came. Danilo knew she would reach out once she hit bottom. "I think you know I've been preoccupied. I don't want to talk about it just yet, but what would you do if there's something eating at you but you can't change it? I mean you can't undo the past, right, so how do you stop the hurt?"

         Her eyes were focused on hooking the rope to the carabiner on his harness, but he sensed how intently she awaited his answer. Whatever she was talking about, he found it funny that the main room of a cave was called the heart, and here they were at the heart of the matter. She didn't usually ask him for advice, but he was ready with his best: "If you can't get past something, babe, ... look, I know you try to make everything right, always perfect for everyone else. But at some point you have to think of yourself. You shouldn't suffer over things you cannot control. You know it, but you have too good a heart to let it go. If you can't let go, you have to cut it loose. Then don't ever look back." Like he had done with his mother three years back when she wouldn't accept having a white girl for a daughter-in-law.

         Brie took a moment to absorb the information, nearly literally swallowing the advice. Finally a sigh and a half-nod revealed that the message had gotten through. "I thought so. I just needed to hear you say it, I think." With a forced smile to indicate a change of subject and hopefully attitude, she excitedly whispered, "You're up, champ. Do this by the numbers, now."

         Yeah, yeah, he wasn't a rookie anymore. But if it would get his sweetie in a better mood, Danilo would play ball. He settled back near the hole and asked, "Belay?"
"Belay on," she replied, giving the secure rope a shake to be sure.
"I'm ready, then."
"Climb on," she ordered, and he started to lower himself into the hole.

         Very quickly he was dangling, with no walls to rappel off. Aiming his helmet light downward wasn't a good idea, so Danilo concentrated on a smooth descent, his boots locking and unlocking while hand over hand he eased his weight down the rope. His peripheral vision alerted him when he was near the bottom. Soon enough he was boots-down and standing in two inches of water. He scanned the area in awe, almost forgetting to breathe.

         Rock spurs glistened at the edges of the roughly circular room, and the water drops echoed off the walls pleasantly. El Corazon looked like the inside of Superman's fortress of solitude, except made of rock, not ice. With the rock ceiling overhead and his helmet lighting up the groundwater pool, it almost seemed like the world was upside down. "I'm down!" he called up to Brie, "and it's wonderful down here!"

         What came down next was not his wife, but her fanny pack. As Danilo rescued it from the water, a spool of rope fell, too. Had she dropped their guide rope? He coiled the rope until at last it tugged at his harness. It was the entire spare rope, still attached to him. There was no way he could climb out without getting the rope up to her, and no way to do that either. "Hon?" he called out with a touch of anxiety.

         She would have to go get more rope and come back for him. Danilo checked his food supplies. He had maybe a couple days' worth of snacks in his pack, and a water filter and a sports bottle. In Brie's fanny pack was-- a dozen Clark bars and a handful of caramels. What the--? Danilo's heart started to sink into his stomach. He unthinkingly sat down in the pool, waterlogging his pants to match his spirit.

         Only one explanation made any sense: Brielle must have found out about that one drunken time with her best friend, and then she had taken his advice very literally.


Word Count: 1140
Written for "Short Shots: Official WDC Contest"