Stages of Life
Fiction
Megan Hooper
Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Creative Writing
She opened the door. The metaphorical door, that is; caves don't have doors-or trapdoors, for that matter, but we'll come to that later. Caves have narrow, crooked maws that leak out into the hill side and gobble up light. Even a casual observer might note that the entrance to this cave looked very little like a door, and much more like the wide half-moon of an opera stage.
In any case, a threshold was there, and she was crossing-tiptoeing, really-over it, and she was taking him with her. Together they slipped down into the cave, a hollow ringing in their ears while their eyes adjusted to the sickly green light. The chill hum of the underworld shivered up through the soles of her shoes, and she sickled her toes inside them.
Behind her, he coughed. The feeble noise banged against the damp walls and distant stalactites and stalagmites that scissored through the cave.
"Sorry." He murmured at her elbow, aware that coughing, and noise in general, would earn him frowns, glares, and probably a pinch or two. He had been warned as much when she had decided to let him come along. This required silence.
Really, she thought, turning back and resuming her path into the unknown depths, little brothers should be grateful, and not so blatantly stupid. It's not like everyday you hunt bats. She rolled her eyes at the darkness, then turned and held a finger over her mouth, lips pressed in a thin line behind it, and shook her head. A silent warning: do it again and I'll break your nose. The opportunity to hunt had been irresistibly perfect. Their mother was out of town and their father was in the fields working all day-nobody knew of their sacred mission.
The idea had been hatched almost two weeks before, when their nearest neighbor, Jimmy, had showed her his most prized item: a bat that he had found flattened on the side of the road while walking to school one day. He had hidden it, squirming white maggots and all, in his lunchbox, between his baloney sandwich and apple. She just had to out do him. If he had a dead bat then she wanted a live one, and this cave was just the place to get one.
In any case, a threshold was there, and she was crossing-tiptoeing, really-over it, and she was taking him with her. Together they slipped down into the cave, a hollow ringing in their ears while their eyes adjusted to the sickly green light. The chill hum of the underworld shivered up through the soles of her shoes, and she sickled her toes inside them.
Behind her, he coughed. The feeble noise banged against the damp walls and distant stalactites and stalagmites that scissored through the cave.
"Sorry." He murmured at her elbow, aware that coughing, and noise in general, would earn him frowns, glares, and probably a pinch or two. He had been warned as much when she had decided to let him come along. This required silence.
Really, she thought, turning back and resuming her path into the unknown depths, little brothers should be grateful, and not so blatantly stupid. It's not like everyday you hunt bats. She rolled her eyes at the darkness, then turned and held a finger over her mouth, lips pressed in a thin line behind it, and shook her head. A silent warning: do it again and I'll break your nose. The opportunity to hunt had been irresistibly perfect. Their mother was out of town and their father was in the fields working all day-nobody knew of their sacred mission.
The idea had been hatched almost two weeks before, when their nearest neighbor, Jimmy, had showed her his most prized item: a bat that he had found flattened on the side of the road while walking to school one day. He had hidden it, squirming white maggots and all, in his lunchbox, between his baloney sandwich and apple. She just had to out do him. If he had a dead bat then she wanted a live one, and this cave was just the place to get one.
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